Yes, and I'm sure Reagan wouldn't have deficit spent if it wasn't for that pesky Cold War, too.

One of the biggest contributors to the deficit in terms of key policy decisions was the invasion of Iraq, which had absolutely NOTHING to do with 9/11, regardless if you agree with the invasion or not. You can speculate all you want, but the truth is pretty evident - most presidents regardless of party deficit spend, sometimes because it's good to do it, sometimes because it enabled them to get the policies they want.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The question that can't be answered is whether Bush would've spent like the amateur liberal he is without 9-11.

9/11 Motivated Excessive Fiscal Spending

The wars are a tiny portion of the debt.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-war-on-terror-costs_n_856390.html

"If Congress also approves the president’s FY2012 war-funding request, the cumulative cost of post-9/11 operations would reach $1.415 trillion"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

"As of October 22, 2011, the gross debt was $14.94 trillion."

This is not even addressing the point that the Iraq war had nothing to do with 9/11. You're going to have to explain your lack of conservative bona fides when Bush was in power another way.

Banks should have been allowed to fail

Not bailing out the banks would have trashed the economy. When banks fail, financing dries up, businesses can't meet their short term cash flow requirements and they default. The economy collapses. The end. It doesn't matter how you're ideologically attuned to government assistance in times of crisis, that this would have happened is simply a fact.

Better yet follow it through further. When banks collapse, without federal deposit insurance, individuals lose their personal savings. How far would you follow through your rigid and impractical ideological principles? Would you say free markets dictate they lose their savings for the bad judgement of those in the financial services industry.

Keynesian Fiscal Policy Works

Every other major economy is doing it. Take a look at how much China spent and how it's barely sputtered in growth. Every economist worth a damn is saying the US is not spending enough to prop up the economy. That whatever you're reading is drawing a comparison FDR rather than you know, something in the last 50 years should tell you they're full of the BS.

If you go back and read forecasts for unemployment before Obama was inaugurated, none of them expected to fall significantly or quickly in a short period of it. The prolonged European debt crisis has exacerbated that. Unemployment falling marginally is not evidence that stimulus spending does not work.

Look, what is it about fiscal spending that you don't understand? Economic uncertainty in Europe. Businesses don't know what demand will be like, so they sit on their money instead of investing or hiring more workers. Countries face that risk that as they wait, short term unemployed become long term unemployed because they've been out of the workforce and skills atrophy. So they spend in the short term to keep people employed or incentive through deductions for companies to hire. Tax cuts improve returns marginally. Spending to keep people employed reduces the cost of social services in the long-long term from people being shunned out of the workforce. You spend but you make your money back over time.

It's simple. And it makes perfect logical sense.

How is it that hard to understand?

The rest

I'll be honest, your writing manner makes you look stupid when you're trying to make factual arguments. Have you seen a newspaper article or dissertation written like this? No. Exactly.

FYI, I live in Australia. We have free hospital visits, virtually no government debt, almost record low unemployment and we never went into a recession. Funnily enough Keynesian fiscal policy works over here, must be an anomaly though.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The question that can't be answered is whether Bush would've spent like the amateur liberal he is without 9-11. There was plenty of criticism leveled at Bush by the right during his tenure. The left was so focused on ensuring America lost in Iraq it didn't have time to thank Bush for rubber stamping all of their usual failed social "programs".
The failouts and scamulus sealed Bush 43's legacy as a failure. Everyone should've been "allowed" to fail.
Now enter His Earness. Questionable background, no experience, gets shunted through by obeisant media fawns. Tries the same Keynesian BS that FDR did with predictable results. As FDR's antics prolonged the Depression by a decade, so His Earness has spent and spent with nothing to show for it but enormous new debt (and no WW2 to save his bacon). Now this regime's media says with a straight face that the scamuli "prevented even worse unemployment". Hippie PLEASE.
We've now had six years of Taxocrats running Congress...what's better now than before?
You are going to have to defend the indefensible next year. Be sure to vote November 3rd.




