Pledge To America

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by YoLaDu, Jan 11, 2011.

  1. YoLaDu

    YoLaDu Guest

    the GOP Pledge to America. Specifically the pledge to cut 100 billion dollars from this years budget.

    The Link

    from the op-ed:

     
  2. general35

    general35 5,000+ Posts

    They also zealously defend the huge sums the country spends to give tax breaks to people who do not need them.
    __________________________________________________

    i do not understand this rational. it draws from the premise that any money earned is really the governments and any money that individuals are allowed to keep is through the grace of government. it also doesnt make any sense. this thought process is why we are in so much debt. it is why i am against any tax increase because even if taxes are raised to pay off debt, it won't make a dent because the government will find another way to spend it.

    The country doesnt spend money to give tax breaks. The money isnt their's to begin with. Only a freakish left winger could come up with a statement like that. if the accounting methods the government uses were used in the private sector, the CEO's of those companies would all be in jail.
     
  3. Gone To Texas

    Gone To Texas 500+ Posts


     
  4. YoLaDu

    YoLaDu Guest

    OK,

    that is: rip on the NYTimes -1 / address the Pledge - 1

    Thanks Gone To Texas.. good post.
     
  5. Oilfield

    Oilfield Guest

    I think our "quailty of life" would improve greatly with a 20% reduction in all facets of our government. Folks will figure out how to do things without the involvement of government where necessary. They've done so for a couple centuries.
     
  6. HornHuskerDad

    HornHuskerDad 5,000+ Posts


     
  7. Bevo Incognito

    Bevo Incognito 5,000+ Posts


     
  8. Sangre Naranjada

    Sangre Naranjada 10,000+ Posts


     
  9. majorwhiteapples

    majorwhiteapples 5,000+ Posts

    I say slash the government 25%, let's go above and beyond and prepare to slash the budget even more next year.

    We keep pouring money into education and it does not good, why keep pouring more money down that drain. Obviously more money is not doing the trick, let's do less money and see how much they improve, I have a sneaking suspicion it would improve and quickly.
     
  10. YoLaDu

    YoLaDu Guest


     
  11. upset_horn

    upset_horn 100+ Posts

    That's all find and dandy but what happens to the millions of folks that work in the defense industry? They lose their jobs and where do they go? Right back to the government for unemployment checks. But now they spend less, lose their homes and don't buy new cars. And that helps the economy how? The private sector isn't hiring right now, in case anyone hasn't noticed.
     
  12. YoLaDu

    YoLaDu Guest


     
  13. Ag with kids

    Ag with kids 2,500+ Posts

    I'd advocate a 10% across the board cut to EVERYTHING, including entitlements.

    Then fix the budget at those numbers for 5 years (years 2-6)...

    The revenues would grow in that time and I'd bet you'd be close to balanced by then...if not, in year 7, cut whatever's left to get you there...

    But, you'd also have to make fundamental changes to MC/MC and SS...all of which will screw me over...
     
  14. Gone To Texas

    Gone To Texas 500+ Posts


     
  15. msdw24

    msdw24 1,000+ Posts


     
  16. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    There is more fraud waste and abuse in military spending than any other area. The military procurement system is a disgrace and has been forever.

    Half the consultants we pay do virtually nothing and the featherbedding in the civil service part of the military spending machine makes Pemex look like a model of management organization.
     
  17. JohnnyM

    JohnnyM 2,500+ Posts

    upset_horn has a point that Yo and GTT missed.

    If government spending is cut that is going to mean short-term harm to the economy. People will either lose their jobs directly (gov't layoffs) or lose income or their jobs indirectly (gov't contracts). That is a fact. Less money coming out of Washington means fewer people employed in the short-term.

    To acknowledge that fact is NOT to argue that the spending must continue. Whether or not the spending is smart is irrelevant to the issue of what a cut in spending means in a physical sense.

    What is frustrating to many (myself and I presume upset_horn as well) is that the folks who tout massive spending cuts as the answer rather conveniently refuse to address what that actually means in the short-term. I have yet to see a politician present a true picture of realistic spending cuts and their effects upon the economy, jobs, and the housing market.

    I believe spending cuts are very, very necessary - but I want us to go into those cuts with an honest and accurate picture of what it means. Too often massive cuts are presented as merely "fixing the glitch" Office-Space style policy without regard to the effects on the real world.
     
  18. Vol Horn 4 Life

    Vol Horn 4 Life Good Bye To All The Rest!


