I actually think we should raise taxes AND reduce spending so I'm apparently not a Republican OR a Democrat on this issue. There always has been short term ups and downs in the economy. The argument that we should run trillion dollar deficits now to "make things better" in the short term rings hollow with me. You young people are the ones that are really going to be hurt by this policy. The debt is reaching a point that it is simply unsustainable. I find it humorous that it's the old guys in the forum that are most against racking up national debt and the young guys that revile them for it.
"You young people are the ones that are really going to be hurt by this policy. "
Many older people are getting trashed, like 50% of the 55+ unemployed have been out for 6+ months. Retire at 68 to start SocSec? GMAFB. there aren't any jobs to retire from.
Haven't I been calling this a "repression" for some time now?
8/5/09:7/18/09:We are no where near a point of no return with the climate. We are near that with the out of control spending our government does however. We are not in a recession, but are in a repression. We are repressed by our government. If liberals have their way, it will pass that point of no return.7/14/09:No . I wonder how much of this repression we have is intentional, and how much is ignorance?8/24/09:Ha. Ha... I was making lite of the reality. Unemployment keeps rising. Wasn't it suppose to stop and 8% and weren't we already suppose to be in recovery? Now there's talk of another bailout... That will cause a deeper repression of the economy, or job losses, less tax paying citizens. In other words, more people paying less taxes. The Demonrats version of tax cuts. More people looking now to government for a bailout. More people to become voters for demonrats believing their empty promises.10/30/09:Absolutely. Create a large enough debt, and other countries can no loner keep the dollar stable. Once it drops on the world marker, the democrats will cause another repression, and give them all the reason in the world to nationalize everything like the Nazi's did to Germany.I agree with SnC in the aspect that the M$M's are so vocal to what their demonrat buddies say. The republicans has so little voice. It's one thing to say the economy is bad when it really is good. People stop and think about if they really want to spend money. This is primary (yes, in my opinion) that caused the repression. I say reprerssion purposely. I think they wanted this to control the economy more.
There are nations out there who carry far more debt as a percentage of the GDP than the United States and they aren't mythically falling to pieces. Japan, for instance.
To call what happend in 2008 simply and a routine up and down completely ignores the severity of the situation when TARP and the stimulus were passed and how quickly it was spiraling out of control.
Yes, in the future we will have to raise taxes and we have to spend money smarter. The spending money smarter should start but I don't see anyone proposing drastic military cuts and thats a huge hole in the budget.
In any event, I've yet to see much of the debt fear mongering back up with rational reasoning. I know people try to relate to it as it were their own finances but I think its safe to say the two are not analogous.
So you advocate running multi-trillion dollar annual deficits until the real estate market recovers and unemployment drops to 5%?
So you advocate letting cities,counties, states go bankrupt because of reduced sales, income, and property tax drops.
The Repugs have wasted $2T on Iraq and Afganistan, and counting.
What's $2T more invested in US jobs and infrastructure?
It's a $13T economy.
this talk is academic, the Repugs will block anything. McConnnell just said he won't compromise on dubya's tax cuts. mother ers
To be frank, I always thought it stupid that, to get credit, you must be in debt. I guess paying all your bills on time without going into debt doesn't count for squat.
The neo-c*nt/PNAC/Repug wars are just another way of running up the national debt as a "starve the beast" strategy. Now they want to steal Social Security funds, and destroy America, since they are all taken care of by the super-wealthy
To those who feel that borrowing/debt doesn't matter, would you say there is a tipping point where it DOES matter?
actually they are the same except for two difference: scale and enforcement. Krugman and the like are the ones who think the axiom, "if you a owe a bank 10 dollars you are in trouble, if you owe the bank 10 trillion dollars the bank is in trouble" is a well thought out, intelligent long term economic strategy.
They just want to keep borrowing money to paper things over right now and say "screw you creditors, we have nukes" when they come to collect.
the problem is, that doesn't work when you have repeat players in the game. eventually people stop lending you money. then you are poor.
got got
I've been saying much the same for 2 years. It's not that deficits don't matter, everyone would rather have money in the bank....its just that they are not the doom and gloom that people with political agendas make them out to be....we could in effect wipe out a big chunk of our debt with a stroke of the pen...
