He was Colonel in the Reserves. Did he support DADT?
As I said, people who demand that we balance the budget using only discretionary spending cuts with no new tax revenue are telling you one thing: they can’t read.
Thus, you’ve shown words are hard for you. Here’s a picture.
Your cow burps are near the top.
Yep. He also voted for DOMA.
If we are to avoid cutting social security, Medicare, and defense, as the Republicans advocate, then you are correct. It is the only way. When the GOP wants to propose an $800 billion cut to Social Security or defense spending, you let me know.
But wait… there’s another, more logical solution? We could cut back on getting pedicures?
The funny thing is, that’s exactly what the GOP line of thinking is like. They are like a couple living on $3,000 a month income with a $3,500 a month mortgage, proposing that maybe they could make things work if they eliminate the $30 a month that they spend on pedicures.
Carry on geniuses.
Right back at you.
I’ve been saying this for years (going on decades) now. Republicans who claim to be champions of fiscal austerity and pledge to balance the budget by slashing ridiculously exaggerated “waste, fraud, and abuse” are lying. The part that never fails to amaze me is that (as can be seen in this very thread) there are still idiots who believe in their absurdities. Actually balancing the US budget requires some combination of tax increases (but Republicans can’t ever champion tax increases), defense cuts (ditto), and/or cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security that especially benefit the elderly (who are the Republicans’ biggest supporters, so again, ditto).
Well, sure, but how likely are the last two?
Increased revenues: with a trillion-plus dollar deficit, there’s no way in hell the economy will grow enough to cover the shortfall in 3 months. That means raising taxes (or making new ones). Good thing the Bush tax cuts are about to expire, which will at least help pay down - oh wait, that’s not happening, is it?
Cut spending: the three biggest cost drivers of the federal budget are national security, Social Security, and health care (Medicare & Medicaid). As has been pointed out ad nauseum, you could eliminate everything else Uncle Sam spends its money on (might I suggest we start with Congress?) and still not eliminate the deficit, much less dent the national debt. Guess which three things Republicans said they’re not going to cut?
Raising the debt ceiling is the easy out. Doesn’t mean it’s the best long-term solution, of course, but it is the one with the greatest chances of happening quickly.
The problem is the Republican proposal of discretionary budget cuts is not credible; it doesn’t come anywhere close to balancing the budget. Heck, I doesn’t even pay off the tax cut extension they were so keen on. They are at best pandering hypocrites playing to the cheap seats with popular but unrealistic rhetoric and at worst total effin’ morons divorced from reality. What’s the point of having a debate when one side can’t acknowledge basics like, y’know, math?
Let’s just forget the idea that you’re able to balance the budget via cutting only discretionary spending. Everyone cool with that? Ya, ok. Let’s move on.
So, could you balance the budget via spending cuts? It seems that, yes, you could do this.
It wouldn’t be easy, and it would likely be unpopular amongst many. But at some point you aren’t left with any options which work AND are popular. At some point, someone needs to say, “Ok folks, this is going to hurt, but you’re gonna have to pay the piper… now or later, that’s not changing, so we’re just going to deal with it now.”
I realize that there is a significant degree of naivete involved with even considering such a thing, but ultimately it’s actually going to happen.
Have you seen what’s going on in Europe recently? Countries like Hungary are repealing things like pension reforms put in back in the 90’s, to re-socialize private pension funds… because they don’t have any freaking money, and they’ll be able to use those funds for general spending in the short term.
I realize that the US is somewhat unique compared to smaller european economies (although I would point out that even western european countries like France are raiding their pension funds to pay the bills currently), but it still seems like we’re going to have to start actually paying the bills sooner or later… and when that happens, we’re going to have to make some painful cuts.
I think they honestly just don’t know. Reagan certainly didn’t; he was by all accounts confused by the 1980s deficits. The average politician is terribly informed about the technical nuts and bolts; Republicans especially so, because all the technocratic types have fled the party.
Timex, the US has virtually nothing in common with small Eastern European economies. We control our own currency, for one.
Yes, clearly what’s going to happen is 100% spending cuts to bring the long-term deficit down!
Funny, that’s the argument I use when I suggest raising taxes. Maybe you should cut discretionary spending AND raise taxes?? gasp
But dude, fruit fly research in France!
Like adjusting the payroll tax to address higher income brackets, which would extend Social Security’s stability fifty years without cutting other benefits? Crazy talk, I can’t believe you’d suggest such a thing. Or letting the Bush tax cuts expire which would instantly add $350B in revenue? Insanity. Or passing a health care law that addresses the only real threat to our economy, health care? REPEAL IT NOW FOR GOD’S SAKE!
H.
Perhaps, although my main point is simply that significant (ie, more than just discretionary spending) cuts in the budget need to be honestly considered as part of the overall solution.
It does not appear as though many folks, on either side of the aisle, are willing to actually make such cuts. But really, those cuts will have to be made eventually. Raising taxes is not going to get the job done. You’re going to have to make cuts which will piss folks off.
The recent healthcare legislation did not address healthcare costs at all. The CBO’s most recent estimates show that the result of the bill will likely be marginally increased costs overall.
You’re absolutely correct though in that the out of control increases in the cost of healthcare in the US is one of, if not our biggest problem.
A Republican candidate for a first-term congressional seat might be ill-informed enough to honestly think there’s enough “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the budget to balance it, but anyone who’s served a term no longer has that excuse. They still spout that catchphrase at every turn, though, so I label them as liars instead of idiots–there’s somewhat less shame in being an idiot, while liars are guilty of malicious distortion of the truth to serve their own ends, and that’s what I think they’re doing.
It addressed the cost of healthcare to government-paid programs, which is what we’re talking about, where our tax dollars are going, and it came out on the good side of that.
In overall healthcare inflation, it didn’t address most issues in concrete terms, but the laughably-ignored government mandate that emergency rooms must treat patients at no cost if they cannot pay suggests that paid-into preventative health care will reap rewards as far as reducing overall medical costs to the system. It’s too fuzzy to have a real argument about, but I come down on the side of it being a good thing once it has a decade to take hold, and people stop letting little problems become big ones.
H.
+1 for the comedy post!
Oh wait…it wasn’t? It was, erm, a real attempt to compare a fictional family to a national issue? Oh. Erm. Well. That’s a certain kind of ‘genius’ I guess.
I suppose you could convince Congress to stop funding Blu-ray discs and Pedicures, instead of, you know, acknowledging that they have the ability to manipulate both currency and therefore interest rates at will, and that both deficit and debt are useful tools in their economic policy, as is taxation rates. Unlike, say, a family.
Do you have a comedy newsletter I could subscribe to?
I would also like your newsletter!
SECOND EDIT: I really await the day the hardcore Tea Party folks have to either announce that they’re cutting 85% of the DoD’s funding or raising the ceiling. It’s going to be awesome. In kind of the way an earthquake is awesome, but awesome nonetheless.
Except that this isn’t a theoretical exercise. The party currently in control of the House of Representatives has pledged to do exactly that, and is threatening to throw the US in default of its debt in pursuit of that objective.
So yeah, I’m cool with it, but until John Boehner is, well, you know.
Do you seriously think that it’s any more than talk? That they are really going to default on the debt?
You do realize occasionally I post links that explain things that I say in posts that follow those links.