U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

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U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Jangalomph on Wed Aug 03, 2011 4:32 pm

I have a question about the debt debate. Is it even constitutional to have 12 manned super congress that the public has no say in? The public has no say in any thing any more... Even if we called our senators and said Hey, make this proposal.. all they could say is "Its out of our hands" Since its behind "closed doors". What makes it so difficult to just stop spending money ffs. I don't understand much about the government, and I've only had a basic law class in school.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Ich 666 on Wed Aug 03, 2011 5:00 pm

Seriously, in this case it would cost way more time than america has. Even with the 12 manned super congress it was pretty much a last second rescue.

The thing about stop spending money is: you need to consider the fact that a country has large running costs, like the army, health care and stuff like this. When you say "stop spending money" to yourself, its pretty simple, you stop spending money. However try to do this with a state. Youll need to tell everyone to stop spending money consider how much they can save, without losing too much quality. And a state needs money to organize itself, too.

And the last part: inform yourself, its not that much of a secret (speaking of the german government in this case).
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby joe_dirt976 on Wed Aug 03, 2011 5:26 pm

Article I section 5 of the US Constitution:
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
make of it what you will, but I doubt this is the first occurrence of such things.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Simpletool on Wed Aug 03, 2011 6:09 pm

The debt ceiling is a red herring being pushed into the media spotlight by the Republicans to downplay and distract from legitimate economic issues. They will continue dragging their feet to give a sense of opposition to the president (as their base voters expect from them) until the very last minute when they'll vote to raise it because they know they'll super fuck themselves otherwise.

The Republicans love this issue because it gives them the opportunity to slash and burn entitlement spending (aka middle class safety nets) while appearing fiscally responsible. Of course anyone with two functioning hemispheres of their brain realized a long time ago that if money were personified as a 10 foot tall cock the Republicans would be tripping over themselves to be the first to get some ass play.

If the Republicans were sincere in cutting spending they could start with our $700,000,000,000.00 in military spending, but they won't because they're more concerned with cutting nonexistent abortion funding. And they get away with it because their voters are bitter and angry and slightly stupid (for good reasons), and the republicans provide them a convenient scapegoat.

Oh yes and lets conveniently forget every, other, time we've raised the debt ceiling because they would of course run contradictory to our bullshit.

http://www.opencongress.org/articles/vi ... bt-Ceiling




I probably appear bitter. It's because I'm sick to my stomach seeing the rug pulled out from poor and middle class Americans, teachers being blamed for the debt, seniors losing their health coverage, and kids' educations being strip-mined by sociopath governors.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby MayheM on Wed Aug 03, 2011 6:28 pm

Well the way our government is constructed, it is a representative democracy. So our elected officials are free to do what they feel is best for the people. The problem is, they seem to have been doing what is best for themselves for some time now. This is not exclusive to either side mind you. Both sides have done this for a while. In all honesty, big cuts need to be made. Between the wars and the ridiculous spending in Washington, we are in a shit storm of epic proportions.

There was a Democrat yesterday who, after the bill was passed to raise the debt ceiling, referred to the tea party as terrorists and said, "they have made it impossible for us to spend any money". Say what you will about the tea party, but I say GOOD!!! That is the problem. Washington just does not know how to stop. They are literally addicted to spending. Their first answer to every problem is to throw money at it. This is the main reason why over the last few years I have become so adamant about limiting the size of our government and why I cringe every time I think of the government becoming more involved in any aspect of our lived, ie health care and the idea of universal health care. In theory it is all sunshine and rainbows, but in reality our government would "F" it up.

The way I look at it is this. The government works for us. They do not make money they take money. Our taxes are meant to go to pay for the things needed to keep our government running. But now, lobbyists go in and get our representatives to spend money or make deals that are good for specific people. Then they tend to do things with a knee-jerk reaction that ends up biting us in the ass later. A good example of that is Nancy Pelosi's now famous phrase about the health care law, "We have to pass the bill before we see what's in it". Then it gets passes and there is shit in there that makes no freaking sense. Fake numbers to make ignorant people think it is the tits. For instance, the idea that it is deficit neutral. The problem with that is the only look at it for ten years out. With benefits only available for 6 of those ten years. So ten years of money pays for six years at a cost of 1 trillion dollars. So if you look at it like, each year of benefits costs $166,666,666, so the second ten years will cost us $1,666,666,666 rather than 1 trillion. That is actually over 2/3 more money than the first ten years. That kind of math happens all the time in Washington.

