Grover Norquist and the Republicans have betrayed the US military!

[Kassander]

OP:
Unfortunately you have no one to blame but yourself. You could have voted out all these imbecile republicans in 2010. Instead you voted more of them in. If you want change then stop voting for these millionaire lap dogs. Ensure they are kicked out of office. Chances are many people will still vote republican due to some stupid religious devotion that they actually deem important. Greatest country in the world? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Dacien]

You're assuming too much here. I've also shown people don't really mind the taxes they themselves pay.

How have you shown this? That poll data doesn't break down poll participant demographics.

Not only do they not care, they really don't care.

I contend that, all things being equal, they do care. They're just too busy worrying about all the more serious shit going on right now.

and yeah spending is a huge issue right now.. in case you didn't catch the part about a 1.2 trillion dollar cut going into effect soon? it's on people's minds because it affects someone they know.. I know for certain military people are pretty upset right now.. since we know Obama is not going to cut Obamacare or any of the various social programs

Well you seem to be making the point that people care about government spending positively. I'm arguing that people are generally not pro-government spending. If someone has loved ones who work for the government in some capacity, it makes sense that those people would be in favor of more government spending.

[ThalliumPR]

I can't really offer any solid content to this topic, but I figure that some people might find it interesting and useful to have a graphical representation of the value of money and how it has changed and where it has gone over the years. There might be some useful talking points in here. I, for example, found this interesting:

(Warning: infographic is huuuuuge.)
Worker/CEO pay comparison, adjusted for inflation

As well as this:
What was learned

The creator of it has a huge list of sources near the bottom.

XKCD infographic from 11/21/11

Use it as you will.

[Sunseeker]

3 out of 5 there, I think. The other two are the subject of heavy amounts of criticism.

So if we were to say that people are generally happy with 3/5 things government spends money on, we could say that they're at least marginally in favor of government spending in a majority of cases.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Major corporations have their hands in the pockets and bank accounts of politicians on both sides of the fence. However, there's a lot more money in buying out Republicans than there is buying out Democrats. Our government is in the hands of corporations, how scary of a thought is that?

[Dacien]

So if we were to say that people are generally happy with 3/5 things government spends money on, we could say that they're at least marginally in favor of government spending in a majority of cases.

Going by your arbitrary list, how much of government spending is allocated to police, fire, and infrastructure, the three I'm alluding to? But more to the point, are people generally in favor of the amount of money government spends on these services? I think if you ask people, they'd say they are in favor of spending money on these things but are dissatisfied with, overall, how much government spends.

[Wells]

pure and simply.. this is what we all knew from the beginning.. Democrats went into it with no intention of not raising taxes and Republicans went in with no intention of raising taxes..

See that's the thing. The democrats were perfectly willing to work with the GOP and let them have a lot of what they want. The GOP was not ready to return the favor. You can't take a situation like that and say both parties are to blame. Its just false neutrality.

If Obama really wanted to be part of the process.. I mean.. do his job

But that's the thing, its not his job. Congress controls the purse strings and if they want to cut spending they are the ones who have the responsibility to figure out how to.

I see wells is out in left field as usual..

haters gonna hate etc. They never seem to present cogent arguments though.

people do care about the taxes they pay.. that's you'll notice aside from the multi-billionaires that money is meaningless to.. and the poor to lower middle class who make up the majority of voters.. nobody else is advocating raising taxes..

I've just shown you by and large they don't seem to care that much.

and yeah spending is a huge issue right now.. in case you didn't catch the part about a 1.2 trillion dollar cut going into effect soon?

Again, the deficit isn't very important to voters. Sure Washington makes a lot of noise about it, mostly due to the GOP rabble rousing its base and the Dems being too inept to not play along, but voters don't care.

---------- Post added 2011-11-24 at 06:12 AM ----------

I contend that, all things being equal, they do care. They're just too busy worrying about all the more serious shit going on right now.

Show your work then. Maybe some polling or something.

How have you shown this? That poll data doesn't break down poll participant demographics.

See the one about whether people think their income tax is fair.

[Dacien]

Show your work then. Maybe some polling or something.

My position is that people are not in favor of more government spending. If you disagree with that, I can accept that. I do not have any data to back up my claim. I don't know anyone in my life who has the opinion, "What we need right now is for the government to spend more money!" Except you and smrund of course.

