Military Cutbacks March 1st.

[cwbullet]

Even with the Obama-approved sequestration/cutbacks, the US government will still run at a deficit.

Dunno about you folks but in my household we stop spending when the money's all gone.

That is correct. But, It is not just one sides fault. There is plenty of blame to go around to include voters. We continue to vote these bozos into office.

 

[jderimig]

SS does not contribute to debt per say, but unless it is cut, there is no solution. SS, Medicaid, and Medicare account for 21 cents on every dollar of federal taxes we pay.

There is no solution. Cutting spending andor raising tax as a percentage of gdp is contractionary. Financially the pooch is screwed. Live it up now. Inflation is the only way out.

 

[belfert]

A republican candidate for president in 2012 claimed that reducing total federal spending by 1% a year for six years would balance the federal budget without any changes to tax rates. If that plan would really work I don't think anybody really knows. I am sure the plan assumed higher taxes naturally caused by a better economy.

Interest on the national debt costs around $400 billion a year. I don't think anyone has any budget plan that would start paying down the debt. Nobody even has a plan that quits borrowing more money. We actually managed to pay down a small amount of debt during the Clinton era.

 

[shrox]

I blame Satan. You know I'm right. Oh wait, maybe it's Santa. No, not Santa, but I am pretty sure it's not Santana's fault either. Yeah, Satan, blame Satan.

 

[Zeus-cat]

I hope it is obvious to everyone that this is a very complex problem with no easy solution. We need to pressure all of our elected officials to work on solving this. The CEO of my company asked every U.S. employee to use the non-partisan organization Fix the Debt to contact their elected officials. If the people we elected see enough pressure to work on the debt they will. Otherwise I think they will keep passing the problem to the next Congress.

 

[cwbullet]

During the Clinton Era, it was the booming economy that created surpluses. Well, we can't count on that any more.

 

[Peter Olivola]

You're going to have to explain in more detail why it's necessary to cut a program that doesn't contribute to the debt to reduce the debt.

SS does not contribute to debt per say, but unless it is cut, there is no solution. SS, Medicaid, and Medicare account for 21 cents on every dollar of federal taxes we pay.

 

[Peter Olivola]

There is nothing non-partisan about Fix the Debt. It's a corporate lobbying front. The same kind of lobbying from the same sources that has paralyzed Congress.

I hope it is obvious to everyone that this is a very complex problem with no easy solution. We need to pressure all of our elected officials to work on solving this. The CEO of my company asked every U.S. employee to use the non-partisan organization Fix the Debt to contact their elected officials. If the people we elected see enough pressure to work on the debt they will. Otherwise I think they will keep passing the problem to the next Congress.

 

[rocketsaway]

Our sewer/trash bill went up 35%.
What happens if cant pay ? Trash isnt picked up, sewer shut off ?
Ok, Ill build an outhouse and burn.
Wait, zoning laws prohibit outhouse w/out sand mound(w/a building permit) and a no outside burning law.
Fine, Ill use a chamber pot out the window and bury the trash.
I reduced my deficit, back to the 19th century.

 

[luke strawwalker]

So living within our means,... means the end?

I beg to differ. IMHO,... that will be a new dawn to a brighter future.

If I were in charge... real cuts where both sides can agree. After that,... 1% cut across the board for everything else. Nothing spared. This is repeated every year until 5% budget surplus achieved.

Hahahahaha... sorry didn't mean to laugh, but there's some humorous observations here...

"Living within our means"... VERY funny... we're not even CLOSE, NOR will we EVER be... (not until the whole country is bankrupt and the gubmint is paying everything off with worthless scrip they're printing by the trillions (which is why it will be worthless). The cuts they're talking about won't even get us anywhere on the same CONTINENT as "living within our means"... let alone anywhere CLOSE to "living within our means".

Then there's "REAL cuts on which BOTH SIDES can AGREE..." Ummm... okay... lets see... Oh wait, there's NOTHING on which both sides can agree... maybe you can knock a couple billion out of NASA funding or something like that, maybe cuts to the farm bill (well, the about 20% of it that's actually GOING TO FARMERS instead of WIC and Food Stamps, which consumes the other 80%) Wow-- you may have just cut out a whopping $5-10 billion at most... pocket change compared to the fed'l budget...

"1% across the board from then on"... and in maybe 20 years MAYBE you'd balance the budget... maybe even make the 5% surplus budget goal you set...

