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Supercommittee Discussion

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loki8481 said:
if the supercommittee fails and Congress finds a way to stop the automatic cuts, the only thing I'll be able to draw from that is that we need to vote all the fuckers out of office regardless of what letter they have next to their name.
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Bank on it. They have plenty of time to not cut anything. Especially once the election cycle is done.
 
Well, you thought the job prospects were bad now, wait until the DOD cuts sink in..it will get much worse...
 
eskimospy said:
tydas said:
Well, you thought the job prospects were bad now, wait until the DOD cuts sink in..it will get much worse...
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So what you're trying to say is that we need government spending to create jobs?
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There are different types of DOD jobs.

Civilian/Military/Contracts

Very few are just make work for political posturing.
There is some fat in the civilian employee workforce that could be trimmed.
Either increase responsibilities downstream or increase the workload upstream as needed; force a personal cut for each project/department that will remove a total of x grade levels.


Killing a contract can be very expensive; both upfront costs and the number of skilled people that may be supporting that contract hitting the streets at about 1/4 to 1/8 salary along with the ripple effect.

Furloughing civilian employees avoids the upfront costs, but not the salary loss and ripple.

And then there is the ramp up costs if/when projects are reactivated.

These types of jobs are different in terms of impact to those that were being maintained/supported by the stimulus.

One has to be careful to not leave a shell that is for reference purposes only and is unusable when needed.

Cutting a 1B/yr project may save only $500M the first couple of years and cost $2B to restore it after 5 years. that is not a savings of $4B due to the fact that the 5B is needed to complete the end game is restored - so while saving $4B up front; you may have taken on the added cost of $3B.

Cut and cut wisely for a 10yr timeline
 
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EagleKeeper said:
There are different types of DOD jobs.

Civilian/Military/Contracts

Very few are just make work for political posturing.
There is some fat in the civilian employee workforce that could be trimmed.
Either increase responsibilities downstream or increase the workload upstream as needed; force a personal cut for each project/department that will remove a total of x grade levels.


Killing a contract can be very expensive; both upfront costs and the number of skilled people that may be supporting that contract hitting the streets at about 1/4 to 1/8 salary along with the ripple effect.

Furloughing civilian employees avoids the upfront costs, but not the salary loss and ripple.

And then there is the ramp up costs if/when projects are reactivated.

These types of jobs are different in terms of impact to those that were being maintained/supported by the stimulus.
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So we agree that government spending creates jobs then it seems, we are now only arguing about the types of jobs that government can/should create?
 
So how come...?

Everyone fully expected the Super Committee to fail from the moment of its conception. Everyone knew the date and place of it's preordained death. Yet, the stock market tanks when the Super Committee fails on schedule. 😕
 
eskimospy said:
So we agree that government spending creates jobs then it seems, we are now only arguing about the types of jobs that government can/should create?
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I fully agree government spending creates jobs for most types of spending

Are the jobs needed, impact of the jobs and do they pay for themselves via the ripple effect are the key point
 
And those questioning why those of us who mandate spending is actually and truly cut before there are tax increases (which we agree to if there are real spending cuts) now should understand exactly why we want that.
 
PeshakJang said:
Why do Democrats want Soldiers living on the street?
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Why do Republicans want old people to be put out of their homes? Why do they want poor people to go without life-saving medical care? Why do they want poor people living on the street?

The point is, each side can point to heart-breaking situations that will become more common if there are severe budget cuts. Right-wing broken hearts aren't more "valid" than left-wing broken hearts. Reducing the size of government in a significant way will cause REAL pain. There isn't $5 trillion of "waste and fraud" out there to be painlessly eliminated.

The only solution is for each side to accept significant pain. That means: Significant spending cuts to social programs. Significant spending cuts on the military. Significant spending cuts in the discretionary part of the budget. And, yes, significant tax increases.

If any of those areas is "off limits" to you, you're just being an asshole. You're in effect saying that "my pain" is better than "your pain."
 
chucky2 said:
And those questioning why those of us who mandate spending is actually and truly cut before there are tax increases (which we agree to if there are real spending cuts) now should understand exactly why we want that.
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This is why a "grand bargain" is the only path forward. I'm not too interested in spending cuts for the purpose of continuing/expanding tax relief for the rich.
 
If Congress tries to override the automatic cuts because the Supercommittee fails to reach an agreement, they should all be hung. Stop paying taxes Americans, stop voting, stop participating with the government because those who have ceased control of it certainly stopped giving a fuck about us.
 
shadow9d9 said:
Ahahahaha! We have 40-48% of the entire world's military budget.. we are surrounded by 2 huge oceans, 1 peaceful country and one weak country... We do NOT need military bases around the world, or to occupy foreign countries or to spend 10s of billions on aircraft we will never use. Gut it by 80%.

We have 300 million and spend 40% while china has over 1 billion and spends 9%.
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I don't think our military has been designed/built just to defend the 'home turf' for a long time now. I think it's been designed/built to defend our 'interests' abroad.

WWII changed a lot. Sitting back and defending the home turf sounds great and all, at least until you consider a hypothetical like some other country taking over the Middle East and deciding we can't buy any more oil.

China is pursuing 'economic war'. That means they don't need to spend much on their actual military. BTW: Where do we get their military spending numbers from? Them?

Fern
 
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