See the one about whether people think their income tax is fair.

They think it's fair? Okay. How about, "Do you want to pay higher taxes?" That would be much different.

[Juno86]

I do not have any data to back up my claim. I don't know anyone in my life who has the opinion, "What we need right now is for the government to spend more money!" Except you and smrund of course.

No offense, but I don't think its on Wells to tell you how the people in your life feel about this. Hes speaking about polls and actually has the evidence to back up his claims. In fact, he seems to be the only one with actual evidence to back up his claims.

And during the great depression, how did the USA get out of it? It sure as hell wasn't slashing taxes.

They think it's fair? Okay. How about, "Do you want to pay higher taxes?" That would be much different.

That's the thing thought, Obama isn't saying raise taxes on everyone! Hes saying the top 1% needs to make a more realistic contribution to the society in which they prosper. Asking the majority will get you a negative reaction, obviously, but there not gonna be the ones affected by the tax. So your entire argument is, well, pointless.

[Dacien]

No offense, but I don't think its on Wells to tell you how the people in your life feel about this. Hes speaking about polls and actually has the evidence to back up his claims. In fact, he seems to be the only one with actual evidence to back up his claims.

Well look, I admitted I do not have the data to back up my claims, and all but conceded the issue. I'm not sure what else is expected of me. He provided polls showing that people are much more concerned about the economy and jobs than government spending, as they should be. But there is no poll out there that I know of asking, "Do you feel that the government is spending money at an appropriate amount, not spending enough, or spending too much?" So I must concede the issue at this time.

That's the thing thought, Obama isn't saying raise taxes on everyone! Hes saying the top 1% needs to make a more realistic contribution to the society in which they prosper. Asking the majority will get you a negative reaction, obviously, but there not gonna be the ones affected by the tax. So your entire argument is, well, pointless.

My original contention was "The people of this country love low taxes." You ask anybody, anybody at all, and they'll tell you they'd love to be paying less taxes. Who wouldn't? The only people I can think of are the people who believe very strongly in government. I personally do not count myself among them, of course.

[Sunseeker]

Going by your arbitrary list, how much of government spending is allocated to police, fire, and infrastructure, the three I'm alluding to? But more to the point, are people generally in favor of the amount of money government spends on these services? I think if you ask people, they'd say they are in favor of spending money on these things but are dissatisfied with, overall, how much government spends.

And that's fine, I'm totally in agreement that there IS plenty of wasteful spending going on. Generally though, it isn't in the Police, the Fire Departments, or Education. There are of course specific examples within there, but on the whole, these make up minor portions of the budget on either the State of Federal level.

People are upset at how much the government spend for the same reason they're upset when some rockstar buys a solid-gold toilet. They're upset because they wish they could spend that much money. People get upset as well because they see big numbers but don't really see any of the bits and pieces going into what accounts for those costs. Things like "ZOMG WE'RE SPENDING SO MUCH ON SOCIAL SECURITY!" well, until the government raided that for their own personal crap, it was very self-supporting. Or perhaps the familiar "OMG THE MILITARY SO MUCH MONEY!!" The average grunt doesn't really make that much money, most of the costs go into building another dozen nuclear missiles or severely overpaying for leasing some sort of hardware. Of course it's a lot of money, the government spends money on a lot of things. Sometimes it's wasteful, sometimes it's not. "The people" as I said don't really look into the details, so they when someone says they want to cut government spending, the people tend not to ask many questions. Of course the things that usually get cut are the services we put very little money into to begin with. You could cut the entire education department and you wouldn't be saving more than 3-5% of the budget.

If any senator actually sat down and said "I'm going to cut these things we spend too much on." Such as university administrator salaries, they'd probably be met with some very well-connected lobbyists with some stern words of opposition. So instead they cut something that people have little power to get up and complain about, such as art and vocational education, which no matter how much you cut only amounts to millions, not billions or trillions and really doesn't accomplish anything other than pissing off hard-working teachers, flushing our education system further down the toilet, and placating stupid "the people"s who don't give two shits to look into what they want cut.

