AT epic fail in debt discussions

[maluckey]

Is it just me, or are the majority of AT a bunch of moronic fucktards? I hear talking points repeated from watercooler conversations and clips from the news outlets without any true thoughts behind them.

That being said, let's talk about facts for a second

1. The United States is borrowing more than it makes
2. Nobody has a viable plan to fix it
3. The debt ceiling is really irrelevant if we don't fix number one and number two
4. Bush tax cuts were passed by the Democrats, extended by Obama (a Democrat), and they aren't germane to the argument since they expire soon anyways. Nothing to see here.

Now, that being said, the Two (not three) parties are ignorant asshats, and stick to their talking points rather than logic to keep their jobs. They will indeed keep these jobs because if our voters are like the ignoramus posters on AT, so long as they stick to their guns, they "win".

Folks, there's no "winning" without balancing the books. You cannot be a debtor and expect the money tree to last forever. It was a fun ride for those that played, but the games over and we need to get back to work.

Let's find the money, because there's LOTS of it out there. Next end the ongoing wars and stop supporting nations that hate us. That saves a TON of cash. Find the programs that the nation can do without and eliminate them. That leaves the ones we can live with for now.

After that, get rid of the talking points for oil, and ACTUALLY discuss alternatives with an open mind. As oil prices rise (that's good) and less people buy oil from people that hate us, they (those that hate the west) get poorer and eventually kill THEMSELVES off as they are so wont to do nowadays.

I know, your 45000 dollar SUV that you're leasing at 8 percent interes gets horrible economy, and it will raise costs on your 50 mile commute from your house (that you can barely afford) to you job that barely pays enough to get you a six pack after your bills are paid. It will be alright.....sell what you don't need, cut off the 200 dollar per-month cable/phone/cell phone package to offset, and look back on the "good-old-days" with nostalgia.

Not having to worry about the debt and buget is......PRICELESS.

Sound too simple? It really is that simple, once the talking points are gone.........

 

[Engineer]

Nevermind, I'm in the wrong forum!

Thought I was in ATOT...

<--- Still asleep.

 

[EagleKeeper]

People have to realize and worry about the first two points . As long as they believe that the problems can be fixed later, nothing will get done. That is attitude that got us to this point. What countries would yremove bases from?

 

[Jaskalas]

Sound too simple? It really is that simple, once the talking points are gone.........

Bush tax cuts should expire, the wars should end, our military 'global reach' curtailed. After that, all the cuts to programs necessary to result in a balanced budget in the next four years, and the beginning of us paying off the debt from that point on.

• Reps refuse the tax.
• Dems refuse the cut.
• Both are retarded monkeys.

If Reps bend over and take some kind of tax, the Dems will NOT bend over and take the amount of cuts necessary. Oh they will take SOME cuts, but it won't nearly be enough to make ANY difference. The point of all negotiations and compromise in Washington is how to continue the status quo and lead this country into ruin.

The negotiations and compromise are not based on how to achieve the goal, but on how to kick the can down the road. The deals our two parties make are poison.

 

[brandonb]

Let's find the money, because there's LOTS of it out there. Next end the ongoing wars and stop supporting nations that hate us.

Good post, but I'd say stop supporting all nations, not just ones that hate us. Seems like you prefer to use common real world analogies. So I'm going to use one. Now that we're broke, it's time to tell our sister that you cannot loan her money (or give her money) while are we are in debt and are having trouble paying our own bills. She will just have to rough it out for awhile and make ends meet in the meantime until we get back on our feet.

 

[sactoking]

Is it just me, or are the majority of AT a bunch of moronic fucktards? I hear talking points repeated from watercooler conversations and clips from the news outlets without any true thoughts behind them.

Welcome to ATPN, where this applies to every thread.

 

[maluckey]

Reps refuse the tax.
Dems refuse the cut.
Both are retarded monkeys.

SO....nothing gets done and we spend ourselves into oblivion......

Good post, but I'd say stop supporting all nations, not just ones that hate us. Seems like you prefer to use common real world analogies. So I'm going to use one. Now that we're broke, it's time to tell our sister that you cannot loan her money (or give her money) while are we are in debt and are having trouble paying our own bills. She will just have to rough it out for awhile and make ends meet in the meantime until we get back on our feet.

