Thoughts

You can not cut enough from the Federal budget to bring it into balance.

Cut all the discretionary spending and you will barely bring the budget into balance...

You would also have a depression...

I vote for MoeKathy’s deficit reduction plan: significantly reduce military spending and reduce college costs with more public funding and financial support especially for first generation in college students.

How did all of Reagan’s funding for that Star Wars defense system pan out? He complained about welfare moms but gave massive, unnecessary welfare for
military-industrial complex.

President GW Bush and Cheney had us spend trillions on an unnecessary war (that cost 4000+ American lives).

How many military bases does the American Empire have around the world?

Let’s try doing better protecting women from the terror of domestic abuse.

"The borrower is a slave to the lender."

That is a microeconomic answer to a macroeconomic question.

Everyone is a fiscal conservative with things they don't like...

@Intoitt

"really you guys are saying all the debt we have accrued in the last twenty years is fine."

No.

I don't think any of us are saying that. That is drawing a conclusion from something that is not said.

I will try something that I tried with others.

Please . . .

In your best Rick Perry . . . tell me what we are cutting. In our lifetime only one president has had a surplus. He was tried for getting a blowjob.

If we go back to 2019, we were at I think a little more than 1.5tn added to the debt. So whatcha cutting?

Now before you go and start saying medicaire and SS. Please understand this simple fact . . .

They have taken in more money than they have sent out. Think hard about that.

So I understand thre has to be some debt but really you guys are saying all the debt we have accrued in the last twenty years is fine. To me that is wishful thinking. The borrower is a slave to the lender.

@Intoiit

Your logic makes no sense. WIthout trying to sound harsh with that terse statement, please just look at it this way.

How did your city get sewage? They did not say, "Let me save up the money, then put it in."

How did your city get roads? They did not say, "Let me save up the money, then put it in."

How we got the Hoover Dam . . .

How we got Tennesse Valley Auhtority . . .

How we got the bridges into NYC . . .

How we got planes and weapons for WWII . . .

All of these were borrowed because we didn't have the money at the time and thus a deficit.

There is mandatory and discretionary spending. The military is discretionary. I do not want to abolish the military by any means. I just don't think that we need to have a budget that is 3x larger than the 2nd and 10x larger than the 3rd.

If you want to figure out where I deficit originated, it originated there and then followed by corporate welfare.

Sap you have the logic of an ameba. I have a plan to reduce the National Debt to zero. It is above your pay grade, minimum wage.

"Not higher taxes less spending It simple math. You have x amount of dollars don't spend more than x. "

Don't confuse micro-economics with macro-economics.

There are times with a government needs to run deficits, and a time for surpluses.

The problem is that the voters (yes voters, not politicians) want something for nothing.

Everyone wants government services, but no one wants the responsibility of paying for them.

I don't find any of those positions insane. They may not be your positions, but don't attribute mental illness to a difference in opinion.

That is one of the things that is wrong with our political discourse these days.

Budget deficit is quite fixable.

The military budget for 2021 is $721.5 billion. It's not mandatory. That much money can pay for bachelor degrees for 9,018,750 Americans EVERY year (@ $80,000 per degree). We would have the brightest nation on earth with that much education.

An aircraft carrier, last time I checked, costs around $8 billion, without the electronics (just bare hull). Cancel a few of those, some submarines, hold off on attacking third world nations for a while, and the deficit will be gone.

Not higher taxes less spending It simple math. You have x amount of dollars don't spend more than x. As far as insane She has stated that people who don't want to work should taken care of. Supports free college. Screams about raising taxes on the rich which means the middle class will pay for it. It's great spending other people's money until ther comes s no middle class any more. Term limits tort reform no lobbying no super pacts Reform tax laws. And fix immigration

LOL.

Flip, that would be getting closer to center. Not actually Left quite yet.

Nobody really wants to see Far Left.

Far left is anything left of what we have now.

" Being said I think Aoc is insane "

And your evidence is?

"The country can not borrow its way out of debt ."

Then you are in favor of higher taxes?

"Harris will ascend to presidency and the left of that party will push for a far left agenda ."

What exactly is a "far left agenda"?

