Posted on 02/04/2004 6:19:31 PM PST by Willie Green
Ooooh, sounds like a great idea for a new federal program. Just need a few hundred million to get it off the ground.
Punchline to America's destruction: And, they're all working to pay for it! Like, exporting jobs overseas. Like, treasonous educational system. Like, police state.
If there ever WAS a surplus, it was because we, the taxpayers, were giving waaay too much of our money to the government, which was also highly "discouraged" by the founding fathers!
Of course, this is the same guy who said "not a single solitary missile is pointed at our children today..."
But you seem to have a thing for singing birds...:)
I did a quick google and found this from 1998:
"THE NATIONAL DEBT CONTINUES TO INCREASE DESPITE TODAY'S BUDGET "SURPLUS" CELEBRATION
WASHINGTON--Despite claims the country is wiping away 30 years of red ink, the national debt continues to grow. While politicians of both parties take credit for a budget "surplus," the national debt has grown by over $110 billion ($110,639,535,002.46) so far in fiscal year 1998. With one day remaining in the fiscal year, this year's debt will be greater than last year's, continuing a streak that dates back to 1960.
"The growing national debt is an unwelcome guest at today's surplus party," said Concord Coalition National Policy Director Robert L. Bixby. "But, politicians who energetically boast about surpluses today will have a difficult time explaining to their constituents in a few years why they need to raise the debt limit."
Many people understandably wonder how the national debt can continue to increase when the government claims to be running a surplus. The answer lies in the fact that most politicians are referring to the "unified" budget, which lumps together all revenue and all spending from both federal funds and trust funds--like Social Security.
The projections of "unified" budget surpluses assume continued borrowing in excess of $100 billion annually from the Social Security and other federal trust funds. Social Security's surpluses have been credited to the program's trust fund and the money has been loaned back to the Treasury to help defray the costs of other government spending. For as long as this practice continues, the national debt will rise--even as the President and Congress take credit for creating a new era of budget surpluses.
"Concord continues to emphasize that without using funds earmarked for Social Security, there is no budget surplus," said Bixby. "It is inconsistent for Congress to say that Social Security is 'off-budget' while at the same time using the Social Security surplus to pay for tax cuts or new spending."
The Concord Coalition is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization seeking to eliminate federal budget deficits and ensure that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are secure for all generations. Concord was founded in 1992 by the late former Senator Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.), former Senator Warren Rudman (R-N.H.), and former Secretary of Commerce Peter Peterson. Former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) was named a co-chair of the Coalition in 1997."
from: http://www.concordcoalition.org/releases/980930_budgetdebt.html
Noooo, maybe we should let the really smart folks in the gov'mint make those important decisions for us...they know a lot more than us.
(sarcasm off)
The arrogance of those people just galls me!
What you seem to be saying is that the left currently controls the middle ground. This will never change if those on the right don't stand firmly planted.
What you seem to be saying is that the left currently controls the middle ground.
I do not accept that the "apoliticals" who can be persuaded to vote liberal one year and conservative the next represent any sort of "middle." It is not that they hold positions midway between ideological liberals and conservatives, it is that they hold no positions at all along that scale. For the most part, they do not think about politics, or indeed about public policy issues, in those terms. If they vote for any particular policy initiative it will be by accident. When I say that these people "get all excited about singing birds and happy rainbows," I mean that they will vote for a candidate who promises them Morning in America and A Shining City on a Hill even if he's the most conservative candidate since Barry Goldwater. They don't care about liberal and conservative. They want Morning, and they want Shining Cities. You want to win? Give it to them. Do not assume that I am denigrating these people by describing the way they vote as being emotional and symbol-driven. The vision thing is an important component of leadership ability. If you can't get people to see the Shining City on the Hill, you cannot get them to slog through mud to get there. So in fact these "apoliticals" have an important role to play in screening for this quality in would-be leaders. Faced with two visionless technocrats (Bush-41 vs. Dukakis, for example), these folks don't know what to do. But they'll pick a Reagan over a Carter, or a Clinton over George HW every time. Bush understands this, in a way his father did not. It's all wrapped up in "the vision thing." Putting humans on Mars is a visionary proposal. It's bold, it's pioneering, it's the American Spirit of Adventure. The rockets and the robots are just mechanical details. What Bush is selling is The Future. It is true that the people who respond to such things are subject to being manipulated into voting for slogans and pretty-boys. That is a risk of having them participate at all. But without them, we would get more Gray Davis types -- the visionless hacks who keep their nose clean and stay out of trouble, mostly by not doing anything. Politics is full of them. They can even seem effective in quiet and peaceful times, but they are absolutely the wrong thing to have in office if up-pops-the-devil. The "vision voters" offer some protection against that happening. The left did not so much "control" these voters during the 40 years that the Democrats held the House of Representatives, so much as they did a better job of understanding how to appeal to them. You cannot sell these people ideology. You cannot "persuade" them to adopt good, conservative principles. That is not how their heads work. They respond emotionally to slogans and symbol manipulation. Note again that this does not make them liberals, for they will as eagerly support a Ronald Reagan as a Lyndon Johnson. In fact, I'll bet there are millions of people whom the press would call "middle of-the-road" (that I would call "apolitical") who voted for both Reagan and Clinton, and don't see anything the least bit weird about that. My point is that if you try to appeal to these people with grinchy-sounding eat-your-spinach rhetoric about fiscal discipline, they will vote for the other guy every time. We know that because throughout the Bob Michel era in the House, that's exactly what happened. The Democrats successfully positioned themselves as the party of generosity and compassion, while positioning the hapless Republicans as cold-blooded Scrooges... a position the Republicans cheerfully accepted because they interpreted it to mean "fiscally prudent." The result was 40 years of Democratic rule, the Great Society social programs, Eco-nuts with badges, and federal funding of Marxist feminism. It would be wonderful if we could have neither Great Society programs conducting animal husbandry experiments on poor people, nor socialized medical insurance buying medicine for the elderly. But we know from 40 years of Democratic rule that that outcome is not one of the possible choices. What will happen instead is that the apolitical vision-seekers will vote in the guy who offers an End To Poverty, or some other wonderful thing. You have to offer an alternate vision, or you'll lose, because there are people out there who select on "visionary leadership" and nothing else. This is reality. It's how The Lord wants it to be. Accept it, and ask the real-world question, "OK, now what?" |
If you simply considered net worth, then you could be broke, yet buy any car you wanted. Borrowing 100% of the cost of the car would, according to your method, leave you in the same financial situation. That is, zero net worth. Then the first payment would come due. What would you do then? There is a reason the bank wouldn't have given you that loan.
Please note I was off one item on my first post, I meant 'paid down' and not 'paid off' in this sentence: "The U.S. Government for the past 70 years has been borrowing like no tomorrow and not ONCE in the last 70 years has the U.S. Government EVER even paid down a penny of that debt."
The party is over. Even Greenspan won't be able to hold off the resulting hyperdeflation or hyperinflation necessary to reduce the debt in relative terms.
It must happen because foreign powers have too many dollars to let the party go on.
BUMP
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