They you will not give a shit if we cut Defense spending and Medicare. You do not give a shit if we have 25% unemployment? Because that is wtf will happen. You talk the Tea Party game...it sounds good to the ignorant but wtf do you actually propose? WTF would you cut? We had to try and control healthcare costs....the ACA tried to do that. IMHO there were to many hands in the kitchen. But if you do not understand that containing healthcare cost were/are the biggest goal this country has....you my dear are the one not informed. If your idea of raising revenue is to cut taxes....you have no idea of the history or meaning of the Laffer Curve.
.
Originally Posted by WTF
I. Assumptions:
You are such a typical liberal. You've made an assload of ASSumptions, and based on your ignorant assumptions, conclude that I must not be as informed as you.
Lets start with a simple one. Have you ever seen me suggest that we need to cut taxes? No? Go find me a quote where I said we need to cut taxes.
Where did you see me say that I would object to cutting defense spending to cut our deficit? Again, go find me that quote. I will wait.
Where the fuck did you get the idea that I in any way support Sarah Palin?
Lastly, here is a little history lesson for you. The first Tea Party rallies were held in 2009. I will give you bonus points if you can tell me where and when the first Tea Party rallies were held, and for the Lightning Round, tell me what news commentator inspired the idea for the Tea Party rallies. I'll be over here buffing my nails while you go do your Google thing.
I mention the above because your last and most ignorant ASSumption is that I jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon. Nope. I've been a deficit hawk since I was still in high school and a reporter once stopped me for one of those "man on the street" poll questions. She wanted to know if I blamed President Bush (Sr.) or Congress for the deficit. I looked at her like she was an idiot and told her that any member of Congress that votes to approve a budget in deficit, and any President who signs a budget in deficit is to blame for a budget that is not in balance, then I asked if her if she understood how the democratic process actually works. I also told her that they were guilty of theft and should be arrested. Oddly enough, I was not one of the people she chose to quote for her article. Dammit. My moment of fame passed me by.
Now then, on with our tale.
II. History:
You wish to speak of history. Yes, lets do that. Firstly, you are incorrect. Our addiction to deficit spending does in fact go back for an entire century. First off, it is important to realize that we have never actually been debt free as a nation. From the end of the Revolutionary War, to present day, we have always carried a debt balance.
However, when you look at our history of debt over the first century and a half of our history, a pattern can be seen. During times of peace, we tended to pay down debt (without an income tax mind you). During times of war, our debt increased. There were also other times when we took on large debts for other reasons, The Louisiana Purchase probably being one of the largest debts we incurred for non-wartime spending. But in general, except in times of war or crisis, we paid down our debt. Would you believe that at one time, we only held a meager $32,000 in debt? Hard to imagine, isn't it?
Then, around 1900 that pattern shifted. We began accumulating debt even when we were not at war. After the end of WWI, we again paid down debt through most of the 1920's, but that is where it ends. Beginning after the stock market crash, we again began accumulating debt and from then until now, we have added debt every single year, with only a few exceptions. Eisenhower, my favorite President, paid down debt during two of his years in office. However, even Ike left behind more debt than he started with. I forgive him though. Between fighting the Korean War, building our interstate system, and launching the space program, he had quite a bit on his plate.
In the past century we have had both Democrats and Republicans in office. We have had Congresses controlled by both Democrats and Republicans. Yet, the increase in our national debt has continued unabated for more than 60 years. In the last 100 years, from 1913 to present, we have paid down debt in only 17 years. So yes actually, this IS a problem that has been going on for a very long time. Our grandparents borrowed money that they never repaid, our parents borrowed money that they never repaid, and we are now borrowing money that we ourselves will NEVER repay. If that isn't theft, then what do you call it? (1)
Now lets talk about Cheney. Yup, I remember what he said, and shockingly, I didn't need Google to find out. He was an idiot when he said it. I will remind you that in 2004, I was so completely pissed off at Republicans because of their spending that I voted a straight Democratic ticket. I did it again in 2006, because I didn't think Republicans had gotten the message yet.
In theory, yes actually we can accumulate debt indefinitely without harming our credit or our economy. As long as our GDP continues to increase faster than the amount of debt we can create, then theoretically the debt increase can continue indefinitely. However, this is a monumentally stupid way to handle our business because all economies will contract from time to time. Operating at a constant deficit means that even a small economic hiccup can have disastrous results and turn a short recession into a chronic one.
Not to mention the fact that the more debt we accumulate, the more interest we pay every year. We are now paying nearly HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS in interest alone every year. (2) I don't know about you, but pissing that much money away every year makes me want to puke. I can think of a couple thousand different ways that we could be putting that money to better use.