Oh, wait, you'd be voted out about 16 years before that ever happened... nevermind.

Want to balance the budget?? (nevermind paying down the debt, which is becoming a REAL problem-- sooner or later just servicing the debt will be more than we collect in taxes-- at that point-- BAM-- bankrupt).

Eliminate gov't departments wholesale-- HUD, Dept. of Education, EPA, Dept. of Agriculture, Dept. of Health/Human Services, etc.

Eliminate programs wholesale-- Food Stamps, WIC, Welfare, etc. and all the freebies that go along with it.

Congressional amendment forcing Congress to live under the same laws as the rest of us-- no more seperate retirement fund, no more exemptions, special health care and travel provisions, etc, no more voting themselves pay raises-- gov't pay for elected representatives, senators, president, supreme court justices set at the Median US household income plus 20%, with a reasonable travel allowance similar to that found in business for employees travelling on commercial business. No more special planes (excluding the President for obvious reasons) no more million dollar soirees on the public dime... And term limits for Legislative Branch similar to the Executive Branch-- no more guys like Strom Thurmond who was in junior high when Seti I was still Pharoah of Egypt...

Eliminate tax breaks for stuff that makes no sense... oil companies posting record profits getting tax breaks for oil exploration and production?? I don't think so. LOTS of this sort of graft and corruption going on, in ALL areas of gov't/corporate interaction...

That's a good start anyways...

Later! OL JR

PS... zero out ALL foriegn aid, PERIOD... zero out all support for the arts... lots of CRAP we can cut that we don't need...

 

[luke strawwalker]

Please validate those statements. I have never heard that NASA is profitable or the DOD for that matter.

He's talking about spinoffs...

Various takes on that...

Like the NASA budget, we'll NEVER know what the figures TRULY are...

Later! OL JR

 

[mkadams001]

NASA and the DOD are/were never directly profitable. People credit government agencies "profiting" when the studies come out that say for every X amount of dollars we put into a project, there is X greater amount of economic activity as a result.

By that logic the entire government is generating a profit.

 

[luke strawwalker]

I am ok with cuts as long as we cut spending and all programs to include SS, Medicaid and Medicare.

Thing is, we all PAID into Social Security-- that's NOT an entitlement-- it was the gubmint borrowing my money for 40 years and now claiming it's too broke to PAY IT BACK.

Now, I can agree on Medicaid...

Gubmint needs to be OUT OF HEALTH CARE ENTIRELY...

If you think it's FUBAR'ed right now, just wait til Obamacare gets its hooks into the economy and health care system...

Let's face it... ANYTHING the gubmint touches turns to crap... public schools are a near complete failure-- public infrastructure is crumbling and they won't fix it... immigration control is a complete joke, you name it... it's a basket case... heck even NASA, by their own estimates, say it's gonna take them the better part of a decade and around $30 BILLION dollars to modify the existing shuttle External Tank, five segment SRB's paid for by Constellation before it was canceled, and existing SSME's into a new heavy lift rocket... that's just PATHETIC... (nevermind not having ANY payloads for it or any missions for it being funded or in development).

We need a WHOLE LOT LESS gubmint, not MORE...

An across the board 30% spending cut sounds pretty good to me...

Later! OL JR

 

[luke strawwalker]

Even with the Obama-approved sequestration/cutbacks, the US government will still run at a deficit.

Dunno about you folks but in my household we stop spending when the money's all gone.

Exactly...

Later! OL JR

 

[luke strawwalker]

Our sewer/trash bill went up 35%.
What happens if cant pay ? Trash isnt picked up, sewer shut off ?
Ok, Ill build an outhouse and burn.
Wait, zoning laws prohibit outhouse w/out sand mound(w/a building permit) and a no outside burning law.
Fine, Ill use a chamber pot out the window and bury the trash.
I reduced my deficit, back to the 19th century.

What it'll come to in the end...

Later! OL JR

 

[luke strawwalker]

By that logic the entire government is generating a profit.

Yep... "for every dollar in regulation we institute, $3 in compliance is generated...."

Sounds like a gov't plan to restore prosperity all right...

Later! OL JR

 

[mkadams001]

He's talking about spinoffs...

Various takes on that...

Like the NASA budget, we'll NEVER know what the figures TRULY are...

Later! OL JR

I know that but, that is not how profit is defined.

 

[luke strawwalker]

I know that but, that is not how profit is defined.

