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rufiohoNov 30, 2010
Please cut the debt, it's a basic principle of healthy finances. Don't spend more than you make.
thoughtsonthisNov 30, 2010
You might as well shout it from the rooftops, they are not listening.
jhw539Dec 1, 2010
"it's a basic principle of healthy finances."
It is NOT a basic principle of macroeconomics at all. Quite the opposite actually - on the macroeconomic level you spend more than you make during recessions when labor is cheap and underutilized and then tax more than you spend during expansions when the free market can better allocate labor resources to produce wealth.
The problem is the 'tax more than you spend' part got completely f**ked up in the last 30 years by idiots who think macroeconomics is like their kitchen table finances and record low tax rates are a religious requirement for happiness.
addiktionDec 1, 2010
Your comment is noble indeed, however the US economy thrives off of consumption. Rather then being self sustaining we have to spend in order for growth to happen as thats what everyone cares about these days. In other words we have to go into further debt to keep the economy going.
Obviously this isn't the desired result. The desired result would be we actually produce things and sell them to countries and have an excess of capital like China, especially where globalization is happening more rapidly these days.
It's going to take a painful change in the American culture of continuous spending if we want to cut the debt and Washington doesn't seem to know whats best. They tell you to keep spending so the economy doesn't falter, but then they tell you they need to cut spending or else there will be a financial crisis on our hands. They tell you we need to cut debt, yet they continually expand by adding more government jobs which only add to the expenses of tax dollars. They tell you are going to create jobs by adding more cash into the system (through loans of course), yet no one has any room for more debt and it only inflates the currency. They tell you they support green technologies and want us to get off of oil, yet they heavily invest in oil and rely on foreign trade to supply our addiction.
I'm hopeful sure, but not that Washington will get it right. I'm hopeful that people will wake up and realize the system we live in needs some serious changes if we want to make it into the next century without seeing WWIII.
wjappeNov 30, 2010
The attitude of government that they can do anything, so long as it doesn't come out of their personal pockets. So long as they can find short term solution to the mounting debt, they get reelected and enable people with too much money to get more nothing is going to change unless it hits them in the face. To anyone else, at least me, its madness to keep going like this. Some think that "government" (that's really us BTW) debt is somehow different than personal debt. Soon or later all this spending will come back to haunt us big time and payback time is going to be a bitch.
cybersaurNov 30, 2010
The GOP tax cuts for the rich caused the deficit spending and the national debt.
The Clinton Admin left budget surpluses. GOP economic policy is ruining this country. Reagan and bush both more than doubled the national debt, but let's not let these facts keep you sheeple from voting republican and making things worse...
jnav121Dec 1, 2010
therefore we should print 1.2 billion dollars and give unlimited amounts of money to any bailout and call it a STIMULUS... hahha cybersaur do you know what monopoly money is ? hahahahhahahahaComment is buried, click here to see the rest.
ncmusicDec 1, 2010
The stimulus was more than 40% tax cuts. You act as if this is the first time the Fed has ever added money to the economy.
eyecomeanonDec 1, 2010
You should try the little quiz mentioned in the article. I thought the same way you did about the tax cuts for the rich, but they're actually a very small part of the bigger picture. Kinda opened my eyes, that quiz did. It's easy to blame the rich and the GOP (and I agree they deserve more of it than the rest) but the specific tax cuts aren't the biggest issue. LOTS of things need to change before the budget can be balanced.
vigrocoDec 1, 2010
Still, the GOP created the legislation that helped the economy thrive under Clinton, so it is not like he was playing partisan politics.
bdbrDec 1, 2010
You don't get a huge debt like ours from simple things. Tax breaks for the rich account for about 4% of the annual deficit. Bush undertook a number of financially irresponsible measures - unfunded wars, increased federal spending, and massively increasing debt to temporarily cut taxes (even when the economy was strong).
eagleei47Dec 1, 2010
Hi there
ryanw430Dec 1, 2010
All it is going to take is a few more shells from North Korea followed by an overreaction by South Korea followed by a nuke in Seoul and goodbye USA.
jnav121Dec 1, 2010
you all are geniuses i swear.. did u eat radio active crayons ?
Closed AccountDec 1, 2010
Ask yourself this question: Why does President Odouche (or any politician) need a "fiscal commission" to tell them what you and I know is common sense....that America can't keep keep spending way more than the revenue it brings in?
WHY ?!?!?!? WHY IS THIS HARVARD EDUCATED PERSON SO STUPID ???Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
bdbrDec 1, 2010
I don't see that this has been enough to wake up the American public. Americans are still attributing our deficits to a few simple things like fraud, earmarks, or tax breaks for the rich, which make up at most a few percent of the deficit. Politicians know it's far more popular to tell us what we want to hear than to tell us the unvarnished truth.
Our *annual* deficit is $1.3 trillion - that is $4,400 per American. The federal government is borrowing one of every three dollars it spends. We are the world's largest debtor nation. Everybody wants to solve this by cutting little programs that don't affect most of us, but the problem is far too big for that. It will require hard choices, and it will be worse every year we continue to pile on more debt. We can speculate how the final collapse will occur if we don't change anything, but rest assured interest rates and inflation will soar.
If you DO want to wake up, try out their budget simulator, or the one at the NY Times, or at least look at the tables in the federal budget.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/index.html
ZennethzDec 1, 2010
You must know how to keep your money growing from your hands, not spending it...
websuccessdivaDec 6, 2010
What a joke. How can the President look the American people in the eye about debt when he's racked up Trillions and more to come with wasteful spending... but that's not covered by the commission. Nor is is mammoth failure of a health care overhaul. Liberals crack me up. Political theatre, that's all the commission is.