Excuse me but I have to ask, ‘Have you been paying attention the last 5 years?’ Cut Medicare….. Bush has increased Medicare by so much by his ridiculous ‘Prescription Drug Bill’, Medicaid… is a State program…. Education spending was DOUBLED!!!! under Bush. I’m sure you’ve heard of the program, the one that was written by Ted Kennedy… ‘No Child Left Behind’…

“There was a projected surplus over a ten-year period, which Clinton sold as a “done deal.â€Â? ”

Yeah a projected surplus that used Social Security money to pay for Government spending not related to SS….. knowing that the Boomers were getting ready to retire and that there is no way that SS could have been spent that way…. that’s really a ’surplus’ in your mind?

“One is the public perception of our (very low) taxation rate and governmental unwillingness to tax enough to pay for what they deem necessary. ”

No, the problem is that they use our ‘hard earned money’ to buy their votes so that they can continue to hold onto power…. that is the problem. If the money was really going to ‘making the country work’ I wouldn’t mind it, but it goes to ‘buy votes’ and I do have a problem with that!!!!

“So just because there’s inefficiency in a system it means you throw the system out entirely, and ignore the problems the system was put there to handle? ”

Absolutely, either the system needs to be thrown out and overhauled or the tax system does!!! This crap of telling us that we have to be content with the paultry SS and that Congress can cut it anytime they want to while they get their Current wages for LIFE and still get to ‘invest’ a protion of their retirement SUCKS!!!! I think that we need to start a national referendum to have all Congress and Senate participate in Social Security and pay into the system just the way that we have to!!! A family of 4 or 5 living on $25,000 to $30,000 doesn’t have the luxury of extra money to invest in a retirement account…. to just lock them out of any say so on their ‘Social Security Retirement’ money isn’t right.

“Tell the government to cut some of the hundreds of billions in defense spending so they can start paying down the massive debt. ”

How can any nation justify sending troops into war and then tell the troops that we aren’t going to fund it? We aren’t going to be able to afford the best equipment because we want to cut your budget? I agree that the defense budget can be cut, but only during peace time and when the world is in a stable position, but never during a war. you would think that our own elected government officials would recognize that the pork needs to be completely cut from the budget during times like this…. but buying votes are more important to them than doing what’s best for the country.

“Taxes in our country are the lowest in any industrialized nation – we as a nation need to stop bitching about paying our fair share and just do it. The government is so tax-phobic (due to voter paranoia) that we’re not coming close to having enough of a federal budget for adequate programs for almost anything important. ”

That isn’t the problem, the problem is that we don’t agree on what is ‘important’ and how far that the government is supposed to go. It is a difference in culture, I believe that the private market is superior to a government department, the private market initiates efficiency by competition. Competition is something that the government department does not deal with so there isn’t any driving need to be efficient, they will just raise your taxes to cover the price and people don’t get to choose not to participate in it.

Personally I believe that there are very few things that the government does better than the private market.

“Spending should be cut (mainly from the Pentagon’s budget) and the social security tax should have the 90K cap taken off of it. I’m not talking about a broad income tax increase. I’m just talking about having people pay their fair share of the Social Security burden.”

Justin, just out of curiosity, would you also remove the cap on what you can draw from Social Security? How about allowing ownership over a portion of your Social Security that you can choose to invest in investment funds? A portion of your Social Security that the government ‘cannot’ spend on buying their votes. Ownership that you can actually pass onto your family when you die, even if the last child is over 21, so that all of that money that you were forced to pay into the system isn’t lost to your own family members that had money taken away from them?

“Frankly I think one of the main reasons there’s inefficiency is because we keep playing tug-of-war with funding. It’s impossible to manage things when your budget keeps sliding out from under you. Enacting changes that increase efficiency cannot be done on a subsistence budget either – and cutting budgets to punish inefficiency is a sure way to make matters worse.”

Actually it’s the opposite, these budgets are basically what they had last year plus a set % for inflation etc. When the year end approaches and your budget hasn’t been spent, overtime flows like water…. because if they don’t spend it, they might lose it for next year. So they make sure that they spend it, even if it isn’t needed.

yeah pretty much. How long can you blame the previous president for the failings of the current administration? The tax cuts only worked well for the wealthiest 1 percent. They were short sighted for an administration that from day one was looking for an excuse to go to war. Unfortunately, that excuse for war was 9/11 which was devastating to the economy and the gov’t’s bottom line.

I see, so it’s the democrats fault that the “projected� surplus they left for the republicans is now an actual huge deficit. Why can’t you righties take responsibility. Eventually the Clintons will die. Then what? Kerry didn’t win the election.

…turns into…

Stuff was fine for the next decade when my guy was in office. Ain’t my fault the next guy screwed it up.

Covered that in my last post.

Reading is fundamental.

Whenever either party has power, they all bargain with each other to get everything they want, irrespective of cost, and block out most everything the other party wants. When things are more evenly matched, shouting matches ensue and usually you end up with less agreement, and less pork, because one half objects to all of the other half’s pork.

One of the reasons Clinton ended up with a surplus is because the Senate and the House kept fighting each other, and the threat of a Clinton veto prevented anything too extravagant in either direction. That plus a gangbusters economy, of course.

As much as I don’t want another Republican in the presidency, McCain at least gives more than lip service to balancing the budget – fiscally I tend to be somewhat moderate, though socially I’m way on the progressive end of the spectrum. Personally I see balancing the budget (and paying down the debt) to be one of the biggest challenges and threats facing this nation, far and away above terrorism.

