NEWSFLASH: All politicians weigh the possible political reactions to anything they do, from giving speeches to invading other countries. So a president should send ground troops to wherever he wants them, despite what THE PEOPLE want? THE PEOPLE of any nation rarely want war. So what happens, and this is predictable, is the leaders will lie, distort, make up stories, etc. etc. in order to stir up the population into supporting war. This tactic isn't anything new, nor is it rare. Iraq War: There were many lies, but the most memorable was Colin Powell at the UN showing pictures of Saddam's (non-existent) WMDs. Persian Gulf War: The completely false story about Saddam ripping Kuwaiti babies out of their incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital. Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin "incident". WWII: FDR cutting off Japan's oil supply and freezing their assets in this country, hoping Japan would attack. Then he knew he would get approval from the American Dupes to enter WWII, which he wanted to anyway, but didn't have the public support for before Pearl Harbor. Etc., etc. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. -- H. L. Mencken The first casualty when war comes is the truth. -- Sen. Hiram Johnson The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics... -- Simone Weil All warfare is based on deception. -- Sun Tzu \nIf there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest. -- Thomas Jefferson \nGovernments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other. -- Thomas Jefferson \nThose who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. -- George Santayana
Even the so-called Spanish American war was based on trumped up bullshit - "Remember the Maine" my ass!
Sank us very little. The current regime has considerably less expenditures then the last regarding that with a substantially reduced DoD and there still running a deficit yet recording record revenue. Why..because there to busy stuffing the faces of the sick lame and lazy....yet it still is not enough. As for all citizens shouldering the burden I agree...get teh 50% of Americans who pay nothing in taxes to do such.
Even if we effectively taxed the 50 percent you refer to it would barely do anything to cover the deficit and would lead to extreme levels of poverty for certain people. I'm sure you're going to disregard this, but this article does a good job at explaining why taxing these 50 percent would be a step in the wrong direction. Most people who don't pay these taxes don't make a steady income because they are old, disabled, or a student. This idea that 50 percent of the population is pulling a fast one on the government and we can seriously cut the deficit by taxing them is ridiculous. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3505
When you collect more in refunds then you paid in taxes I would say there not paying anything there a net benefactor of someone else. At the very least they should get nothing back. A great experiment in the works is California. They spend more per capita on the poor, tax more then just about anyone and guess what they have more sucks, poor, sick then any state in the union. There solution is to double down on the same failed method. Don't forget also that you guys have BO and a Supermajority of Democrats to fix all of your tax woes to. You have the brief moment in time to tax everyone to oblivion to shove the hot pocket into the face of the welfare queen. Your liberal lords choose not to so don't ever expect that to be fixed. You guys literally could of had anything and it would of been signed off on. Nope you guys put all your eggs into Obamacare and how is that working out for you? Miserably by nearly every account in every state. As Nancy Pelosi put it "Enjoy the suck".
Funny how many people would still vote for Obama if he ran again Round and round we go into oblivion -yuri
That number is significantly less and judging by last falls election were ready to shed this flith we elected into office. You are right though in the space of all that has happened its unreal people support him still. They must be the 55,000 that watch CNN...that was there ratings recently btw. MSNBC was not to far behind them. Forensic Files repeats actually get more ratings LOL.
So besides insulting democrats and boldly assuming that I blindly support Obama because I believe in presenting factual information what have you actually said in this statement. Everything you say is rhetorical garbage and never actually addresses anything I say, just straight straw man. I clearly agreed that something around 50 percent doesn't pay federal income tax. My point was that if you actually look at the numbers, taxing this 50 percent would do very little to make up the deficit and would greatly disturb the lives of people in the lowest income bracket of this country. People in the lowest income bracket often spend pretty much all of the money they make so a tax would be crippling to these people. Not to mention the fact that a large portion of that 50 percent is elderly people and students who don't currently make steady incomes. Once again I will say this but you will probably just ignore it, I do not support a large portion of what Obama or other democrats have done! I just have looked at actual data and realized that taxing this 50 percent and cutting social programs is not enough to cut the deficit alone without having a severely negative impact on the economy. It seems pretty much impossible to cut taxes for the wealthy, cut down on the deficit, and pay for those solely by cutting social programs/ taxing this 50 percent. Republicans can't pretend like they are interested in cutting the deficit and object to any form of tax increases. The only feasible way to cut the deficit is through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. Especially when most people, including republicans aren't willing to put Medicare or social security on the chopping block. Do you think that the government can feasibly lower tax rates on the wealthy and cut social programs enough to cut the deficit without disturbing the economy? If so what social programs should we cut or change? I haven't seen one politician come up with a legitimate proposal for how to reign in government spending, even from the republicans who claim to be fiscally conservative. I despise all politicians, because I believe in open and honest discussion/common sense, so stop lumping my beliefs with obamas. It seems that any one who challenges your beliefs is instantly labeled a democrat and is disregarded which is a very close minded way to live. If you have any legit proposals for cutting social programs then I would love to hear about them. If you want to bash Obama and straw man me some more then don't even bother responding.
Thats why its all doomed to collapse. Setting aside the US Federal Governments deficit issue we have even a more enormus issue regarding the states. Nearly half are bankrupt there just waiting the match that causes there collapse...look at Connecticut. On top of that the majority of all pension programs..the ones that still exist are upside down with no hope of making them solvent. Throw the US Federal Governments deficit on top and you have the recipe for a near biblical collapse. When it all hits there will be nothing left to give out. It will all go to creditors of some form. This will all resolve itself given time...just like it did in Greece. After there bailout social programs were cut to near zero. Senior citizens committed suicide in record numbers since that 1k payout a month got cut to 1/10, free medical..not free anymore etc etc. You also run into the problem that people in Western countries are not having kids in mass anymore. Japan is experiencing negative population growth. So the burden gets larger and larger. There is a point where it either collapses or we just say screw it and your on your own. In regards to who I label or how I live that opinion is important as your belly button lint.