     
  19. JohnnyM

    JohnnyM 2,500+ Posts

    Vol - I agree that short-term thinking is killing us, but to some extent we have to make sure the short-term damage doesn't do long-term harm - and that's exactly what is being ignored by every single politician that has suggested massive spending cuts. I appreciate you at least not dodging it and conceding that short-term job losses will occur. I agree with you that long-term we would likely be better off....but I think it's LONG-term. I think it's a 20-30 year, at least, fix in the making and I see no one willing to talk seriously about that. That's frustrating, and it makes me wonder whether they (the slash spending congressmen) really ARE concerned with the long-term or if they are using that line as a pretext to just slash government programs that their special interests want curtailed/eliminated.
     
  20. majorwhiteapples

    majorwhiteapples 5,000+ Posts

    I agree letting all of those government workers go would be tough to absurb, but hey they have been sucking off my tit for years.

    At what point does common sense enter into the equation that we can't support a government this large? 14 Trillion, 15, 16 at what point do we rip the band aid.

    I would rather pay them unemployment for 6 months or even 12 months then the salaries they get now. The government workers are some of the few people in this country that are guaranteed annual raises.

    Hell, go to the Government Website and see how many people they are hiring. Then look at the wages. I have heard about a dozen CIA is hiring commercials on the radio during drive time(expensive advertising). When is enough enough?

    Common Sense has to come into play and government needs to be slashed, Rip the band aid. Same thing we should have done with the Auto industry. Not sure about the banking industry.

    Considering that I live in one of the fastest growing counties in the country and per capita we are in the top 10 counties that receive the least amount of federal funds, I think Dr. Burgess(my rep) would vote to cut government spending by 25%, he would probably get over 90% of the vote in 2012.
     
  21. MaduroUTMB

    MaduroUTMB 2,500+ Posts

    If you count the WoT with DoD spending, we could easily chop it in half by a.) ending the ME and East Asian deployments and b.) drastically reducing the number of human beings employed by the DoD. Some of the savings would need to be recycled into increased procurement of necessary weapons (the F/A-22, which should still be at the post-Cold War 350 units and additional B-2s, for which we still have the tooling out in Nevada).

    Healthcare spending is a joke, and I increasingly believe that the river of Federal money pouring into the industry is the prime mover in keeping prices so high that one catastrophic illness can break a family. No other commercial enterprise can afford to sell something that its customers cannot pay for. Still the powers that be (from both sides of the aisle) are happy to supply that river because they reap the rewards.

    I encourage you to look up what doctors carried and hospitals used 40 years ago. You'll see lots of common rooms, reusable instruments, glass IV bottles, et c. That's all gone now. Everything is thrown away and replaced at the third-party payor's expense. The pretext is that it reduces the rate of infection (which is laughable; if we believed that, we would ban white coats and long ties starting yesterday), but the reason is that it gives the big medical suppliers a cut of everything that happens in the hospital. If Baxter sells you a glass IV bottle that you can resterilize, they get to sell you a durable good. If Baxter sells you a pre-filled, guaranteed-sterile 1L bag of 1/2 NS, they make money every time you hang one. Disposable instruments (the health care industry throws away tons of stainless steel each year; I don't even bother explaining it anymore because because the rationale is always, "We get paid either way, and it would be more expensive to resterilize them"), disposable plastic drapes and gowns of every description, and prices that are both ludicrously high and universally unknown to physicians (doctors who know how much things cost or care to learn stand out).

    Why would I say all of that on a thread about cutting the budget? Because I want the massive slice going to health care to go away. It began with good intentions, but the result is that only the extremely rich (I know at least three millionaires who are both well-insured and deeply concerned about the cost of their cancer treatments), insurance companies, and the Federal government can afford to pay for health care.

    Obama and the Democrats are busy feeding the monster, and the Republican counterattack will likely be more of the same. Nobody is willing to address the problem because ignoring it is extremely profitable and garners votes from the strongest demographics.
     
  22. majorwhiteapples

    majorwhiteapples 5,000+ Posts

    According to CBS News tonight we(federal government taxpayers) are paying to 11Million Federally funded breakfasts every school day.

    WTF? How in the hell is my money going to the Federal government paying so some kid can eat? Where are his parents? What about Food Stamps? Aren't I already paying for that? Don't sit there and tell me these parents can't afford breakfast, they can cut back on somewhere else, like their cell phone or booze they drink. Why in the hell am I paying taxes for school food? ******* Ridiculous!!!!
     
  23. majorwhiteapples

    majorwhiteapples 5,000+ Posts

    Defund NPR and all Grants for Radio, TV and or any communication forum. The government should not be paying for opinions. There is another, estimates between $4M and 25M, cut it all for NPR and any other grants or funds like that....
     

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