Debt Talks Break Down, Again

[Dreamweaver]

Boehner's letter to colleagues today.




http://www.scribd.com/doc/60673572/boehner-07-22-2011

[Dietrich]

This is starting to give me the creeps.

[dyrt]

Make no mistake about it, this is more about next year's election than it is the well being of the country. Our economic situation is not going to be good next year no matter what Obama and Boehner do now. Whatever they do will have an effect but will take time. The battle today is about who gets the blame Both parties are laying the groundwork for the advertising in next years campaign.

[Mousehound]

I think the idea of getting rid of debt without raising taxes is an illusion. Our countries are spending and spending. Someone is going to have to foot the bills eventually or there will be no end to the increase of debt until we are refused further funds.

[Ought Six]

The problem is not revenue. It has always been spending. With social programs going the way they are going, even if we cut everything else to the bone and raised taxes as much as humanly possible, it would not be enough. The hard reality is either we deeply cut social security and medicare, and get rid of Obamacare, or we will simply run out of money. There is no third option.

[Mousehound]

It would really interest me to see where the money is going too. I suspect that the spending culprits are not the ones you listed, but that is only a hunch on my part.

[Mousehound]

OK, defense is the biggest culprit.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/

More details here:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/...rt_2011_US_fed

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by Mousehound

OK, defense is the biggest culprit.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/

No, it is not. Breaking up social spending into little pieces to make it look smaller than military spending is a common disinformation tactic.

Let me put it to you this way.... After WWII, when the Cold War began, total social spending was about 17% of the federal budget. Military spending stayed pretty steady at around a third of the budget until the Berlin Wall came down. The low in military spending during that period was right after Vietnam during Carter years, where it sank to 28% of the budget. When Reagan rebuilt the damaged military after that, it rose to 34%. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, military spending fell to 20% of our budget. With two wars going on, it is up to about 22%.

In this same period, social spending increased from 17% of the budget to 60% of the budget. The rate of increase accelerates further every year. Unfunded mandates for existing programs, if nothing is changed, are in excess of $70 trillion$ by 2050. That is money we are obligated by law to spend, and have no funding in place for whatsoever. There is not a chance in hell that it is in any way sustainable.

When people point to the military as 'the problem', or suggest we can tax our way out of debt, I just shake my head and roll my eyes. We need to do the math, and then we will understand the truth.

[Potemkin]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

No, it is not. Breaking up social spending into little pieces to make it look smaller than military spending is a common disinformation tactic.

Plus the $142B for Veterans services, etc. really skew the numbers.

[Mousehound]

Please post links to show me that defense is not the largest spender then. It is important to me to be correctly informed.

Just as an example, I pulled up a "pie" of Germany's spending. Of course Germany is much, much smaller than the U.S., but there is a big difference in the percent being spent on health care, and defense for example. Health care is 5.2%, defense 10.3%, and Employment/Unemployment/Welfare is our worst area with 42.9%.

Edit to add the Germany link:
http://www.bundesfinanzministerium.d...#imggallerytop

[veggiecanner]

In this country all you have to do is act like you have a bad back and you get freebies. No wonder we are in trouble.
We need to take care of every one, but this is out of control.
That and the terrorists, need to leave us alone. They are forcing us into spending on the military. If we don't fight back, they will attact this country. We also fight for other countries againast them.
During the wars, people in this country took care of each other so the goverment could finance the wars. So we could win and end the wars. This time around we give cell phones and big screen tvs to welfare moms with too many kids. It's the attitude of the social misfits we call democrats that are dragging out these wars and causing them to be so expensive. The soldgers aren't even allowed to fire at the enemy in these wars, just like in Vietnam. Look where that got us.

[Ought Six]

Mh:

Please post links to show me that defense is not the largest spender then. It is important to me to be correctly informed.

No need. It is right there in your own link.



Add up health, education and welfare, all of which is social spending, and you 43%. Your chart does not even include Social Security, which is another huge chunk. And a significant part of the 'remainder' turns out to be social spending as well.

[Mousehound]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

Mh:No need. It is right there in your own link.



Add up health, education and welfare, all of which is social spending, and you 43%. Your chart does not even include Social Security, which is another huge chunk. And a significant part of the 'remainder' turns out to be social spending as well.

Thanks, I didn't see that there.

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by veggiecanner

In this country all you have to do is act like you have a bad back and you get freebies.

Disability is the new welfare. It is incredibly easy to get, and widely abused.
----------

No wonder we are in trouble.

The real killers are still social security, Medicare and Obamacare.
----------

We need to take care of every one, but this is out of control.

