Based on newly received insight and specific information I am not at liberty to disclose, I now agree with everything you say.
No debt? Get it done, KOC!
Fiscal responsibility: suppose the govt "doesn't spend money it doesn't have."
- Thread starter NAOS
- Start date
Based on newly received insight and specific information I am not at liberty to disclose, I now agree with everything you say.
No debt? Get it done, KOC!
See the post 2 above this one.
Point one, obviously they have not done a good job of it. It shouldn't take 30+ years and still be this bad.
Point two, you obviously know nothing about the programs I talked about that help the poor. It is not against the poor, it is about those government programs being more efficient and working without being wasteful. It has nothing to do with "fat cats" and wealth disparity, that is a separate issue. I get the impression you are talking about things you read in a book, or on the internet, but you have no freaking idea what goes into it, how they work, or how wasteful and inefficient things are run. Go ahead and be very against it, but that stance is moronic. Why be against fixing the programs you like so they help more people and work better for the people they are helping? Why give one family a thousand dollars a month for food on the food stamp program when 500 dollars would feed them very well, and allow more money to go to other families? You must be disagreeing with my substance with your fluff and non-moralistic approach to life.
I do not come out against the poor, but for the poor. Who are you for if you want things to run so poorly?
NAOS
Well-Known Member
Says who? What is the precedent for claiming this? This is just you shooting from the hip.
Anyway, I just popped back in here so I could quickly post this article, which seems very apt to the discussion here.
https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/opinion/canellos-kleinbard-romney-taxes/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
framer
Well-Known Member
I'll answer the question (I'm a little late to the party.)
The answer to the question "what will happen if we stop spending the money we do not have." is "the same thing that will eventually happen to us if we continue to spend the money we do not have." The only difference is of time and degree.
Like many have said, borrowing can be a useful tool to creating and expanding wealth. Borrowing as a permanent policy will ALWAYS lead to disaster. Borrowing to increase capital can be good as long as allowances are made for the risks. Placing your mortgage on a Credit Card is another thing entirely. Right now we are to the point where we are using a credit card to make payments on the credit card that we are using to pay our mortgage. That is not sustainable no matter how much money you think you can print. Money only exists because people have faith it is redeemable at a stated value. If you lose that faith, currency is worthless. We are approaching that level.
I lived in Russia in 1997. It cost 2600 rubles to buy a bottle of Coke. Imagine that your promised pension payed out at 5000 rubles a month. It was a good deal in the 70's and 80's. Not such a good deal when your currency collapsed. I watched 80 year old pensioners selling onions on the street because their safety net had collapsed. Russia was a superpower. To think that that same thing cannot and will not happen here is rediculous.
So yes, we need to make some heavy changes right the Hell now. First thing we need to do is elect people that have actually balanced a budget and understand the concept at all levels of government.
Next, we need to institute a 5% accross the board spending cut on all departments. This isn't the entire answer. This is just something to do while the heavy machinery is put into place. These will be real cuts, not just a reduction of the increase in spending.
While that is happening, the tax code needs to be renovated. The tax code needs to be flat removing all deductions. The tax code needs to become a source of revenue generation, not social engineering or a way to pay back your supporters. A flat tax code eliminates most of the graft.
Meanwhile three independent firms need to audit each government agency. 25% of these agencies need to be completely removed based on the findings presented.
Social Security needs to be decoupled from the general fund. A good way to do this is to use mineral rights taxes from the new oil reserves found on public land exclusively for the social security trust fund. The money from the oil and gas reserves will go into the trust fund and not be touched. As the fund fills up, we would stop the SS tax on the youngest first untill it is eventually removed from everybody.
We see where we are at. If we are running in the black at this point, we sell federal land to make up much of the federal deficit and pass a balanced budget amendment.
Additionally no more bailouts for anybody ever. Especially stupid states like Illinios and California.
A whole lot of suck for everyone there. The current people in power contributed to a larger part of the mess, so they should be the ones to suffer a bit to fix it. Anyone who thinks it is OK pass this crap off to our children wdeserves multiple, daily kicks to the Jimmy.
The answer to the question "what will happen if we stop spending the money we do not have." is "the same thing that will eventually happen to us if we continue to spend the money we do not have." The only difference is of time and degree.
Like many have said, borrowing can be a useful tool to creating and expanding wealth. Borrowing as a permanent policy will ALWAYS lead to disaster. Borrowing to increase capital can be good as long as allowances are made for the risks. Placing your mortgage on a Credit Card is another thing entirely. Right now we are to the point where we are using a credit card to make payments on the credit card that we are using to pay our mortgage. That is not sustainable no matter how much money you think you can print. Money only exists because people have faith it is redeemable at a stated value. If you lose that faith, currency is worthless. We are approaching that level.
I lived in Russia in 1997. It cost 2600 rubles to buy a bottle of Coke. Imagine that your promised pension payed out at 5000 rubles a month. It was a good deal in the 70's and 80's. Not such a good deal when your currency collapsed. I watched 80 year old pensioners selling onions on the street because their safety net had collapsed. Russia was a superpower. To think that that same thing cannot and will not happen here is rediculous.
So yes, we need to make some heavy changes right the Hell now. First thing we need to do is elect people that have actually balanced a budget and understand the concept at all levels of government.
Next, we need to institute a 5% accross the board spending cut on all departments. This isn't the entire answer. This is just something to do while the heavy machinery is put into place. These will be real cuts, not just a reduction of the increase in spending.
