Ineffective and incompetent are not mutually exclusive, and a super-majority for democrats doesn't mean too much as democrats don't work together nearly as well as republicans. They're a fairly mixed bag of ideas.
When it comes to the Dems, they
are mutally exclusive. The Dems had to sit on their hands for years as the Reps ran the show. Then in 2006 they had the reigns handed to them via Congress, and then doubly, heck, almost triply so, in 2008. If the Dems couldn't get what they had on their list waiting for years done with those type of numbers and public support, they'll
never get anything done. This is an excuse, not a reason.
If you bothered to look up charts on national debt you'd see it's gone down during all time other then recessions and when Reagan and Bush Jr. were presidents.
I've looked this up in the past, and No, it's not gone down. Ever. There was only one time where it might have fart measured "gone down" during Clinton last term, but to such a meaningless degree, we can say, It's never gone down. Here, from 94 to current:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...tions_to_the_public_debt_of_the_United_States
That's not down, it's up. Period.
Yea, when times are good income goes up. That doesn't take a genius to figure out. Some people actually make it part of their plan rather then squander it, believe it or not! If things are setup right you shouldn't need to make massive cuts when times are good.
Some people do, that's true. Not our Politicians however. Our Politicians, on both sides of the aisle, squander it. Guaranteed. If there is
anything you can bet your life on, it's that if you give a $1 to the Fed, they'll spend it and .50c on top of it.
If things are setup right, how could one
not make massive cuts to Fed spending when times are good? How else are you going to pay down to the massive debt you've got on the books? Raise taxes?? Sorry, The Public will not allow that, because, Hey!, times are good! And, our Politicians like getting relected, so the second thing you can bet your life on is, any Politician thinking about their career/legacy (which, is all of them) will be making sure to get re-elected. You don't get re-elected explaining to the 99% why taxes need to go up in these good times to pay for the bad time stimulus...the 50% or so of that 99% wants to enjoy the good times, buy more iPods for their kids to break and Made in China clothes for their wife to throw in the closet, not hear they need to be taxed more. Are you crazy here or something???
Simply ceasing stimulus spending and having increased income should be sufficient. It's when you cut taxes like crazy and have unfunded wars when times are good that shit really hits the fan when something like the great recession happens. Also, see my other post about scale. It's really tiring when one side doesn't understand what actually is going on in the world.
What? Gezus, exactly how much do you think your stimulus spending is going to spur the economy? 5:1 multiple or something? For every $1T in stimulus you need maybe $5T in gross taxable income. If we spent $4T+ so far, do you think we got $20T+ back into the economy - over baseline - to break even? And according to the theory you're supporting, it's not even $20T+ we need, because we can't break even, we need to go beyond even to get ahead of the debt.
Yeah, Bush had unfunded wars, that is absolutely on him and the Reps. Should have put a WoT tax on
Everyones earnings, whether poor or not, non-refundable at tax time, so people would know what they were paying. What's crazy is that, that whole time, Bush was doing stimulus spending, that is, deficit spending. The economy should have been roaring. WTF happened??? Deficit spending doesn't work long term? Huh?
Yes yes, you'd rather see the world burn. I get it. It's emotionally satisfying to you to kind of give an f-u to the politicians by thinking you're screwing up their day. Having a working government starts with the people in a democracy.
No, I'd rather not see the US burn (F the RoTW, they like to whine about us anyways, they can fend for themselves), but out of all the Realistic options I see, I really don't see that not eventually happening. Of course our Politicians will do everything each year to hide the inevitable, numb it up for the public, anything and everything they need to do to hide the turd in the room. Eventually though, they won't be able to hide it. Eventually, no more tricky accounting, BS, Hope and Change, whatever, will hide the fact the US is F'd in a major way. By then the problem will be so large, so systemic, there will be no options on fixing it. Of course, by then, China and India will be larger and more influential than the US.
I'd rather we get real now, experience some pain now, so we don't get to that point. I guess we can agree to disagree. YOu want to deficit spend us out of this, I don't. Vote for Obama, I'll vote for....maybe Obama. See? You got what you wanted!
Chuck