My God! Who did we conservatives elect?
At first I was happy
then I wasn’t
now I’m pulling my hair out
When the House of Representatives was taken over thanks to an influx of Tea Party supported candidates I was truly excited about the possibilities. I was sure the men and women we elected would bring fiscal sanity and common sense to Washington. After watching the debt ceiling and deficit debates unfold and fall apart, I can’t help but think that we’ve made a serious mistake.
First, the debt ceiling. Anyone in business understands you need capital to invest and grow. You also need a line of credit to manage bills while waiting for accounts receivable to come in. Too many in Congress and the general public seem to not understand the reliance on borrowing, both business and government must do. Done responsibly it’s no threat and is necessary for expansions which lead to more jobs and growth. Why anyone who understands this would be against raising the debt ceiling, which was done I believe 18 times while Ronald Reagan was president, and numerous times for all the other presidents in my lifetime.
The AAA rating is vital to our nation’s economy and vital to the world’s too. The fact is China’s economy is a massive fraud. Europe’s is in shambles as the stronger economies like Germany and France must bail out the weak European Union economies, raising their debt levels dangerously high. And other countries with AAA ratings economy’s just aren’t large enough to act as the reserve currency. It’s beyond measure how important it is for America to retain it’s ability to pay it’s bills. Economic catastrophe is inevitable should those in Congress who play games with the debt ceiling, and the full faith and credit of The United States.
Almost as important is our nation’s debt load. The republican party is failing on this account also. As I write, the Boehner plan which calls for no new taxes but only reduces the deficit by $900 billion over ten years is being held up because he doesn’t have the votes to pass it on to the Senate. I say “only $900 billion” since our annual budget is about $3.5 trillion a year. In relation to $3.5 trillion dollars, $900 billion is a drop in the bucket. President Obama proposed $4 trillion in cuts.
While I don’t want higher taxes, it must also be remembered that under President Reagan, taxes were raised several times. Ideology is good. And it must be honored in order to govern sensibly. Sometimes prices go up in office supply stores. Costs go up for government services also. If after everything that should be cut is cut and there is still a gap between unmanageable debt and fiscal responsibility, then a tax increase is justified.
Too many on the republican side of the aisle are too blindly devoted to promises they knew they couldn’t keep. Just as many times those on the democratic side call for more programs and taxes when frugality and allowing market forces and making people act responsible for themselves is in order.
Hopefully a deficit reduction and debt ceiling deal will be struck soon. I just wish all those on the republican side would have approached this as true patriots and statesmen rather than ideologues with no clue as to the realities of business and government.
It’s a deal Mr. Speaker: You agree to raise taxes and I make Eric Cantor disappear
My mother relies on Social Security and Medicare. I accept the importance of these programs and fully support governments role in keeping them solvent so everyone who has paid in receives their benefits. I proposed a plan for Social Security herre at MMA a couple months ago.
It’s time our politicians tossed out the usual rhetoric and mumbo jumbo and worked to keep these two programs as well as making government a responsible and consistent vehicle both job creators and the consumer class can rely on to keep the American dream a reality. For too many it is not. If the republican party wants to abandon the dream as a possibilty for everyone then I would gladly abandon the republican party. We need a safe monetary system where entrepreneurs can get the capital they need to grow businesses. The game being played with the debt ceiling could take years to fix. Times are tough. We can’t allow the partisan word and mind games to destroy our teetering economy. I’ll poat my thoughts on how to make Congress work for all of us over the weekend.
Thank you all for the interest and thanks again to MadMike and Mr. Ender for allowing me to use their forum.
Milton, you are the only one on this site that spouts any sense, you shouldn’t be thanking them, they should be thanking you.
I did thank him, in the very first line of the very first post. Geez, if you’re going to knee-jerk into bich mode without even reding the posts you’re bitching about, wht’s the point? O.k.! O.k.! I’ll get off your lawn!
Right on lazer, with the war tax. And I, for one, would not mind at all seeing the social security retirement age raised to 68 for full benefits. As a matter of fact, when a raido call in show asked ‘What age will you be when you retire?’ I replied, ‘I don’t know. I never plan to retire. I’m going out feet first!’
Who are you and what have you done with Milton?
Spot on, Miltie. Well said. Even if that is where we don’t normally hang out in our free time, this country would be better served if we all could meet each other in the middle.
Not that I’d ever impugn the honesty or the intelligence of ANY conservatoid shitwhistle, of course. They’re all honest as the day is young. But I gotta wonder at the source of the pie-chart and the content, too. At best, it’s incomplete, at worst, it’s inflammatory, deceptive (dare I say “lying?”) propaganda. See, e.g.:
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/21/who-owns-america-hint-its-not-china/
I reject, prima facie, the claim that they ‘goofed.”
They knew perfectly WELL what kinds of assholes they were electing. It was exactly because they WERE assholes that they WERE elected. It was a shit-covered stick in the eyes of them dang Libruls, soshlists and especially that goddam Nigra…
Uncle Miltie I never thought I would say this to you but when you are right you are right. Most people, including all of the “Tea Party” new comers do not understand the concept that part of the governments job is to keep money circulating in the U.S. economy. A major part of our debt reduction needs to come from recovering monies spent on our wars that naturally were not part of our budget at the time. These were expenditures authorized by congress whether they were popular or not. We cannot cut the budget alone to make up those budget shortfalls. In an earlier post I had suggested a short term, fixed amount “War Tax” to help recover the monies expended on those wars. It would be a graduated tax designed to recoup a specific amount of money that was expended on the wars. When that amount was recovered it would end. That would recover approximately 3 trillion dollars over that period of time. At this same time I do agree that there is enough waste in the Department of Defense and some of the entitlement programs including raising the Social Security retirement age to save another 2 – 3 trillion dollars over the next ten years. That means that over the next ten years we would cut the debt by 5 – 6 trillion dollars over the next ten years which is far more than either the Democrats or Republicans are suggestions. Some of that debt reduction would allow the government to reinvest money in improving our crumbling infrastructure which would greatly improve the unemployment situation in this country which would also increase revenue and be a financial engine for the economy. Of course this will be impossible as long as the neophytes are trying to compare the national budget to their household budgets. As far as a Constitutional Amendment for a balance budget there are two major problems: 1. It is simply a bad idea that will never get 2/3 votes of both houses of congress and even if it did it would never get 3/4 of the states to ratify it. And, even if they did we would down graded to a banana republic before they could get all of that done; and 2., I have talked to too many economists who have said that locking the federal government into that situation is like a one legged man going in a butt kicking contest. He has no chance to do anything. The government would never be able to provide assistance in emergency situations or to be able to react quickly in the case of a national emergency such as we had on 9/11/2001. One addendum to that, the federal government needs to keep money flowing in the economy, not hoard it in the treasury.
Awwww, STFU. You got exactly what you voted for. . . fruitcakes who are clueless. It wasn’t a secret back then and it isn’t now. Quit acting so fucking surprised.
And another thing: No democrats are “calling for more programs.” And you want to rely on “market forces?!” That’s how we got here, Einstein.
Thank you, Mr. Thornbridge. Tell your friends.