Reagan budget director warns:America has ‘reached the point of no return,’

[dross]

Well, in the interest of cutting everything else, I say cut it all, Defense included. Pack it all in; Germany, Japan, South Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan every soldier back home within 12 months! Put some of them on the border to fix that issue, keep the bases on the fringes and eliminate the Marines totally(duplicate capabilities), mothball most of the navy's surface fleet and don't buy another weapons system for at least two decades. Now the good part... All government salaries cut 25% and another 5% a year till total 50% reduction, all government programs reduced accordingly as the salaries with duplicative programs eliminated and no lifetime welfare, paying unwed mothers to have kids, subsidzed housing, or 150 weeks of un-employment. Government will only spend X amount of dollars budgeted nlt Jan 1, Quarterly reconciliations versus tax receipts, with adjustments to maintain a balanced budget. Get more money, you can get some big ticket wish list items, come up short, no presents for Christmas! No more borrowing, period! More volunteering and patriotism! No more free rides or entitlement for life programs or vote buying! What say you?

Sounds great.

I volunteer to feed the unicorns.

 

[Arthur Dent]

According to your logic, dross, (coincidence that the definition of dross is waste matter, refuse?) we can not cut anything because it doesn't fix the deficit. Your perfect scenario is cutting entitlement spending while keeping everything else intact. Cut retirement spending. Well and good because YOU aren't affected. Cut welfare. Again YOU aren't affected. Cut Medicare and Medicaid. What's that? YOU aren't affected.

We have people on welfare, government pensions, Medicare that if suddenly all these things came to a screeching halt these people are literally going to be out in the streets and starving. What do you propose we do about that problem when it occurs? Those people are not going to suddenly vanish. There aren't enough jobs for them to go back to work.

You pretend to have the answers yet you can't grace us with your infinite wisdom and intelligence.

What is the answer, dross? Keep in mind that the one massive cut you fantasize over is going to have consequences that will need to be dealt with.

 

[dross]

According to your logic, dross, (coincidence that the definition of dross is waste matter, refuse?) we can not cut anything because it doesn't fix the deficit. Your perfect scenario is cutting entitlement spending while keeping everything else intact. Cut retirement spending. Well and good because YOU aren't affected. Cut welfare. Again YOU aren't affected. Cut Medicare and Medicaid. What's that? YOU aren't affected.

We have people on welfare, government pensions, Medicare that if suddenly all these things came to a screeching halt these people are literally going to be out in the streets and starving. What do you propose we do about that problem when it occurs? Those people are not going to suddenly vanish. There aren't enough jobs for them to go back to work.

You pretend to have the answers yet you can't grace us with your infinite wisdom and intelligence.

What is the answer, dross? Keep in mind that the one massive cut you fantasize over is going to have consequences that will need to be dealt with.

Yet another reading-challenged poster.

I gave my explanation and solution upthread. If you're really interested, read it.

I showed how cutting defense completely and everything related to it still wouldn't solve the budget problems.

This thread is enlightening. Perhaps there's a government program whereby one can be granted a few more IQ points.

 

[Arthur Dent]

What is the solution, dross? Quit dodging here. Your golden opportunity to show us how smart you are and how stupid we are.

 

[Pocketman]

America spends almost as much money on Military as every other country in the world, combined. We spend 7 times as much money as the next largest military (China) even though they have several times our population.

Other countries spend less because they can. We've been policing the world for everyone else. Chicken and egg question: U.S. polices the world because it has the most powerful military, or we have the most powerful military because we police the world.

Then there's the internal financial aspect of all this. We spend money on military contracts. Contractors and employees in turn pay taxes. Haliburton and others make megabucks. Investors are happy and contribute to campaigns.

 

[dross]

What is the solution, dross? Quit dodging here. Your golden opportunity to show us how smart you are and how stupid we are.

My solution is posted upthread. I won't go find it for you.

I'm quite sure it's obvious how smart I am, compared to you.

 

[hornadylnl]

Sounds great.

I volunteer to feed the unicorns.

His solution is the only solution. You are just unwilling to pay the price for it.

 

[Arthur Dent]

Your solution isn't a solution. GDP goes up so will the spending. Nice try, though.

So what's your REAL solution?

 

[dross]

His solution is the only solution. You are just unwilling to pay the price for it.

It's not me that's unwilling. It's just not politically feasible.

Unless there's a political way to achieve it that I'm not seeing. Feel free to lay it out for me.

 

[dross]

Your solution isn't a solution. GDP goes up so will the spending. Nice try, though.

So what's your REAL solution?

Fascinating that my solution is dismissed when I've PROVEN several times over that YOUR solution, defense, is no solution at all.

I'll say again. We could cut every single penny of defense, including the ridiculously expanded definition of expense someone gave in an article, and we still have a deficit.

Yet somehow cutting defense is still the only answer you have.

 

[Arthur Dent]

You've completely ignored what everyone is saying. Defense should get the biggest cut. Protecting the world isn't our job. After defense we start cutting budgets of other programs. Only by reducing what we buy will we fix the deficit.

