>> ^quantumushroom:

"Simpsons animator weighs in." They've all been "weighing in" as pro-taxocrat liberals since back when the show used to be funny, in 1995.
There was never any "surplus", which would mean the national debt was zero.
Tax cuts won't work if you keep spending more than is/can be taken in.
Who really pays the taxes? 70% of all taxes are paid by the wealthy while 50% of Americans pay no federal income tax.
"Deregulation" caused the housing crisis? Bullsh1t.
The short answer to why this sift is bunkum? Europe. That's the socialism American taxocrats want. How has it worked out over there?


I'm sorry QM, sometimes I totally get your arguments. The fact is though that the American people wouldn't vote Republican (or Democrat) if they knew they could be voting FOR their interests and not for a PR Bullshit show. Both parties are significantly to the Right of the Public, on almost every issue down the list. The people are supposed to stay out of running the country, we're not supposed to have a say. Because if we did suddenly the Banks would be regulated. Our Foreign Policy would not include having bases all over the world trying to control it. Nafta wouldn't fucking exist and everyone would have health care and free education. People would own and work the factories in their towns and it wouldn't be run by some faceless corporate entity. Life would be what we make of it, if this was a functioning democracy.

Also Simpsons was funny until 98 stupid! Everybody knows that!!! Well a few episodes were at least.

You are confusing a budget surplus with the national debt. Two completely different things. >> ^quantumushroom:
There was never any "surplus", which would mean the national debt was zero.

>> ^quantumushroom:

"Simpsons animator weighs in." They've all been "weighing in" as pro-taxocrat liberals since back when the show used to be funny, in 1995.
There was never any "surplus", which would mean the national debt was zero.
Tax cuts won't work if you keep spending more than is/can be taken in.
Who really pays the taxes? 70% of all taxes are paid by the wealthy while 50% of Americans pay no federal income tax.
"Deregulation" caused the housing crisis? Bullsh1t.
The short answer to why this sift is bunkum? Europe. That's the socialism American taxocrats want. How has it worked out over there?


Your avatar is really ironic

"Simpsons animator weighs in." They've all been "weighing in" as pro-taxocrat liberals since back when the show used to be funny, in 1995.

There was never any "surplus", which would mean the national debt was zero.

Tax cuts won't work if you keep spending more than is/can be taken in.

Who really pays the taxes? 70% of all taxes are paid by the wealthy while 50% of Americans pay no federal income tax.

"Deregulation" caused the housing crisis? Bullsh1t.

The short answer to why this sift is bunkum? Europe. That's the socialism American taxocrats want. How has it worked out over there?

Oh look, a video proving Mitt's a conservative. How is this news? Another distraction from the liberal media away from the high unemployment, high national debt and failed Middle East policies. All brought to you by Obama, blamer in chief.

So... protesting against government's excessive spending and taxes, and wanting to reduce the national debt, and budget deficit with a constitutionally limited government = Taliban


Yeah... makes sense.


Let's gather the most abhorrent quotes from people never involved with the foundation of the movement, and make loose associations that have little to do with its expressed agenda, and voilà... TALIBAN!

Now we can hate them without critical thinking, THANK YOU NEWSROOM!

>> ^lantern53:

Makes you wonder why so many are interested in whether Obama was born in the US when there are so many more important things to be concerned about, such as the national debt, the economy, foreign relations, why Ronan Farrow makes $115,000 a year pushing 'global youth issues' when the youth here in the US are chronically unemployed, why Democrats are avoiding their convention, Obama's 'laser-like' focus on jobs (lol), his record-setting golf outings and fund-raisers, why he won't meet with CIA chiefs or even his cabinet...
so much to be concerned about...


I'll say it again...change his skin color and name, leave his policies and actions exactly as they have been. Drop Obama 15 years in the past, and the Republicans would hail him as their conquering hero, the new incarnation of Saint Reagan.

His every action is that of a big-business Republican. His healthcare reform...a Republican-created plan. His economic advisors, from Goldman-Sachs and Wall Street, every one. His handling of the wars...nothing changed, just keep pumping money to the mega-corps we hired on no-bid contracts.

He IS a Republican, in all ways that matter. But to the Republicans, apparently the only ways that matter are skin color, a funny sounding name, and that he claims to be a Democrat. Actions are meaningless and count for nothing to them.

Makes you wonder why so many are interested in whether Obama was born in the US when there are so many more important things to be concerned about, such as the national debt, the economy, foreign relations, why Ronan Farrow makes $115,000 a year pushing 'global youth issues' when the youth here in the US are chronically unemployed, why Democrats are avoiding their convention, Obama's 'laser-like' focus on jobs (lol), his record-setting golf outings and fund-raisers, why he won't meet with CIA chiefs or even his cabinet...

so much to be concerned about...

>> ^Boise_Lib:

I got to 1:48 where he said, "Liberals say tax the rich and that will do it."
Umm...I don't remember ANYONE saying that that is enough. It's not.
Cut military spending DRASTICALLY!! AND tax the rich and corporations.
To be fair @surfingyt doesn't say if he thinks this is true, he (she?) just posted a video.
@GenjiKilpatrick -- No, he hasn't stopped his "self-help" racket.
He's helping himself to a big ol' bag of PAC money.
Downvote.


