Americans oppose raising debt ceiling

That's a bit different. First, that doctrine isn't aimed at reducing corrupt spending, it's aimed at completely eliminating all spending. Second, of course, the spending it does target isn't truly eliminated, since most of it is useful and necessary, instead merely shifting the people that depend on it to similar services from alternate (I.E.: private, meaning corporate) systems, so total (public + private) spending remains unchanged.

"Cut their funding, they'll redistribute so they can still get stuff done" seems like it's depending on the people in charge of spending plans are more concerned with getting things done than lining their pockets.

Not entirely, while the people in charge of spending in the military obviously couldn't care less about their ostensible mission, the people in charge of them do. If the military became pretty much entirely nonfunctional on a budget still several times bigger than most, America would be incensed, and heads would fly. I think our brass, as selfish as they are, are smart enough where they'd give ground rather than going down in flames like that.

Who is supposed to care about the effectiveness? Congress? Last time I checked, they wanted more stuff done in their constituents place rather than focusing on pure effectiveness.

Heh, no, the voters (and, if they could get anyone to listen, the soldiers.)

If the voters were knowledgeable and gave a shit, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place.

Problem being its not in either party's interests to have knowledgeable voters.

Much easier to manipulate half-informed halfwits who believe talking points and get all their news from biased news sources.

And this point underscores one of the fundamental weaknesses of our democracy. Well, of any system of government, really, but it also makes me cry a little inside to see the Republicans trying to cut funding for education.

edited 24th May '11 7:15:24 AM by Fighteer

well duh. funding them didnt magically improve results so obviously cutting funding from those lazy teacher bastards will increase it.

Why would you cut education with such a bloated military budget?

Oh, whatever. I've long abandoned pretenses of the American Republicans being competent in opposition or, indeed, in power.

So any changes to the situation?

Since economy collapsing isn't exactly good thing here in other countries

Biden's closeted with a bunch of Dems and Reps going over the budget. So far they've agreed on $150 billion in cuts... so, not really all that much. Current theorizing has it that the Reps will keep stalling until up to or even past the deadline. Boehner is refusing to raise the debt ceiling by more than the amount of any cuts presented in the budget.

While I understand the tactics being used by Reps here: basically political chicken with a second recession, I fail to understand why their constituents are letting them get away with it. So much ignorance.

If it weren't my own livelihood at stake and that of my friends and family and indeed the entire country/world, I'd say to let the Republicans have their little temper tantrum — let 'em take personal responsibility for wrecking the economy and see if they ever get elected to power again in the next three decades. Of course, politics don't work that way.

edited 24th May '11 7:51:10 AM by Fighteer

^ It's because for the last 4 years the Democrats have spent us into oblivion and we have nothing to show for it.

Ah, Tom, true to form as always. You're a symptom of the greater problem we face: that of a complete and intentional ignorance of basic economic theory on the part of Republicans, combined with being utterly enthralled by Big Business. Republicans are primarily to blame for our current economic crisis. Disputing that is absurd. Now they're trying to "get us out of it" by starting a second crisis. How is this even remotely sensible?

edited 24th May '11 7:54:18 AM by Fighteer

Ya know, Republicans are pretty much whole reason for my dislike of Conservatism Probably not fair for that ideology, but they aren't really helping it.

Seriously, what the heck is with Republicans trying to do things worse ._. Are they seriously that stupid?

Really now? Where were the Democrats protesting Fannie and Freddie in 2003? Bush warned about that as did Mc Cain 2 years later. Both times, the Democrats refused it all saying that it would hurt the poor to tighten lending restrictions. Now look what we got, the housing market shows signs it still hasn't hit bottom.

That doesn't excuse the Republicans from responsibility, but to say they are solely the cause and reason is completely absurd and incorrect.

Let me pose a question; just how much extra expenditure (if, indeed, expenditure has been increased) has been added during Obamas term?

Second question; what was spending like under Clinton, and how does it compare to Bush?

More to the point; what was the arrangement of the houses during that time. Please cite sources.

^ Since January 20, 2009 public debt expenditures not covered by taxes aka deficits have exceeded 4.8 trillion dollars to date including this fiscal year.

Combined deficits from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2006 were less than 25% of that.

I notice that you conveniently decided to compare a period in deep recession to a period of economic "recovery".

Not to mention ignoring all the ongoing shortfalls resulting from Bush's policies.

edited 24th May '11 8:11:44 AM by storyyeller

Well thats fairly damning. On its own. However, Bush didn't have a recession to deal with. There's also a year gap there; what happened between 2007 and 2009?

Also, sources. And, apparently, ninjas.

Also, Bush hasn't been compared to Clinton. I hear he ran a surplus. Also, what was the layout of the houses during those times?

edited 24th May '11 8:13:07 AM by GameChainsaw

^ I assume that Tom is going to try to blame the deficits from 2007 to 2009 on the Democrats.

Then come up with something to counter his arguments. I'm not going to take sides. Not what I do. And so far google is failing me. (Honestly, how hard should it be to find a list of deficit spending levels from 1996 to 2012?)

I don't really take Tom credible in politics anymore, but can anyone explain me what Fannie & Freddie thing is? o-o I don't know much about USA politics despite most teacher using almost everything from there as bad example =P Except politics since the teacher in that subject just made jokes about cheap apartments.

If you want a (short) general statement: education is not the responsibility of the federal government and is not on the federal governments budget in large numbers as a result. Education is the responsibility of the states/cities/counties, federal funding is mostly just assistance.

Well, here's Wiki to the rescue. Apparently Bush ran up more money, but Obama still has his second term to go, and its during his years that the debt has increased at the fastest rate. (6.65% per year versus 18.84% per year, for Bush versus Obama respectively. This is an average based on taking the debt figures of 5.7 trillion and 10.7 trillion, dividing 5.7 by 10.7, dividing the years of the Bush administration, multiplying by 100, giving me the percentage increase of debt for each year of Bush's presidency, and then doing the same procedure for Obama, using the figure of 10.7 and dividing it by the 14.2 figure. Arithmatic has never been my strong suit, I may be wrong.)

edited 24th May '11 8:27:47 AM by GameChainsaw