Featured The Tea Party

Well you can go up a few posts and see it again, but here it is, (regarding deficit spending):

RevMitchell: "It has to be stopped. Not because the Tea Party says so but because it is causing irreparable damage."

InTheLight: "Not to mention immoral."

I'm clearly calling deficit spending immoral. I don't see how you could interpret it any other way.

Well, overall spending WOULD necessarily include defense spending. Of course when Tea Partiers talk of cutting spending they almost always think of domestic spending and rarely think of cutting defense, so I can understand your error. Now admit that cutting defense spending would 'give comfort and aid to the enemy and weaken the power of the United States to attack or resist attack by an enemy' and we can put this misunderstanding behind us.

 

I did go to the first few TEA Party rallies in this town, but figured they were on the wrong track when Michelle Bachman started calling herself one.

If the TEA Party TRULY wants America to cut spending, they will have to address the wars.

 

No doubt,whether or not one agrees with them the fact is we do not have the money for them. We need to bring our troops home.

 

If there is anything considered treasonous it should be deficit spending.

 

Wish we had a "Like" button.

 

Yep, exactly ... "reserved to the states," not the federal government.

 

You seem to have a good handle on economic principles. I have always wondered something, and was going to get your opinion. Remember in the OT when periodically all debt was eliminated. So my question is, what would be the immediate effect if the national debt and deficit were written off the books at once and we required the government to operate on no more than they took in from that point forward? What do you see as the immediate negatives and positives we would feel short term?

 

Social Security was established before our time by a few decades. I would have been against it from its foundation. However, it is here to stay, that is a fact. When it was established, the government spent a chunk of change informing people that this was a supplement, not a check to live on. It is a principle that should still stand today. Everyone is responsible for their own retirement, not the government.

Having said that, one of the most treasonous things to have ever done was mixing Social Security with the general fund. That trust was suppose to be for those who contributed, not to make up for the ineptness of those who did not know how to govern for decades. Some people are collecting healthy social security type checks that contributed nothing or next to nothing. On the other end of the spectrum, are those that contributed much, and never received one dime. If one works all their life, then dies at say 59 or 60, forfeits their entire contributions.

So like any other government program, its standards change over time. So is Social Security out of balance because of the excessive spending, or does the fact that many chose not to listen that it is a supplement and tried to live on it? I am sure everyone of you knows someone that are using that check for their entire subsistence despite the fact they were told they are responsible for their retirement.

 

The immediate effect would be that our credit rating would drop to "D" -- "Payment default financial commitments." We couldn't sell treasury bonds or notes to the bum on the street for a nickel.

Sure, we wouldn't have any more debt, but our own people who hold some of that debt would lose a good chunk of their life savings, and international buyers would never trust us again. We have to have debt of some sort, but the issue has become how management it is. We've owned money to someone from the first day the government was seated under the new Constitution, but it was manageable, it was paid off in a timely fashion, and it was not a burden on the budget because the interest paid out on it was negligible.

That's no longer the case. We've got too many treasury bills, bonds, and notes floating around in the world, and even though our own people owe 57% of the total debt, we can't default on them anymore than we can default or Barclay's or the French National Bank.

There are no positives. Not owing money might be considered "good" if it were possible to borrow some. But under that circumstance, it wouldn't be at all possible.

 

Time.....time....time....

 

We could easily slash the military and security budget without reducing our national security.

For example, homeland security agencies wasted money on seminars like “Did Jesus Die for Klingons Too?” and training for a “zombie apocalypse” instead of actually focusing on anti-terror efforts.

Republican Senator Tom Coburn notes that the Department of Defense can reduce $67.9 billion over 10 years by eliminating the non-defense programs that have found their way into the budget for the Department of Defense.

BusinessWeek and Bloomberg point out that we could slash military spending without harming our national security. Indeed, we could slash boondoggles that even the generals don’t want.

BusinessWeek provides a list of cost-cutting measures which will not undermine national security. American Conservative does the same.

Moreover, we’ve shown that the military wastes and “loses” (cough) trillions of dollars. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

The former Secretary of Defense acknowledged in May 2012 that the DOD “is the only major federal agency that cannot pass an audit today.” The Pentagon will not be ready for an audit for another five years, according to Panetta.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013...ress-pentagon-since-1996-never-accounted.html

 

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The current U.S. defense budget is about $865B. I'm sure that incremental cuts of $67.9B over 10 years, or other cuts planned out over time would not be harmful and could be easily accomplished. This is sensible and should be done.

The argument put forth in this thread is to IMMEDIATELY CUT 40% of the defense budget, or about $346B. That's insanity. That would give aid and comfort to the enemy.

 

No one in this thread has advocated such a cut. That's an assumption you made from the beginning, and despite having evidence presented that constitutional responsibilities should be met to their fullest requirement, you've continued to say that the OP advocates such a drastic and unreasonable cut.

Neither the Tea Party nor anyone attesting to supporting all 10 planks of their agenda have said "Cut the defense budget 40%" because none of us hold to that.

 

Balancing the budget immediately, which is what was stated and affirmed, would require cutting spending across the board 40% since the Treasury takes in about $6B a day and spends about $10B a day.

People can read the thread and draw their own conclusions.

 

Consider the items [4, 8, 12 and 15] that CTB claims are so subjective as to be meaningless:

4. Special interests must be eliminated.

Special interests of the reactionary-democrat party.
1. Unions
2. African-Americans
3. Illegal Immigrants
4. Wall Street Bankers
5. Health Insurance Companies
6. Homosexual lobbies
7. Abortuaries and all who favor slaughtering of the unborn child.
8. Environmental Whacko's

Special interests of the Tea Party.
1. The Constitution!

8. Deficit spending must end.

Deficit spending is spending money you don't have CTB. Nothing ambiguous about that.

12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.

Sadly the country is developing an elite ruling class. Term limits and elimination of special perks such as lavish pensions would limit development of this elite ruling class.

15. Traditional family values are encouraged.

CTB, As a Christian you should know what constitutes traditional family values.

1. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
2. Every child should have a mother [female] and a father [male] who are married.
3. Homosexuality and bestiality [or beastiality] recognized as perversions.
4. Every child is a gift of God.
5. Rearing of a child does not take a village or an intrusive judiciary to government [Federal , state, or otherwise.] but a loving father and a loving mother.

 

Balancing the budget immediately does not mean cutting across the board an equal amount. No Congress and no president has ever done that. Why would they start now?

 

People can read the thread and draw their own conclusions.

 

Yeah, well if any of them can find a reference to a 40% cut of all departments, they can let me know. That is, other than your assumption that is what is being said.