>> ^RedSky:
@quantumushroom
QM, my problem with your point of view is throughout Bush's term, you didn't appear to have any issues with his profligacy as he (and the Republican congress at the time) pushed through bill after a bill that took the country massively into debt. Now your concerns are presumably that in the worst economic crisis in 60 years, the Democrat government is spending too much to prop up the economy and prevent the skills of the short term unemployment stagnating and turning into the long term unemployed dependent on social benefits.
Where are your standards here?
Or your consistency?

subsidizing big business friends that don't need the subsidy or tax break may be the place to look for that

Places like Illinois, California, Wisconsin, and New Jersey are not facing fiscal black-holes because they are paying too much in subsidies to ‘big business friends’. The main problem is that they have promised government workers a gold-plated lifestyle when they only had a copper-plated budget. You could end every ‘big business’ tax break, subsidy, and kickback tomorrow and it would not even make a dent in the budget shortfalls of states like Illinois. The problem is government over-spending. Here it is in black and white. This isn’t ‘left or right’. This isn’t ‘liberal or conservative’. This is just the brutal, harsh, cold reality…

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Illinois_state_budget#Public_Employees

You will notice that Illinois’ budget is NOT dominated by a big line item of ‘subsidies to big business’. The budget is dominated by government spending on unions, union benefits, and entitlements. The only way to ‘fix’ such a budget is to cut the spending. Really. Because for every 12 people living in Illinois, there is one full-time salaried government worker pulling a higher wage, more benefits, and a better retirement than the people paying for him. Such a system is economically impossible to support. And there is plenty of evidence that such systems will ALWAYS collapse because of ineffiency. Greece, Italy, Portugal – entire nations are collapsing because of exactly the same problem. And that problem is the poison of Keynesian economics propping up an impossibly lavish public sector.

That's basically my point, this country has plenty of money, it just does it's that people are greedy as **** so they're going to say that only THIS slice of the pie is available for you guys

You are talking as if the public sector is NOT getting its ‘piece of the pie’…

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/09/14/study-finds-public-employee-compensation-better-than-private-sector.html

http://www.aei.org/docLib/AEI-Working-Paper-on-Federal-Pay-May-2011.pdf

It's just not true, public service unions have nothing to do with the crisis, when you look at the fact that we're in two Wars and spend double what the entire world spends on the armed forces

To say public unions have 'nothing' to do with the economic shortfalls is just factually incorrect. The links above prove it. Illinois has entire sections of its budget dominated by union issues, and union contracts repeatedly block any attempts at reform.

But regardless... Sure. Cut federal defense spending. And while we are at it, we should also cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and every other program. Cut them all. Slash them by 33% across the board. No exceptions. No mercy. But anyone that thinks that the only place we need to cut is ‘defense’ and that’ll fix it all it living in a dream world.

For example – how is cutting defense spending going to help Illinois? Or California? Or New Jersey? Or let’s take it national. Greece’s defense spending was a measley 3.4%. Explain how they would solve their massive budget shortfall by cutting defense. Or the US… Even if you cut US defense spending to zero, our current deficit is over 1.4 trillion. Defense to zero? 700 billion. Only HALF of just the deficit. It doesn’t even touch the 14 trillion in debt the nation already has. Or the further SEVENTY trillion in debt we have to cover all the 'unfunded liabilites' of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

At some point all the prog-libs out there are going to have to accept the facts. You can’t close the massive budget shortfalls that cities, states, and nations have with defense cuts. The problem is not defense. It is not ‘big business’. The problem is that governments are overspending on unsustainable public employee packages and entitlements that have no reasonable expecation of ever being paid for.

The question that can't be answered is whether Bush would've spent like the amateur liberal he is without 9-11. There was plenty of criticism leveled at Bush by the right during his tenure. The left was so focused on ensuring America lost in Iraq it didn't have time to thank Bush for rubber stamping all of their usual failed social "programs".

The failouts and scamulus sealed Bush 43's legacy as a failure. Everyone should've been "allowed" to fail.

Now enter His Earness. Questionable background, no experience, gets shunted through by obeisant media fawns. Tries the same Keynesian BS that FDR did with predictable results. As FDR's antics prolonged the Depression by a decade, so His Earness has spent and spent with nothing to show for it but enormous new debt (and no WW2 to save his bacon). Now this regime's media says with a straight face that the scamuli "prevented even worse unemployment". Hippie PLEASE.

