Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Wow, that an articulate and fact laden rebuttal. I'm so deeply impressed. [/sarcasm]
Dems will keep the House and Senate
- Thread starter Mott the Hoople
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Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
ROTFLMAO!!!!! IT WAS REPLACED SO THEREFOR A DRAFT? MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAA What a Maroon! LOL LOL LOL LOL
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Oh and by the way, who gets to enumarate those "Constitutionally Enumerated Powers"? You are our courts? LOL LOL LOL LOL,
I'm still fucking laughing over the "Well it's a draft" comment. Oh man this kind of right wing comedy is priceless! LOL LOL LOL
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
1. They are enumerated in the Constitution, Article I section 8.
2. Obviously you lack the understanding of the history of the time, and the penchant for politicians to pick their battles.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
LOL I have a sneaky hunch I know far more about the period of that time then you do. You're a hack on politics SM. You believe what you want and fill in the facts to suite your beliefs. Not even your fellow conservatives take you seriously.
Let me challenge you. Using your theory and assuming that you are far more knowledgable on constitutional law then any member of the Judicial branch of government in the entire history of our Republic (which is what would be required for you claim that our government exceeds those powers enumerated to it). If only those powers you specifically enumarate are adhered to how would it be reduced?
The size of our military?
The number of civil servents needed to provide government services (i.e. deliver mail, process tax forms, administer and enforce the law, etc)?
So let's calculate this by using your standards. The three branches of our federal government employ 2.23 million people. 85% of them work for the Execuative branch (1.91 million) and the rest work for Congress or the Courts (0.32 million). Congress and the Courts only employ 14.3% of the government. Though their powers are enumerated lets just eliminate them for shits and giggles. Now if I tell the executive branch that they can only employ people in those departments who's powers has been expressly enumerated in the constitution. Using that standard we can say that National Defense, Commerce and Administration of the law are specifically enumerated. So if Defense includes DOD, Homeland Security and Veterans administration (1.1 million) and if Commerce includes Treasury, Agriculture and Interior (0.237 million) and Administration of the law would be the Justice Department (0.108 million). That's a total of 1.446 million people. They represent 65% of the federal government. So if you eliminated all the other departments of the executive branch of government, as well as, all of the legislative and judicial branches of government you would have eliminated only 45% of the size of our Governmnet.
But hold on! Those figures I just gave you are also scewed. They don't even include Those serving in the Military (1.4 million active. 0.8 million in reserve for a total of 2.2 million) or the US Post Office (0.7 million). Why that's 2.9 million more. So if we include those into the calculations, and those are branches of the governments in which those powers are enumerated in the constitution, then we now have a grand total of 5.13 million people employed by the government of which 4.35 million meet your condition of working for branches of the government for which those powers are specifically enumerated in the constitution. That is The Military, DOD, Homeland Security, Veterans, Justice, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior and the USPS are all parts of the government in which thosep powers are specifically enumerated and they employ 4.35 million people. That's 85% of the people employed by the government.
So, by the math. If we went beyond what you said and eliminated not only those departments of the government who's powers are not specifically enumerated by the Constitution and you got rid of the Legislative and Judicial branches of Government to boot, you would only reduce the size of our government by 15%.
Seems to me your argument isn't holding water here dude.
Cancel 2016.2
The Almighty
So.... do you think the government is run as efficiently as it can be right now? There are no areas that we should cut spending?
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
You mentioned Veterans, Agriculture, and Interior departments. Where are those enumerated?
Here's the first page of a list of federal agencies. http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml Most of these are not authorized by the Constitution.
Get rid of all unauthorized departments and most others will shrink as well.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
That's pretty much a rhetorical question SF as the answer is obvious. Of course it can but that's not the problem. If we really want to reduce the size and cost of government we have to make some really tough decision. In terms of just size. National defense in the guise of our Armed Services, Dept of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Administration alone comprise 65% of our Government. So cutting the size of government starts with making drastic cuts in the size of our military. How much do you think you can cut the military by and still get re-elected if your a politician? 1%? 5%? Probably not and when you consider we probably need to reduce our military along the lines of 30 to 50%, other wise were just pissing away the peace dividend of winning the cold war.
Then theirs spending. These four programs probably account for more then 3/4ths of federal programing. Military, Social Security, Medicare-Medicaid and Servicing the National debt.
There's only two ways to lower the cost of servicing the national debt. Pay it off or default. Defaulting isn't much of an option so were pretty much stuck with that.
We can reduce military spending by drastically cutting it size to what we need to defend our shores from attack. Let Europe and Japan and other nations either foot the bill for their defense or we need to submit them a bill for it.
Social Security is an easy fix. Stop the raiding of the surpluss and raise the cap on payroll taxes.
Medicare-Medicaid will go extinct when HC reform in this nation modernizes.
