Balanced Budget Amendment

[squadbroken]

That's a lot of Americans homeless and starving....

It's the tried-and-tested North Korea model

 

[bugwar]

That's a lot of Americans homeless and starving....

Perhaps in your view.
In mine, the 50% domestic cut doesn't have to come out of those programs.
In fact, you can increase their budgets for all I care.
As long as the total domestic portion of the cuts comes out the same.

 

[Cutlass]

Then let us agree to disagree.

Your view of the qualities of the common people of America (the 99%'ers) does not coincide with mine.

Which is good.

Someone has to serve as an example of misguided thinking.

California has 10% of the American population. Direct democracy has turned it from the most dynamic 10% of the country into a dying hulk.

Perhaps in your view.
In mine, the 50% domestic cut doesn't have to come out of those programs.
In fact, you can increase their budgets for all I care.
As long as the total domestic portion of the cuts comes out the same.

There isn't all that much domestic spending that is not income support. What else would you cut it out of?

 

[bugwar]

California has 10% of the American population. Direct democracy has turned it from the most dynamic 10% of the country into a dying hulk.

There isn't all that much domestic spending that is not income support. What else would you cut it out of?

California has problems, yep. We can all find outliers if we look hard enough.

And yet how many cities and counties accross America also have represenative democracy, and manage to keep their budgets in line?


As for the domestic spending, I already told you my view.

If YOU want to exempt some programs to favor others, that is your problem.
You figure it out.

Since they are ALL important, they can all suffer equally till we get our champagne tastes in line with beer level income.


Charity is nice, good and useful to society, but there are limits.
When they pass the collection plate in church, I don't drop my Visa card in. I put in what I can afford.

If you on the other hand, do borrow regularly to cover your donations to charity, good for you. I wish you luck at the end or each month when the statements arrive.

If you take on a second job to pay for those bills, good on you. I prefer to have one job, and donate within that limit.

 

[JollyRoger]

If you really cared about the deficit, you would get a second job so that you would, through yje additional taxation, contribute more towards the revenue side of the equation.

 

[Cutlass]

California has problems, yep. We can all find outliers if we look hard enough.

And yet how many cities and counties accross America also have represenative democracy, and manage to keep their budgets in line?


As for the domestic spending, I already told you my view.

If YOU want to exempt some programs to favor others, that is your problem.
You figure it out.

Since they are ALL important, they can all suffer equally till we get our champagne tastes in line with beer level income.


Charity is nice, good and useful to society, but there are limits.
When they pass the collection plate in church, I don't drop my Visa card in. I put in what I can afford.

If you on the other hand, do borrow regularly to cover your donations to charity, good for you. I wish you luck at the end or each month when the statements arrive.

If you take on a second job to pay for those bills, good on you. I prefer to have one job, and donate within that limit.

The budget has never been a question of what we can afford. We're paying less taxes than any time in 60 years. Put them back where it worked and problem solved.

 

[bugwar]

If you really cared about the deficit, you would get a second job so that you would, through yje additional taxation, contribute more towards the revenue side of the equation.

If I really cared. Well I guess in your eyes I don't.

I forget, do YOU care about the deficit?
Or should I just ask how that second job is working out for you?

 

[JollyRoger]

A first job would cut into my income.

 

[bugwar]

The budget has never been a question of what we can afford. We're paying less taxes than any time in 60 years. Put them back where it worked and problem solved.

Or cut spending and problem solved. Guess which I prefer.
I LIKE not paying more taxes than 60 years ago.
I find the extra cash in pocket very useful to my enjoyment of life.

 

[bugwar]

A first job would cut into my income.

Arooh?

Auf English, bitte?

 

[Cutlass]

Or cut spending and problem solved. Guess which I prefer.
I LIKE not paying more taxes than 60 years ago.
I find the extra cash in pocket very useful to my enjoyment of life.

There isn't enough spending that can be cut to balance the budget without crippling the economy or drastically harming the majority of the people in the country.

 

[bugwar]

There isn't enough spending that can be cut to balance the budget without crippling the economy or drastically harming the majority of the people in the country.

That is your view.

Mine is that there is enough spending that can be cut.
That is my preference on handling the deficit.


As I wrote earlier, I will accept a tax increase
as long as there is an equal spending cut.

Either way, live within your income.

 

[History_Buff]

You got the political problem part right. If the politicians would work together, no problem. Since they don't, and the voters don't care to see to it that they do, the ammendment serves in the stead of responsible leadership.

Nope, won't happen. The politicians won't cooperate because the electorate is divided. Right now, what you have is a situation where all sides of the spectrum have been able to get what they want. You've got a decent (still overly low) level of social spending and high level of military spending, coupled with a non-economically-interventionist government and rock bottom tax rates. The liberals are insistent on the social spending, while the conservatives are enamoured with the military spending, small government talk, and then you've got a plutocratic class that have a government taxing them and meddling in corporate affairs.

Until you decide on a course of action out of this position, the deficit will remain. It will decrease when the economy gets going again, but the deficit is structural. Either you drastically cut social spending, or raise taxes. An amendment won't help anyone decide; they will merely entrench their position, and insist the 'other side' has to give in.

 

[bugwar]

You've got a decent (still overly low) level of social spending and high level of military spending,...

Overly LOW?