What I find amazing is that we have so many lawyers in office. People who make livings at working lies and manipulating the truth are running our country.

But all that aside when it comes to the idea of "Stop Spending" it is a matter of stopping wasteful spending. This include fraud in government run programs. I can guarantee they can find a ton. That also means cutting back on defensive spending as well. We spend 720 billion dollars a year on defense. That is more that every nation in the world combined. We have bases all over the world and we like to play world police. Meanwhile no one wants us butting in. So I say, save some money, defend our own borders and when wars break out we let people handle it themselves. There is also a ton of waster in educational spending. Bush spent more than any other president in history on education and it did nothing to our test scores and did nothing to improve our schools. In fact the dept of Education is a joke. Jimmy Carter started it in 1979 and since then test scores have not improved, education has not gotten any better. Education needs to be given back to the states and let them run it. The federal Government has done a shit job so lets cut that right there. I could go on and on...

I am glad some people actually are interested in knowing what is going on though. I talked to a friend the other day and said... Looks like the debt deal is going to get done. He looked at me and was like, What are you talking about. Though he was the guy who admitted to me he voted for Obama because he wanted to see a black president. Sometimes I wish uninformed people would not vote. Anyway, I better get back to work.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby MayheM on Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:19 pm

Simpletool wrote:
Oh yes and lets conveniently forget every, other, time we've raised the debt ceiling because they would of course run contradictory to our bullshit.

http://www.opencongress.org/articles/vi ... bt-Ceiling


I can agree with you that the Republicans have done it in the past, no doubt. Bush did it I think 7 times while in office. However Obama voted against is and stated "It shows a lack of leadership". I tend to agree with him...
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Jangalomph on Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:34 am

I guess what this is all saying "In basic terms" Is we're screwed.. and its gonna be a rough ride for politicians because they spent so much money.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Enraged on Thu Aug 04, 2011 12:46 pm

I'm a UK citizen but obviously this affects me. From what I've learnt about US economic policy over the years, the entire crisis has been an inevitability with every government, both democract and republican, doing nothing more then making the situation worse and always raising the ceiling so they could keep spending and making it look like there was no crisis waiting to occur when the people the government owed money too decided they wanted it back. You know, like how a debt works. Bill Clinton was the worst offender, actually raiding social security and other public holdings to put money into other areas.

No country has climbed all the way down the crevice to accept responsibility for their debt. It has so far been avoided by having countries throw what money was in reserve at whatever was about to collapse, whether it would be able to support itself afterwards or contribute to growth afterwards playing no factor in the decision. The bank bailouts have made things worse for everyone except the banks, who will continue to act like idiots safe in the knowledge that they'll take peoples money and houses when they default on loans and then taking their tax money when the banks default on their debts. This is circular and it is sheer insanity.

The only way to get out of the recession with any relative sensibility, not stocking the books for the next debt in 50 years, is to return not just the US, but every other country to where it should have been originally. Cut social policies, and MOST DEFINITLY SOCIAL SECURITY. It is double speak for what can only be described as a ponzi scheme that regularly breaks and forces greater taxes on everyone except the rich as a result. Also stop the corporatism/nepotism between governments, banks and building societies. If they can't survive on their own, stop making the poor and middle class pay for it with taxes.

It's not fun, it's not good, but it is the only way to assure we don't go through this again a few years after we finally dig ourselves out of this pit.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Mr. Happy on Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:58 pm

Congresses under republican presidents have raised the debt ceiling more often than democrats. Bill Clinton raised the debt ceiling the fewest number of times and did the best of any president in the last 100 years to balance the budget.

We elect representatives so that we don't have to worry about these things (of course that's only the theory; of course we do have to worry), but the thing is that it's a fuckload more complicated than anyone in congress will tell you and they only make a big fuss and ask our opinions because they know we don't understand the problem and we will tell them to do stupid things that they can politicize for reelection.