The good news in all of this is that it appears the Democrats will at least move closer to a 50/50 split in one or both houses in the midterm election, and then hopefully some constructive sanity can invade Capitol Hill – not from the Democrats but from balancing the teeter totter they all play on.

Ford?

There was a huge surplus when Bush Got IN! There is a HUGE defcit now. Do the Math! The Dems are not the Problem.

There was a projected surplus over a ten-year period, which Clinton sold as a “done deal.” No biggie, any president (R) or (D) would have claimed the success of that, because by the time it fell apart, that person would be out of office and have washed their hands of it. “Hrm, I dont’ know what my successors were doing…things were great when *I* left office!”

But really, call it what it was…a highly speculative estimate…nobody in their right minds claims to know how an economy will run 10 years in advance. (Well, okay…maybe some Donks would ^^).

In addition to that, remember that it was determined by looking a previous quarter numbers that the recession started around March 2000, a good 10 months before Bush took office.

Further on that, I remember that during the Republican primary season, Bush warned that the economy was headed for a downturn. I specifically remember Tom Daschle accusing nomination-seeking Bush of “scaring down the economy.” That would’ve been late ‘99 or so by my recollection.

Don’t get me wrong, we could be in a lot better shape now if Republicans hadn’t spent like Donks. I left the party back in the spring over that very issue.

But be realistic…of the “BIG SURPLUS THEN/BIG DEFICIT NOW” meme…only the latter is proveable. The former was wishful thinking.

There was a huge surplus when Bush Got IN! There is a HUGE defcit now. Do the Math! The Dems are not the Problem.

I’m just saying that when the Dem’s eventually get back in power, I see three things happening: rollback the tax cuts (and maybe add a few increases), reduced spending on security, and an increase in the welfare state (since people can’t take care of themselves anymore).

None of those look very appealing from my point.

and sleipner….
Yes, the system is broken, throw it out. The system has created it’s own set of problems now that can’t be fixed. (Dependancy, a sense of entitlement, etc)

So since the govenrment has been spending at a rate faster than it’s been collecting for decades, the taxpayers are supposed to pony up more?

In short, yes.

However, what should happen is two fold. Spending should be cut (mainly from the Pentagon’s budget) and the social security tax should have the 90K cap taken off of it. I’m not talking about a broad income tax increase. I’m just talking about having people pay their fair share of the Social Security burden.

Also, not getting into massive wars that last 5+ years could help with the spending too…

But spending will still be out of control. And the Dem’s will have no problem with stealing my money to pay for it!

You’re accusing the Dems of stealing your money through tax dollars? Uh, take a look at Bush’s spending spree again and get back to me…

Frankly I think one of the main reasons there’s inefficiency is because we keep playing tug-of-war with funding. It’s impossible to manage things when your budget keeps sliding out from under you. Enacting changes that increase efficiency cannot be done on a subsistence budget either – and cutting budgets to punish inefficiency is a sure way to make matters worse.

Ford4×4’s attitude is one of the main reasons WHY the government is so screwed up – viewing taxation as illegal theft instead of one’s required contribution to making the country work.

I will grant you that pork is way out of control and needs to be reined in. There are two main reasons though why the budget is so unbalanced.

One is the public perception of our (very low) taxation rate and governmental unwillingness to tax enough to pay for what they deem necessary.

The other is the opposite side of that coin – the desire of politicians to seem like they’re getting every possible federal dollar for their own districts, which overwhelms fiscal responsibility. When a majority of Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) all get together and agree to vote for everyone else’s pork as long as they vote for my pork, irrespective of budgetary contraints, you have a broken system.

The factor that will become more and more overwhelming over the next decade or two will be the spiralling interest on the national debt. Bush and the Republican congress have managed to add more debt to our nation than anyone since Reagan – and no one has held them accountable.

In our debtor society apparently most people don’t see a problem with our country living off its credit cards…held by the National Bank of China. Eventually they will send the collection agency in…and then what?

No, the concern is an atmosphere where the investigation takes on a life of its own and sight is lost of what the government should continue to remain focused on while the investigations proceed.

Eliminating ALL pork would go a lot further than any tax increase. If our country survived with a government of size X for it’s first 200 years, what has happened that makes us need a government of size 2X now? Through our own votes, we’ve legislated ourselves into a spending oblivion, and I fear it’s only going to continue to get worse: The Repubs will be voted out, national security will suffer, and the poor will prosper. But spending will still be out of control. And the Dem’s will have no problem with stealing my money to pay for it!

So what that Rep. Jones killed that lady? Tens of thousands of troops are in harm’s way!

The inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the current federal program structure demonstrates how wasteful a proposition it can be to throw more dollars at the situation.

The midterm elections can’t come soon enough for me…I just hope the media isn’t bought off to stop showing the corruption and deceit prior to the election…

Totally agree with Justin Gardner above – military and debt spending are the two biggest reduceable parts of our current budget. Instead of course the Republicans are going after the poor people, cutting Medicare, Medicaid, school spending, and whatever else they can do to stick it to the people who can’t defend themselves. While of course slipping through and defending huge tax breaks for the rich and corporations that got us into this debt spiral to begin with.

Taxes in our country are the lowest in any industrialized nation – we as a nation need to stop bitching about paying our fair share and just do it. The government is so tax-phobic (due to voter paranoia) that we’re not coming close to having enough of a federal budget for adequate programs for almost anything important.

If there were this much passion put towards resolving key issues such as the trade deficit then we’d been in much stronger position to deal with the tough economic decisions that are lying ahead.

Of course, I’d like to see more emphasis put towards securing our borders, like ford talks about, but apparently that’s not going to happen under this administration, unless Chertoff’s recent plans are met with something other than political bluster.