We've now had six years of Taxocrats running Congress...what's better now than before?

You are going to have to defend the indefensible next year. Be sure to vote November 3rd.








>> ^RedSky:

@quantumushroom
QM, my problem with your point of view is throughout Bush's term, you didn't appear to have any issues with his profligacy as he (and the Republican congress at the time) pushed through bill after a bill that took the country massively into debt. Now your concerns are presumably that in the worst economic crisis in 60 years, the Democrat government is spending too much to prop up the economy and prevent the skills of the short term unemployment stagnating and turning into the long term unemployed dependent on social benefits.
Where are your standards here?
Or your consistency?

http://videosift.com/video/Herman-Cains-9-9-9-plan-Occupy-Wall-Street

@~1:15 "If you take a look at a wealthy person, ALL of the money that is earned... is ultimately going to be spent."

This trickles down how? Be either spending/investing in consumer goods or publicly traded ventures/securities? That's such a weak correlation and yet he makes it sound like it's a foregone conclusion. What about overseas tax shelters and foreign investments? What about the knee-jerk reaction of Wall Street investors to see stock and hold onto cash when the market dips? He does not provide a complete explanation.

. . .


@~2:30 "That money is used to grow the economy, to produce goods, to provide services, to create jobs... they're not using it to benefit themselves, they're using it to benefit society."

Sarcasm -> So when rich people buy things, they aren't doing enjoying it. That's why we say "money can't buy happiness." When they buy that 12th sports car, they're taking on that hardship for their country. Weep. <- end sarcasm. The rest of us need to buy stuff too, and as wages for the middle and lower income majority stagnate or worse, the top tier has enjoyed a boom.
. . .

@~4:10 "Any money that is diverted from savings [read as equities and bond investments in the domestic market] to government is money that would have been used to produce private sector jobs and grow the economy and instead the money goes to the government."

He states that liberals miss the bigger picture when they argue that the top should pay more taxes. He goes on here to describe the government is a black hole, where all taxes are simply wasted. What about social security, medicare and the damn debt? Honestly, it astounds me that he doesn't make the connection between the generally accepted idea that the debt needs to be paid but instead of taxing from more from the most successful individuals, he seems to side with the Republican fiscal policy of accomplishing this through budget cuts alone. This is a contributing factor to global perception America's quality of life: it doesn't even make the top 10 anymore in the Nation Ranking Quality of Life Index.

. . .

@~10:30 "The protesters [OWS] should be protesting the White House. Capital Hill... That's what's failed them. It's not Captialism, but the lack of Capitalism."

So the government is too big, and we need to cut spending and stop over regulating so Capitalism can frolic freely in the forest. Sounds so me like hasty Obama blaming. I think the mortgage-backed securities practices and resulting global crisis are a perfect example of unfettered Capitalism at work. Republicans can't have it both ways, no matter how matter-of-fact you say it. This fallacy is a major sticking point for me and a major contributor to my personal ideological opposition to the Republican viewpoint. All allegations of racism aside, ignoring the shocking gun toting and violent rhetoric of hard-line Tea Party demonstrators, saving all the ridiculous comments made by the GOP candidates recently, I just see the party trying to hide their allegiance to corporations. They do this by forming ludicrous allusions to "the State-run death camps" and distracting people from the real issue of wealth disparity by talking about inflammatory topics like "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

I don't even blindly follow the Democratic dogma. They can't come out of this squeaky clean either. I'd wager they're just about as pampered and subsequently influenced by lobbyists as their Republican counterparts, although they seem to maintain their "just and true, pro-underdog" image to a large extent. I hope OWS results in the end of this corporate crony-ism.

>> ^quantumushroom:

If Cain is such a non-threat, why is this regime's loyal media trying so desperately to sink him (while actively covering up Obama's many gaffes as well as the regime's failures of the last 3 years)?
Which just goes to show...something...about conservatives in the US. It hurts my head to try to figure out what.
Success, jobs, prosperity, national pride. Yeah, they'll remain distant memories as long as socialists are in power.

>> ^TheFreak:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Wow, this obviously proves Cain is not up to the job.
It took 3 (now almost 4) years of failure and the left still doesn't know Obama isn't up to the job.