We do not need to stop social security, enraged. We need to stop the wealthy from from receiving payments, we need to raise the retirement age, and we need to stop raiding it. Social security has always been the most balanced part of the budget, the only MAJOR reason it is in trouble is because the stupid baby boomers are living longer, wealthier, lives. People today are living a decade+ longer but retiring at the same age so the money THEY payed in won't cover their benefits until death.



The REAL reason we are in financial trouble of course is because the politicians make bullshit stopgap measures at the last minute that are designed to work "over 10 years" but they only stick with the plan for 1-2 years.

Anyway, once the bush tax cuts expire we will be in a much better position and then we can raise taxes again, and cut spending again and we will be in a great position.
But by cutting spending I mean cut everything slightly, cut the department of defense in HALF, end the wars (which aren't even IN the budget), get rid of the useless TSA and homeland security, and raise spending on nasa. Doing this we could IMMEDIATELY start to pay off the PRINCIPAL of the debt.

But I tihnk, because of the way we structured the worlds economy with fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking and whatnot some debt is good and not having any debt would be worse than a little debt.

There is no reason to spend so much on defense when all they do is waste it on laser cannons, planes that never get finished, and guns that fire around corners but they don't even pay for our infantry's uniforms. wtf.

Of course it is important to remember that the way our debt is structured, since we owe the money to china and we are their second largest trading partner, they will never come calling :D We basically pulled a fast one on china :D If they ever tried to collect on the debt we would not be able to do business with them, their factories would shut down, and their economy would collapse, our economy would be fine, the debt would become worthless, and we would be ok, not good, but not bad.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby MayheM on Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:49 pm

Happy I agree with some of what you are saying. Though you also have to keep in mind Clinton spent a lot at first and it was a Republican majority in the house and senate that helped him balance the budget. But regardless both parties have overspent. Both know we need to make cuts and make sacrifices, but neither party wants to face that political fallout from doing what is needed.

For instance, Social Security was started when the average age of death was lower then the age you could start collecting benefits. It started as a "hey if you live this long you get a reward", but turned into a relied upon retirement program. It is now something it was never intended to be. The age where you can start collecting benefits needs to increase at a rate directly proportional to the average lifespan. People need to start saving their money for retirement and stop relying on S.S.I. as their only source of income as they get older. But also if memory servers correctly, Clinton borrowed money from the social security coffers to pay off other things.

I do not agree with raising taxes. I truly feel this is not a revenue problem, but rather it is more of a spending problem. What I would like to see is an total restructuring of the tax laws. A tossup between a fair tax and a flat tax. A Fair Tax being the elimination of federal income tax replaced by a national sales tax. So those who consume more, pay more. Those who don't consume anything pay nothing. Then a Flat tax being eliminating the progressive income tax and replacing it with a flat % across the board (around 15%). This would also eliminate right offs. So people making a million a year pay $150,000,000 a year in taxes, while someone who only makes 100 thousand pays $15,000, someone making the average national salary of $45,000 pays around $6,000 a year. Both of these programs would cut down on federal spending because the IRS could be downsized greatly.

I for one don't care if the people we owe never come calling, I want us to pay down the debt. 14+ trillion dollars is ridiculous. I think the best way to describe the magnitude of that number is this. Lebron James makes somewhere around 43 million dollars a year. If we took all that money and put it towards the debt, it would take around 35,000 years to pay off the debt. That shit needs to stop. We borrow money to help other countries. Foreign aid needs to stop. It is not like we are lending them the money to help, we borrow from China and give it to other people. Then we have to pay it back. That is just stupid. I could really talk about this at no end. I am so frustrated with the current state of our economy and government it really make me sick. The people who actually try and make big cuts get demonized in Washington for trying to do the right thing. We need to hold our leaders responsible for what they have done and what they are doing. I think we the people in general have become complacent, and when Happy says we elect people so we don't have to worry we took that a bit too seriously. So many people are uninformed about what is going on. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on how to fix the problems at hand, be we should all know the problems we face.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Dionysos on Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:21 pm

Everyone (almost, except some oil countries) is in the same situation; exponentially growing debt that can never possibly be repaid. Like, ever. The way the monetary system is setup and money is created, coupled with interest in general, has created a world where there's more debt than existing money. Even apart from that, the interest on the debt on countries has and is ensuring that apart from simply resetting the debt in some deal, there's no way out. Everything anyone ever does to "reduce debt" is postponing the inevitable and at the same time making the situation worse.