While that is happening, the tax code needs to be renovated. The tax code needs to be flat removing all deductions. The tax code needs to become a source of revenue generation, not social engineering or a way to pay back your supporters. A flat tax code eliminates most of the graft.
Meanwhile three independent firms need to audit each government agency. 25% of these agencies need to be completely removed based on the findings presented.
Social Security needs to be decoupled from the general fund. A good way to do this is to use mineral rights taxes from the new oil reserves found on public land exclusively for the social security trust fund. The money from the oil and gas reserves will go into the trust fund and not be touched. As the fund fills up, we would stop the SS tax on the youngest first untill it is eventually removed from everybody.
We see where we are at. If we are running in the black at this point, we sell federal land to make up much of the federal deficit and pass a balanced budget amendment.
Additionally no more bailouts for anybody ever. Especially stupid states like Illinios and California.
A whole lot of suck for everyone there. The current people in power contributed to a larger part of the mess, so they should be the ones to suffer a bit to fix it. Anyone who thinks it is OK pass this crap off to our children wdeserves multiple, daily kicks to the Jimmy.
jimmy eat jazz
Well-Known Member
Of couse, none (or most) of these suggestions have no chance in hell of ever being enacted.
So, if the financial system were on the brink of collapse, based on principle, you wouldn't bail it out?
I don't understand the reasoning that says that to avoid a hypothetical future crisis, if is necessary to create a certain crisis in the present, or allow a current crisis to occur, either of which are as bad or worse than the future hypothetical crisis.
Economic doomsdayers are always with us. I remember this kind of alarmist rhetoric in the 80s.
Yes, we do need to do something, but no, we don't have destroy our economy or social safety net to do it. It's not a matter of either or.
Govn't should be run like a business, but not like a business.
Ok.
Ok.
jazzfan1971
Well-Known Member
What we are doing is without precedent. We've never run up a peacetime debt like this before. Just because some folks have cried wolf in the past doesn't mean that wolves aren't coming.
framer
Well-Known Member
Sure they will all eventually have to be enacted, and worse. I don't want to drink my own urine either, but should my survival depend on it. . . The only reason that none of these things are politically feasible now is because there are still stupid people that believe we can "grow our way out of it" or tax the rich just a bit more.
I'll turn the question on you. Why should a perceived crisis in the present cause us to take action that may cause an even bigger crisis in the future? If the current leaders in government and finance made the mess, they need to pay for it. Stop sending the bill to my children.
And I gave you a plan to help fix Social Security. What's yours? You do realize that Social Security is just a tax and you have no guarantee that you will ever receive it, right? there is no bank holding your money, just a suitcase full of IOUs. I hope that somebody paying those IOU notes isn't your plan. . .
Attachments
Sure they will all eventually have to be enacted, and worse. I don't want to drink my own urine either, but should my survival depend on it. . . The only reason that none of these things are politically feasible now is because there are still stupid people that believe we can "grow our way out of it" or tax the rich just a bit more.
I'll turn the question on you. Why should a perceived crisis in the present cause us to take action that may cause an even bigger crisis in the future? If the current leaders in government and finance made the mess, they need to pay for it. Stop sending the bill to my children.
And I gave you a plan to help fix Social Security. What's yours? You do realize that Social Security is just a tax and you have no guarantee that you will ever receive it, right? there is no bank holding your money, just a suitcase full of IOUs. I hope that somebody paying those IOU notes isn't your plan. . .
LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_hz5HFmA6A
jimmy eat jazz
Well-Known Member
Sure they will all eventually have to be enacted, and worse. I don't want to drink my own urine either, but should my survival depend on it. . . The only reason that none of these things are politically feasible now is because there are still stupid people that believe we can "grow our way out of it" or tax the rich just a bit more.
I'll turn the question on you. Why should a perceived crisis in the present cause us to take action that may cause an even bigger crisis in the future? If the current leaders in government and finance made the mess, they need to pay for it. Stop sending the bill to my children.
And I gave you a plan to help fix Social Security. What's yours? You do realize that Social Security is just a tax and you have no guarantee that you will ever receive it, right? there is no bank holding your money, just a suitcase full of IOUs. I hope that somebody paying those IOU notes isn't your plan. . .
To answer one of your questions, no one knows what crises are coming down the pike in the future. All of the doom and gloom at this point is entirely hypothetical-you simply don't know, and don't claim that you do. There are few things that are inevitable. Nobody has a crystal ball that far ahead.
One thing I know for 100% certain is that I would not do the following to prevent a hypothetical future crisis: (1) allow the US financial system to crash (and pull the US economy down the toilet with it), (2) allow the US automobile industry to go belly up, along with the surely hundreds of billions of dollars of ancillary industries that depend on the auto industry, (3) default on our current debts by refusing to raise the debt limit.
To slash and burn our economy and social safety net today to prevent an entirely hypothetical future devastating crisis is irrational and just plain dumb.
I am not saying that nothing should be done. Of course I worry about SS and what will be there when I retire, and when my children retire. I've said all along that we need to do something, including cutting spending and raising revenues. I just don't agree that extraordinarily harsh solutions are required at this point.
I'll concede that perhaps I was too quick to judge some of your suggestions. I would bet my life, however, that the flat tax (which has been a hobby horse of the right for three decades now) will never ever happen. I prefer sensible, feasible solutions that have a chance of being enacted, not right wing ideological pipe dreams.