White House paints a grim fiscal picture

[Keef]

The government is always going to take our money, it's a fact of life I suppose. Since there isn't a way to change that fact then maybe we can at least change where out money goes. I don't want my tax dollars helping people in Haiti, I want my tax dollars helping people in the US to make our country better.

They don't have to take your money. The Fairtax system would allow you to voluntarily give it to them. They wouldn't even have the means to take it. We can change that fact, we just need more people like you to believe that it's actually possible and support it.

So you maintain the National Guard properly. Just removing our troops sitting in bases in Germany, Japan, and various other countries that pose no threat to us would reduce costs greatly without affecting our defense capabilities at all. Keeping troops just sitting in other countries is purely an attempt to be ready for a quick offense, but short of quick in and outs of embassies they are primarily useless, and that role could be done by special forces kept on naval vessels. What possible reason do we still have troops in Germany for? The Nazis are gone, the wall is torn down, and democracy won. What are we watching over? Similarly, what purpose did our bases in the Middle East serve? When we were attacked from a group centrally located in Afghanistan we didn't just send those guys in. There weren't enough. They waited months for more troops to come in. Same for Iraq. Saddam could literally watch us building up our forces.

When people discuss military spending they rarely mean the National Guard. They typically only mean the guys sitting in other countries doing nothing, or they refer to troops in combat situations they disagree with. Those same guys could instead be Guardsmen or border patrol, things that actually defend the country.

It would clearly be better than having a Nobel Peace Prize winner asking Congress for more money so he could send our Guardsmen to war in another country, where their ability to directly defend our borders is severely limited.

Ah yes, I always forget about overseas bases, most of which are completely useless. Obviously we need the ones in the Middle East until we manage to gtfo, but after that even they can go. I think it would make everyone happier. My dad thinks it's too big a risk and doesn't care if it perpetuates the hate problem.

Maybe we should equip all students who are children of NRA members with Glocks. That way, any kid who acts out in a suicidal assault in school will be brought down in a righteous crossfire of hot lead.

That would have the upside of making all the parents who aren't NRA members join the organization so their kids could have guns, too. Wouldn't want little Joey to feel left out. Also, good TV.

 

[Joey D]

They don't have to take your money. The Fairtax system would allow you to voluntarily give it to them. They wouldn't even have the means to take it. We can change that fact, we just need more people like you to believe that it's actually possible and support it.

I don't think you'll find anyone in the world willing to voluntarily give money to the government, especially the US government who used to squandering it on crap. Nothing the US has really done since I started paying taxes makes me want to give them a penny. When we aren't blowing the hell out of a third world nation for whatever reason we are building up our security theatre.

People are greedy, they want the money for themselves. It's the same reason why socialism can't work. Basically there needs to be some happy medium, and I support the government levying a small tax on citizens and then reinvesting it into the country though things like defence, the space program, building up infrastructure, whatever.

 

[Keef]

I don't think you'll find anyone in the world willing to voluntarily give money to the government...

People are greedy, they want the money for themselves.

People also want TVs. And since they know by buying a less expensive TV they'll pay less consumption tax, manufacturers will compete to drive costs and prices down while maintaining quality and continuing innovation, because without that they'll lose customers no matter how much their product costs. Making the tax voluntary will force the government to spend its money more wisely because they only get as much as we feel like giving them. Obviously people will not live without their goodies, and they'll continue to buy them up as fast as they can. But the fact is, you wouldn't have to pay that tax. So you could effectively stop paying it, Joey, but you will have nothing.

 

[Joey D]

People also want TVs. And since they know by buying a less expensive TV they'll pay less consumption tax, manufacturers will compete to drive costs and prices down while maintaining quality and continuing innovation, because without that they'll lose customers no matter how much their product costs. Making the tax voluntary will force the government to spend its money more wisely because they only get as much as we feel like giving them. Obviously people will not live without their goodies, and they'll continue to buy them up as fast as they can. But the fact is, you wouldn't have to pay that tax. So you could effectively stop paying it, Joey, but you will have nothing.

I still don't think that would work, it's too much of a radical change and there would be so much backlash that whatever politician suggested it would commit career suicide. It's a nice idea in theory but I can't imagine it ever working in practice.