OK, stop supporting nations until we are on our feet. I can't buy my sister a car on a credit card and expect to not pay the piper later.

You SEE! This compromise thing is EASY!

 

[maluckey]

Welcome to ATPN, where this applies to every thread.

LOL! I should know better! The village idiots seem to hold court to their masses, while the reasonable ones read and silently shake their heads in disgust.

Perhaps it's time for the reasonable ones to adress the self-appointed, moronic town criers

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Under your plan what happens when taxes double and the majority of Americans that are already struggling to make ends meet end up defaulting on all their mortgages, car notes, cc bills? Are we going to bail out all the big banks again? It's not as simple as you think.

 

[Darwin333]

Bush tax cuts should expire, the wars should end, our military 'global reach' curtailed. After that, all the cuts to programs necessary to result in a balanced budget in the next four years, and the beginning of us paying off the debt from that point on.

• Reps refuse the tax.
• Dems refuse the cut.
• Both are retarded monkeys.

If Reps bend over and take some kind of tax, the Dems will NOT bend over and take the amount of cuts necessary. Oh they will take SOME cuts, but it won't nearly be enough to make ANY difference. The point of all negotiations and compromise in Washington is how to continue the status quo and lead this country into ruin.

The negotiations and compromise are not based on how to achieve the goal, but on how to kick the can down the road. The deals our two parties make are poison.

Just a small correction. Reps refuse to do any meaningful cuts as well.

Lets be completely honest here, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the debt consumed almost ALL of our income last year. We must raise income but we also must make meaningful cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense for starters. The first 3 cuts are not politically feasible for either party and will not get done.

In short, we be fucked.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Rainbows and unicorns and ... Just curious.. when we stop giving money and having influence in say places like the middle east and all hell breaks loose, world war breaks out, oil production stops.. then what? Obama gives a speech?

I'm not sure why people think we can just STOP doing things to help keep the world stable. We are highly dependent on a large portion of the world. If shit breaks out just about anywhere, OUR economy will be effected severely. Does it make more sense to proactively stop it or re-actively stop it?

 

[Rainsford]

...
It's not as simple as you think.

This is why oversimplification is stupid. People who approach situations like this saying "OMG, it's so simple", think they are so much smarter than the folks who can't solve the problem. But the truth is that they're just throwing out all the complexity and saying that it doesn't matter. Well hell, ANYONE can "solve" a problem a that way.

The only real solution to debt issues, whether it's the government or your own personal finances, is to look at what you spend, look at what you make, and find a way to make those values meet in the middle. Except it's not always easy for individuals to do that, and government spending and income is infinitely more complicated. Particularly when many of the people involved in the discussion treat the problem as a simple "all we have to do is X" and refuse to move off that position. This includes many Republicans, many Democrats, and many people like the OP here.

 

[Rainsford]

Rainbows and unicorns and ... Just curious.. when we stop giving money and having influence in say places like the middle east and all hell breaks loose, world war breaks out, oil production stops.. then what? Obama gives a speech?

I'm not sure why people think we can just STOP doing things to help keep the world stable. We are highly dependent on a large portion of the world. If shit breaks out just about anywhere, OUR economy will be effected severely. Does it make more sense to proactively stop it or re-actively stop it?

And that's just it. It's easy to balance the budget by hacking away at federal spending haphazardly, but most government spending is doing something. Taking that spending away isn't free money, there's going to be consequences no matter what.

Smaller/cheaper government is not a good goal in and of itself. What we really want is more efficient government that gives us the most positive effect for our tax dollars. That this approach will give us cheaper government is a secondary effect.

 

[MovingTarget]

Rainbows and unicorns and ... Just curious.. when we stop giving money and having influence in say places like the middle east and all hell breaks loose, world war breaks out, oil production stops.. then what? Obama gives a speech?

I'm not sure why people think we can just STOP doing things to help keep the world stable. We are highly dependent on a large portion of the world. If shit breaks out just about anywhere, OUR economy will be effected severely. Does it make more sense to proactively stop it or re-actively stop it?

This is prime example of the need to get away from oil entirely, which liberals have been saying since before Carter. We should be spending MASSIVELY on scientific R&D, and deployment of alt. energy infrastructure in addition to ramping up our efficient use of energy. It is a matter of vital national security. I would LOVE for the US to be in a position to tell the middle east, Russia, Venezuela, etc. to screw off and take care of their own problems.

