You say you want a revolution... Topic

wrmiller13
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At some point in time we have to recognize and acknowledge that this government and the responsiblity for it and the blame for it is a shared culpability, and move beyond this nearly blind partisanship that is sweeping the country.

Reagan deserves as much credit / blame for outspending the Soviets as Clinton deserves credit for the surplus of the late 1990s.

Our government tends to get in way over its head when there are like minded people (not necessarily of the same party as we saw in 2006-2008) who control all three parts of the government.
10/5/2010 6:44 AM
swamphawk22
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I am willing to share credit for the Clinton boom with Clinton and Reagan. And I am willing to share blame for the 80s deficit with Reagan and the Democratic house.

10/5/2010 1:49 PM
wrmiller13
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The credit for the "Clinton Boom" should not be shared with Reagan, it is shared with the Repubs who were running the House and Senate for the last 6 years of his term.  People need to realize that the President is a singular person.  Albeit he is the leader of the nation, there is a huge amount of beuracracy that happens that he has almost no control over.  However, too many people (esp. the "loyal opposition") want to lay ALL the blame for things at his feet.
10/5/2010 2:28 PM
antonsirius
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Posted by wrmiller13 on 10/5/2010 6:44:00 AM (view original):
At some point in time we have to recognize and acknowledge that this government and the responsiblity for it and the blame for it is a shared culpability, and move beyond this nearly blind partisanship that is sweeping the country.

Reagan deserves as much credit / blame for outspending the Soviets as Clinton deserves credit for the surplus of the late 1990s.

Our government tends to get in way over its head when there are like minded people (not necessarily of the same party as we saw in 2006-2008) who control all three parts of the government.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to the deficit that are above the 'blind partisanship':

1) Politicians in general have a vested interest in giving voters stuff (spending) and not in taking stuff away from voters (taxes).
2) There is a cultural resistance in America to the idea of cutting defense spending, even above and beyond the hue and cry from specific constituencies when a big program is targeted
3) There's an argument to be made (as creilmann did earlier) that the switch to supply-side theory resulted in lower government revenue. If you look at the graph of government revenue over the years, it's actually a pretty steady upward curve even pre-Reagan, but there's a plateau from '80-'83, a slowdown from '90-'92, and then the 2000s are just a brutal rollercoaster. Whether those slow patches would have been there in a higher-tax environment is impossible to say, of course.


10/5/2010 3:50 PM
swamphawk22
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So we cannot blame anyone? We cannot analyze what has worked in the past and scream "Dont do that again"?

The Tea Party wants to make tough decisions and cut spending.
10/5/2010 6:32 PM
creilmann
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Posted by swamphawk22 on 10/5/2010 6:32:00 PM (view original):
So we cannot blame anyone? We cannot analyze what has worked in the past and scream "Dont do that again"?

The Tea Party wants to make tough decisions and cut spending.
They do not want to make tough decisions.  They want to yell and scream about spending cuts, but offer no real plan on what to cut (sorry Swamp, but throwing out the DOE and ED doesn't cut it).

And, to refer back to a response to my previous post, do you really want to compare the recession of 73-75 to our current recession and other recession /depressions that have been the result of wild deregulation?
10/5/2010 6:53 PM
jiml60
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Posted by swamphawk22 on 10/5/2010 6:32:00 PM (view original):
So we cannot blame anyone? We cannot analyze what has worked in the past and scream "Dont do that again"?

The Tea Party wants to make tough decisions and cut spending.
The tough decision on spending cuts is cutting the biggest part of the budget - military spending.  The Tea Party are the same as the Dems and Repubs in this matter - neither group has the balls to do it.

Calling it a matter of national security is bullshit.  No other country in the world has the capacity to do us any long term harm.
10/5/2010 7:50 PM
wrmiller13
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Jim - that is the kind of short minded thinking that got us into trouble before World War II, and led to 9/11.

It is a matter of national security.  Now, I am not saying that there are no places in the defense budget that need cutting, but to say it is NOT a matter of national defense, especially in this day and age is just silly.

There is incredible waste in all areas of government spending, and they have admitted it, especially with regards to Medicare / Medicaid.  When was the last time you heard a Presidential candidate NOT say they would "work to eliminate the fraud in Medicare spending" or some such a thing.

What I do agree with you is that, so far, NONE of our elected officials have had the stones to do what is necessary and just cut spending to match revenue.  Some where.

And the idea that in this day and age when people are expecting to live well into their 70s or 80s, the age limits for collecting Social Security should be raised.  (I am an urban school teacher and I get into this argument all the time with co-workers who feel "entitled" to retire at 55 - 60 years old, because "I have put in my 30 years dammit"). 
10/5/2010 9:52 PM
swamphawk22
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The military accounts for about 19% of the budget. This is the problem?

We can cut the Defense by half, or the rest of the budget by 12%, you make the call!
10/5/2010 11:33 PM
wrmiller13
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Or a combination of both
10/6/2010 6:32 AM
creilmann
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Posted by swamphawk22 on 10/5/2010 11:33:00 PM (view original):
The military accounts for about 19% of the budget. This is the problem?

We can cut the Defense by half, or the rest of the budget by 12%, you make the call!

False.  Defense spending is 23% and the most funded budget category.  Discretionary spending, that pesky area of the budget that you claim the Dems run wild with, is about half of military spending.  

So where should spending cuts begin?????
10/6/2010 9:47 AM
creilmann
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And I'm not sure of that 23% includes the nuclear weapons program budgeted under the DOE.
10/6/2010 9:52 AM
antonsirius
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Posted by wrmiller13 on 10/5/2010 9:52:00 PM:
Jim - that is the kind of short minded thinking that got us into trouble before World War II, and led to 9/11.
Having, by far, the most bad-*** military in the world did nothing to stop 9/11.

The "short-sightedness" you're referring to has nothing to do with the amount of money we spend on the military, it has to do with how we spend it. We could easily cut the military budget by a third and still be better prepared for another 9/11 attempt.

The only justification for continuing our current levels of military spending is an economic one -- the argument that cutting so deeply would throw a lot of people out of work. Which means, basically, that military spending is just another form of stimulus at this point.

But there's certainly no geopolitical justification for it. 
10/6/2010 10:27 AM
wrmiller13
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Not entirely disagreeing with you there.  I was referring to the thought process that there is nobody that can do us any long term harm out there.  Totally in favor of selectively cutting the defense budget.  I am certain there is massive redundancies built in there.  Just as there is in almost all government funded programs (if we pay 3 people to do a job, at least one of them will do it right).

9/11 was mostly caused, IMO by the seclusion and competitive nature of our intelligence communities, who felt (and probably still feel) that they need to not share info with others, so that "their group" maintains its viability and its funding, rather than looking at the big picture of sorting ALL of the data and trying to create a coherent picture out of it.

This mentality runs rampant through our government (even in our schools like mine).  The idea that I need to prove my worth to the group by outshining my co-workers, rather than working cooperatively to meet OUR goals, rather than MY goals.
10/6/2010 12:03 PM
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