And yet Herman Cain, the man aspiring to be President who is uninformed about Medicare issues...the man who wants to be leader of the free world who fears China may develop nuclear capabilities...the man who's strongest held beliefs, he has "no facts to support"....THAT man, is still rising in the GOP presidential polls.
Which just goes to show...something...about conservatives in the US. It hurts my head to try to figure out what.



because success, jobs, prosperity, and national pride did so well under a recent Republican President?
lol

now don't get me wrong, I realize alot of American's have national pride... its just too bad what they have pride in just doesn't jive with reality...

"We're #1" is only applicable to 3 things in regards to America...

military spending, national debt, and rate of transfer of wealth from poor/middle class to the rich

go unfettered capitalism!!!

Seriously?! LOL...

>> ^quantumushroom:

Wow, this obviously proves Cain is not up to the job.
It took 3 (now almost 4) years of failure and the left still doesn't know Obama isn't up to the job.

If Cain is such a non-threat, why is this regime's loyal media trying so desperately to sink him (while actively covering up Obama's many gaffes as well as the regime's failures of the last 3 years)?

Which just goes to show...something...about conservatives in the US. It hurts my head to try to figure out what.

Success, jobs, prosperity, national pride. Yeah, they'll remain distant memories as long as socialists are in power.


>> ^TheFreak:

>> ^quantumushroom:
Wow, this obviously proves Cain is not up to the job.
It took 3 (now almost 4) years of failure and the left still doesn't know Obama isn't up to the job.

And yet Herman Cain, the man aspiring to be President who is uninformed about Medicare issues...the man who wants to be leader of the free world who fears China may develop nuclear capabilities...the man who's strongest held beliefs, he has "no facts to support"....THAT man, is still rising in the GOP presidential polls.
Which just goes to show...something...about conservatives in the US. It hurts my head to try to figure out what.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Wow, this obviously proves Cain is not up to the job.
It took 3 (now almost 4) years of failure and the left still doesn't know Obama isn't up to the job.


And yet Herman Cain, the man aspiring to be President who is uninformed about Medicare issues...the man who wants to be leader of the free world who fears China may develop nuclear capabilities...the man who's strongest held beliefs, he has "no facts to support"....THAT man, is still rising in the GOP presidential polls.

Which just goes to show...something...about conservatives in the US. It hurts my head to try to figure out what.

@heropsycho I largely agree with that, but I also think there's a bit too much of a tendency for the left to undercut their own messaging.

For example, the Ryan plan involved changing Medicare from a single-payer insurance program, into a set of vouchers that seniors could use to buy private insurance.

Democrats said this would "end Medicare." They're right.

However, for some reason, Democrats listened to the people who said that it doesn't end Medicare, it reforms it.

So Dem's changed their messaging and said this would "end Medicare as we know it", but still people nitpicked, and they added more and more caveats, until they finally just dropped it entirely.

Good job. Rather than cutting through the bullshit and saying the real truth (Republicans want to end Medicare, and Paul Ryan's plan will do it) in a succinct and powerful way, you have this overly hedged weasely sounding soundbite that has been effectively de-fanged by the left trying to make their attack ads stand up to some sort of academic standard of intellectual honesty.

Most people don't think that hard about this stuff. There's a time and a place for a more nuanced takedown of the Ryan plan, but for a 30-second attack add, it should be "Republicans want to End Medicare". You don't want nuance, you want blunt, emotional messages that cut to the real truth of the matter.

So yeah, Romney says he doesn't want to "dismantle" Medicare, he says he wants to give people the ability to opt-out...which experts say would undermine the single-payer part, and eventually lead to its collapse. And very recently, he's started talking up the Ryan Plan, which would end Medicare.

So does that make it "utter BS"? No, I say the utter BS when Romney tells people he wants to preserve the idea that our government must take care of the health care costs of seniors.

I have a similar take on people on the left criticizing Obama. It's good to keep it real about what he's doing, and not try to pretend he's something he's not. But it doesn't help if liberals go out and buy into the right-wing frame that Obama is the source of everything that's wrong in America right now, especially when that isn't even remotely true.

