Upgrade to enjoy this feature!
Vital MX fantasy is free to play, but Premium users receive great benefits. Premium benefits include:
- View and download rider stats
- Pick trends
- Create a private league
- And more!
Only $10 for all 2026 SX, MX, and SMX series.
thats why we're bankrupt
Not.
I see that as a strawman.
Before this country elected Obama, we had:
1. Stock market tanking;
2. Home values plummeting;
3. Businesses contracting;
4. Unemployment soaring;
5. A threat of a run on the banks; and
6. Detroit was hemorrhaging.
Bush passed TARP, and the Auto-Bailout, and then handed that mess over to Obama.
He began spending money to "prime the pump", and get us out of a Recession.
To what result?
1. Stock market is at all-time highs;
2. Home values are climbing again;
3. Businesses are investing in expansion;
4. Unemployment numbers are continually declining;
5. Savings accounts are growing again; and
6. Detroit is making and selling cars again.
It blows me away how some people are SO FORGETFUL of what shape this country was in when Obama took office. VERY SELECTIVE memories, IMO.
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Free shipping: VITALMX
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
If we cut military expenditures how are we going to be free? Don't you believe in liberty?
To what result?
It was wrong of me to use wording that could be interpreted as meaning that the current crisis is Obama's fault. As Obama has stated 1000+ times publicly, Bush handed him the mess. I was talking about his plan moving forward.
The Bush / Obama spending spree spurred on the economy and prevented an economic meltdown. I don't think there was anything inaccurate in that post. Others may agree or disagree as to whether letting the economy crash in 2008 or waiting for it to crash when the debt is even higher is the best course of action, but.... credit where credit is due, Bush & Obama postponed a crash by printing money and spending it. Great. Crisis averted/postponed.
So now that that whole incident is in the past, now that everything is peachy as evidenced by the second half of your post, what is the best course of action for America? Keep printing and spending money and going farther in debt? Or try to curtail spending and pay off some debt.
Obama's plan is clearly not the latter. The latest draft of the budget sees the debt go from 17 to 25 trillion.
The US had the potential to be the best country in the world. It should have no debt. It should be the world's biggest creditor, not the world's biggest debtor.
As for military cuts rather than cutting elsewhere... it's a moot point now, there is no way out that I'm aware of.
Prove me wrong. Is anyone aware of a possible scenario where the US starts paying off its debt? Even the TEA Party's proposals only make the smallest of dents, and they are seen as loons, hated by all.
I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong but the end is approaching. I hope you all like farming.
Edit: I suck at speling
Bi-partisan bickering is destroying America. This red team v. blue is complete bullshit.
See, the problem, once you get a debt addiction - or debt/credit bubble blown like we have - you have no choice but to keep blowing the bubble. If you ease off the bubble-blowing throttle you end up deflating the bubble and we get a depression. No politician wants that happening on his/her watch. The moneyed-elite that really run this country (and the world) have decided it is easier to keep inflating the bubble than ask (or force) the people to sacrifice.
One way to end this madness is to cut back, but cut back slowly. There is no way we can just lop 30% (or whatever large figure suits your fancy) off the budget and not have severe consequences. There would literally be riots in the streets of America. We might could get away with ten or fifteen percent, but I really don't know.
Another way to end this would be for our leaders (I use that term LOOSELY) to declare the FED illegal, declare bankruptcy and begin issuing our own DEBT FREE money. All money now is created out of debt in our fractional reserve banking system. I personally do not find fault with the current system. Rather, I find fault with the greedy people that run it. Fractional reserve banking can work if people don't get greedy. Yes, defaulting would create a number of painful problems, but we'd move through it in five to ten years.
Really, I don't think anyone knows what is going to happen. There has never been anything like this in history to compare it to. No country has ever run up this much debt in a fractional reserve banking system. Therefore, I don't put much stock in the latest doom and gloom stuff, nor do I give any credit to those that say everything is just "keen." I've prepared my family as best I know how, and I am convinced that my God has all this in His grasp.
There are still things that can be tried, but I don't feel like sitting here and typing up a laundry list. We're in for some uncomfortable change no matter what is decided.
To get back to the original point of this thread - yes we can cut the military - but it needs to be prudent and done carefully. Or, we can choose to quit policing the world and footing the defense bill of other countries that only spend a fraction of their economic wealth on the military.
Choices, choices, choices. We got lots of 'em and no real leaders to make them.
As for me, I have moved my RRSPs (Canadian version of a 401k) to foreign money market funds and my family now watches closely every episode of Doomsday Preppers - I wasn't kidding about the farming thing. :^)
This is one reason why they are so desperately trying to reblow the real-estate bubble. Americans were fat-city for a while there using there houses as ATM machines. We were taking vacations, buying the latest techno-wizardry, getting giant TVs (that use more energy), putting in swimming pools, eating out, flipping houses, golfing, buying new MX bikes (made in Japan) and on and on. Notice what we were not doing. We were not increasing our savings accounts. We were not investing in our industrial manufacturing base (unless building weapons for war).
All these things add up. You can't increase production when you're not really producing anything beyond weapons and cars.
Have you all noticed how much road construction is going on? Literally every place I go I run into orange cones here in Florida. I see it up in Georgia too. Here in Jacksonville, I kid you not - this is no exaggeration - they will literally finish an area and start all over again. I295 & Blanding BLVD are a perfect case in point. Any locals here on this board can back me up on that. They rebuild it, then start again making it even bigger. My point? I've never asked any of the guys on the side of the road, but I'd bet my last dollar that half of them were building houses up until 2007 or so. All those construction workers had to go somewhere. In comes government with road money in the form of stimulus. Meanwhile, we need to get the housing bubble reblown so we can wind down these guys working on the roads.
I don't know...I'm just a flunky observing from my chair in the comfort of my bedroom while typing on the interwebs.
I think we need some tough love.
When George Bush was elected, our government was generating surpluses. He said "we are taking too much of your money. I want to give that back to you, because you are better with it than we are."
That was dumb. When you are making hay, that is the best time to put it in the barn. I saw that as a "I am going to buy your vote" move.
Instead of giving us all a check for $400 bucks (or whatever it was), he should have made Social Security solvent. We have a huge balloon of Baby Boomers about to retire. With a shrinking population, and a large chunk of them transitioning out of the workforce, he should have bolstered that. He did not.
He started two wars, and cut our taxes. Does running up a credit card, and lowering your payments on that card work in your household? Not mine.
How many military members are coming back with PTSD? How many are getting service disabilities at 20, 30, or even 40% of their pay? That will be on the public expenses for the duration of their life.
So, I would change things by:
1. Extend Social Security benefits out until a person is 70 years old.
2. Raise taxes. (The Bush era tax cuts, to "create jobs", have had about 10 years to work. I have given up hope. We all need to toughen up a bit, and go back to the tax rates that our parents and grandparents paid.)
3. Close about 75% of the military bases that we have around the world. Nobody has a military base in the United States, and we don't need them all around the world. We are not the worlds police. Work with NATO and the UN, and no more of this unilateral BS.
4. Instead of the Affordable Health Care Act, create a network of Public Health Clinics. ANY American citizen can access the care provided there. If you don't want service at this free public health care clinic, fine. But you have to pay the going rate at a private facility. They will not be burdened to provide care to anybody who walks through the door. That will keep a market place in tact for health care. If they want to stay in business, they need to be competitive in pricing, and hope their level of service will entice people to come access their service.
5. Allow recently graduating medical students an opportunity to repay their student debt by providing service at these Public Health Care facilities.
That is where I would start.
Pit Row
Post a reply to: Defense Spending Too High?