Fixed.

This election had NOTHING to do with spending, and spending won't decrease at all in the next two years. Like, not ONE DOLLAR.

+1

im waiting for the first politician to say we need to set limits on medicare expenditures, cut defense significantly, and raise the retirement age in order to do anything about spending. that'd go over well.

lets get rid of the redundant and wasteful homeland security too.

Sure to cut spending but wouldn't be so great for the unemployment rates. haha

I like that. It could say something other than "Global Elite Bankers", though.

oh im not saying we should be making these cuts now, but im just saying that the people who contantly blabber about cutting the size of government never mention any ideas that would actually do anything but nibble at the margins.

aka

lomit.

GAR, this is one of the least inciteful and most misleading things you've ever posted. Of course spending won't decrease. When is the last time, total federal outlays decreased on a year over year basis? If I had to guess, I'd say the year after WWII ended. 2/3 of the budget is mandatory spending and dem Boomers are getting old and interest on the debt is going up.

Unless anyone really were stupid enough to think that major entitlement reform would pass immediately, there is almost no way that federal outlays could decrease without draconian reductions in discretionary spending that only libertarians would support.

The issue relative to spending is more about by what rate discretionary spending grows. It grew over 13% last year. I'd wager that it will grow by much less than that next year.

Yes, the election was about the economy primarily but it was also about whether spending like a drunken sailor in the face of record deficits was both the right short term and long term approach to fixing things.

Just wanna toss out, we don't have to raise the retirement age, just make people pay social security on their entire income rather than just the first hundred and some grand and we're instantly solvent without having to make some poor schmuck dig ditches until he's 75.

NOBODY STOP YOUR CLASS WARFARE.

"drunken sailor" is fossilized speech lifted from the troglodyte tea party lexicon, supposedly representing a common sense and rigorous perspective and disapproval of chaotic and wasteful public programs. Again, defense, medicare and social security are our largest expenditures, none of them the result of warf-rat nihilism. The systemic crisis production phenomenon always advantages the super-rich at the cost of the rest. "Spending like a drunken sailor" this go round probably stems from Reaction to the (seemingly) enormous stimulus package which, along with TARP, was forked over as ransom to Wall Street which ultimately benefitted from the crisis at our expense. This is the pattern in the last century where most economic events, boom and bust, leverage the playing field to have capital drawn to capital. There will be a bubble soon (2014) and it will burst (2022). Both these events will increase the proportion of wealth held by multi-national corporate oligarchy. This is descriptive, not ideological. Ideology enters into the dissembling defense of this truth, or attacks on the system that perpetuates it.

So, some will throw "drunken sailor" analysis (probably not totally understanding their complicity) and others....

... Nobody ... meet me at the barricades....

Definitely. And that would have hpnd. no matter who got elected just based on things that were in the budget(s) last year and this year that won't be in next year.

The bottom line is, no one can name a specific program they want to cut (except NPR, OMG they fired Juan Williams!) and no one will even mention cutting defense when let's face it, it's the real elephant in the room and the real welfare that is crippling our nation:



Don't even get me started on how ALL of the Bush tax cuts need to expire (not just the 250k+'ers)

Thank you. This is just simple economics.

I must be getting old and losing it. I am agreeing with you and the U of G clique more and more.

You say jobs, I say welfare: The world's best military does not cost 750 billion fucking dollars a year. Sorry.

Yeah, but start talking about something like the "Joint Strike Engine" and taking away GE's alternate ending, and you'll run into a real bugaboo: GE has a plant involved some sector of their company in almost every single district in the country. It's a $20B boondoggle, but you can't kill it. Because corporations own the government.

Which is why Tuesday might have been a blessing in disguise. The economy is still in doldrums, and these Teapers are going to have to make decisions between killing jobs, and killing spending. If the Dems play it right, especially in the Senate, they might pull an okie-doke. The single most important to any elected official is not principle, it's re-election.
Gonna be some hard choices made out there: piss off the base and get a Tea Party challenger in your primary, or vote to kill spending, and earmarks, and lose your general election, since your opponent will just have to campaign on that closed factory you voted against saving, just like you just did on Nasty Nancy.

And the beat goes on.....And the beat goes on. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Coke v. Pepsi, Colgate v. Crest.

You dummies keep arguing, I raise the same special interest money for Dems, Reps, and Indies.

Of course, unless Healthcare costs go down drastically for a majority of Americans, and access is improved for the 50-60 million without coverage, it will be an albatross on the Dems akin to Watergate on Repubs for the foreseeable future: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11 ... ses-rates/

I said near verbatim to a "voter against his own econ base." One whose work is drying up around him and going to the government to supplement his income by rehabbing dead homes. Its been an ongoing text debate every other day or so.

And that Moyers speech was damn thorough and worrisome on a revolutionary scale, perhaps to consider the homage; maybe high pitched, but the tone/intent on the other side has frankly warranted it.

And Loogs, agree or not, your insight is sensible, valuable and informed. Its POV reference material you sweat in day to day.

Oh believe me, I know. It's an argument that I myself have been making for years.



Really, you work in politics? You never mentioned that before. You should laud some of your achievements sometime.

This is the truth and I and I'm sure you have already anecdotally heard ALL about it from folks. I know I have an I'm in contact with roughly 1% of the people you are.

(I'd point out that Watergate was really only an albatross on the GOP for about four years but I'm just a dummy)

Has anyone else read the "budget balancing exercise" article in the last Esquire?

Best argument for term limits I've seen in a long time.