III. Crisis
I said that pointing fingers and blaming wouldn't do any good, and that our task now is to stop spending ourselves into oblivion, and to start paying back what we've stolen. You disagreed and said that if we don't understand how we got where we are, we cannot avoid it in the future. You are half right, and the irony is that in your correct statement, you also make yourself a hypocrite. How fun!
First off, when you find yourself in a hole there are three easy steps to save yourself. They are as follows:
- Stop Digging
- Get your ass out of the hole
- Now that you got your ass out of the hole, learn from your mistake so you don't dig yourself into another hole
Let me give you another example. Lets say you suffer a temporary blackout. When you come around from your blackout, you discover that you are laying on your back smack dab in the center of a busy interstate. Cars are rushing by you on each side, blaring their horn at the idiot in the middle of the road, and barely missing you as they whistle by.
What do you?
A. Meditate in the middle of the road, asking yourself esoteric questions about which came first, the road or the car, while you try and find enlightenment that will explain how you came to be in the middle of the road?
B. Get your ass out of the middle of the road before you get yourself creamed?
I choose option B. There will be time enough once the crisis has been solved to process, learn, change, and grow to ensure that the same crisis is never again created. But in the short term, the much higher priority is to find solutions. The task before us is to SOLVE the problem. Then we can worry about understanding how we got to this point so that we can avoid it in the future.
You said we haven't stolen anything yet. No? We are currently at $17.5 TRILLION dollars in debt. (3) Do you think we are going to have all of that money put back before our children grow up and start working? Our children will have no choice but to pay the interest on the debt WE accumulated. They will be the ones who will have to PAY off our debts. Did we ask their permission to spend their money? No? Then that is theft. When you spend someone else's money without their consent that is theft. Our parents stole from us, and rather than deal with it, we just kicked the can down the road. Now we are passing on the debt we inherited plus a shitload more to the next generation. As Bill Joel said, we didn't start this fire. But rather than put it out, we turned around and threw more gasoline on it.
Now, why did I label this section "Crisis"? Simple. Our current economic policies are unsustainable. As I stated earlier, in theory we actually can accumulate debt indefinitely, provided we keep our debt to GDP ratio manageable. However, it is a piss poor way to manage our finances, but more importantly, our debt to GDP ratio is NOT sustainable. As of last year, our Debt to GDP ratio was 73%. (4) This is not sustainable. This is why we absolutely must get our spending under control NOW, not later. We have already had our credit rating lowered twice in the last few years. (5)(6) If you think the housing bubble bursting sent our economy into a tail spin, wait and see what will happen when or if other countries decide that the US Dollar is no longer stable or a sound investment. I say "if" because I pray to God that day will never come. However, as long as we continue to spend money the way we have been spending, then the crash of the dollar will be an inevitability.
IV. Proposals
So you asked what I propose. Very little. In the past couple of years we actually have made some very good progress at reducing our deficit. In fact, we just got some good news in April that the deficit for 2014 is actually going to be a little smaller than anticipated. So I am happy about that. The deficit for next year is projected to drop to around $400 Billion, which is even better news. However, the CBO also predicts that starting in 2016, the deficit will again expand. (7)
We still need to cut out nearly half a trillion in deficit spending, and if we are ever to pay down our debt, need to create an additional half a trillion in surplus with which to pay down debt. Consider this: even if we balanced our budget right this instant, and created a $500 BILLION (with a B) surplus to pay down debt, it would take 35 years to actually pay off our debt. Pretty staggering when you put it in those terms.
I'm not Einstein, and I don't pretend to have the solution. First off, we need to abandon the idea of sacred cows. Liberals will agree that we need to cut spending, but don't you dare touch any kind of entitlement program. Conservatives will agree that we need to cut spending, but don't you dare touch defense spending.
They are both wrong. I say lets make whatever cuts are necessary to bring the budget into balance. Entitlements, defense, whatever it takes. Small cuts here and there without regard to sacred cows, over a period of years, combined with a steady increase in tax revenues would have our budget balanced within a matter of years. Those same cuts continued over a few more years would create a surplus to pay down debt.
The problem of deficit spending is not insoluble, nor does it mean we would crash the economy. $100 billion in less spending this year out of a budget more than $3 trillion would not destroy us. (8) Nor would spending another $100 billion less next year, and the year after that. Would it mean some of us might have to tighten our belts? Perhaps. But you know what? That is exactly what a parent is supposed to do. Good parents make sacrifices for their kids, and if we don't have the moral fortitude to make some small sacrifices now so that our children can have a better future, then we might as well just hang it up and admit that we are utter failures.
Notes:
1.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r...t/histdebt.htm
2.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r...ir_expense.htm
3.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r...3/2013_sep.pdf
4.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-...-09-17-1091240
5.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...IxI_story.html
6.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49037337
7.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...01563800875216
8.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/defa...ets/budget.pdf pp. 189
