The irony is that Ryan's plan doesn't go far enough in it's cuts, yet it is lambasted as the devils spawn by people against it. They won't be able to fix it, because people won't get over their entitlement mentality. Nobody wants to make the tough sacrifices. We're driving towards a brick walls at 100mph, and accelerating.

At this point, we're so deep into the problem that it's going to require across the board cuts, as well as tax increases on everyone (remember, Clinton was able to balance the budget by raising all income taxes, and a bulk of the funds came from the lower tax brackets -- which has heavily criticized at the time).

You need to educate yourself a little bit. Even if we took every penny from the "rich", including money they previously earned, and all assets, including those from corporations, we still wouldn't cover the budget deficit for *this year alone*.

Here's a couple videos to get you started, explained to you as though you were a 4 year old:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u24nH03NccI <-- demonstrates how big of a problem entitlements are, from a budget perspective
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ <-- demonstrates the logical fallacy of "eating the rich".

Have you been reading what I'm saying? I never said anything about taking every penny from the rich.
If we want to pay off the debt, there is one way and only one way to do that.

Grow the economy.

We can't pay off the debt in our current economic shape. We won't be able to do it today or tomorrow. We can't do it by stealing from the rich, by taxing them 100%
But we cant' do it from stealing from the poor, which is what the republicans want- cut all social programs, not grow the economy.

The democrats as they stand right now are a centre-right party by european standards. They want to grow the economy and tax the right only equal tax rates.
And if the economy grows, the debt will shrink. You can't plausibly pay off the debt by collapsing the government (ron paul) or by reproportioning wealth (communism)



Why is growing the economy so controversial?

This post was edited by Goomshill on Mar 29 2012 08:15am

Then learn math. Compound growth cannot continue forever, especially when you have competing scales. For instance, the income grew at a rate of about 4.45x from 1980 to 2011, while the deficit grew at a rate of about 6.10x. Health care spending by the government during that same time increased by 15.47x. Chart these out, and see how that works out. You cannot "grow" your way out of this, it will always lead to hyper-inflation and total collapse. The only way to sustain an economy is through stabilization. You cannot lie about or trick math, it is what it is.

Budget source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/budget.php

Edit: Watch the first video in my previous post.

edit2: Lol, steal from the poor. So, by not giving them something they didn't earn, that's stealing (entitlements)? Eesh... No, the reverse is stealing, you're taking from the haves to give to the have nots.

Pretty soon there's going to be a logical fallacy listed in textbooks called "Ad Njaguarum" where you condescend to people that are trying to have intellectual discussion, and then ban anyone that says anything back.

I actually think he has done a really good job here of explaining his points and including evidence and videos..

Spending all these trillions of dollars on entitlement programs by stealing from the rich, and putting us into massive debt with ridiculously unbalanced budgets do little to promote sound economic growth in America.

Ad hominem!

So, pictures like these are your idea of intellectual conversation? ( http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=61645079&f=119&p=412288160 )


You're just clearly upset that you have no understanding of this conversation or any others in this subforum.

Also, Goomshill can vouch that he's not banned, and him and I have had plenty of disagreements in many topics for a long time. Nice try though, I don't ban people for disagreeing with me.

Thats because we didn't grow during that time. We went into a recession, the biggest this country has seen since the 30's, since the dust bowl.
Its not exactly a groundbreaking or controversial claim to say that 3% stable growth leads to a healthier economy.

The deficit will grow during recessions while income will shrink- because the government needs to spend, spend, spend to stimulate the economy and get it back on track. Thats the keynesian economics, that whether you agree with it or not, has been guiding this economy for decades now. Once the economy is back out of the recession and growing again, the deficit will shrink while the income will raise. Thats just basic economics, nobody disagrees with that. Now historically, republicans have disagreed about how to beef up the economy, how to get us out of recessions. By tax breaks instead of stimulus, by helping the wealthy, by eliminating regulations. And theres at least some grain of merit there, sure. But the argument ways always about how to improve the economy.

The thought that "even if the economy improves stably and strongly, the deficit will not shrink", is rather odd. Sure, an irresponsible government could redirect taxes that should be used for reducing the national debt towards things like either unnecessary social programs or tax cuts, and refunds for the wealth top 1%. And we've seen that before. But barring those factors, it would be economically inexplicable to say that the national debt would rise faster than a strong economy. That just doesn't make sense

If we're going to pay off the national debt, there is one way and one way only- by growing the economy. Social programs and tax cuts for the wealthy don't set the terms of the game, they aren't where the money comes from, they're where the money goes to. Those are just ways of talking about spending money we don't have, money we need to earn- and money that we are earning right now, and on track to earning. Cutting social programs while sabotaging the economy would accomplish nothing, since then we wouldn't have the money and we wouldn't be spending it. Cutting taxes on the wealthy proportionate to the rise in the economy wouldn't accomplish anything, since we'd be pissing away the money as we earned it. Striking the balance is the only way forward



We're debating economic policy, not unisex bathrooms, right?

This post was edited by Goomshill on Mar 29 2012 08:38am

False. The economy increased and grew. It grew both in debt accumulation and income, but it did "grow" by all economic measures that apply to the government (and that it uses for metrics). Check the source link in my post.



Again, look at the source link, and you can easily see this is untrue. People cite Clinton's "boom years" as an example, but then neglect to show how he slashed spending and increased taxes to get to that point. Something that has not happened again.



Do the math yourself. Two competing compounds will always accelerate out of control if one is always larger than the other. This is simple elementary mathematics. Seriously, chart it out in excel yourself, and project forward. The gap will increase wider and wider until the entire thing implodes.



Please pray tell describe the exact reasons he was banned, who took the action, and why. You can assume all you want, but you're wrong on all accounts. I have never once banned a user for disagreeing with me. That you would even make such a preposterous comment shows that your character is complete rubbish.

That doesn't mean members with the same tags as you don't get butthurt though, which is why I don't have any profile rights. Also, you never responded to the pm I sent you about that.




There are certain measures that have to be taken to grow the economy. I don't agree with the budget plan that was in the 1st post, but the idea is still the same. You have to make cuts, and you have to increase taxes. Period.