So that really only leaves cutting the size and cost of our military as the only reasonable means to reduce the size and cost of our government.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
More like 80%.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
When right wingers hear this they usually respond by saying that the military has already seen massive cuts. Well, it has. But this is still no longer the cold war. Cuts to the military are still going to be way less painful than cuts to medicaid/medicare or SS. There aren't any easy and free cuts.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes... to... provide for the... general Welfare of the United States"
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
True but you have entire industries in the military industrial complex, not to mention men and women who have a vested stake in their military careers who are going to fight you tooth claw and nail on this.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
You can't possibly be this obtuse. OK. Let's get rid of the legislative and the judicial branches of government. We'll get rid of all the Executive branch except for The Armed Services and DOD. YOU STILL HAVEN"T CUT THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT IN HALF!!!!!! Those two represent 56% of the size of our government. That's how wrong you are!! We've just eliminiated all of our present government but the military and you still haven't cut it in half. You're so fucking wrong it's hillarious! LOL LOL LOL
Cancel 2016.2
The Almighty
Yes... it was rhetorical... yet it still needed to be asked as he was suggesting we couldn't cut spending because our population was growing and that tax cuts and spending cuts were not possible (or at least that is what it seemed he was implying)
Social security is an easy fix. As you said, quit raiding the funds, put everyones money in individual accounts. note... this does NOT mean the money has to go into the market... restrict them to treasury's. Just get the money into individual accounts. Stop the rob Peter to pay Paul. Raise FICA taxes to every dollar earned until the funding of all accounts is complete.
You are flat wrong on Medicare. The Dems have created a new monster and it either needs to be killed prior to taking effect or we are going to have to start from scratch when the system implodes due to ever rising costs.
You are also wrong on calling them 'tough decisions'. Eliminate WASTE... that is not tough. That is friggin easy.... it just isn't politically beneficial and thus no one in either party will step up and do it.
Defense can easily be cut by 30-40%. Even Obama found $500B in waste in medicare. Social Security can be fixed as described above. As for the debt... simply the tax code. Eliminate all loopholes and deductions.
Individual tax rates
20% flat tax on all sources of income, $30k standard deduction per adult. Fair, progressive, simple.
Additional 10% tax on all sources of income in excess of $1mm. Every dime of this revenue goes to pay down the debt.
Corporate tax rates: for now, leave them as they are, but I would recommend looking at lowering them to make it more advantageous for firms to locate here. I would also evaluate all subsidies. Oil... GONE... that is an easy one. Farm... I would eliminate most of these as well.
Cancel 2016.2
The Almighty
Politically, you may be right on the last line. But economically, it is an easy cut.
The majority of overseas bases do not need to be there. We have shown to be at our most effective by being lean and mean, highly trained special forces teams are what we need for most situations. Having 1mm trained and ready to go should be ample for any situation including wars in places like Afghanistan. There are huge amounts of waste in the administrative side as well as in weapons development.
As a country we need to stop the mentality of 'we can't make cuts because people will lose jobs thus we should keep spending on stuff we do not need'. That line of thought is moronic. If we cut that spending and those jobs are lost, those people will transition to new careers. The money saved will be less money the government has to tax us in the future to pay for its spending. That puts more money back into our hands or into government spending that IS necessary. With our current mentality, the auto never would have made it as the government would still be protecting buggy whip makers.
There are enough Rossi democrats even in Seattle to make for a Rossi win, especially in light of the Murray votes on health care.
Gregoire would not stand a chance against McKenna.
Good Luck
New member
Be careful what kinds of statistics you toss around so casually. For one, lumping Home Security, a law enforcement agency, in with the military is disingenuous at best, if not outright dishonest. Then you also include Veterans' Administration, whose main job is securing for our vets - especially our wounded vets - the things they need and were promised for their service. Gonna piss on former service members to balance your budget?
Fact is the actual MILITARY budget (Active and ready reserves, equipment, and civilian auxiliaries and support) is around 31%. That's a far cry from the 65% you mislead people about - unless you DO want to cut vets benefits.
Now, I will not deny there can be some significant cuts in the actual military budget. However, I will not accede that we can cut the size of the military by any significant measure - and the problems we have had these past few years with keeping forces in place, over reliance on ready reserves so we are rotating through them 3X faster than we are supposed to, etc. is why.
And no, it does not matter that we should not even be in Iraq. I fully agree that a land war in Iraq was and is a mistake. But that is actually part of my point. Going back over the years, every time we have felt "safe" to cut back on the size of our military, we end up embroiled in SOMETHING that ends up making us build it all back up - at far greater expense than it would have taken to maintain our force structure. Whether those conflicts were justified or bone headed political plays does not matter in the end, because it always has happened and always will happen until Christ comes back and causes the lion to lie down with the lamb.