So pardon me if I don't really give a crap what "the people" think, "the people" are generally idiots.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The biggest folly any one person can commit when discussing politics is to assume that the majority of their fellow countrymen agree with them on a particular stance. Yet oddly, I see this happen all the time on these forums - and most such claims come unsubstantiated. "The majority of Americans want to see this," is used quite frequently when someone is trying to defend their express opinion of a subject matter. Do not assume that your views are backed by a large portion of your fellow country men; they often aren't. Too many people fall back on this defense to hold up their claims when it often simply isn't true. If you're going to argue a particular point in politics, make sure that the point has enough merit on its own to hold itself up, rather than relying on a false claim that "other people believe it should be this way."

I once saw a very stalwart rightist say that it is well known that nearly every American would own a gun if not for the propaganda placed against fire arms. I had a good laugh with that one.

[Dacien]

And that's fine, I'm totally in agreement that there IS plenty of wasteful spending going on. Generally though, it isn't in the Police, the Fire Departments, or Education. There are of course specific examples within there, but on the whole, these make up minor portions of the budget on either the State of Federal level.

I just wanted to point out that California is the 6th largest economy in the world as of 2004, and 40% our general fund is constitutionally mandated to be spent on K-12 education. Factor in higher education, and it's about 50%. That's half the general fund of an enormous economy, and for what? We rank abysmally in education. I do know that, Federally, education is a small slice, though.

People are upset at how much the government spend for the same reason they're upset when some rockstar buys a solid-gold toilet. They're upset because they wish they could spend that much money. People get upset as well because they see big numbers but don't really see any of the bits and pieces going into what accounts for those costs. Things like "ZOMG WE'RE SPENDING SO MUCH ON SOCIAL SECURITY!" well, until the government raided that for their own personal crap, it was very self-supporting. Or perhaps the familiar "OMG THE MILITARY SO MUCH MONEY!!" The average grunt doesn't really make that much money, most of the costs go into building another dozen nuclear missiles or severely overpaying for leasing some sort of hardware. Of course it's a lot of money, the government spends money on a lot of things. Sometimes it's wasteful, sometimes it's not. "The people" as I said don't really look into the details, so they when someone says they want to cut government spending, the people tend not to ask many questions. Of course the things that usually get cut are the services we put very little money into to begin with. You could cut the entire education department and you wouldn't be saving more than 3-5% of the budget.

If any senator actually sat down and said "I'm going to cut these things we spend too much on." Such as university administrator salaries, they'd probably be met with some very well-connected lobbyists with some stern words of opposition. So instead they cut something that people have little power to get up and complain about, such as art and vocational education, which no matter how much you cut only amounts to millions, not billions or trillions and really doesn't accomplish anything other than pissing off hard-working teachers, flushing our education system further down the toilet, and placating stupid "the people"s who don't give two shits to look into what they want cut.

So pardon me if I don't really give a crap what "the people" think, "the people" are generally idiots.

Lots of government waste has been brought to my attention, and you hit on a big one. Public school administrators. They slash programs while fighting for and getting facepalmingly high salaries and pensions for themselves, and even giving themselves raises during the Great Recession.

People somehow know it's fucked up, even if they don't know all these facts and can't put their finger exactly on it. Kinda like the Occupy Movement.

---------- Post added 2011-11-23 at 11:50 PM ----------

The biggest folly any one person can commit when discussing politics is to assume that the majority of their fellow countrymen agree with them on a particular stance. Yet oddly, I see this happen all the time on these forums - and most such claims come unsubstantiated. "The majority of Americans want to see this," is used quite frequently when someone is trying to defend their express opinion of a subject matter. Do not assume that your views are backed by a large portion of your fellow country men; they often aren't. Too many people fall back on this defense to hold up their claims when it often simply isn't true. If you're going to argue a particular point in politics, make sure that the point has enough merit on its own to hold itself up, rather than relying on a false claim that "other people believe it should be this way."

I once saw a very stalwart rightist say that it is well known that nearly every American would own a gun if not for the propaganda placed against fire arms. I had a good laugh with that one.

So you also believe that the people of America do not love low taxes? That they'd like to pay higher taxes? And that they think government should be spending more? Just curious.

[Juno86]

My original contention was "The people of this country love low taxes." You ask anybody, anybody at all, and they'll tell you they'd love to be paying less taxes. Who wouldn't? The only people I can think of are the people who believe very strongly in government. I personally do not count myself among them, of course.