Agree... and there's questionable validity to the "spinoffs" argument as well...

It really depends on WHAT spinoff you're talking about, and just exactly HOW MUCH of that was DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE to NASA and its programs...

Later! OL JR

 

[cwbullet]

Thing is, we all PAID into Social Security-- that's NOT an entitlement-- it was the gubmint borrowing my money for 40 years and now claiming it's too broke to PAY IT BACK.

Although I agree with you, I have a problem with our children paying for us and them not getting anything back in return. We need to cut it off somewhere and the government can not go broke paying SS. The only other solution is to up the retirement age to 70 or 72. We are living too long to keep the system afloat.

I am glad I am not the guy having to make the change.

 

[gldknght]

NASA and the DOD are/were never directly profitable. People credit government agencies "profiting" when the studies come out that say for every X amount of dollars we put into a project, there is X greater amount of economic activity as a result. Despite this, the way we are spending is obviously unsustainable. Without trying to get political, it is going to take deep cuts in many (not just the DOD) government departments to get our spending down, as well as significant tax increases for everyone to get this situation under control. Right now our debt is around $50,000 for every person in america. This would be overwhelming for nearly everyone to think about on their individual basis, but it is a reality we all must confront. However I think this is a problem that we can solve if all 300,000,000+ Americans work together.

Tp put this into perspective, $50000 would be every single penny my family makes in 2 and a half YEARS! And that's if we spend absolutely no money on things like food and house payments.

 

[Peartree]

You're going to have to explain in more detail why it's necessary to cut a program that doesn't contribute to the debt to reduce the debt.

It currently contributes to the debt because we borrow the money that we are paying out to the retirees because we spent the money they paid in twenty years ago.

 

[Peartree]

During the Clinton Era, it was the booming economy that created surpluses. Well, we can't count on that any more.

It's worse. Even during the Clinton era, the "balanced budget" was a mirage because we spent all of the Social Security deposits, so technically we were borrowing that money too and the budget was still far from being balanced.

 

[bill2654]

Although I agree with you, I have a problem with our children paying for us and them not getting anything back in return. We need to cut it off somewhere and the government can not go broke paying SS. The only other solution is to up the retirement age to 70 or 72. We are living too long to keep the system afloat.

I am glad I am not the guy having to make the change.

Why do you have such a bug up your butt for Social Security? Sure my kids are paying for me and I paid into the system for my folks and you are too. SO what? What pisses me off is people refering to SS as an entitlement program. By GOD I AM entitled to it after putting into it for over 40 years! I dont agree with military cuts but quit attacking SS.

 

[jderimig]

Would you borrow $50,000 today to buy a company that earns $50,000 a year and grows 2-4% a year for the rest of your life?

 

[cwbullet]

Why do you have such a bug up your butt for Social Security? Sure my kids are paying for me and I paid into the system for my folks and you are too. SO what? What pisses me off is people refering to SS as an entitlement program. By GOD I AM entitled to it after putting into it for over 40 years! I dont agree with military cuts but quit attacking SS.

I do nto have a bug up my butt about SS. I have a bug up my butt about having to my chid having pay for people to receive twice as much money as they paid into it and then never be able to receive it themselves. We should not cripple future generations to fulfill a ponzi scheme of the past that you and I would go to jail for.

SS needs reformed period. Every one wants to reform military pensions but they do not want their own pension reformed. The entire government pension system needs fixed.

 

[bill2654]

. We should not cripple future generations .

You can thank our goverment for that. They should have never been allowed to get their greedy hands on it.

 

[shrox]

Drones are a bad idea, just call them what they are, terminators.

 

[boomtube]

There are never any cuts to any programs or departments. There are only cuts to the amout it was to be automactily raised each year. So if the DoD was getting one bazillion dollars in 2012 and they were automatily going to get 1.25 bazillion in 1213 but with sequestration they will ONLY get 1.1 bazillion this is a CUT in spending.
This is know as baseline budgeting.
Only in Washington can they get away with this crap and only with a complicent medias help.

 

[Peter Olivola]

So, the solution is to not pay the debt?

It currently contributes to the debt because we borrow the money that we are paying out to the retirees because we spent the money they paid in twenty years ago.

 

[shreadvector]

Incorrect! Drones are COOL!

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/cartoon-drones/n29000/

Drones are a bad idea, just call them what they are, terminators.