"Agreed: The portion of the deficit that is from Covid 19 debt is not on him."

Nope.

The breadth and duration of the COVID pandemic are completely on Trump's bloody hands.

This second wave of cases is completely on Don's bloody hands...

I am a fiscal conservative. Very happy with trump being defeated , that. Being said I think Aoc is insane . The people who govern us have no concern with fiscal responsibility at some point the spending needs to stop .The country can not borrow its way out of debt . The way I see it going Biden will not finish his term. Harris will ascend to presidency and the left of that party will push for a far left agenda . Harris will run in 2024 and the the Republican Party will hopefully run a moderate and will win, if trump is still around and runs it will divide his party and Harris would have a chance .

Agreed: The portion of the deficit that is from Covid 19 debt is not on him.

It would be helpful if the GOP was more willing to recognize just how important government spending can be in the time of a pandemic, just as it was in the Depression.

I like the Social in the name Social Security. How many folks who condemn socialism are willing to end social security or give up their social security benefits who are receiving them.

How Bolshevik, we might say, are those in their 70s and receiving Social Security and Medicare who want to bite the hand that helps keep them more secure and keeps their medical care affordable.

FDR, I’m sure, learned something from being handicapped or disabled by polio that he applied to the fallen down condition of the country, and he embodied rising up to overcome that fallen down condition.

I like to think that historical perspective can teach us so much that us valuable, but these past 4 years have me repeating that what we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.

I’m curious to see what the Democrats learn from the rise of Trump and what the GOP learns from the fall of Trump.

Alas, I don’t think either party will learn much that is helpful or applied in helpful ways to create a more perfect Union.

My hope, again, lies in the two youngest generations of voters now in terms of their willingness reckon with historical racial injustice and ominous economic inequality and climate change.

I look forward to the Not so Grand OLD party facing AOC and who and what she represents.

Trump's increase in the deficit was immense as a percentage.

However . . .

As a non-trump fan . . .

I have ZERO problem with not attributing CV19 debt to him. That was extraordinary. However, the 1tn per year deficits that he ran because of tax cuts . . . yeah, that is 100% on him.

I also expect the GOP to begin crying hard again about the size of the deficit,

I believe the deficit went up something like 37% under Trump, but no Conservative ever said a word about it, just as the GOP remained silent when Reagan massively increased the deficit.

And to clarify: none of that was opinion. All easily verified fact.

Well said 212. Right on with every aspect!

For a quick supplement to the two excellent posts by 212ScrewYou, I will add that the federal government, under GOP leadership, has been very efficient in providing tax reductions and tax loopholes for the very rich and deregulation for Wall Street.

To clarify...

Republicans in the late 70s-early 80s realized demographics would permanently make them a minority. They went to big business for money in exchange for deregulation, and to evangelicals for the wedge issues to have people vote against their own interests over and over and over. Their public philosophy is that government is bad, period. Their actual philosophy is that government helping regular people is bad, that individual independence is bad. It's a great cycle: get elected on government being bad, run government as badly as you can, then point and say "see? it needs to go!". They kill regulation, education, safety, health, and they won't stop.

To keep the cycle going, politicians that actually call for change (Grayson, Sanders, AOC, Yang, Porter, etc.) are ignored by the media and viciously attacked from the right (tossing hundreds of millions at opponents). It is KEY to keep politicians looking sleazy and uninspiring, and above all government as failing. The Republicans have been after the ACA, and have been blocking COVID aid because of that. The government CANNOT be seen or felt to help, or work properly.

Do you think Trump promising to permanently end Social Security/Medicare payroll taxes was random? They've been gunning for those two for two decades. Next year is going to be like 2008, except much worse -- and expect to hear "welfare reform", "entitlement reform" for four years.

I totally understand your "they're all the same" view. It has been actively encouraged for decades. The disillusionment is the goal. They want you to give up, so that it will continue to be the small minority of ignorant and/or single-issue ("ABORTION HOLOCAUST") shitkickers that ALWAYS votes continuing to elect Republicans, NONE of whose actual policies have support. 47% of Republicans support Medicare for all. Do you understand how insane it is that they still vote for the party out to kill Medicare?