 

[YSSMAN]

I think military spending is one of the last places to cut spending... If we were to get ourselves into a catastrophic war... It might be a bit far fetched, but it could happen, and I'd rather keep the chance as small as possible.

Problem: Too many people assume that the moment we let our guard down, we're going to war. Who is going to cross massive oceans to perform an assault on the mainland? What the hell would they invade for? Wisconsin cheddar and Californian Pornography?

I would propose gun safety and marksmanship classes in public schools. That way we can keep the kids smart to figure a way out of this mess while they defend the onslaught of thousands of Chinese landing craft and millions of soldiers.

I think my training in Modern Warfare 2 is enough to help me stay alive in Red Dawn 2: Red Dawnier

 

[Keef]

Problem: Too many people assume that the moment we let our guard down, we're going to war. Who is going to cross massive oceans to perform an assault on the mainland?

Nobody is going to cross massive oceans to attack our mainland, especially if all our troops are here instead of drinking beer in Germany or drifting Skylines in Japan. But just because the troops are home doesn't mean we should let them sit around eating Twinkies. Target practice costs money, and it may make a slight difference in a soldier's effectiveness.

I think my training in Modern Warfare 2 is enough to help me stay alive in Red Dawn 2: Red Dawnier

I've been testing Ding Chavez's mettle ever since he was born.

 

[Anghammarad]

She can't make schools teach creationism as that would be against the constitution(yes it still exists).

I'm curious, I don't know that much about the US system. If you for some reason wanted to make changes to the constitution, is it possible at all and if so, how would you go about doing it?

Edit: Nevermind. Wiki was my friend.

 

[FoolKiller]

I'm curious, I don't know that much about the US system. If you for some reason wanted to make changes to the constitution, is it possible at all and if so, how would you go about doing it?

Edit: Nevermind. Wiki was my friend.

As you have undoubtedly discovered by now, the Federal government, which is bound by The US constitution, can do nothing more than suggest a change and require the states to consider it. But in the end all changes must be approved by 75% of the states.

So 38 states must agree, and in the instance of this idea of Palin becoming president and gaining power over schools, no state officials will willingly vote away their own power.

 

[Danoff]

I'm still trying to figure out where this thread went. I'm also still trying to figure out where about a trillion dollars of our deficit is going.

I'm sure you all remember tarp - the one-time 1 trillion dollar spending spree that we went on in order to avoid complete and utter ruin. If we hadn't spent that money, puppies would be shot right in front of us... and the children would be forced to wear asbestos clothing. It would have been horrible.

So we blew $1trillion dollars last year (actually we're still trying to blow it). That was a one-time bailout. It raised the deficit from $400 billion to ~1.4 trillion (something like that). So um.....

WHY ARE WE SPENDING ANOTHER TRILLION?!?!?!?!

Somehow, no TARP, but the deficit went UP! I'm still trying to figure out when exactly this happened.

 

[FoolKiller]

WHY ARE WE SPENDING ANOTHER TRILLION?!?!?!?!

Somehow, no TARP, but the deficit went UP! I'm still trying to figure out when exactly this happened.

Also, increased with NASA's cuts.

From Yahoo

Obama put forward a budget that included a $100 billion jobs measure that would provide tax breaks to encourage businesses to boost hiring as well as increased government spending on infrastructure and energy projects. He called for fast congressional action to speed relief to millions left unemployed in the worst recession since the 1930s.

On the anti-recession front, Obama's new budget proposed extending the popular Making Work Pay middle-class tax breaks of $400 per individual and $800 per couple through 2011. They were due to expire after this year. The budget also proposes making $250 payments to Social Security recipients to bolster their finances in a year when they are not receiving the normal cost-of-living boost to their benefit checks because of low inflation. Obama will also seek a $25 billion increase in payments to help recession-battered states.

The administration said it was proposing the largest funding increase in the history of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a $3 billion increase to $28 billion plus an additional $1 billion if Congress agrees to some major changes in the law.

The administration would also provide an additional $1.35 billion for the president's Race to the Top challenge, a federal grant program in which 40 states are competing for $4 billion in education money included in last year's stimulus bill. Obama hailed the results of this effort in his State of the Union speech.