So on one point, I agree with you. We can't stop doing these things just yet without some serious blowback. What we can do is put in place policies that will get us to the point where we can do so in the most expedient manner possible.

 

[Turin39789]

Is it just me, or are the majority of AT a bunch of moronic fucktards? I hear talking points repeated from watercooler conversations and clips from the news outlets without any true thoughts behind them.
.....
4. Bush tax cuts were passed by the Democrats, extended by Obama (a Democrat), and they aren't germane to the argument since they expire soon anyways. Nothing to see here.

 

[Balt]

Bush tax cuts should expire, the wars should end, our military 'global reach' curtailed. After that, all the cuts to programs necessary to result in a balanced budget in the next four years, and the beginning of us paying off the debt from that point on.

• Reps refuse the tax.
• Dems refuse the cut.
• Both are retarded monkeys.

If Reps bend over and take some kind of tax, the Dems will NOT bend over and take the amount of cuts necessary. Oh they will take SOME cuts, but it won't nearly be enough to make ANY difference. The point of all negotiations and compromise in Washington is how to continue the status quo and lead this country into ruin.

The negotiations and compromise are not based on how to achieve the goal, but on how to kick the can down the road. The deals our two parties make are poison.

Sums it up pretty well I think. There is still complete denial in the country and Washington. Some people simply refuse to accept that these things are necessary. Somehow they expect entitlement programs to stay the same (or even improve) while taxes also stay the same (or are even lowered).

 

[GuitarDaddy]

This is why oversimplification is stupid. People who approach situations like this saying "OMG, it's so simple", think they are so much smarter than the folks who can't solve the problem. But the truth is that they're just throwing out all the complexity and saying that it doesn't matter. Well hell, ANYONE can "solve" a problem a that way.

The only real solution to debt issues, whether it's the government or your own personal finances, is to look at what you spend, look at what you make, and find a way to make those values meet in the middle. Except it's not always easy for individuals to do that, and government spending and income is infinitely more complicated. Particularly when many of the people involved in the discussion treat the problem as a simple "all we have to do is X" and refuse to move off that position. This includes many Republicans, many Democrats, and many people like the OP here.

:thumbsup:

Thats the problem with the tea party position, it attempts to simplify a complex problem to a couple of simple minded talking points to appeal to the masses. They try and boil down the whole argument to "the government is an uncontrolled teenager with a credit card" and all we have to do to fix the problem is to take away the credit card.

Another oversimplification that complicates any solution is lumping the problems of deficit spending, SS and medicare funding, and economic recession all together as one problem. All of these issues effect the total national debt but they are very different problems with different required solutions and should be approached totally seperately.

Take SS for example, by design SS will have long periods of positive and negative cash flow to the SS trust fund, but overall with some minor adjustments will equal out over time and be self suficient. But since we are approaching a planned period of negative cash flow at a time when we are trying to recover from the worst recession since the great depression, and have gone through a long period of deficit spending accentuated by stimulus and bailout spending to stave off a depression, SS is is unfairly targeted as a major cause for our deficit spending which is just wrong.

 

[Jaskalas]

Just a small correction. Reps refuse to do any meaningful cuts as well.

The Republican controlled house passed Paul Ryan's $4 trillion in cuts.

Are you suggesting that is not enough? I would agree that it's a start, and that it might not be the end of our fiscal problems next decade, but I think it'd be a nice beginning. Combine it with other things Republicans are not willing to do, and you could find a balanced budget.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Welcome to ATPN, where this applies to every thread.

This.

P&N is an interesting phenomenon in social dynamics. The pure stupidity and iillogic of the entrenched posters overwhelms any smart person looking to debate and causes them to give up in frustration, thus keeping the overall posting level low. (And, given that the remainder have no source of contrast, it allows them to generate the false impression that what they are engaging in is high-level debate, which keeps them going.)

Throwing well-crafted arguments at them is pointless -- they can't process them. So just sit back and heckle the idjits.

Until the mods start enforcing some basic rules of argumentation, like requiring one to address rebuttals before continuing and disallowing tactics resulting from completely partisan viewpoints (such as holding firmly to and overwhelming your opponent with garbage arguments that any true Seeker of Truth would have, with trivial effort, disproved themselves and left by the wayside), this forum will remain a cesspool of worthless minds.

