I hate to butt into this thread without reading the whole discussion, but would just like to add that i believe that capitalism as we know it could be on its last legs due to the continued deterioration of the labor market and there being no obvious solution as private industry WILL NEVER HIRE AT A RAPID PACE AGAIN. The way to fix the global economy is to end worldwide poverty and create a much larger base for our future house of cards. Streamlining our defense spending and using the extra money to start this program would be a huge start. Cutting back on government spending now, imo, could lead to a huge depression. The way forward is intelligent spending that gives hope to Wall St. and begins the creation of a global consumer class. Anyway, sorry for the caps and butting in.
If only he was forward-thinking enough as he presented himself during the election. Don't get me wrong the move from backward to neutral is forward enough for the first few years.
You don't need to worry about the US defending Israel. Thanks to the Obama regime, Israel is on its own. In a small sense, they did it to themselves. A lot of Jews are leftists and voted for "Hussein".
From under what rock did you crawl from? There is no such thing as "intelligent spending" in the case of our Democrat regime. They quadrupled Republican spending and look! Our economy is much worse off. Want an example of intelligent spending? The US military is buying relatively inexpensive Russian-built Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan Air Corps. I'm sure glad the leftists and unions haven't infiltrated our US military. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061805630_pf.html
intelligent spending by government is not all about cost control. to me it is more about how to spend in ways that increase the velocity of the money doled out. for instance look at the the democratic program during the great depression: the Civilian Conservation Corp and try to find flaws with it using your rightist ideology. The thing about government, is that it is a million different policies and each have to be evaluated independently. anyone that generalizes about government and even government's involvement in economics fails to understand how complex and interwined modern society and modern economics have become.
What do you call the opposite of truth when what is stated is known to be untrue by the author of the statement?
you used the word 'estimated', used squiggles, and claimed the 2009 deficit was $2.4T- and when corrected you claim perfection. ever heard of muni bonds? been reading about california? Do you have any clue that states and localities contribute to medicaid and many other social welfare services? wow, and you have the kahunas to call me uninformed. The constitution mandates providing for the common defense. It does not mandate anything for social spending, ag subsidies, education, etc. FY 2000 Defense was $359, but he wasn't fighting a war. Simple logic dictates that it must go up from there. Funny you should bring something like that up after Obama's sudden deficit-busting increase in medicaid disguised as stimulus, sort funny you would never suggest we go back to Bill Clinton levels when it comes to that, eh? Half the deficit right now= eliminate stimulus. It was supposed to be temporary anyway. ...and your argument that defense should last is completely sound? Income tax receipts are more than enough to cover defense and your blatant dishonesty to include all social welfare spending is either gross stupidity or gross dishonesty. You apparently are unaware of income and corporate taxes, which should be for constitutionaly mandated programs like defense. Your 'unfunded spending' of 2.4T is made up and meaningless because you ignore the fact that medicare is in the red now as is medicaid and SSI. you ignore the massive unfunded future liabilities, you ignore health and human services, SCHIP, Medicare parts B-C, etc. I have twice. oh, 'WE' need to decide, but then YOU proceeded to decide for me that we don't need to worry about threats 20 years down the road. Thanks but I can't work with people like you. Eliminate wasteful stimulus and bailouts, job done. Elimate ag subsidies, eliminate keeping 80 year olds on life support, eliminate saving crack babies... but I know those common sense savings would go right over your head and you'll blame it all on defense. Oh yes, defense gets the ax first, never mind that the soldiers need actual weapons to fight with, just cut their budget and send them on their way. You really don't know how stupid and dangerous this suggestion is do you? You have no concept of overhead. SSI + medicare are not in surplus in either 2009 or 2010, but you will ignore that. No mention at all of medicaid, SCHIP, HHS, HUD, Stimulus, agriculture, education, etc. completely biased and unrealistic You mean deep cuts in defense because that is all you libs can imagine cutting, you could have saved a lot of time and just said that.
First of all, history books are authored by leftists, so they have a leftist bias. Second, the Democrats & Obama who are in charge are a bunch of radicals, and cannot be compared to old Democrats like JFK, who favored tax cuts. So, the quadrupling of the deficit, did that "increase the velocity of the money doled out"?