which i why i would almost vote libertarian every time, except that right now national security is more important than anything, and i am too closely aligned with bush in that department to consider anyone else.
yeah im in the same non-swift boat. I feel, you at least need someone in office who can stand for something in such a time. beyond anything you need someone to believe what they say and it seems we have one who cant decide what color socks to wear. all the other crap is a wash. people worrying about the deficit over our security can't see the forest for the trees but hey, everyone has their own views.
If you are trying to say I try to link to facts instead of guessing about information, I agree. Well, the point is that the deficit was being paid off during the budget surpluses of the Clinton administration and grew at astonishing rates during the Bush administration. Possibly one way to get the deficit under control is to switch parties to one that understands budgets better. Anyone can debate an issue, Tirk. I understand it is hard to argue with the numbers. That doesn't mean that no one understands. Spending more than we take in is the wrong path. Talk about a Republican "flip-flop"! Once, all we heard from Republicans was about "tax-and-spend Democrats" who were foolishly increasing our budget. Now, the neo-conservative policy of "cut-income-and-spend-vastly-more" is revealed to be an even more foolish policy. One TRILLION dollars added to the deficit by the Bush administration in three years. This years budget has a deficit of over $500 million dollars! This is an major issue to a lot of moderates, amigo. It has always been an issue and you guys need to understand it and get some better answers. The red herring is the Kerry war record mudslinging.
you havent explained why government debt is bad. where is the flip flop. we always claim that taxes are bad. i am discussing how much i think extra spending and debt cripples the economy. i am not saying piling up a debt is good. i am saying i am not convinced that spending more than you have is bad. you have said we were "paying off" the deficit under clinton. that didnt seem all that painful to the economy. all that seems clear to me is that taxes are bad. here are some questions: 1. apparently 40% of the debt, the government owes to itself. why is that bad for the economy? 2. lets say in the future we do not raise taxes, but cut government services to "pay off' the debt. why does that cripple us worse than the getting free services we didnt pay for in the past helped us? is the government charging itself huge interest rates for the money it owes itself? in fact how come getting the services or ionvestment or infrastructure earlier in time would not help us to develop the economy? 3. is whoever we owe this debt to charging insane interest rates? if not, then owing money is surely a good decision, because of inflation we can pay back the money when it is worth less, correct? red, it just seems like a kinda assumption based on nothing to claim debt is bad. i would be willing to believe it, but as of now i see no reason to. i do however know that raising taxes is bad, because every dollar taken from us, including the evil rich corporations, is less money changing hands and spurring the economy.
The Washington Post explains it very well. A Bad Way to Cut the Debt Inflation, clearly. Many a South American country just loaned money to itself, blithely printing pesos with insufficent resources to back it up. Result: runaway inflation and devaluing of the currency. We haven't had to deal with inflation since the late 1970s, and many people have forgotten. It makes planning impossible. And inflation snowballs as everybody tries to beat it. Double-digit inflation, unchecked, will soar until the currency is destroyed. if you're living within your current means and borrowing only to cover the interest payments, your debts will compound. Some future government, which practices fiscal discipline, will have to produce budget surpluses not only to cover their own expenses but to pick up the unpaid expenses of the spendthrift current government. Fiscal discipline now -- a balanced budget -- makes much more sense. Well, yes. But it's far more complex than that. Interests rates are set by the market. Investors are not fools and will demand higher interest rates if they know that the government is going to inflate the currency. That is actually happening now. Then the government ratchets it up another level, the investors compensate and the inflationary spiral continues until the breaking point where inflation must be reigned in, sometimes painfully by very high interest rates. The taxpayer suffers. The notion of fiscal responsibility is very basic and is not based on "nothing". It is a fundamental concept going back to the dawn of money. If you spend more than you take in, you are irresponsibly flirting with crushing debt and bankruptcy. Loans are useful to cover deficits created by the fluctuations that happen from year to year and non-recurring expenses, but must be balanced with budget surpluses in equal levels to work as advertised. Another economic miracle would be nice, an explosion of productivity that increases tax revenue painlessly as in the Clinton 1990s. But instead, the current administration has raised government spending drammatically, while cutting taxes drammatically and predictably the economy has not responded and the debt soars. Cutting taxes is great, but only when accompanied by cutting costs and services. Continual, annual planned deficits resulting in a national debt rising on an exponential curve is folly on an unbelieveable scale. It is short-term apparent benefits paid for by long-term loss of prosperity. Cutting taxes during wartime is astonishingly irresponsible and unprecedented. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt addressed the people, told them they were at war and what it was going to cost. He told the public that the war was going to be paid through "taxes and war bonds" and so it was. Each of us paying our fair share. The Iraq war is not being paid for at all. It is being put off. It will eventually be paid for by future American generations through diminished prosperity.
is that true? this passage was written by kenneth judd, a stanford economist: "First, the United States is not in fiscal distress. U.S. debt equals only a third of its $10 trillion annual national income, a small ratio by international standards. Even fiscally conservative Germany has debt equal to 60 percent of its national income. The strong U.S. economy and fiscal system make it possible to finance a much larger national debt without resorting to inflation. Second, the Volcker and Greenspan regimes at the Federal Reserve have given the United States a credible, low-inflation monetary policy....These arguments are supported by the facts. Historical patterns indicate at most a weak relation between national debt and interest rates." and the debt is only a third of our annual income? that is fantastic! everyone i know would love it if their debt was only a third of their annual income. all of my friends that have bought homes have may times more debt than that, just on their homes. you seem to enjoy applying national debt rules to simple indivual fiscal responsibility rules, so by that standard, we are just fine. but that isnt what we are doing. aww crap i just got a phone call and have to go before finishing this wonderful post. i will have to knock out the rest of what i had to say later.
red is a good guy, just not very smart. who cares? he thinks he is and that is rather funny nonetheless. he is a typical half-informed genius. good to see him.