Sure, there are small ways to save money, and they're what's debated in the media like they can actually change stuff. The real problem though is systemic, and nothing but a systemic change can fix this.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Enraged on Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:57 am

Ok, I'm going to pick on your comment Mr. Happy, nothing personal except this is basically the same arguments I hear over, and over, and over again by those who don't seem to understand why social security doesn't work. Yes, as mayhem pointed out, it was not designed to be this system that it is now, but that's not even the source of the major problems.

'[Bill Clinton] did the best of any president in the last 100 years to balance the budget.'

Quoted from Craig Steiner: 'Understanding what happened requires understanding two concepts of what makes up the national debt. The national debt is made up of public debt and intragovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public, normally including things such as treasury bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government. Intragovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.'

Bill Clinton did NOT balance the budget in any way, shape or form. It is nothing more then a neat magic trick pulled off infront of the media. This was done by taking money from social security, and using it to pay off the debts the government had to the people. The end result was that it seemed as if money coming from taxes was at a surplus and was therefore being used to pay off debts. This was NOT the case at all. Clinton did not balance the budget. He made the debt a lot worse with the worst fiscal year being his last year, 2001 where spending took the country another $133.3 Billiion into debt. $199.3B was used to lower the public debt by $66B with the rest being used to fund other government activities. Note, before you say it, this was NOT Bush. The deficit created by the 2001 budget was created by Clinton, as the Bush administration was not in power until after that years budget proposal. The closest Clinton came to balancing the books was a $17 billion deficit, but Clinton never came close to balancing the books. The reason the debt ceiling wasn't raised that much, was because instead he moved where the debt was being made. Despite how the media reports it, national, government and public debts, are NOT the same thing.

Before I begin flawing your social security statements, I need to explain some principle's concerning government control.

Social security is at it's core supposed to be an investment system for old age. The idea is you put money in and when you retire you get access to your investments and as a result you are ensured a good retirement. The question is, why the hell do you want government involved in this? Government has proved itself incapable of doing just about everything right, the constant consistent debt being an example of this. What if I want to invest my money as I want to invest it? I can't say, invest my money in a solar panel manfacturers company shares that I then sell in old age if the government has my money. Instead, they get to decide how to invest my money for me? Why do they think they know what's best for me? Why can't I decide how to spend my money? What if I'm going to die in a year from now because I've got cancer or some terrible disease? Why can't I have my money as I want to blow it over this last year of my existance, instead of putting it into a fund I'll never see. Or what if I want to put my money into a better, private investment plan that offers greater returns that the social security is offering? Again, I can't, because government thinks it automatically knows whats best for me.

To your points.

'Social security has always been the most balanced part of the budget.'

Are you insane!? Social security as we just discussed and you said yourself, is CONSTANTLY raided by governments as a big pot of money to take from to spend as it will. It has near enough constantly, both in the UK and the US been in the red. This isn't JUST because of governments raiding it, it's because it's also, as I originally said a Ponzi scheme. If you want, go to wikipedia where they have an excellent summary of how it works. Here is how the US SS defended itself:

'There is a superficial analogy between pyramid or Ponzi schemes and pay-as-you-go insurance programs in that in both money from later participants goes to pay the benefits of earlier participants. But that is where the similarity ends. A pay-as-you-go system can be visualized as a simple pipeline, with money from current contributors coming in the front end and money to current beneficiaries paid out the back end. As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever. There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system, and so it is not a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.'

