quote:

ORIGINAL: Selectivelight

It's not cutting the budget that is the problem. The problem is that instead of cutting what should be cut, the government is performing a routine hatchet job on health and human services, education, and entitlements. What we ought to be cutting is outdated military spending (Soviet era planes among other things), useless scientific research (50 million dollars [Could be wrong about the actual dollar amount] to find out why sweet onions are sweet comes to mind.), corporate welfare (They're turning hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, even in the current economic climate, do they really need uncle Sam to keep handing them blank checks?), and other obscene wastes of money.

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ORIGINAL: Marini

quote:

ORIGINAL: Selectivelight

It's not cutting the budget that is the problem. The problem is that instead of cutting what should be cut, the government is performing a routine hatchet job on health and human services, education, and entitlements. What we ought to be cutting is outdated military spending (Soviet era planes among other things), useless scientific research (50 million dollars [Could be wrong about the actual dollar amount] to find out why sweet onions are sweet comes to mind.), corporate welfare (They're turning hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, even in the current economic climate, do they really need uncle Sam to keep handing them blank checks?), and other obscene wastes of money.

Thank you for a thoughtful reply, I often think I am living in a parallel universe.
Can this really be happening?
Can't people see what is happening?

I thought outsourcing and selling the American dream down the river was bad, this is may be the final kick in the ass.

They really want to "fix" the deficit on the fucking backs of the poor, elderly, disabled, and working class/middle class Americans now?
Is that the fucking answer?

I am fairly certain I will am living through the collapse of the American dream, I hope to live long enough to see America eventually begin to thrive again.

Like Elton John says in Rocket Man, "And I think its gonna take a long, long time."

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ORIGINAL: servantforuse
Joether, Raising more revenue means raising taxes again and again. We have had enough. It is time to cut spending across the board. nothing should go untouched.

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ORIGINAL: Selectivelight

It's not cutting the budget that is the problem. The problem is that instead of cutting what should be cut, the government is performing a routine hatchet job on health and human services, education, and entitlements. What we ought to be cutting is outdated military spending (Soviet era planes among other things), useless scientific research (50 million dollars [Could be wrong about the actual dollar amount] to find out why sweet onions are sweet comes to mind.), corporate welfare (They're turning hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, even in the current economic climate, do they really need uncle Sam to keep handing them blank checks?), and other obscene wastes of money.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fellow

Alex Jones explains the situation clearly:
The problem is that the whole financial system is a Bonzi fraud. You have the government buying toxic assets from financial institutions (debt owned mostly by the rich) for trillions, passing bad debt (that shouldn't even exist) on general public, and then attempting to pay it. The attempt is useless anyway, as paying this debt is mathematically impossible.
Jones's solution: bring the whole system (take bankers and rich with you) down and start over. Propping up asset prices will not work in long run anyway. In essence,  big part of the debt is fraudulent, it should be written down, and the whole system reformed.

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ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fellow

Alex Jones explains the situation clearly:
The problem is that the whole financial system is a Bonzi fraud. You have the government buying toxic assets from financial institutions (debt owned mostly by the rich) for trillions, passing bad debt (that shouldn't even exist) on general public, and then attempting to pay it. The attempt is useless anyway, as paying this debt is mathematically impossible.
Jones's solution: bring the whole system (take bankers and rich with you) down and start over. Propping up asset prices will not work in long run anyway. In essence,  big part of the debt is fraudulent, it should be written down, and the whole system reformed.

I'm no fan of Alex Jones, but he's got this one exactly right.

As far as the OP is concerned, no - America is not ready for massive budget cuts, because nobody wants to give anything up. Everybody wants everybody else to give things up.

Everyone understands and agrees that the budget needs to be cut, but that's as far as the agreement goes. From that point on, it's like a troop of howler monkeys fighting over who gets to eat the last rice krispie bar, because nobody can agree on what to cut. Liberals want to cut defense and tax the wealthy, conservatives want to cut social programs and make the rich exempt from taxes, and they hate each other too much to compromise. This problem will never be solved; it will, instead, solve itself - eventually, in the most painful possible way and long after the point where it could have been dealt with rationally. I just thank god that I don't have kids and that I'll probably be dead before the country completely collapses.

And as has already been pointed out, across the board cuts represent one of the worst possible ways to address this problem. For example, if you cut the Department of The Interior's budget by 25%, the grass doesn't get mowed at Yosemite this summer. Cut Medicare by 25%, and tens of thousands of people die. It's simplistic, and sounds great when you bellow it out in a bar, but like a lot of conservative ideas, it you look at it closely for more than 15 seconds it completely falls apart.

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ORIGINAL: Edwynn

Across the board budget cuts is about as unthinking as it gets. Several thousand schools have closed already. My local rail transit service cut enough where during peak hours there are people who cannot board because the cars are sardined to the max already, reduced library hours, etc. If we're going to cut budgets, it needs to happen in places that are not already drained. If you want to go to places not even touched yet, think tax credits to corporations. There's little or no need to raise taxes if: the laws in place are better enforced; loopholes are closed; tax credits and subsidies are eliminated. The latter items constitute direct taxpayer funding for the industries who coincidentally do the most harm to the environment and the economy, for which guess-who has to pay.

Take away the teat for the corporations dependent on that as part of the business plan and two good things happen: increased revenue with out raising taxes, and less government expense in the way of  dealing with the fallout from their actions.


Completely unrealistic, I know.

But consider then  how 'realistic' the thinking is that the lower strata of society can take on ever more of this burden year after year.

If we think a bubble burst is bad, just wait till the dam bursts.