 

[JSt0rm]

Sound too simple? It really is that simple, once the talking points are gone.........

So your entire rant can be boiled down to "because democrats?"

 

[her209]

maluckey, do you have debt or incurred it the past?

 

[cubby1223]

Everyone likes rooting for a team. Everyone likes to win over the enemy. That is AT P&N.

As for the debt discussion, the Dems want to raise taxes without reducing spending. The Repubs want to reduce spending without raising taxes. The compromise that NEEDS to be make is to raise taxes *and* reduce spending. Instead, the compromise that will be passed will be the exact opposite, keeping taxes and spending at current levels.

I actually wouldn't doubt the GOP would be willing to vote for tax increases *if* spending were cut. But, neither of the plans out there actually cut spending.

Wow, leadership in Washington is SOOOOOO wonderful!

And in AT P&N the non-stop partisan bickering lives on forever.

 

[Craig234]

:thumbsup:

Thats the problem with the tea party position, it attempts to simplify a complex problem to a couple of simple minded talking points to appeal to the masses. They try and boil down the whole argument to "the government is an uncontrolled teenager with a credit card" and all we have to do to fix the problem is to take away the credit card.

Another oversimplification that complicates any solution is lumping the problems of deficit spending, SS and medicare funding, and economic recession all together as one problem. All of these issues effect the total national debt but they are very different problems with different required solutions and should be approached totally seperately.

Take SS for example, by design SS will have long periods of positive and negative cash flow to the SS trust fund, but overall with some minor adjustments will equal out over time and be self suficient. But since we are approaching a planned period of negative cash flow at a time when we are trying to recover from the worst recession since the great depression, and have gone through a long period of deficit spending accentuated by stimulus and bailout spending to stave off a depression, SS is is unfairly targeted as a major cause for our deficit spending which is just wrong.

And because some powerful interests decide they'd rather not see Social Security in place - for reasons from basic politics that they want their slave to the rich Republican Party in power rather than Democrats andd Social Security helps Democrats get elected, to the fact they want the people of the US poorer because that makes for the rich owning more of the US with wealth shifted off the people, and more, they then 'sell' the policy to destroy Social Security with lies such as FUD that 'you will pay for it and get nothing'.

If they can convince people of that big lie - repeating it as the argument - then they can reduce public support for it, create willingness for bad 'reform' to destroy it.

One problem is, interested parties like Wall Street who stand to make billions off of 'privatization' can pay for massive propaganda; the people don't have that budget.

These well funded propaganda efforts often work.

They're the reason for the existence of 'think tanks', i.e. propaganda machines, like Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation and AEI.

 

[cubby1223]

This is prime example of the need to get away from oil entirely, which liberals have been saying since before Carter. We should be spending MASSIVELY on scientific R&D, and deployment of alt. energy infrastructure in addition to ramping up our efficient use of energy. It is a matter of vital national security. I would LOVE for the US to be in a position to tell the middle east, Russia, Venezuela, etc. to screw off and take care of their own problems.

Ah, the magic scientific wand that can be waved and solve all our problems in life! All we need to do is believe hard enough and it will come true!

 

[GuitarDaddy]

And because some powerful interests decide they'd rather not see Social Security in place - for reasons from basic politics that they want their slave to the rich Republican Party in power rather than Democrats andd Social Security helps Democrats get elected, to the fact they want the people of the US poorer because that makes for the rich owning more of the US with wealth shifted off the people, and more, they then 'sell' the policy to destroy Social Security with lies such as FUD that 'you will pay for it and get nothing'.

If they can convince people of that big lie - repeating it as the argument - then they can reduce public support for it, create willingness for bad 'reform' to destroy it.

One problem is, interested parties like Wall Street who stand to make billions off of 'privatization' can pay for massive propaganda; the people don't have that budget.

These well funded propaganda efforts often work.

They're the reason for the existence of 'think tanks', i.e. propaganda machines, like Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation and AEI.

:thumbsup:

Here's a good article regarding the myths perpetrated about Social Security

http://money.msn.com/retirement-pla...security-weston.aspx?GT1=33042' rel='nofollow