In Obama's new budget, the Department of Homeland Security would get an additional $734 million to support the deployment of up to 1,000 advanced imaging airport screening machines and new baggage screening equipment to detect explosives. Those increases represented a response to the Christmas Day bombing attempt on an airliner landing in Detroit.

The president's budget seeks a $33 billion increase in a supplemental appropriation this year for the military and $159.3 billion in 2011 to support Obama's boost strategy to deal with the terrorist threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The surge in the deficits reflects not only the increased spending but also a big drop in tax revenues, reflecting the 7.2 million people who have lost jobs since the recession began and weaker corporate tax receipts.

But don't worry, he has a long-term plan to deal with the deficit:

In a bow to worries over the soaring deficits, the administration proposed a three-year freeze on spending beginning in 2011 for many domestic government agencies. It would save $250 billion over the next decade by following the spending freeze with caps that would keep increases after 2013 from rising faster than inflation.

He will save $250 billion over 10 years, by putting a spending freeze on next year and capping spending starting the year he would be kicked out of office, assuming he only serves one term. Of course, he can't budget 2013 in 2010, so he can change that if he gets re-elected, or accuse his replacement of doing it if he doesn't.

But don't worry, of the nearly $3 trillion we will have run up in debt over the past two years $250 billion will be saved in ten years. That is a total debt reduction (assuming we stop all deficit spending after this) of 8.3%. We can pay off the interest!

 

[Danoff]

You outlined not quite 1/5th of the money I'm trying to track down. Presumably, some of it went to lost tax revenue due to decreased earnings. But probably not 800 billion.

 

[Sam48]

I'm still trying to figure out where this thread went. I'm also still trying to figure out where about a trillion dollars of our deficit is going.

I'm sure you all remember tarp - the one-time 1 trillion dollar spending spree that we went on in order to avoid complete and utter ruin. If we hadn't spent that money, puppies would be shot right in front of us... and the children would be forced to wear asbestos clothing. It would have been horrible.

So we blew $1trillion dollars last year (actually we're still trying to blow it). That was a one-time bailout. It raised the deficit from $400 billion to ~1.4 trillion (something like that). So um.....

WHY ARE WE SPENDING ANOTHER TRILLION?!?!?!?!


Somehow, no TARP, but the deficit went UP! I'm still trying to figure out when exactly this happened.

The Obama Administration has a habit of spending for no real reason. The stimulus was a 1.4 trillion dollar spending bill (most of which was pork) that was supposed to save or create some _million jobs, according to the Obama Administration. However, since the stimulus, unemployment has gone from 6.5%, to 10.4%. There were also some bills, mostly unknown to the public, that passed congress in 2009 as well. The Bailing out of the banks, TARP, in early 2008 wasn't as big a contributor to this debt as the stimulus.

So to answer your question, the stimulus, and spending freeze (which is a cap on what the Obama Administration spent last year) are the two major contributors to our deficit. TARP was not much compared to these.

 

[Danoff]

The Bailing out of the banks, TARP, in early 2008 wasn't as big a contributor to this debt as the stimulus.

I remember TARP being about 0.8 trillion. Given that the deficit was 0.4 trillion prior to that, we're talking about an expansion of the deficit by about 0.2 trillion outside of TARP (unless you're going to tell me that the TARP money we didn't spend doesn't count, which I would believe).

If the deficit was raised by 0.2 trln in '09 (outside of tarp), then this year it went up an additional 1 trln.

 

[FoolKiller]

You outlined not quite 1/5th of the money I'm trying to track down. Presumably, some of it went to lost tax revenue due to decreased earnings. But probably not 800 billion.

It is the best I had to go on. I am sure he is budgeting for his agenda items, like health care, too. Remember, this is the budget that goes into effect in October, so it is actually budgeting for future projects too, which may or may not happen, and he they are avoiding mentioning their cost to prevent the American people from trying to stop them while they still can.

The Obama Administration has a habit of spending for no real reason.

Keep in mind that most of the spending in 2009 (until October) was based on a budget created by the Bush administration, much like the current proposed budget is for October 2010 to October 2011. Yeah stimulus added on top of it, but a large portion, including TARP, came from Bush.

The Bailing out of the banks, TARP, in early 2008 wasn't as big a contributor to this debt as the stimulus.