However, your point becomes moot when you look at what the taxes of 300 million people can pay for compared to the middle income family. If you were to suddenly convert all the public systems into pay for yourself private systems, the average middle income family could not afford anywhere near what they can with the support of tax dollars. Explain that in your poll question, and I very much doubt you would see numbers agreeing with your original point.

PS. Of course they would like more money at the end of the day, who wouldn't?

PSS. Love the pic you use, I love the Walking Dead and Darrel is fast becoming my favorite character.

[Dacien]

However, your point becomes moot when you look at what the taxes of 300 million people can pay for compared to the middle income family. If you were to suddenly convert all the public systems into pay for yourself private systems, the average middle income family could not afford anywhere near what they can with the support of tax dollars. Explain that in your poll question, and I very much doubt you would see numbers agreeing with your original point.

I refuse to pay higher taxes when stories come out about University presidents making $400,000 salaries while cutting programs and raising tuition, or spending $100 billion dollars on a high speed rail system to nowhere at a promised cost to taxpayers a fraction of that. Other stories, numerous, are out there if you go looking. I suspect many others haven't seen public scrutiny.

PSS. Love the pic you use, I love the Walking Dead and Darrel is fast becoming my favorite character.

Yeah, I like his character.

[Collegeguy]

Yeah, I like his character.

Daryl is the best. Just makes you cooler. Stop it!

[NineSpine]

This is getting immensely silly and the conversation is getting far too divorced from little details like facts.

There is nothing wrong with running a deficit. The united states has been running a deficit for decades and decades and decades. It is not the same thing as a family or a business constantly running a deficit. we Experienced the greatest economic times in the history of the planet while running deficits.

The problem only arises when the deficit becomes significantly too large, which it is now. So the question becomes about why our deficit is so large. The answer is more complicated than some inane garbage about the government spending too much in general.

1. We are in a horrible recession. This decreases tax revenue. In this case, we are talking about a reduction of about $400B In revenue compared to if we were in a healthy economy. The cause of the recession is a lack of demand amongst consumers. The only way to fix this is for the government to inject money into the economy by putting it into the hands of lower and middle class people. This is how every first world country has successfully attacked every recession since world war ii and it has always worked if properly targeted and sized. Even having a debate over this is completely mental and divorced from reality.

Furthermore, cutting government spending will only exacerbate this problem. You will be pulling money out of an ailing economy. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The government can currently borrow money at record low rates because investors don't want to invest in business so they are throwing money at treasury bills. It only makes sense for the government to take advantage of this and borrow to stimulate the economy. Again, this is what has worked through dozens of recessions in dozens of countries. This isn't new or radical.

2. We have allowed the tax code to become incredibly warped. Even if you think taxes are too high, the average effective tax rate for the top 400 households in the united states is around 18%. That's lower than most middle class families and small busines owners. Thats fundamentally wrong. We need to close these loopholes, like the carried interest loophole that allows a billionaire hedge fund manager to pay 15%.

3. Medical spending has gone it of control. This isn't because of the government. This is because we have a privatized healthcare system which drives up costs even for government provided healthcare. We spend more per capita than any other country on the planet, yet we also have a high infant mortality rate, a low average age of death, and incredibly high mortality rates for all major diseases. We are getting shitty results for insane amounts of money. It will continue this way Until we get with the times and establish a nationalized system that can control prices.

4. Defen spending is way out of control. You could take a third out of it without hurting our safety in any way whatsoever. We don't need millions of troops stationed in peaceful countries all over the planet. We don't need jet fighters for air wars that will never happen. We don't need enough missiles to destroy the planet fifty times over. Once or twice is plenty.

If we solve all of tho problems, then the spending will no longer be a problem. ThIs infantile, immature nonsense about cutting social programs or whining about how government employees make too much is misguided nonsense. Government employees, when adjusted for education levels, make only slightly more than public sector workers. If there's a problem, it's that the private sector isn't catching up fast enough. Productivity has skyrocketed in this country over the last thirty years but almost all of the gains of that has been eaten up by the top 1%. And now we are shocked that consumers don't have enough capital to spend to fuel an economy. Give me a break

[Deleted]

1. You're right that there's nothing wrong with running temporary deficits, as long as it is financed through borrowing instead of monetization. The debt that deficits cause however has to be repaid at some point together with interest. The US enjoyes an unique position by having the world reserve currency and thus much lower interest rates. The US unfortunately doesn't like to repay it debts during "the good times".