Despite what they say, THIS IS THE EXACT FUCKING DESCRIPTION OF A PONZI SCHEME! The neccesities for social security to keep going forever require either of the following:
1. A constantly, scalably growing human race with the new generation constantly paying for the social security of the previous generation.
OR
2. Continuously increasing taxation to pay for the previous investors.
If we locked out 12% of the people currently using the system, amounting to millions of people and stated that they are simply not going to have access to SS, but they are still going to pay for it (Doesn't sound fair, but anyways...) it would just about balance out. However, it would still require rises in taxes.
The reason SS is in trouble is because number 1 is not happening, and 2 is not being adequately done, thankfully.
Social security is double speak. People are going to continue to live longer lives and social security cannot ever match this without taxing the fuck out of everyone.

I haven't got time atm to delve into the other topics, but here are two videos I think you should watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-lpslBef1c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuaG-A6ezMQ
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Terr on Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:06 am

In brief:
  • The "debt ceiling" is largely a red-herring. Like the minimum wage, it is not indexed for inflation nor for GDP growth, so it's pretty much guaranteed to need bumping up every few years. It's just a promise by the government to itself.
  • The "Super-congress" (or, when named more accurately, super-committee) is Constitutional, in the same way all sorts of longstanding House/Senate rules and committees and other rigmarole are as well. I've seen nothing to suggest it violates parts of the Constitution, and what it does do is already covered by Article 1 Section 5 Clause 2.
  • Filibuster/cloture in the Senate has turned toxic over the last few years.

Dionysos wrote:Everyone (almost, except some oil countries) is in the same situation; exponentially growing debt that can never possibly be repaid. Like, ever. The way the monetary system is setup and money is created, coupled with interest in general, has created a world where there's more debt than existing money.


That isn't as bad as it sounds. Currency is really just a standardized promise of value, and a promise held by another is a debt. Also, debt is not a scalar value. It has a direction, so you can't just tally it up and say things are bad. A group of three people might, together have a debt of $3 million dollars, but what that number doesn't tell you is that they owe it in a little circle to each other.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Major Banter on Sun Aug 07, 2011 12:32 am

Gotta love the spend-spend-spend policy of the US government.

I'm sorry, but it's perfectly simple to make cuts. The UK Government has forced it through, and though people have made a song and a dance about it, it'll work. It's not been nice, and it's difficult here at the moment, but it'd be a damn sight harder if Labour kept fucking things up.

The Tory government - the Centre-Rights for you Americans - that we have in power creates a climate where a lone individual with talent can succeed, and everyone else is lost in the mire of drudgery. Maybe that's unfair, but it's also Darwinian, and therefore it works. It promotes success, development and cashflow while amputating the useless, lazy and pointless. That doesn't mean removing the disabled; it means people doing a bullshit photography degree can no longer afford it, and the bullshit degree is no longer viable. Fewer people can go to University to do fewer proper degrees: which is how it should be.

This brutality of cutting has not - to my knowledge - been seen in the US since its inception, and I find that worrying. A nation that depends on it's world position and economic dominance is in a serious cashflow problem and yet can't make vital and vicious cuts. We've cut around 25% of our armed forces and sold off around 80% of our older air fleet. That's some serious money saving. The US still manufactures nuclear weapons, still churns out a military force and still performs R&D costing many, many billions per year, and the DoD refuse to cut it, despite the fact the US military is:
A; Obsolete
B; Has never won a conflict
C; Has never operated a Hearts/Mind policy

The issue lies with the people running and supporting the army. They make money, they get jobs. You can't just ask someone to quit because they're being cut in a megabeast the size of the US army, never mind the state departments, social security, police, services, banks, manufacturing, etc etc. I guess it could be summarised as people can't be fucked over, but if they're not fucked over they'll be fucked over. The only issue is that they don't have the foresight to take it on the chin.

A nice example is video game piracy. Nobody likes Ubisoft's DRM, but we put ourselves in that position. Now we're just going to pirate more until the DRM is ridiculous, when we should've stopped pirating, no matter how difficult that might be.
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Re: U.S Government Debt Debate Question/Discussion

Postby Jangalomph on Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:52 pm

A; Obsolete
B; Has never won a conflict
C; Has never operated a Hearts/Mind policy


Elaborate on those parts. You kinda lost me there.
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