Over seas bases - we can cut them way back, but not, I think, eliminate them for the practical strategic value they have in projecting force. (and if you think we are beyond that need, try again. Cold war or no cold war, it is still generally a less-than-friendly world. We try to bring everything home and pair it down to "peacekeeping" only, and you will be surprised how soon a significant conflagration will broil up, we will not be ready for it, and will pay the price in dollars and blood while we build back up to the force needed.
I believe Reagan's core plan was the better of recent ideas for maintaining a viable, but reasonably affordable force structure, and that was to vastly beef up the ready reserves. Had we the forces in place that Reagan was building up, we could have maintained our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and still have cut in half the times we had to activate any one ready reserve unit. But Bush and the democrats had to pull the plug on the build up plans, followed by Clinton and Co. who gutted the whole thing down below even pre-Reagan levels.
Yes, with the threat of the former Soviet Union basically gone, we don't need the TYPES of force built up under Reagan. But current events shows we DO need the forces. For instance, the Montana National Guard was built up from a fast cavalry regiment to a heavy separate brigade - a little better than double the size of a fast cavalry regiment. Now we have been pared back to a cav battalion, a mech infantry battalion, and one wing of combat helos, plus a couple support groups. I will not argue the point that we are very unlikely to need all those tanks, Bradleys, etc. (unless we withdraw everything home, downsize, and wait for trouble). But we DO need the trained SOLDIERS. Instead of eliminating the Brigade, we should have turned it into a separate infantry brigade. Instead of 3 tank bns, 2 mech bns, arty bn, etc. we could have pared down to 2 mech bns, 3 infantry bns, and an arty bn organic to infantry instead of maneuver. Far less equipment, so far less costs overall, but still with the numbers of trained soldiers (when multiplying Montana's example acroos the board) to project the force necessary to take on pretty much anything that could, within the scope of reason, crop up INCLUDING stupid assed wars like Iraq.
And, talking of cutting down on expensive equipment, while some of the new toys out there do a good job of letting our people do their jobs without getting their asses shot off, a lot of it is unnecessarily expensive, and a lot more is just plain unnecessary. It's good to have communications - the more the better (to a point). But at the same time, it's getting to the point if any more fancy gear is added to the common soldier's load, they'll a) need a powered trolley to carry it all and b) get knocked in the head with a rock by someone who snuck up on them while they're trying to keep track of all the electronic information being poured at them. In short, cut down on the super-fancy (and super expensive) crap. It will save a ton of money while still allowing for larger, better trained ready forces.
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Good Luck
New member
Agree that we should stop spending the SS trust fund. Disagree that we should create individual accounts. Also WAY disagree with "investing" in t-notes. (who pays the interest on t-notes? our taxes.) IN fact, "investing" in t-notes is EXACTLY how the trust fund ends up getting spent: revenues from t-notes goes into the general fund, enabling it to be spent however they see fit.
Why not invest in the market? Even including the recent crisis, if we had been investing the trust fund in the market from the point it was created in 1983, SS would at present have over 8 trillion dollars (instead of 2.4 trillion in IOUs from Uncle Sam) and from continued investment would be a fully self-sustaining retirement program without ANY need for increased FICA taxes. Don't believe it? Think about this: when the trust fund was created, DJIA stood slightly under 1000. Today, even after the crisis, it is over 10K. That's better than a ten-fold increase in value for the trust fund dollars invested in 1983. Each subsequent year the increase in investment would be added in. Even at the bottom of the crisis when the market dropped by almost 50%, the ROI from the SS trust fund would have been far greater than any ROI from t-bills. Also, any fund invested at the low point would now have increased in value by almost 50% - a fact of the market always glossed over by the privatization fear mongers: the market ALWAYS GOES BACK UP!! PLUS, in case you didn't notice, not every investment house lost during the crisis, showing that wise investment heads in charge could well significantly mitigated how much the trust fund is affected by market crashes. And, final note: the money would actually BE THERE, instead of in the form of government IOUs after having been SPENT on assinie wars, bridges to nowhere, and ketchup flow-rate studies.
Bottom line, if we were to get a bunch of investment gurus - the ones who did NOT lose their shirts in the crisis, and give them the trust fund to run, we could, eventually, decrease FICA while simultaneously maintaining full SS benefits (plus COLA increases) in the fully self-sustaining program SS was SUPPOSED to be.
Cancel 2016.2
The Almighty
You will get no disagreement with me about investing. The reason I stated tbills is because every time you discuss investing with a lefty, they go off on some tangent about how the money would all have been lost investing in the market.
You and I disagree on the individual accounts. The money I put in should be mine or my heirs. It should never go to the government should I happen to pass away early. Those are MY savings. Not Uncle Sam's