This has been laid out for you several times. You just either don't have enough brain matter to wrap around the concept or you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

 

[mrjarrell]

Cutting defence isn't the the totality of the equation, but it must be a part of it. Cuts HAVE to be made in other areas, too. Cuts to defence alone will do nothing, even if cut to zero. Cuts have to be across the board and many entitlements have to be phased out and privatised, like SS. But defence MUST be part of the equation or there will be nothing substantive that gets done. Relying solely on a pumped up GDP is a pipe dream and, given economic factors isn't likely to happen in the next 10-15 years.

 

[dross]

Cutting defence isn't the the totality of the equation, but it must be a part of it. Cuts HAVE to be made in other areas, too. Cuts to defence alone will do nothing, even if cut to zero. Cuts have to be across the board and many entitlements have to be phased out and privatised, like SS. But defence MUST be part of the equation or there will be nothing substantive that gets done. Relying solely on a pumped up GDP is a pipe dream and, given economic factors isn't likely to happen in the next 10-15 years.

Why do you guys insist on trying to portray my position differently than it is?

My position:

1. Cut defense by some amount. I'm not sure how much, I'm not qualified, but I agree, cut it by some amount.
2. Shrink the growth of the budget. Freeze defense after the cuts, freeze all operating expenses.
3. Find ways, and this is difficult, to shrink or eliminate growth in entitlements as much as is possible.
4. Cut taxes that don't produce much revenue anyway because they're too high, and grow the economy through the stimulus that provides.

I never said to rely only on not growing the GDP, I've agreed several times upthread that we should cut defense, and I've also said I would love to cut entitlements, but I don't think it's poltically possible.

Please bother to address my real positions, and leave the straw alone.

 

[hornadylnl]

It's not me that's unwilling. It's just not politically feasible.

Unless there's a political way to achieve it that I'm not seeing. Feel free to lay it out for me.

If our only solution is a political one, I may as well hook up the backhoe and dig my grave now. Our founders realized that diplomacy only takes us so far. Why do you believe that is the only option? What's more important to us as a nation? Our lives and fortunes in the hear and now to enslave our children or the hope that our children won't have to suffer what we've squandered?

The way I see it, we have 3 options.
1. Do what we do and tie our own nooses after we've hung our children and grandchildren.

2. Ever met John Galt?

3. The only thing that has proven to remove the yoke of slavery.

 

[dross]

If our only solution is a political one, I may as well hook up the backhoe and dig my grave now. Our founders realized that diplomacy only takes us so far. Why do you believe that is the only option? What's more important to us as a nation? Our lives and fortunes in the hear and now to enslave our children or the hope that our children won't have to suffer what we've squandered?

The way I see it, we have 3 options.
1. Do what we do and tie our own nooses after we've hung our children and grandchildren.

2. Ever met John Galt?

3. The only thing that has proven to remove the yoke of slavery.

You might be proven correct. If we look at Europe, however, we are more likely to pile this on our grandkids than we are to take on number three.

As to number two, I think there have only ever been a few people who were willing to be anything like John Galt.

I'm not entirely sure there is a solution that doesn't involve unicorns. The solution I suggested I think is potentially politically workable, though I even doubt the will to do that one.

I'm not sure we'll see this fixed in our lifetimes, and maybe not at all.

 

[machete]

Yet another reading-challenged poster.

I gave my explanation and solution upthread. If you're really interested, read it.

I showed how cutting defense completely and everything related to it still wouldn't solve the budget problems.

This thread is enlightening. Perhaps there's a government program whereby one can be granted a few more IQ points.

quit making fun of people... what makes you so special??? you say your things,,,and people dont agree... how come you get to think youre right and give people neg rep??? this aint dross.com...

any other poster would get a mod warning...

 

[Skeetboy]

Budget

Hard to believe we can spend money so quickly. Spend our way to happy days. To bad congress doesn't have to balance the checkbook.

 

[Arthur Dent]

quit making fun of people... what makes you so special??? you say your things,,,and people dont agree... how come you get to think youre right and give people neg rep??? this aint dross.com...

any other poster would get a mod warning...

dross likes to neg people who don't agree with him. Little man syndrome.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

Dross - may I put forth a solution that I think is likely to be followed (but not my choice, for sure)?

Rather than undertake the painful political parts of cutting entitlements... the gubbamint can inflate its way out of it. Effectively paying off the debt with dollars that are worth LESS... It's effectively a tax across the board on all of us - but is not identified as such.

I suspect that this is the approach being followed by both us and the Euros... and would be quick and effective IF (IMPORTANT) we weren't all trying to do it at the same time. But there's only so much Chinese currency to go around....


Add this into you equation with smatterings of the other solutions and you find what's going to happen. Not what I would prefer, mind you - but this is what the political mind will likely spit out.

 

[dross]

Dross - may I put forth a solution that I think is likely to be followed (but not my choice, for sure)?

Rather than undertake the painful political parts of cutting entitlements... the gubbamint can inflate its way out of it. Effectively paying off the debt with dollars that are worth LESS... It's effectively a tax across the board on all of us - but is not identified as such.

I suspect that this is the approach being followed by both us and the Euros... and would be quick and effective IF (IMPORTANT) we weren't all trying to do it at the same time. But there's only so much Chinese currency to go around....


Add this into you equation with smatterings of the other solutions and you find what's going to happen. Not what I would prefer, mind you - but this is what the political mind will likely spit out.

Yep. I agree that is the very solution being implemented at this moment.