Whoa there! TARP allowed for $700 billion for the bailouts to be spent by the Treasury. Granted, we didn't spend it all and a chunk has been paid back to the Treasury, but the Treasury didn't just have that money sitting around. It had to be loaned by The Federal Reserve, thus all $700 billion counted toward the deficit.

Similarly the stimulus allows for $787 billion to be distributed. If you are being fair and try to count it the same way it seems you are counting TARP then you could only call it $268.8 billion, as that is all that has been distributed so far. But this too had to be loaned, thus added to the deficit, up front.

The difference is really just $87 billion. Now, if we want to look at what Obama has done with all this since he has had full control of it, he hasn't paid off deficits with the TARP money that has been repaid, but is looking to spend it elsewhere, outside of the budget, and he has been using the poor economic news as an excuse to argue for more stimulus money, and included it in his proposed budget, even though the current stimulus hasn't even been half distributed yet.

 

[Mark T]

Does everyone else feel really worried when a country has to physically borrow money from another.

I have no idea of the total tax income for the government of either the UK or US but it must be an eye boggling amount. Surely at some point in the past something has gone considerably wrong and we are now in a situation which is close to impossible to resolving without the average citizen being hit by higher taxes and reduced services.

I find it hard to believe that the government is actually working for me (and everyone else). In my eyes it's just a company being run by a board of directors.

 

[Sam48]

Keep in mind that most of the spending in 2009 (until October) was based on a budget created by the Bush administration, much like the current proposed budget is for October 2010 to October 2011. Yeah stimulus added on top of it, but a large portion, including TARP, came from Bush.

Yes, the Bush Administration spent like drunken sailors during the second term, but that's no excuse for what Obama has done in his 1 year (or at the point in time we're talking about), .5 of a year in office. Obama felt he had to take action when the banks went bust, he had to respond to the banks crisis and do something about it, he needed to make himself look better as a political leader by engaging TARP. If he hadn't spent anything on the banks, and not done TARP all together, that hole Bush dug wouldn't have gotten deeper. Yes, people would have lost their homes, but I think that's nearly as bad as putting a 3k debt on everyone American citizen.

 

[FoolKiller]

Yes, the Bush Administration spent like drunken sailors during the second term, but that's no excuse for what Obama has done in his 1 year (or at the point in time we're talking about), .5 of a year in office. Obama felt he had to take action when the banks went bust, he had to respond to the banks crisis and do something about it, he needed to make himself look better as a political leader by engaging TARP. If he hadn't spent anything on the banks, and not done TARP all together, that hole Bush dug wouldn't have gotten deeper. Yes, people would have lost their homes, but I think that's nearly as bad as putting a 3k debt on everyone American citizen.

Oh, I give Obama shared blame for TARP, since he voted for it. But anyone that looks at deficit spending for 2009 and looks to blame all of it on Obama are missing a key to where the budget he was working with came from. I fully believe the banks should have been left on their own.

As for the 3k debt on every citizen. That is 3k additional debt.

I think everyone needs to look at what our actual debt in the US is, because media and politicians only ever talk about annual debt. If you get upset at discussions of a $1.4 trillion debt, keep in mind that is just the debt for 2009.

Current overall?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

 

[DK]

Whoa there! TARP allowed for $700 billion for the bailouts to be spent by the Treasury. Granted, we didn't spend it all and a chunk has been paid back to the Treasury, but the Treasury didn't just have that money sitting around. It had to be loaned by The Federal Reserve, thus all $700 billion counted toward the deficit.

We in Ireland have something like TARP, it's called NAMA, where the government are buying c.€70-80 billion worth of "toxic" assets from the banks, but it seems like a lot of financial mumbo-jumbo to me.

 

[Sam48]

Oh, I give Obama shared blame for TARP, since he voted for it. But anyone that looks at deficit spending for 2009 and looks to blame all of it on Obama are missing a key to where the budget he was working with came from. I fully believe the banks should have been left on their own.

As for the 3k debt on every citizen. That is 3k additional debt.

I think everyone needs to look at what our actual debt in the US is, because media and politicians only ever talk about annual debt. If you get upset at discussions of a $1.4 trillion debt, keep in mind that is just the debt for 2009.

Current overall?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

I agree

 

[Mark T]

Is it safe to assume that the red figure will be gathering interest and will most likely never decrease?

