America is at war.
We have been since Bin Laden declared war on the west.
We are not winning.
Cutting defense spending when we are at war is irresponsible.

Government takes almost half of the GDP now. State and local government take a bit over 20%, the feds get 20%. That should be more than enough to secure our country and provide necessary services.

We can balance the budget by cutting fraud and waste, but it will take an attitude change on the part of government employees.

 

Utter horseshit. Becoming more lean and more efficient is at least as responsible as pouring hundreds of billions of dollars at a war machine that has been less than effective. This from the guy with utopian ideas of how a future Korean peninsula might look. Seriously, dig in and take a close look at how our DoD has managed the funds they get over the last couple of decades. If you're not upset about it, I suggest your supposed patriotism is an apparition of partisan circle-jerkery.

Again with the fantasy tales. Show me! Do the math or cut-n-paste something from anywhere that shows the math about how "cutting fraud and waste" will balance the budget. That is the worst kind of economic lie. Besides the fact that even if you did somehow manage to balance the budget with your miracle cure of cutting fraud and waste, how are you going to reverse the debt spiral?

Show me the fiscal path to this solution and you will have a vocal and vehement champion of your cause. Until then, you're as full of shit as the rest of them - and apparently unashamedly so.

 

First of all, shooter never said DOD doesn't have fraud and waste. His point was, we forget we are at war, and cuttimg defense spending is irrespomsible while we are at war.

Getting at the debt is like losing weight. Strip away all the marketing spin and it comes down to; spend less tax more.

Shooter believes 20% of federal budgets are fraud and waste. The feds are the biggest buyers of office furniture, while we have warehouses full of used government furniture. We spend more money on computer software than any other single entity, but our major computer systems are 10 year old programs.

 

The known examples of waste and fraud are available on google.

If we can balance the budget just by eliminating waste and fraud Americans will be more likely to agree to higher taxes to pay off the debt.

And dedicated funded programs like social security should properly be managed outside the federal budget process. McConnell is wrong; we don't have to do anything with "entitlements" to balance the budget and pay off the debt.

 

You have to excuse OT, he’s actively courting sublady, so he’s prone to grandstanding. There is no government program that is free of waste and fraud, period.

 

Can't show the numbers, either one of you, as expected.

shooter can't even comprehend the math that a 20% across the board cut, without any cuts to DoD, will not even get us to break-even, let alone address the debt.

I don't believe either of you actually care, any further than your partisan rhetoric will carry you, which in this case is not very far.

Sad

 

George the Lesser had six years with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress to balance the budget while cutting taxes by cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse." Don the Con has had a year and a half with Republican majorities in Congress.

The reason they did not do it is because it is not possible. What some people consider to be "waste, fraud, and abuse," others consider to be necessary.

Most Americans can think of government spending programs they do not like. I would eliminate farm subsidies to agribusiness and business subsidies. I would like to slash spending for the United States Department of Offense. Nevertheless, there are no big ticket items that 51% of the voters want to cut or eliminate.

 

If you make deep cuts in defense spending you will cause layoffs and a rise in unemployment. A lot of defense contractors and companies like Boeing, GE, Raytheon, Hewlett-Packard, Textron, ITT Exelis, Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, United Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumann, Lockheed Martin and many more represent millions of well paying US jobs.

So you tell me Old Tool, how many people are you willing to put in the unemployment line?

 

Cutting taxes while raising offense spending is irresponsible.

In The Art of War Sun Tzu wrote, "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare."

After 9/11 the United States should have concentrated on the goal of locating and capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. As soon as that was achieved we should have left. Instead, George the Lesser thought he could establish pro American and pro capitalist governments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Well, it did not happen. The people of Afghanistan and Iraq are not would be Americans. We do not understand their values. They deplore our values. They do not want to become like us.

Saddam was not responsible for 9/11. Al Qaeda was more of a threat to him than to us.

When it is obvious that we have made a mistake it is time to stop making it. If we had done that much earlier in Vietnam we would not have had to flee, clinging to our helicopters.

 

Cutting taxes while raising offense spending is irresponsible.

In The Art of War Sun Tzu wrote, "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare."

After 9/11 the United States should have concentrated on the goal of locating and capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. As soon as that was achieved we should have left. Instead, George the Lesser thought he could establish pro American and pro capitalist governments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Well, it did not happen. The people of Afghanistan and Iraq are not would be Americans. We do not understand their values. They deplore our values. They do not want to become like us.

Saddam was not responsible for 9/11. Al Qaeda was more of a threat to him than to us.

When it is obvious that we have made a mistake it is time to stop making it. If we had done that much earlier in Vietnam we would not have had to flee, clinging to our helicopters.

I want the United States to become weak enough that U.S. presidents are not tempted to start unnecessary wars.

 

The point is to prove you and the other alleged "conservatives" are just glaring hypocrites and liars that preach one thing if a Democrat is in office but as soon as Trump gets in and the Republicans control both Houses of Congress you switch 180 degrees because the only true value "conservatives" have is just winning at all costs.

Just exactly what you have been doing since you first days on this forum.

And it is actually necessary to go through you entire history to document the constant drum beat that deficits were terrible when Obama was president but not that its your guy Trump and you control the government suddenly none of that matters.

 

Okay shooters you win, stumbles loves you more than me. Too bad he still doesn't understand how he validates what we say.

 

The right wants to see Medicare and Social Security ended one way or another, and to do so they will do as much to destroy them as possible, from cutting the funds available for them to privatizing them and deregulating the industry that controls the funds s o that they can drain the accounts to declare them defunct.

 

And obama had 8 years to comtrol spending. He not only didn't, he comtributed more to the debt than EVERY PRESIDENT BEFORE HIM. combined.

Getting spending under control can't be done with a meat axe. It can only be done when government minions get with the program.

The alternative is to raise taxes, which congress and government minions would love, cause you know, more to spend, more power.

Fuck em.
They work for us.
Thats our damn money.

 

The voters want higher taxes on the rich and corporations, and more domestic spending, especially for health care.

 

OK, you economic whiz kids, @tenguy & @shootersa - since you were too lazy to do the math you propose, I did it for you:



Congratulations - you're still spending $425 BILLION more than you take in, and the interest payments on your debt service (which went up 9% last year) are going to go up 11% this year. What a great plan! Of course you're going to have to explain to your pal, @CS natureboy about the difference between waste& fraud cuts and layoffs

Don't worry - your buddies on the right will explain to you how to get this done with putting your military friends on the food line.

 

You could have made the same claim about the following presidents:

Roosevelt (F)
Nixon
Carter
Reagan
Bush Sr.
Bush Jr.

Trump is on pace to out-do Obama as well in this regard, and frankly I do not see a reasonable budgetary path out of this debt spiral, regardless of the chutzpah of any current president or Budget Committee congressperson(s).

 

BTW, the money owed to the government is still borne by the public, the Social Security Trust fund is an example. The fund belongs to those who contributed and who expect to be paid benefits from, therefore that little number, just $6 trillion, is really public debt.

 

OK, I will play your game, since the spreadsheet is already in place:



Congratulations, you have a budget surplus for one year of $78.8 billion! Nicely done. Now, assuming you apply the entire surplus to paying off the existing debt, and can maintain this pattern for 274.8 years, you'll have paid off our creditors and created a secure free world.

 

And now as promised another great preacher to the lie of conservatism. But unfortunately I am going tol have to break it up into multiple posts because it keeps saying there are more than 1o images even after I have deleted every image I can see.

ending"? Where have you been the last 7+ years???[/QUOTE]