I agree that cutting military spending is an area that does need to be addressed quite seriously, not sure what it is now, but last i heard it was more than 2 Trillion a year (correct me if wrong).
If the military is still contracting out to those $$companies that suck up the funding and do stupid wasteful stuff like buying/building new trucks instead of repairing few-month old trucks because they make a bigger profit, then that needs to stop immediately.. military's should not be privatized like that.

In saying that I also think it's unwise to take out all the government armed forces funding as a country still needs to defend itself for it's citizens security, especially if they've pissed off a bunch of other nations. But the extent of the funding the US engages in is well past an obsessive degree and needs to be pulled into line.

Large corporations being taxed at low rates and in a lot of cases not even being audited for tax evasion (as TYT mentioned recently) is disgusting when the poor get smashed by taxes and audits.

>> ^surfingyt:

Agreed. I liked the way he visualized the deficit and compared it against the calendar. One thing that caught my attention was he suggested bringing all the troops home, which I use daily as an example of useless spending, and that barely made a dent in the calendar. I (a he @Boise_Lib) posted for the discussion and possible votes (and downvotes).
>> ^Sepacore:
I understand the straw-man point and not disagreeing, will state that this is a completely unrealistic strategy imo and those that may talk up the general idea anywhere near the extreme Robbins was so as to make a point, i don't feel they've thought about it too much.
However, despite the level's of bs that's twisted into this, it did give me a bit of an idea of what effect doing 1 extreme (taxing) would have. Would very much like to see a comparative going the other way and focusing on cutting spending. The combination of both would give me a greater idea of what the situation actually is and what extremes would be advisable.
Regardless, upvote simply because the numbers were interestingly/entertainingly effective at keeping my attention, and although the numbers mostly seemed plausibly likely (even though some were simply unattainable) to my naive level of knowledge on this subject (haven't researched it, not planning to), some numbers are so drastically high, that the representation of them against the calendar left me stunned.
I'm left with the idea that taxing + cutting + appealing to the rich (yeah i know, don't get rich by giving your money away) is the only way forward.



Yeah, good topic imo for some open discussion about various thoughts on the overall subject of the Debt and Deficit. It's not an easy fix by any means, and I'm curious and would like to see some takes on the various ideas re difficult decisions that ultimately need to be made to chip away at such an unfathomable number.

1 expense i don't think should be cut is education as it's the foundation of improving infrastructure and advancing a country's capabilities, and NASA funding for much the same reason + I'm bias and love cosmology and the study of the universe.

(I like how Boise_Lib didn't actually downvote your video, just typed the word for reference to show disagreement to Robbins one-sided presentation)

Agreed. I liked the way he visualized the deficit and compared it against the calendar. One thing that caught my attention was he suggested bringing all the troops home, which I use daily as an example of useless spending, and that barely made a dent in the calendar. I (a he @Boise_Lib) posted for the discussion and possible votes (and downvotes).

>> ^Sepacore:

I understand the straw-man point and not disagreeing, will state that this is a completely unrealistic strategy imo and those that may talk up the general idea anywhere near the extreme Robbins was so as to make a point, i don't feel they've thought about it too much.
However, despite the level's of bs that's twisted into this, it did give me a bit of an idea of what effect doing 1 extreme (taxing) would have. Would very much like to see a comparative going the other way and focusing on cutting spending. The combination of both would give me a greater idea of what the situation actually is and what extremes would be advisable.
Regardless, upvote simply because the numbers were interestingly/entertainingly effective at keeping my attention, and although the numbers mostly seemed plausibly likely (even though some were simply unattainable) to my naive level of knowledge on this subject (haven't researched it, not planning to), some numbers are so drastically high, that the representation of them against the calendar left me stunned.
I'm left with the idea that taxing + cutting + appealing to the rich (yeah i know, don't get rich by giving your money away) is the only way forward.

Hah, did he finally get tired of running his self-help racket?

I noticed he mentioned that the US borrows 40 cent of every dollar.

Yet "Stop Borrowing Money" isn't the first suggestion for reducing the deficit and national debt.

[I wonder who they're borrowing that money from. Hint: Rhymes with Wankers]

To be fair, borrowing from the Social Security was not the reason Clinton ran a surplus.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

Borrowing from the Social Security trust fund was a wise move. It reduced the national debt, thereby saving interest on that money until the time it would have been needed for Social Security.

Not that the gov't should ever be run like individual finances, but it's sorta like if you had $50,000 in an emergency fund, but had $40,000 in debt. If you knew you didn't need $40,000 of that emergency fund for the next 15-20 years, should you keep it, or pay off that debt? Debt virtually always has a significantly higher interest rate than savings.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what things the government owes money on. The problem wasn't that Clinton raided the Social Security trust fund. The problem is that the Social Security trust fund was structured to become insolvent due to population aging patters, and how it is funded. It's also that the following president ran up massive deficits during a time of economic boom, and said deficits contributed to the economic bubble. Unfortunately, that bubble was so bad we find ourselves in an economy now where the deficit must take an unfortunate backseat to getting the economy back on track.