How so, sensei?
I don't get it. THe country has been running its economy on false growth brought to you by cheap credit, now the keynesians want the govt to print out more false wealth and even cheaper credit to fix the same problem that was caused by the same solution.
What manny and other keynesians don't get is that all you did was print more money support the same bad sectors and hope they magically don't become insolvent.
Of course they could wipe out the debt with the stroke of a pen...and destroy the dollar. Personally, I've been through "mild" 8%+ inflation and wage and price controls and it sucks. I can't imagine what it would be like if the Government monetized 15 trillion in debt.
When was the last time too much debt got anyone in trouble? Spend away!
50% of old people don't even save for their own retirement.
Boo inghoo.
Can't find a job at 55+?
What a shock. See line 1.
Long-term deficits are a problem. Most economists would grant that.
You missed the entire point of the OP, which was that the hand-waving over the deficit and stimulus is blown far out of proportion.
agree/disagree and who said it?We are going to hold down government spending, reduce the budget deficit, and eliminate government waste.
We will slash Federal hiring and cut the Federal work force.
We will eliminate needless regulations.
We will bring more compe ion back to our economy.
And we will oppose any further reduction in Federal income taxes until we have convincing prospects that inflation will be controlled.
Let me explain what each one of these steps means.
The Federal deficit is too high. Our people are simply sick and tired of wasteful Federal spending and the inflation it brings with it.
Every presidential candidate since 1960.
What do I win?
WTF does saving for retirement have to do with being jobless fo r6+ months in your 50s?
I agree, but for the timing.
I think there are some serious things we should be doing, such as spending on infrastructure, and energy independence, that would make some real long-term gains.
I don't worry about the deficit so much for now, but it MUST be brough under control.
As noted by the article from the Economist that I posted, I don't think that either political party yet has the will to make the hard, unpopular choices that seem to me to be the best solution.
Some of those choices will make the Tea Party crowd even angrier, though.
I would guess Ronald Reagan. Incorrectly blaming the inflation of the late seventies and early eighties on government spending.
(Jimmy Carter)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/...inflation.html
Carter actually managed to reduce the overall debt load, relative to the economy.We have already had some success. We've brought the deficit down by one-third since I ran for president -- from more than $66 billion in fiscal year 1976 to about $40 billion in fiscal year 1979 -- a reduction of more than $25 billion in the Federal deficit in just 3 years.
I will keep going down. Next year, with tough restraints on Federal spending and moderate economic growth in prospect, I plan to reduce the budget deficit to less than one-half what it was when I ran for office -- to $30 billion or less.
The government has been spending too great a portion of what our nation produces. During my campaign I promised to cut the government's share of our total national spending from 23 percent, which it was then, to 21 percent in fiscal year 1981. We now plan to meet that goal one year earlier.
Reducing the deficit will require difficult and unpleasant decisions. We must face a time of national austerity. Hard choices are necessary if we want to avoid consequences that are even worse.
It wasnt' until Reagan got into office with his "deficits don't matter" budgets, that the debt really started to take off again.
"reduce spending"
... meaning cut medicare/medicaid, school lunches for 20M kids, health insurnance for kids, SocSec payments, etc, etc, etc. ALL cuts for the lower end, no cuts to military, no cuts to oil/coal/ag, or the wealthy. aka, Repug/conservative class warfare (even after they have won the war)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091606406.htmlJacob J. Lew, tapped to lead the Office of Management and Budget, also said the coming months might be the most critical time for fiscal policy in recent years.
"It's a very, very significant challenge to simultaneously focus on the fact that we have to continue to encourage economic growth, we have to encourage job creation, but we can't put off for years worrying about the deficit," Lew told the Senate Budget Committee. "We have to be able to think about both at the same time. I think that the key challenge is for us to begin to take actions which won't have an effect today or tomorrow."
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