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and it has to happen now. That means everything is on the table to be cut. Medicare, social security, defense, all of it. Why don't you understand that you can't spend more money than you take in?
Where were you 8 years ago? Cheering Bush on while he expanded Medicare? Or cheering Bush on while he waged two wars of choice? Cheering Bush on while he cut taxes and increased spending?
All you overnight "fiscal" conservatives are about as genuine as Bush was a genuine cowboy.
Where were you 8 years ago? Cheering Bush on while he expanded Medicare? Or cheering Bush on while he waged two wars of choice? Cheering Bush on while he cut taxes and increased spending?
All you overnight "fiscal" conservatives are about as genuine as Bush was a genuine cowboy.
I was a neo-conservative 8 years ago. I admitted I was wrong and have since become a libertarian. Admitting you are wrong and changing your views is something 95% of this board, including you, probably, would never do.
This is a very long post because it is complicated problem
The stagnation of our middle class was caused by corporations considering only profit instead of their customers. Forced by mega stores like Wally World, conscientious manufacturers were forced to offshore production or lose the WW account. Then the Republican realization that they could borrow money from the top instead of taxing it started us on the road to failure. The entire concept of a consumer economy instead of a manufacturing economy guarantees ultimate failure for most but incredible profits for the money lenders. These self serving thieves have taken over the previously thriving economy and manipulated it for themselves. Destroying a formerly prosperous working class is just a price they are willing to pay because it does not cost them anything.
So what can be done to recreate the wide spread prosperity that characterized the 1950’s to 1980? We can revitalize our domestic industry by instituting a “Fair Trade” with other countries. We need countervailing tariffs, to negate the price advantage created by foreign wages, environmental pollution, worker safety and government subsidy, are the start. Breaking up the multinational big box stores into individual business, incidentally preventing Wally World from controlling their suppliers is next on the agenda. Then we can work on removing the banking oligopolies that have a strangle hold on our economy.
If this damages international “free trade” all the better, “free trade” is a joke when you are competing against slave labor. Let China and the rest pay the wages that will allow their citizens to buy the stuff they make.
In addition to the revenues collected from tariffs we should legalize, control and place excise taxes on all the currently illegal drugs. This would not only collect money but eliminate the absurdity of the “War on Drugs” and the associated enforcement bureaucracies. Some of the revenue collected could be set aside to treat the addicts that want to get unhooked.
The most significant way is to allow the working class to retain most of its income by eliminating income tax below the 90th percentile. This would place the burden of supporting the country on the people that benefit most from the economy. The income tax rates would be set to, along with tariffs and excise taxes, cover the operating costs thus avoiding government borrowing.
I propose to reduce government spending and allow the working class to keep more of its earnings as follows.
A major cost saver is to de-privatize our military. We do not need to pay $300 grand a year to a mercenary jobber for a truck driver or a cook. The Army can have soldiers do, as they have in times past, provide these functions. Another place to save is have the major military devices (trucks, airplanes, ships, guns, etc) manufactured in government owned factories. The simple elimination of the executive management costs and profits would likely save at least one third if not one half of the cost of military procurement. The workers, but not the executives, currently employed in this sector would be hired by the government at government wages, benefits and pensions (pre 1990 system).
The government could reduce working and middle class costs by replacing the private sector health insurance system with a government sponsored pay as you go. Like eliminating private sector contractors from the military, eliminating the private sector insurance executive management and profits would be a tremendous savings.
The biggest savings, of course, is to stop being the thugs du jure for the multinational petroleum industry. We do not benefit from attacking Iraq because it threatened to nationalize its oil reserves instead of being paid a pittance of the selling price. We do benefit from establishing, if possible, a strong enough Afghani central government to protect petroleum’s proposed Trans Afghanistan Pipeline. The only beneficiaries of our thousands of lost and injured soldiers and trillions of lost dollars are the internationalized cartel that has, among other things, brought us $4 a gallon gasoline and the biggest oil spill ever. We really do not to protect these people from their own mistakes.
With this combination of new tariffs and excise taxes along with a restructured income tax increasing revenue and cost saving cuts to health insurance the working and small business class prosperity could be restored to the people that create the wealth instead of being concentrated in the hands of amoral financiers that only manipulate wealth.
Where were you 8 years ago? Cheering Bush on while he expanded Medicare? Or cheering Bush on while he waged two wars of choice? Cheering Bush on while he cut taxes and increased spending?
All you overnight "fiscal" conservatives are about as genuine as Bush was a genuine cowboy.
And you probably believe he did all by himself. Not one democrat voted in favor of any of the things you mention.
and it has to happen now. That means everything is on the table to be cut. Medicare, social security, defense, all of it. Why don't you understand that you can't spend more money than you take in?
Don't you get it?
It isn't "balancing the budget" that nobody understands. Its a matter of who's pet projects and interests are going to get shut down to do so....
The Republicans threw out a bill that axes things the Democrats champion and claim that, "Because Dems don't support it, they must not care to balance the budget!!!".
Honestly? I really wish the Dems would throw out a proposal slashing the military, tax-cuts for the wealthy and oil subsidies (for starters) and watch the Republicans shoot it down quicker than you can say "Bush Tax Cut"..... But, but but but.... Don't Republicans want to balance the budget?
Where were you 8 years ago? Cheering Bush on while he expanded Medicare? Or cheering Bush on while he waged two wars of choice? Cheering Bush on while he cut taxes and increased spending?
All you overnight "fiscal" conservatives are about as genuine as Bush was a genuine cowboy.
I've seen this argument quite a bit from libs. You guys don't grasp the fact that Skippy has taken spending to an all new level that Bush never dreamed of. Then you wonder why we suddenly become fiscally conservative?
That's like asking why someone suddenly becomes a gun control advocate after they see a high school shot up by an idiot kid with daddy's AK47.
No No No taxes are socialism! Why do you like Hitler and hate America?
I'm a Democrat, that's how we roll.
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