Obama can't win unless liberals support him. If they don't, then whatever clown the Republicans nominate will be President, and they'll wind up with both chambers of Congress too. I guess that'll teach him to be a moderate!

Or I could quote a myriad of things Obama said when running for office and either didn't do or did the exact opposite. Promising change through appointing different people than those who had been there, but then appointing Summers, Geithner, etc. He needed guys who understood the economy to deal with the crisis, even if they wouldn't institute radical change to get us through the crisis.

It's called politics. Candidates say things to get elected, and they end up doing something else for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's outright pandering, sometimes they realize their initial conceptions were wrong, etc.

And I don't mean this as an anti-Obama statement, because a lot of politicians have said things but did another, and they ended up being good presidents. Bush Sr. with his "read my lips, no new taxes" bit, got into office, realized he had to raise taxes for the good of the country, and he did it. I'd rather him reverse directions once he realized it was a bad idea than stick to his guns stubbornly.

But anyone who can read between the lines and isn't an ideologue knows Romney isn't looking to eradicate Medicare. And the funny thing is I don't particularly even like Romney! LOL...

I'm not cynical and hopeless. I'm ideally hoping of a return of the time when Americans would actually have honest, open debate instead of this crap. And I guess that's my point. There's too much activism and too little honest discussion in our society when it comes to politics.

P.S. Since you're obviously a big Obama supporter, we're well aware you're "all ears." BOOM! :-) (Sorry, had to beat qm to the punch.)

>> ^NetRunner:

Do I try to google Mitt Romney and medicare, and start linking it?

My goodness. Quite the target rich environment.

Let's see, do I try to reach out to someone who thinks Wall Street is an innocent victim of the Federal government?

Do I try to engage yet another person who's saying "oh yeah, well Obama sucks too!" as if that's some justification for sitting out the next election?

Do I try to google Mitt Romney and medicare, and start linking it?

I shouldn't feel this weary -- it's not even 2012 yet.

Get used to seeing me doing what I can to help the people who say the things I like win elections over people who say things I hate.

If any of you have some better idea about how to change things, I'm all ears. If you just want to sit around and pat yourselves on the back for being hopeless and cynical, let me know that too, and I won't waste my breath responding.

Oh, what utter BS. Medicare dismantled?! He freakin' provided the blueprint for the most recent health care reform! I'm not a Romney fan, but cut the crap. Getting really freaking tired of this kind of stuff. What ever happened in this country to even a sliver of honest discussion?

"Mitt Romney has a vision.

Wall Street... UNREGULATED
Main Street... ISOLATED
The Middle Class... DECIMATED
American jobs... RELOCATED
Supreme Court... STACKED
Social Security... PRIVATIZED
Medicare... DISMANTLED
Planned Parenthood... DEFUNDED
Global Warming... IGNORED
College Aid... SLASHED
Health Insurance Reform... REPEALED

Mitt Romney's America is not our America."

I think anyone can look at those graphs and see there is a problem. A very small group of people are rising above the rest and there's just no way this whole country can function with just that small group of people's skill set, earnings and knowledge. They want the money and the power, but the responsibility falls to "everyone" when it comes to keeping infrastructure and protections in place to safely keep their wealth rolling in.

If the laws weren't being enforced, what would keep the large group of people from simply taking everything from that small group of people?

Yet on the other side of it, why are policies being changed in favor of the rich at a substantial cost to the rest?

What will they do when a jury of your peers won't convict you no matter what you do as long as it's against a politician or 1% member?

Policies, laws, and infrastructure benefit us all, but I think those 1% get a much bigger benefit of not having everything simply taken from them by the 99%, yet they keep toying with policy and causing market instability and blaming the 99%s protections (unions, ss, welfare, medicare, medicaid, etc).

*lies

Reich is lying here.

Nobody actually ever paid the outrageous high marginal tax rates that libs like him try to look back to.

When the high marginal tax bracket was lowered by Reagan, he (and this is important) also eliminated tax shelters and loopholes.

Medicare is also not "cheaper than private insurance". Though if people want to pay $12k/year for Medicare, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to enroll in it if they want to.

Don't listen to the 4th Reich.