Welome to America (Golden Rainbow)

what about the US's beautiful cities
Atlanta New York Boston LA Seattle Memphis and
Savannah and Houston

Opinions?

1. The writer you referenced is clearly not anywhere near center-right or pro-conservative. In any case, the idea that the NYT is pro-conservative is laughable.
2. The wars are about than 1/4 of the debt added during the Bush administration. I repeat a third time: what do you suppose the rest of this is?
3. I did not reference the Heritage foundation analysis. I cited a U.S. Government Accountability Office report. You are attacking an incorrect source.
4. I am not denying that the debt increased under Bush. I'm assigning the blame to any and all statist economic policy. The government should not be funding healthcare or any other social welfare programs. If these programs were eliminated, there would be no deficit. In any case, spending is almost entirely under the discretion of Congress.

Thinking about point 4.... The simple question is, Do you want government to interfere/intervene in your daily life, if so, how much? Tha'ts what the arguement is all about. For ie... is ALL welfare and social programs bad? Or just most/some of it?

IMO, I agree that everybody has a RIGHT to a good education, a RIGHT to a nice home, a RIGHT to eat good food. People have a RIGHT to have many many things... But what they DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT for, is to expect me or any other taxpayer to provide those things for them. I remember when I was a kid and I first saw food stamps... I asked my mother what they was, when she explained it to me I asked, Who pays for the stamps? I kinda thought maybe the store owner had to 'give it away' if somebody gave them those green lil stamps. Then she told me that 'we' the tax-payers paid for them. Then as I saw the family leaving in the station wagon that checked out in front of us, I saw both parents smoking cig's and giving the kids those cheap lil super-market toys. I remarked to my mother.. "WOW, you mean taxpayers pay for them to smoke and give their kids toys?" Not that I dont think ppl should smoke or give their kids cheap supermarket toys, but those are luxuries, those are things that if they want they should be able to afford.

The point is.. SOMEBODY has to pay! Somebody! And all because you have the RIGHT to get something does not mean 'we' the taxpayers should pay for it.

Of course this raises many more questions, but that's my $.02, hope I didn't offend.

No you haven't Serpent. I will address some of your concerns in a later post because I don't have time. Although we are getting into a separate topic. I'd like to have that conversation too.

@Scarnot.
Point 1 = Irrelevant. However, you are right. NYT isn't center right. More like Right-Far Right. So again, I stand corrected. Both are a matter of opinion, but as you can see I am more than informed and can again stump you into 3 days of silence on that issue as well. I'll let you wrap your head around that notion in the meantime.

Point 2 = Again Irrelevant. War, Taxes, Earmarks, who cares, it is all spending. I could argue that both wars were largely stupid and accomplished nothing and gained huge amounts of debt yet were are still vulnerable if not more vulnerable than before. Nothing has changed. So war or not, it was money spent, and debt accrued, I think you have a hard time swallowing that. But it doesn't matter, it is what it is.

Point 3 = Useless facts and waste of bandwidth. The reference to the heritage foundation was both necessary and included because they basically made the same claims YOU referenced regardless of the source. They are more credible, knowledgeable and more influential than you and the example is there to show that them, or the people who repeat there false reporting are both idiots.. Like this:

"In summary, projections show that the federal budget is on a path that is fiscally unsustainable, in large part because of growth in spending for Medicare and Medicaid."~Scarlot

That was YOUR claim. I could care less the source you used. You are deflecting from the fact that heritage foundation or wherever you claimed to get that information is completely factually WRONG. Case closed. The point of where you got the information is a way for you to avoid admitting you are wrong. Take your head out of your bum and realize that you being wrong IS possible. This is a case in point actually.

Point 4 = Again you are contradicting yourself just a few posts under making a fool of yourself.

Your Gripe: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - 09:16 pm Click here to edit this post "Sure, blame it on George Bush. It has nothing to do with decades of atrociously short-sighted budgeting and statist economic policy." ~Scarnot

I responded: The majority of the US deficit is the direct result of 2 wars one perceived necessary and the other just a can of bullshite that exploded our debt. The great thing about facts is that they can be checked or proven. Check them and prove us wrong, if you can...Scarlet.

When a president can explode debt and account for more than 25% of it in just 8 short years(which isn't a decade contrary to your "decades of congres...") compared to 'congress' owning all of the other debt, and accrued that debt over our entire history(which is more than 2 centuries and MANY Decades) then we have a big problem.

The Us claimed independence in 1776. In roughly 234 year it took 'congress' to run up less than 10 Trillion in debt yet in eight years President Bushed pulled more than 4 Trillion of his own. You can't be this dense. Or maybe you are in denial that you are wrong and misinformed. The wars cannot be made an excuse because both were discretionary, unnecessary, and completely ineffective. Had they been defensive wars, I may be inclined to play 'make that distinction' game with you but I don't buy that logic. It was a complete waste of money. It would have been better to continue the countermeasures that we pitifully employ today against terrorism at home and put a price on Bin Laden's Kill or Capture. The way these wars were executed was completely up to Bush and he chose the war he wanted. It was not necessary to spend so much money on wars that did not accomplish the goal of Killing or capturing Bin Laden.