According to the graph 'Cutlass' provided, over 80% of the budget is for programs other than defense.

I just GOTTA add this:



https://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/12/9/10/_IXsWW-RSkCu0iKbyL2WFw2.jpg

 

[GhostWriter16]

Nope, won't happen. The politicians won't cooperate because the electorate is divided. Right now, what you have is a situation where all sides of the spectrum have been able to get what they want. You've got a decent (still overly low) level of social spending and high level of military spending, coupled with a non-economically-interventionist government and rock bottom tax rates. The liberals are insistent on the social spending, while the conservatives are enamoured with the military spending, small government talk, and then you've got a plutocratic class that have a government taxing them and meddling in corporate affairs.

Until you decide on a course of action out of this position, the deficit will remain. It will decrease when the economy gets going again, but the deficit is structural. Either you drastically cut social spending, or raise taxes. An amendment won't help anyone decide; they will merely entrench their position, and insist the 'other side' has to give in.

The neocons are the first people that absolutely need to lose. That's a start. Cut the military budget and screw interventionism, its the ultimate theft from the taxpayers since we literally AREN'T getting anything for the money the vast majority of the time.

I wonder if libertarian leaning and paleoconservative Republicans could work with Democrats on that? Sadly, Obama doesn't seem much interested in it themselves.

We should also stop enforcing victimless crimes laws, especially at the federal level. That would seriously help our budget (That's not the only thing it would do, but that's the part that's relevant to this.)

I imagine most people on here would be on board with those two things.

Then there's social spending. I don't see the logic behind why we allow people to be on unemployment for two years. My hunch is that should be cut down a bit.

And social security should, at minimum, be reformed so that social security money goes to social security, and is not being "borrowed" for other purposes.

I'm not sure how much we are spending on each thing. I imagine war is a bigger chunk of it than conservatives are willing to admit, but its hardly the whole beast either.

 

[History_Buff]

Overly LOW?

According to the graph 'Cutlass' provided, over 80% of the budget is for programs other than defense.

Generally speaking, yes. Or perhaps it's just poorly allocated and inefficiently spent. But your social nets are far worse than the ones even here in Canada, and much than European systems at a glance.

I wonder if libertarian leaning and paleoconservative Republicans could work with Democrats on [isolationism]? Sadly, Obama doesn't seem much interested in it themselves.

They won't, nor should they. There are great reasons to fight wars, particularly ones where you won't be getting anything out of it yourselves.

We should also stop enforcing victimless crimes laws, especially at the federal level. That would seriously help our budget (That's not the only thing it would do, but that's the part that's relevant to this.)

Which crimes? Because if it's the one I think you mean, you should know that the States love to prosecute those. Departmentalizing the costs probably won't make things better, and quite possibly would make things worse, budget wise.

Then there's social spending. I don't see the logic behind why we allow people to be on unemployment for two years. My hunch is that should be cut down a bit.

The short answer is that you get a better allocation of labour when you do so. You want people to find jobs in the fields they are trained in. Now if those jobs no longer exist, and aren't coming back, you've got a problem, but not one with the unemployment reimbursement system per se.

The other reason is that people have already paid into the system expecting that level of coverage. You can ramp it back over time of course, but you can't ethically cut it suddenly.

 

[RobAnybody]

I always find it entertaining when some new poster barges in with dozens of posts full of crazy ideas & gets destroyed EN MASSE. It's highly entertaining.

Anyway, a Balanced Budget Amendment is one of the stupidest ideas ever proposed. What do you think would happen, right now, if, say, Israel nuked Iran & it turned our Iran had actually developed nukes 6 months ago, along with ICBM's, & they nuked New York?

It's silly, sure, but what if? How do you think we'd actually pay for the retaliation? The mobilizaton of troops. The ground war. The clean up. Dear God, the clean up. It'd make Katrina looks like a rain delay at a baseball game.

Given our massize current deficits, how could we possibly pay for all that if we had to balance the budget at the same time? You'd basically have to immediatly cut off all Social Security payments, end Medicare completely, end Farm & Oil subsidies, AND raise taxes to like 70% on everyone.

And that's just a worst case scenario. Imagine if we'd had a Balanced Budget Amendment 10 years ago. Forget the Bush Tax Cuts. We's have had the Bush Tax Raises. We wouldn't have Medicare Part D (maybe not a bad thing) and taxes would have automatically sky-rocketed during The Recession under Obama, instead of decreasing like they have, to fund all the Unemployment benefits & increased Food Stamp users.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

 

[Crezth]

Or just fire all the government employees. That'd balance the budget in a snap.

 

[Disgustipated]

Do you realize how much time it would take out of the congressional budget sessions to get a balanced budget amendment? Wouldn't it be better to figure out how to get more people back to work? Isn't solving the climate crisis just slightly more important?

I seriously don't think the government (and neither presidential candidate) can do anything about the unemployment problem. And dare I say it? It's not the governments job to provide jobs to people. You have to have faith in capitalism. It will work if you let it. As it is, with our massive entitlement programs, most people are just content to just go on disability and not work. Unemployment will continue to be high in the foreseeable future.

 

[History_Buff]

Or just fire all the government employees. That'd balance the budget in a snap.

Actually, if you turned over all administrative duties to a computer that was not being paid, it actually wouldn't balance the books. Would come very close, but not quite all the way there.