Balanced Budget Amendment

[Core Imposter]

I think the stuff they put in tin foil will kill you long before you ever have need to take those pills.

I bet you don't even check the "use by" date on your tin foil.

I do. I believe in being prepared.

 

[JollyRoger]

I bet you don't even check the "use by" date on your tin foil.

I do. I believe in being prepared.

The use by dates are just a government conspiracy to trick you into holding onto the bad tinfoil longer.

 

[GhostWriter16]

All those years you voted conservative. Now you finally see the price of that.

I'm pretty sure if he voted liberal the same people would have won

One vote usually isn't the difference maker

 

[Cutlass]

I'm pretty sure if he voted liberal the same people would have won

One vote usually isn't the difference maker

But it's conservative policies that drive the debt. The US really doesn't have a fiscal problem that conservative policies did not create.

 

[GhostWriter16]

But it's conservative policies that drive the debt. The US really doesn't have a fiscal problem that conservative policies did not create.

I still don't see why he should regret voting conservative. If he had voted liberal, the same politicians would have won and it would have made no difference

In all seriousness, partisan comment is partisan. The reality is that we as a nation want to keep taxes low while keeping spending high. Ideally both would be low. And conservative policies, I think, would be completely workable if we actually kept spending low as well. Yet we don't.

 

[Cutlass]

I still don't see why he should regret voting conservative. If he had voted liberal, the same politicians would have won and it would have made no difference

In all seriousness, partisan comment is partisan. The reality is that we as a nation want to keep taxes low while keeping spending high. Ideally both would be low. And conservative policies, I think, would be completely workable if we actually kept spending low as well. Yet we don't.

All that tells you is that all the conservative voters are to blame.

 

[GhostWriter16]

All that tells you is that all the conservative voters are to blame.

The first paragraph was a literalist comment because I thought your comment was snarky (Which it was) so I decided to tear it apart even if I had to do it in a legalistic, pointless manner

The second paragraph was a serious response.

 

[Cutlass]

The first paragraph was a literalist comment because I thought your comment was snarky (Which it was) so I decided to tear it apart even if I had to do it in a legalistic, pointless manner

The second paragraph was a serious response.

Not really. It's blame shifting at best.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I was actually seriously just being difficult Althoguh when you make comments like "The conservatives did it" with no further support, its kind of hard NOT to do that.

 

[Cutlass]

I was actually seriously just being difficult Althoguh when you make comments like "The conservatives did it" with no further support, its kind of hard NOT to do that.

If you've been in the United States at any point in the past 30 years, you know the conservatives did it. There's not a lot of point in keeping saying "the sky is blue".

 

[bugwar]

I wonder if a balanced budget amendment is really any more of a symptom of political malaise than it is simply a tool,
much as the separation of powers is in our government.

Surely there is no need to keep the authority of congress limited?

After all, they are all good leaders, sworn to work for the good of the country.

Yet there it is, and a good thing too.
So perhaps forcing a balanced budget is also a good thing, like the separation of powers.

 

[bugwar]

But a strict balanced budget law would just limit the government too much.

Again, that depends on your wording of the amendment, as well as your value judgment of what ‘too much’ is.

It's hard (i.e. impossible) to cover every possible kind of crisis the government would need to respond to as exceptions to such a law,...

Gee, I wonder if inserting the phrase along the lines of ‘...unless two-thirds of Congress votes to suspend this amendment for a period of one year.’ would handle that?

If you really think that the US are anywhere close to Greece's problems in the foreseeable future, you really don't know what you are talking about and need to get some perspective.

An interesting value judgment on your part, though that is not what I wrote. I wrote that we are TRYING our best to get there. As for the period, those again are your words, not mine.

Someone has to serve as an example of misguided thinking.

Good that new people barge into this forum in regular intervals to provide this sort of service.

Well, it is within the realm of possibility that I am in error, which is why I left that passage in. Is there also a chance that you too are not infallible?

And this is the fundamental problem budget hawks have. They treat national budgets like private budgets, as if macroeconomics was the same as microeconomics.

And this is the fundamental problem liberals have. They treat national budgets like licenses to print money, as if their credit is good as long as they have red ink in their quills.

We can trade snappy remarks all night, or move on to providing concrete details supporting our thoughts.

Your choice.

 

[bugwar]

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.

Well with your assumption that there is no emergency clause in the amendment, that may be so.

I kinda think that that would not be the case though.

And my thanks to ‘Disgustipated’ for bringing that up earlier.


Assuming though that the liberals forced the amendment to have NO emergency clause, and then with a nuclear strike on our homeland, how long do you think it would take congress to override that amendment.

You. do. the. math.

 

[GhostWriter16]

If you've been in the United States at any point in the past 30 years, you know the conservatives did it. There's not a lot of point in keeping saying "the sky is blue".

Barring two two week missions trips, and any time spent in airplanes (Which isn't a majority of the time, or any significant minority) I have been on US soil all my life. I haven't seen "The conservatives did it" as being a particularly compelling argument.

Big claims need big sources.

 

[GhostWriter16]

If you've been in the United States at any point in the past 30 years, you know the conservatives did it. There's not a lot of point in keeping saying "the sky is blue".

Oh, I see your trick. You're in Connecticut so you know in the Eastern time zone, the sky is really black right now. Thus, the sky is not blue, but black, and the conservatives did not do it, the liberals did

Why on earth would you use "The sky is blue" to prove your point in the middle of the night?

 

[Cutlass]

Barring two two week missions trips, and any time spent in airplanes (Which isn't a majority of the time, or any significant minority) I have been on US soil all my life. I haven't seen "The conservatives did it" as being a particularly compelling argument.

Big claims need big sources.

Pay attention to the real world. Problem solved.

 

[bugwar]

Pay attention to the real world. Problem solved.

Glittering Generalities. One of the oldest con jobs used by debaters.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Pay attention to the real world. Problem solved.

Ah, so you really have no intent to convince me, or anyone else who may be on the fence, of your philosophy? Because "Look at the real world" isn't going to do it.

I pay attention to politics. The way I see it, the liberals are by and large causing this problem by continuing to raise the debt ceiling and continuing to spend more money on new social programs while keeping up the expensive foreign policy of the previous administration. Where I'm sitting, this really seems like its Obama's fault, at least in part. And I am not the only one.

 

[bugwar]

Ah, so you really have no intent to convince me, or anyone else who may be on the fence, of your philosophy? Because "Look at the real world" isn't going to do it.

I pay attention to politics. The way I see it, the liberals are by and large causing this problem by continuing to raise the debt ceiling and continuing to spend more money on new social programs while keeping up the expensive foreign policy of the previous administration. Where I'm sitting, this really seems like its Obama's fault, at least in part. And I am not the only one.

Much as I personally love blaming liberals for all the world's ills, in this case I have to chime in that the Democrats didn't pass those spending bills by themselves. They had Republican help.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Much as I personally love blaming liberals for all the worlds ills, in this case I have to chime in that the Democrats didn't pass those spending bills by themselves. They had Republican help.

I wasn't trying to deny that, although I am posting in a "Fast style" right now as its late at night and I'm about to go to bed, and to be fair, I did put in more time than the person I responded to did. Forgive me.

I'm pretty much disgusted with Republicans as much as Democrats these days. The only "Conservative" candidate running was Ron Paul, and that because he was willing to cut enough of the government that money would actually be saved rather than spent, as everyone else wants to do.

The Republicans have basically blended with the Democrats this year anyway. Nobody has a plan to truly save this trashed economy. It doesn't matter if there's an "R" or "D" in front of their name, I read it as an "I" and I don't mean independent