 

[Dotini]

Oh, I give Obama shared blame for TARP, since he voted for it. But anyone that looks at deficit spending for 2009 and looks to blame all of it on Obama are missing a key to where the budget he was working with came from. I fully believe the banks should have been left on their own.

As for the 3k debt on every citizen. That is 3k additional debt.

I think everyone needs to look at what our actual debt in the US is, because media and politicians only ever talk about annual debt. If you get upset at discussions of a $1.4 trillion debt, keep in mind that is just the debt for 2009.

Current overall?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Keep in mind that he is talking about public, or government debt. When corporate and private debt is added, this horrible figure is about tripled!!

Prepare to be crucified on a cross of debt!

 

[FoolKiller]

Is it safe to assume that the red figure will be gathering interest and will most likely never decrease?

It jumped almost $4 million in the time it took me to read the posts after mine and click refresh.

If you follow the link you see this:

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.90 billion per day since September 28, 2007!

That said, we can cut off huge amounts at a time if we can run a proper surplus every year.

 

[YSSMAN]

That said, we can cut off huge amounts at a time if we can run a proper surplus every year.

Yeah. Bush. That happened.


All of which makes this graph even more depressing:

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036

The events and policies that have pushed deficits to astronomical levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the Presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that began during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.

While President Obama inherited a bad fiscal legacy, that does not diminish his responsibility to propose policies to address our fiscal imbalance and put the weight of his office behind them. Although policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile, they and the nation at large must come to grips with the nation’s deficit problem. But we should all recognize how we got where we are today.

Unfortunately, there aren't many people in the GOP willing to recognize these facts.

 

[DK]

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.90 billion per day since September 28, 2007!

To put things into prospective, Ireland's deficit for the whole year of 2010 is going to be c.€25 billion. Or about $35 billion. In other words our deficit rises the same amount in a whole year as your deficit does in 9 days.

 

[FoolKiller]

All of which makes this graph even more depressing:

Unfortunately, there aren't many people in the GOP willing to recognize these facts.

That graph, and the attached report have some issues in them.

For starters, the proposed budget submitted by President Obama is letting the Bush tax cuts expire (but he is not raising taxes!), so remove that entire section from the graph after 2010. The CBPP just wanted to assume the tax cuts would stay so they could make a more depressing statement, and even include a footnote link that says they make that assumption. But in the very next paragraph they address that the budget proposal is letting them expire. One would assume that if you remove the tax cuts from the above chart that the deficit would show a huge drop.

But when they do account for it and compare their headline grabbing assumption to the Obama Proposal we get this:

Odd, without the Bush tax cuts the difference is minimal, and then grows at the same rate, which is really interesting considering the original assumptions had the Bush Tax cuts doing the majority of the deficit swelling and little else changing.

Assuming the CBPP is being accurate and not just trying to grab headlines, this tells me one thing: Obama's plan only changes the one thing that will directly affect American citizens.

 

[Omnis]

Bush tax cuts aren't the issue. They never were. Bush spending is the issue, and Obama's continuation and exacerbation of the issue makes it even more of an issue.

 

[Danoff]

Yeah. Bush. That happened.


All of which makes this graph even more depressing:

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036



Unfortunately, there aren't many people in the GOP willing to recognize these facts.

I absolutely LOVE the way people assume that the tax cuts do absolutely NOTHING to the economy. Take away the tax cuts and we can assume EXACTLY THE SAME economic situation. Same reported income, same number of jobs, same everything.

Ludicrous.

 

[DK]

Delete this post

 

[FoolKiller]

Well, that has shown one thing - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are seriously damaging the U.S. budget. Of course, that's nothing compared to Bush's tax cuts, which seem to me like Bush was saying, [Texan accent]"Hey, vote for me and I'll cut your taxes!"[/Texan voice]. Anybody who cuts taxes is probably going to get a boost in popularity (for the short-term at least).

You've purposely ignored the last three posts before yours haven't you?

 

[Dotini]

How much sense would it make to enact a means test for social security, medicare, medicaid and federal and even private pensions, such that only those under the poverty line may receive them?

Would politicians have the bravery to face reelection? Would the public riot and revolt? Is the problem dire enough for such drastic actions, or could it get that bad?