So your basic stance is it's all gonna collapse and then social program cuts will take care of themselves? If anything doesn't that mean you should support Obama since you claim that increased social programs will lead to this ultimate catastrophic failure/ course correction for the government? Actually it's pretty important to me that you don't label me/ imply I'm a democrat or Obama supporter because that would be a false statement. Obviously you don't care about spouting rhetorical fallacious garbage, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who want to have a conversation without name calling or straw manning.
What am I am saying is either its dealt with it harshly now and painfully or we just ride it out then it collapses. We long since hit that point of no return. I assure you as well that unlike the climate alarmists this will hit long before we live on a cinder brick of a world from global warming. One alarming red alert that has already arisen is our deficit payments. Under historically almost zero for the longest period of time just about interest rates our debt payment is approaching 300 billion dollars of our annual budget. If you simply increase that to 6 7% which it was around 2008 you get a debt payment that consumes almost all of the US Federal Budget before anything else is paid. 3% which is very low historically is crippling. Thats why Yellen who has nodded that those rates are coming keeps causing the market to dive when she speaks of it...everyone with any fiscal sense knows this. We are now in a web of our own creation and destruction. If they keep it at zero we run the risk of inflation. Increase it and you thoroughly devastate the US's finances. One way or another now or 10 years from now the piper has to be paid. When that occurs since the worlds economy is more intergrated then ever into the US's its going to be a bad time for all rich or poor. You already see the crumbling of the entire Western world fiscally and others as well. Japan is doing terrible there pumping in more money on a much smaller economy then we have, Sweden has negative interest rates, Greece is soon to reject the bailout which will cause there pull out most likely of the EU. The entire EU is fiscally falling apart. China's real growth numbers are around 1% since they cook the books. The best thing though is we have front row seats to historic events! Get the popcorn out and just wait.
Fair enough. I keep hearing things like this said and I'm curious what specific cuts are you referring to?Like if you are dictator tomorrow what social programs are we cutting or making changes to in order to address the budget issues? I feel that many people make this seem like some extremely easy task, but I haven't heard any specific cuts from either side of the aisle who keep throwing out rhetoric about our deficit.
our main issue is consumption versus production. We don't require wellfare recipients to work. That's part of the point. It creates a net sink. I'd hate on government aide less if they required you to get a job. How about instead of wellfare we have government jobs? Dunno how well that would work but at least the wellfare can pay for itseld -yuri
Problem is nobody has any goddamn focus. Case in point, this thread. We start off discussing the president going back on his word about no boots on the ground in Iraq and end up discussing socialism and the current state of our economy, how and why we got here, and it's why it's the end of the world blah, blah, blah...
You realize if we took 100% from the fortune 400 (top wealthiest families in America) it pay for our government for about 4 months. It wouldn't support the poor or cut the deficit. What it does do is drain capital for investment, jobs! You want a plan? How about bringing home our troops and cutting military spending in half immediately, like in today, right now, this very minute. Close ALL bases across seas and 90% here at home. Then focus on our dollar. We need real money free from government inflation. This alone will eliminate 99.9% of the poor. Then we can start to shift personal responsibilities away from the over reaching government and back into the people hands. We could then eliminate the departments of....ie defense, education, justice, ag, on and on. Then we could open up our borders without fear of losing tax revenue and produce more stuff at a cheaper price. .....imagine if you didn't need a raise because products became increasingly cheaper. Imagine actually being able to save for a rainy day like our grandparents, and our savings actually being worth more (buys more stuff) than it did the day you put it away. There is a reason none of this is happening and there IS something to blame for it not happening.
The overwhelming overwhelming spending is done on social programs, mismangement etc. Completely useless whole areas of the government exist. Take DHS spending a couple hundred million on building rennovation. Take US Dept of Transportation saying there broke wanting to impose additional taxes when they spend a fortune on maintaining DoT Museums? Did you know they even had one? Obama rolled back Clinton's Welfare reforms you can stay on it a unlimited amount of time. Food stamps can be used for literally everything. A good one recently was 10 Alternative Energy powered Buses I read about that cost a cool 1 million a piece. Yea those will pay off for themselves with the 2 bucks you insert or less for a ride. Lets take Dept of Education that was created in the Carter era stood up for the most part in the early 80s. They take that dollar you pay subtract about 10 cents for salary's, conventions etc then do not even evenly distribute the remaining fund to the states. M.Obama's school lunch that was rolled out at great cost to you that students do not even eat. Google imagine Obama school lunch and see what that Fem Nazi feeds your kids...its horrific since I doubt any one who imposes it participates themselves. Oh not to mention you get to pay the salary of a GS worker who cant get fired after tenure who has a retirement package that has to be seen to believe. We are not in anyway having a revenue issue...we are now at this very moment collecting a record amount of taxes...we have a spending problem because its still not enough. Think about that record amounts of revenue. Oh and most projections show Obamacare costing us so much (its over 1 trillion dollars) that the CBO is no longer forecasting how much it will cost taxpayers because on a montly basis the figure goes up. As the great Ron Paul that everyone on this site seems to like just about said time and time again how did humanity survive or we as a nation without all of this before? We did very well thank you.
It should go without saying that the quickest way to derail a thread topic in the politics section is to invite the topic of economic class warfare. Everybody has a heated opinion. Obviously this thread isn't about economic class warfare, and I was simply pointing out the exact moment this thread got derailed with the topic of economic class warfare. As you were...