We simply cannot provide social security and free medical for everyone. The Euro nations have pulled it off for quite awhile, but their systems are starting to implode. That will only get worse as the reality of demographics takes hold. These welfare states are unsustainable.
----------

That and the terrorists, need to leave us alone. They are forcing us into spending on the military. If we don't fight back, they will attact this country. We also fight for other countries againast them.
During the wars, people in this country took care of each other so the goverment could finance the wars. So we could win and end the wars. This time around we give cell phones and big screen tvs to welfare moms with too many kids. It's the attitude of the social misfits we call democrats that are dragging out these wars and causing them to be so expensive. The soldgers aren't even allowed to fire at the enemy in these wars, just like in Vietnam. Look where that got us.

Yep. With us engaged all over the globe with stupid rules of engagement, we are losing too many people and spending more than we should on the military. We are finally starting to pull out of Iraq, which will help some, and are closing a lot of our overseas bases. I personally think we should pull out of Europe, Japan and Korea as well, but that seems unlikely. That being said, cuts in the military are just not going to solve our problems, because that is not where the problem lies.

[flowerchild]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

Disability is the new welfare. It is incredibly easy to get, and widely abused.
.

I'm sorry, it isn't easy to get. I don't know where you get that idea. It is not easy, ask me. I have helped some people that were truly disabled. It took hiring a lawyer and getting a congressional intervention to get it.

[flourbug]

flowerchild, it depends. SSI has replaced Welfare in many locales. In upstate NY, everyone was rubber stamped into the system. There are few jobs vs a lot of people who have no means of support after welfare runs out. My neighbors - the young men who hopped on ATVs and scooted around the mountain hunting deer, and the mothers with children, and the older men who sat around drinking and smoking all day - were all on SSI because of invisible disabilities such as anger management issues, or transient bad backs, etc. They didn't have to hire lawyers. They were basically waved into the system. When I have described this situation in other forums, people tell me it is the same where they live. It appears SSI as a replacement for welfare is very easy to get in any community with a truly depressed population.

Yet I KNOW getting SSI is very difficult for others, even those who are unquestionably disabled to the point they cannot hold any job at all. SSI rejects their application, they then have to hire an attorney, pay for all manner of medical tests to prove their case, wait two years while SSI chews on their application, and then the lawyer gets a big chunk of the retroactive benefits.

The only thing I can think of is, people who live in an area where jobs are (or were) plentiful, are held to higher standards than those who live in depressed areas. Not by the Federal government so much as by the people working in the local SS offices.

[Ross]

IMO your leaders are focused on the wrong financial issue .

What makes this crisis different is the level of privately held debt .

Most people and businesses in this set of circumstances are intent
on escaping their own debt burdens . Generally that amounts to
paying down debt and not borrowing more . It is that attitude
which means the amount of money circulating in your economy is
vastly less than previously and likely to go lower .

While privately held debt is so high and being paid down your economy
will undergo no endogenously derived growth .

If your leaders want recovery they should be focused on privately held debt .

[Dietrich]

Originally Posted by Ross

IMO your leaders are focused on the wrong financial issue .

What makes this crisis different is the level of privately held debt .

I think they know that. The govt knows that the debt/gdp ratio matters, not the debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling impasse is a symptom -- a symptom of a Govt realizing that it's broke. Once the govt realizes its broke, all its good choices go away. Every decision means pain for someone, so what you get is gridlock instead. The political system doesn't work when the economy is in collapse.

[veggiecanner]

The problem is this country is not money, it is trust.
Even the left no longer trust our goverment to take care of this country.
between the gulf oil spill and more wars, this addministration has proven it is no different that the admminstrations it blasted to get into office.
We live governed by compulsive war mongers. If they are not at war with other countries , they are at war with their own people.

[Auburn Boy]

Hey there DREAMWEAVER..,

Can you correct your title.

What are Dept Talks? LOL!

Department????

Oh, I see.., DEBT.

[flourbug]

fixed

[Mousehound]

I was just reading that there is now talk of forming some kind of Super Congress to push laws through more quickly than the system now in place.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...ec1_lnk2|80603

[Ought Six]

The Congress cannot constitutionally just grant their legislative powers to whomever they please. I hope this is challenged in the courts and quickly eradicated. Idiots.

[Mousehound]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

The Congress cannot constitutionally just grant their legislative powers to whomever they please. I hope this is challenged in the courts and quickly eradicated. Idiots.

Won't they be able to just add another Amendment and have done with it? I would expect it to be challenged in the courts though, but considering all the changes they have made lately, I also expect them to push this through too.

[Potemkin]

Originally Posted by Mousehound

Won't they be able to just add another Amendment and have done with it? I would expect it to be challenged in the courts though, but considering all the changes they have made lately, I also expect them to push this through too.

It is very hard to do.

There have been 27 Amendments since 1789. One has been rescinded (18th Amendment, Prohibition of alcohol)

They have to be approved by 2/3 of EACH House of Congress and passed by 3/4 of the states.

Several are still pending. Titles of Nobility Amendment 1810, Child Labor Amendment 1924, etc.

Equal Rights Act is the one that most US Citizens remember. That one expired.