2. Taxcode is warped yes. But you shouldn't increase the overall burden of taxation, but instead just even out the tax code so it's more fair (both income tax and corporate tax loopholes etc).

3. Medical spending is out of control precisely because government action, which isn't so surpising when its controlled by Big Pharma, AMA and other special interest organizations.

4. Likewise, defence spending is out of control because of special interest organizations such as military equipment manufacturers. The wars are obviously costly as well.

Your conclusions are ofcourse extremely biased and it seems your just overall raging at anyone who supports fiscal responsibility.

[NineSpine]

1. You're right that there's nothing wrong with running temporary deficits, as long as it is financed through borrowing instead of monetization. The debt that deficits cause however has to be repaid at some point together with interest. The US enjoyes an unique position by having the world reserve currency and thus much lower interest rates. The US unfortunately doesn't like to repay it debts during "the good times".

2. Taxcode is warped yes. But you shouldn't increase the overall burden of taxation, but instead just even out the tax code so it's more fair (both income tax and corporate tax loopholes etc).

3. Medical spending is out of control precisely because government action, which isn't so surpising when its controlled by Big Pharma, AMA and other special interest organizations.

4. Likewise, defence spending is out of control because of special interest organizations such as military equipment manufacturers. The wars are obviously costly as well.

Your conclusions are ofcourse extremely biased and it seems your just overall raging at anyone who supports fiscal responsibility.

1. That's simply not true. The united states has never defaulted on a debt. They always pay back their loans.

2. Evening out the tax code is just shorthand for raising taxes on poor people, which hurts the economy. Consumer economies are fueled by the poor through upper middle classes. Giving them less disposable income means less consumption, less demand. A progressive tax code has been proven, over and over again, to be the most economically constructive, because it encourages business reinvestment, counters the hoarding of capital, and puts money in the hands of the people most likely to spend it.

3. There's absolutely facts to back up your assertion. You are just playing your little game of blaming everything on the government regardless of reality.

4. Yeah.

It's not fiscally responsible to dramatically slash spending and taxes during a recession. Thats like calling it fiscally responsible to cut your personal spending while your roof is leaking and your car needs new tires. You are just setting yourself up for failure and more costs later.

[Deleted]

1. That's simply not true. The united states has never defaulted on a debt. They always pay back their loans.

Sorry, I meant they don't reduce their debt. It's a central part of Keynesianism, which you espouse.

2. Evening out the tax code is just shorthand for raising taxes on poor people, which hurts the economy. Consumer economies are fueled by the poor through upper middle classes. Giving them less disposable income means less consumption, less demand. A progressive tax code has been proven, over and over again, to be the most economically constructive, because it encourages business reinvestment, counters the hoarding of capital, and puts money in the hands of the people most likely to spend it.

Again. I did not say flat tax. I meant closing loopholes. Then decreasing the general level of taxation by an amount reflected in the increased taxation caused by the closing of the loopholes.

3. There's absolutely facts to back up your assertion. You are just playing your little game of blaming everything on the government regardless of reality.

- States restrict competition in the insurance market by prohibiting competition between states

- US medical license boards (controlled by AMA members) artificially restricting the supply of medical professionals. You can only get licensed from a few elite universities. This control of the supply of doctors allows the wages of the doctors already licensed to go up, and they are now about double of their European counterparts

- Bad regulation on what health procedures must be done by doctors, which for example restrict nurses from conducting certain simple procedures to create more employment and higher salaries for the doctors. E.g. prohibiting nurses from delivering babies.

-Medicaid & Medicare driving up costs. For example medicare&medicaid compensates doctors by how many procedures are performed instead of how many problems are solved, or even how many problems have been attempted to be solved.

-'Certificate of Need'-programs restrict new hospitals or other healthcare providing from being created, and the established holders of the certificates can easily deny new entrants.

-States regulate the content of healthcare insurance, which means that they're filled with crap people don't really need which raises the cost. The less people pay out of pocket the less people care about the cost of the healthcare services they seek, which means that price competition is not an option for healthcare providers.

It's not fiscally responsible to dramatically slash spending and taxes during a recession. Thats like calling it fiscally responsible to cut your personal spending while your roof is leaking and your car needs new tires. You are just setting yourself up for failure and more costs later.

Bad analogy. You can't solve a debt problem by more debt, or a spending problem through more spending.