Primula Baggins wrote:Please don't hear this through the filter of "she's a liberal," Hal, but the fact is that there are serious limits to how much more can be cut from government spending, especially when so much has been let slide for so long—the infrastructure, veterans' benefits. . . . Some can be cut, but not anywhere near what's needed. Look at how McCain backed away from his claim that he could find $100 billion in cuts by canceling earmarks. He was stymied by the fact that, first, earmarks don't add up to that amount, and, second, a lot of earmarks are not new spending but allocations of existing spending—in other words, if the earmark is eliminated, the money will still be spent, just elsewhere.
I, and probably you, and probably a lot of people here have been in the position of just not being able to squeeze out any more reductions in expenditures—no more blood from the stone. If we are locked into the costs of the Iraq war, as I think we are until it can be brought to a reasonable end, then there just isn't much more blood in that stone.
Extending the tax cuts, at this point, would be fiscal irresponsibility. The bill comes due. Someone has to pay it, and the only ones here are us.
respectfully, I would disagree. I think the Bush administration has been the least financially responsible admin since long before I was alive. I think spending could be cut in many many more ways than just earmarks.
sol quoted someone the other day about how democracies only last until the people realize they can vote themselves money out of the treasury ( or something like that)... I had never thought about it that way, but it makes perfect sense to me.
Until we get leaders that want to not only cut spending, but really rewrite government priorities entirely, we're going to be in serious trouble.
The Iraq war is costing too much, because we are taking on burdons we should not (for the Iraqi infrastructure, for example). However, the potential benefits for this, are unexplored... and they take time. In such a situation, the potential benefits, outweigh the cost at the moment.
For a very long time, I thought Bush was a fool for how Iraq was handled. I have no problem admiting this may still be the case. I would rather all US money was spent inside the US. However, of the options we have at this moment, it seems having Iraq stable and an ally, is worth the cost to make that happen.
That's really a separate issue than the overall budget. Other issues such as retiring baby boomers, and social security are a much bigger concern to me financially.
There's a bigger issue underlying those issues as well. There's a HUGE gap in the US between the class of workers that is managing everythin right now (baby boomers), and the class of workers that must take over everything when those boomers retire. We could be facing an economic collapse from sheer inabilty to manage our existing industry that isn't represented in ANY statistic or metric that is currently measured.