>> ^bmacs27:

To be fair Clinton's "surplus" has a lot to do with why we are scrambling to protect Social Security right now. He never should have borrowed the money, and just paid the political price.
>> ^heropsycho:
The last surplus was not under Clinton. I forgot when he claimed it was.

Did you not read what I wrote? I'm pretty sure I said the national debt is a problem. My issue with you is your rationale for the national debt is overly simplistic and utterly ridiculous. OH NOEZ! The average taxpayer owes 137K if the national debt is broken down per taxpayer, and the overwhelming majority of Americans don't have 137K lying around to pay that. Say, do most Americans have 50K laying around? No. So if the debt were cut in third roughly, surely it wouldn't be a problem. See? The rationale doesn't hold up. Most Americans don't have 10K laying around either, but if that were the debt per taxpayer, the national debt wouldn't be a problem. Not to mention the fact that wealth is concentrated in this country, too. Granted, most people don't have 137K laying around, but you know who has millions upon millions laying around? Guys like Warren Buffett, Mitt Romney, etc. etc. The stat you threw out doesn't mean a damn thing. It just sounds bad.

That's the kind of crap that makes discussing something like this with you utterly impossible. You don't care if the national debt is truly a problem. You WANT it to be a big problem that must be dealt with immediately, and THE ONLY WAY to deal with it is... survey says... reduce spending. NO TAX INCREASES!!! EVER!!!

It's a pointless discussion. You've already made up your mind the national debt is a problem that must be dealt with like a crisis, with only one way to deal with it. Any rational person would look at this issue and conclude that even if it is huge problem, (which by the way, since you can't apparently read, I DO think it's a problem, but does not need to be dealt with in extreme measures, or unilaterally with spending cuts only) cutting spending isn't the only solution. I also know that we've run up historical deficits in our past and came out the other end a stronger nation. I also know that the vast majority of the current deficit has been caused by the Iraqi and Afghan wars, by the Bush tax cuts (which actually caused more debt than those wars did, and a collapsing economy.

Comparison between POLICIES of Bush vs Obama as contributors to the national debt:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24editorial_graph2/24editorial_graph2-popup.gif

Sorry, but that's the truth. The reality is we spent ourselves out in two wars and cutting taxes to ridiculous proportions.

As a side note, I just did my taxes. I'm married with no kids, my wife doesn't work due to medical reasons. I make $122,000/yr in a lower than average cost of living area. You know what my effective federal tax rate was? 10%! How in the hell can the federal gov't do what it needs to do when I'm paying 10% effective federal tax rate?! It's absurd. And it's not like I was hell bound to escape paying taxes. My deductions? $5000 in wife's traditional IRA contribution, state income taxes, mortgage interest, and some charitable donations. I benefited also from 401k contributions and a Flexible Spending Account program.

Unless you're willing to go on record and say GDP cannot be raised significantly from where it is today in the next 5 years, which would increase tax revenues to make up for much of the deficits we're running today, you don't have a leg to stand on. I'm not in favor of cutting any gov't spending that would jeopardize significantly economic growth in the short run. Therefore, I don't think we can cut a whole lot of spending right now, and we'll unfortunately have to run very large deficits in the short run. However, once the economy grows significantly, we will need to cut spending at that point, and run substantial surpluses for awhile to get the debt more manageable again.

That is what we've done in the past, and it worked when facing very severe economic downturns. Call me crazy, but I look at history and see what worked, and follow that path.

>> ^bobknight33:

From you example of going into debt for war sake is a nice comparison. In today's terms we spent 1 trillion on the Bush war and and a fair amount on Obama continuation of the wars. If we were only in 1 - 2 trillion of debt that's one thing but we are hitting 16 Trillion dollars of debt. That is a whole different kind of debt.
Like I said earlier our government has currently cause each of us to incur a bill of 50K per man woman and child or 137K per taxpayer. Who of us can pay that debt back? Not Me and surly not you.

You basically don't see this as a problem so I ask you when does it become a problem?

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^ghark:
Some incorrect information near the start where he says "the vast majority of expenditure goes to medicare, medicaid" etc.. More than half of each tax dollar is going to the military/defence, certainly far and away more than health expenditure.
http://videosift.com/video/53-of-each-American-tax-dollar-going
-to-the-military

Not to totally sidetrack things, but that number requires a lot of dubious decisions about what "counts" as spending.
Since I had this argument not all that long ago with blankfist, here's the thread where I did all the research & response to it.
Basically the short version is to get military spending above 50% you have to a) not count social security, medicare, or medicaid outlays as "spending" and b) count the entire interest payment on the national debt as "military" even though our present debt mostly comes from Reagan & Bush tax cuts.
Too much of our taxes goes to defense & war, but it's more like 20% than 50%.


i'll check that out when I get some time, cheers.