What spending cuts are the dems willing to make?

No I am not counting the Recovery Act. Were talking only Regular Annual Discretionary Spending sir. He has committed us to spending 26% more every year than we were when Bush left office. Over and above the Recovery Act.

Your 26% number is the same number Krugman quotes, and it includes the Recovery Act. Backed up by PolitiFact:

According to OMB tables, non-defense discretionary spending was $522.4 billion in fiscal 2008 and climbed to $658.2 billion in fiscal 2010. That is a 26 percent increase, roughly in line with the increase cited by Ryan.

But that spike includes money from the stimulus, said Meg Reilly, an OMB spokeswoman. It counts all non-defense discretionary money spent by the government during the given year.


PolitiFact Virginia | Robert Hurt says some federal spending is up over 80 percent in two years
 
There's no need to pay down the debt. In fact, since 2/3 of that debt is owed to Americans who are holding bonds as investment vehicles, paying down the debt would actually hurt investors..


Another person who has no idea what they are talking about. The Truth is one of the Biggest Chunks of the Debt is actually in the form of Government IOU's wrote to the SS "slush" Fund.

That most definitely does need to be paid down.

Debt held by the public is $9.7T and Intragovernmental holdings are $4.6T. Yes, the SS part needs to be re-paid and yes it is a big chunk, but clearly there is a LARGE portion owed to the public that does not need to be paid down.

Well the portion held by the Public will need to be paid when those people decide to cash in though. That's Peoples Retirements right there, and if you had not noticed, a Shit load of people are retiring lately.
 
Another person who has no idea what they are talking about. The Truth is one of the Biggest Chunks of the Debt is actually in the form of Government IOU's wrote to the SS "slush" Fund.

That most definitely does need to be paid down.

Debt held by the public is $9.7T and Intragovernmental holdings are $4.6T. Yes, the SS part needs to be re-paid and yes it is a big chunk, but clearly there is a LARGE portion owed to the public that does not need to be paid down.

Well the portion held by the Public will need to be paid when those people decide to cash in though. That's Peoples Retirements right there, and if you had not noticed, a Shit load of people are retiring lately.

True, people will be cashing them in, but not right today and maybe not even within this decade. Plus, unless we decide to stop issuing bonds, new people will buy new bonds, so the total debt doesn't have to go down.
 
Wipe out the Bush tax cuts and there is no need to cut anything. Then get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and we run a surplus.

Really? There wouldn't be enough revenue from taxing people more to balance the budget, not to mention drawing the debt down. But, it makes for a nice sound bite for the aloof.


There is going to have to be some real serious spending cuts before taxes increase, IMO.
Anything short of that will just prove to be empty words from our politicians.....we get a lot of that these days.
I was being a bit facetious. The 2001 and 2003 tax cut is worth about 170 billion/yr and the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan are about 175 billion this year for total of 345 billion. No, it won't wipe the deficit out but it will make a nice dent in it. We certainly don't have to reduce the debt nor totally eliminate the deficit. What we need to do is bring the deficit down to at least 5% of GDP (750billion). We have had that level in both 90's and 80's and had pretty fair economic growth.

Just to eliminate the deficit would mean sucking 1.5 trillion out of the economy which would surely put us in a recession worse than what we just went through.
 
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Debt held by the public is $9.7T and Intragovernmental holdings are $4.6T. Yes, the SS part needs to be re-paid and yes it is a big chunk, but clearly there is a LARGE portion owed to the public that does not need to be paid down.

Well the portion held by the Public will need to be paid when those people decide to cash in though. That's Peoples Retirements right there, and if you had not noticed, a Shit load of people are retiring lately.

True, people will be cashing them in, but not right today and maybe not even within this decade. Plus, unless we decide to stop issuing bonds, new people will buy new bonds, so the total debt doesn't have to go down.
When US treasuries come due, the government better have the money to pay back the principal or the government defaults. Government has no choice but to issue new treasuries in order to finance the debt.
 
Oh, so the answer is to raise taxes and jack up spending?
Reread my response and try again.

It's the republicans who refuse to budge. Why the resistance to an increase in revenue? Why are they sending our nations capitol upwards and then asking the poor to make up for the budget shortfall?

It's evil.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., abandoned the budget talks Thursday, saying congressional Democrats continued to press for part of the $2.4 trillion in savings to come from fresh revenue, or taxes.

Democratic leaders wanted as much as $400 billion in new taxes on corporations and the nation's richest households, The Washington Post said.

Also walking from the talks was Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., representing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying Republicans would not give in to a Democratic push for new revenues.
Why? Why is it giving in when it is the responsible thing to do? Why do they go to such lengths to protect the wealthy and give them more and more of our nation’s wealth?

The republicans are proving yet again that they are the enemy of the middle class. If they want to continue their class warfare it's high time the middle class started to fight back.

The budget meetings are supposed to be about spending cuts, not increasing taxes.
The American voter isn't the one that spent us into oblivion.
Come up with some massive spending cuts. If we still fall short of the monies needed then we'll discuss chipping in, with raised taxes, to help us along.
All we ask is that the spending cuts be sincere and thick.

Why are the democrats so resistant to stopping the bleeding?
They look at the American taxpayer as a bottomless well they can tap into anytime they wish.
There is zero desire to stop spending as long as they have an endless stream of cash they can reach for. When that dries up they just print more or borrow more.

How is that an acceptable way to operate ANYTHING, much less a government?
 
So the dem position is to cut defense spending and raise taxes on the rich and corporations.

Depends on the Democrat... Most the ones (Obama as well) that are elected Democrats expand wars and start new ones, not cut shit in military spending. Many liberals follow this Neocon style of Government and call themselves "Progressives." Many liberals have rejected the Obama/Bush policies that have only seemed to have negative effects on the country.
 

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