Getting back on topic, you said I can't add, you clearly and by your own words quoted misinformation likely because you hear it from Fox or some other moron news source attempting to gain some political points and play on the American public's inclination to repeat every other thing they hear or read blindly without really 'getting' what they are talking about. This is happening at a phenomenal and rate and is very widespread, just like the notion that Obama is Muslim, not American Citizen and so on. I'm not surprised. I can add well, I presented you with Facts to support my claims and how you wish to divide spending is totally irrelevant to the Facts. I also provided you more information so you would not be inclined to continue making further claims that are contrary to the facts. The Document on US presidents and Debt really tells the whole story.

One thing to realize is that "I" made no claims. "I" said nothing. I gave you the CORRECT information. What you are trying to do is get off topic and get into a pointless exchange over minuscule facts that have no relevance to the real topic, when you should admit you are wrong because you are and then we can move onto whatever conversation or topic you wish to change it to. The reason I requested you do this is because it is quite pointless to speak with someone who is convinced of something, no matter if you show them how wrong they are and they can't admit it. It just lets me know conversing with you seriously about anything is a waste of time because you have drawn your own conclusions regardless of reality and it will waste both my time and yours. I hope you take a minute to reflect on that. I wish you the best, and sincerely hope you pull your head out of your ass before the new year. Merry Christmas.

There's no point in arguing with an insane ideologue.
You are claiming that the information I have presented was biased. However, I presented information from the GAO (an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress) and raw numbers. If you cannot accept this, why should I argue? Where is the credibility for your source?
You are ignoring information that doesn't suit your point: 25% is not a majority. The wars were not the largest factor in the debt added during the Bush Administration. I ask again: what do you suppose the rest of the debt is from? You can ignore the question, though. Refer to first sentence.

At least there is still hope for the new year... right?

There's always hope.

Clarity, If we accept that 1/3 of the US debt is caused by war, and since wars produce only debt this is standard fare. Then 2/3 of the debt is from something else. And since social security is paid through wages and taxation. And since most people die before they get old enough to recieve it, then pray tell WHY are we in debt. In my industry most live on average to about 55 years old. So I will likely never get back the money, and the rich pay more into the system than they recieve back. So where is the money that is not consumed in wars going? How much money do we as Americans send to the PLO and other America hating people that would be better spent at home? Recently I read an article by a progressive paper that exposed the 75k pizza cutter that a school purchased so that each slice would be exactly equal. And when they asked a nearby corporation that sells pizza what they used because they would have more use for such a device, they replied that the one they had cost them 10 dollars. I am beginning to see the location of the missing money.

Based on the above, I'd strongly recommend any school-age players here to do a Google Science Fair project on the psychology of Psycho Honey. It's a sure winner.

The aggressively hostile language. The characterization of Paul Krugman as conservative (haha). The equating of $1T on war spending with a $4T increase in the debt, and the claim that the difference between the two is "irrelevant". The confusion of the US Government Accounting Office with the Heritage Foundation!

This is too funny to let pass by...Scarlet quotes and links to the GAO site, and Psycho responds by linking to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' criticism of a Heritage Foundation paper. Look at the Wikipedia entry on Center on Budget and Policy Priorities..."Politically conservative groups...accuse the group of producing misleading studies...Defenders of the group note that the Center's analyses are based on the work of independent, nonpartisan authorities such as...the Government Accountability Office." This may be longwinded, but that's just funny.

Anyway, my point is that amidst the utter inarticulateness of her arguments, as often is the case, lies a truth, in this case the truth that Scarlet is asking for. If you count all military spending, including prorated interest on borrowing for past military spending, it's arguably over half of total federal spending. Yes, spending on social services is growing uncontrollably. Yes, since the deficit is a fraction of total spending, there are many things you can blame the deficit on (tax cuts, war, social welfare programs). Yes, defense is one of the few activities of the federal government that is actually authorized by the Constitution.

Yes, spending on noxious stuff like NPR, let alone the PLO, is politically and morally offensive, but budget-wise it is insignificant. Trying to get the deficit under control without cutting military spending and growth in social spending will be futile.

And Draconus, get a new job. Life expectancy in the US is over 78 these days.

Unfortunately, defecit spending is ingrained in the US political system. The only balanced budgets in the last several generations were the result of boomers hitting their peak earning years and returning, temporarily, solvency to Social Security, and by extension, the Federal Budget.

The political will to control spending is nonexistent in either political party. There are far too many interests, special or otherwise, in maintaining the status quo.

Of course, the rhetorical hysteria of both left and right will continue to eclipse rational examination of any issue for the forseeable future, just as our leaders would have it.

Wonderful Democracy. So fine in theory and so ludicrous in practice.

If one truly believes any issue of the day is really being addressed through the left/right political war, I have some land you might be interested in.

JoJo, your mouth would be more useful if you learned to give good blow jobs. That was based on your last 6 months of posts. The last year even.

Uh Oh... we need censorship... we demand it!!!

Blo Job... There ya go.

/me *pets* Serpent

LOL Psycho, at least you named yourself well.