What to cut: The Federal Budget

[Paulie]

I should add though, that part of the balanced budget was due to federal aid.

 

[JWBooth]

A lot of State budgets are stressed due to Federal mandates and programs such as Medicade.

Unfunded mandates, a really good reason to gen up support for nullification.

 

[Bern80]

As for federal involvement in education. It's clear that it falls under the general welfare clause and I'm not going to get into a debate on the issue in this context.

The genereal welfare clause essentially says government may collect taxes for the general welfare. Madison and Jefferson further stated that the clause referred specifically to the enumerated powers that follow it in which education is not found.

 

[Charles_Main]

A lot of State budgets are stressed due to Federal mandates and programs such as Medicade.

True Dat, and the Health care Bill Put new HUGE mandates on them.

 

[Care4all]

so with all these cuts right NOW, will that increase unemployment in the immediate, thus reducing our tax revenues, and increasing what the gvt spends on unemployment benefits and things like food stamps, resulting in more unemployed and larger deficits, in this already crappy economy?

do we wait to do these cuts just as we wait to let the tax cuts expire?

 

[rightwinger]

I have two wars I'd like to cut from the budget

 

[The Rabbi]

I suppose the G.I. Bill really screwed us too. All those ex-service men and women had no business being in college. All those degrees were worthless and all those careers launched as a result were shams? Please.

We see the benefits of education every day and in every sector of the economy.

No, you're changing the subject because you don't like the facts I've presented. Foul. Post WW2 and the GI Bill are irrelevant to a discussion about the Dept of Education, which didnt exist back then.
We see the perils of poor education even more every day. There are hundreds of skilled jobs that go begging every day because people were tracked to college, where they wasted time and money, instead of being encouraged to develop employable skills.

My defense of the Department of Education was based, in this argument, on college grant money. You refuted that argument with:

Meanwhile the number of people in college who really have no business being there increases.
So gov't intervention in the education market (like every other market) has overall been detrimental to education, not an aid to it

And now you state:

No, you're changing the subject because you don't like the facts I've presented

Get it together, Rabbi! You can't move the goal posts, clear the field and declare victory.

Except you didn;t, I dont know whether you are merely dissembling or you honestly don't know how to argue.
But I can tell you that raising the GI bill and returning veterans from WW2 is not an argument for what the Dept of Education (which didnt exist then) does today.

I mention that costs have skyrocketed as a direct result of gov't lending while good skilled jobs are unfilled and your response is to reiterate that the GI Bill was great.

 

[JWBooth]

I have two wars I'd like to cut from the budget

I'll see your two and raise you two.

 

[Charles_Main]

so with all these cuts right NOW, will that increase unemployment in the immediate, thus reducing our tax revenues, and increasing what the gvt spends on unemployment benefits and things like food stamps, resulting in more unemployed and larger deficits, in this already crappy economy?

do we wait to do these cuts just as we wait to let the tax cuts expire?

Does it make sense to keep spending money to gain some short term growth, when you are heading for economic collapse if you keep racking up Debt?

And who says we have to cut food stamps and Unemployment anyways.

There is plenty of waste in our budget that could be removed with LITTLE negative effect on the economy.

 

[DiamondDave]

Stop with your winger links

And as asked of you NUMEROUS times before, asshole troll, explain thru known economic standards how raising taxes improves a private market economy.... you continually ignore the request to prove your point, and you continually ignore and go back to your common troll tactic of posting winger links and little Bush pictures

Raising taxes and demonstrating fiscal discipline led to a decline in interest rates on both public and private debt. Lower interest rates incented higher investment.

There was not fiscal discipline... #1

Care to look at interest rates comparatively?

And show causation of taxation being the source of your alleged improvement...

 

[Cecilie1200]

What to cut? I say we start with defense spending. Next?

That would be the only thing to be cut that would actually make a dent.... which is why the pretend rabbi troll and his ilk are so disingenuous....

it's the same old 'let's starve government til you can drown it in a bathtub' garbage that it's always been for the reactionary right.

It's always funny to hear someone who didn't even bother to look at the OP's links accuse the OP of being "reactionary", as though you didn't just kick in with kneejerk talking points.

Defense spending is the only thing to cut that would make a dent? Really? The Department of Health and Human Services encompasses about 1/4 of total federal spending, but you don't think cutting waste and dead weight there would "make a dent"? Puhleeze.

 

[johnrocks]

I have two wars I'd like to cut from the budget

I'll see your two and raise you two.

"War on poverty" and "War on (some) Drugs"

 

[DiamondDave]

What to cut? I say we start with defense spending. Next?

The department of Education. Next?

i know that's not something the rightwingnuts make much use of... but some of us think it's important.

what percentage of the federal budget is the department of education?

now what percentage of the federal budget are military expenditures?

What part of the constitution shows the federal government's charge to provide a national defense (AKA military)? That one is easy to find... what part of the constitution shows the federal government's charge to provide a department of education?

 

[DiamondDave]

So, Conservatives are talking about cutting the federal budget. Is this to reduce the deficit, or to eliminate federal programs designed to help American citizens?

Let's take a look.

One poster said eliminate the Department of Education. Fine. That will eliminate federal grants to college students. that means fewer people will have a shot at higher education. The Conservatives have already made it lucrative for corporations to outsource our manufacturing base by so called "free trade" agreements, granting Most Favored Nation status to Communist China and granting tax breaks to companies moving operations out of America. Now, they want to make damn sure the American worker is sub-par in education as well.

Some Conservatives advocate eliminating the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Fine. That means the poorest Americans will no longer have the programs that help them live in anything other than slum housing. No Section Eight rent subsidies (which are paid directly to the landlord helping them make mortgage and tax payments), no public housing units.

But, ask one Conservative what effects cutting taxes to the richest Americans is and all they'll tell you is that the rest of us don't pay taxes (in spite of what my accountant tells me) and that those few Americans enjoying great wealth actually stimulate the economy. Seems to me that if the majority of Americans had the tax breaks the richest have, that majority would flood the economy with the dollars they save in taxes, thus stimulating the economy to greater heights.

Cut the budget? Cut everyone's taxes, not just Thurston and Lovey Howell's.

Myths again

If the tax cuts were only for 'the rich'... why is it that Obama is making a great effort to pay lip service to keeping tax cuts in place to those making under 250K? The answer is simple... BECAUSE THE TAX CUTS WERE NOT JUST FOR THE RICH...

Stop with repeating the myth

 

[DiamondDave]

You're changing the subject. What happened to the economy between 2001 and 2006?

As far as the federal budget was concerned, we went from surplus to deficit with dizzying speed due to cutting taxes on the richest and fighting two wars without budgeting for them.


And your thread is titled What to cut: the Federal Budget.

We had no surplus.. and this has been shown time and time and time and time and time and time again.... You little wingers on the uber-left like to leave out a little something called intergovernmental spending

 

[DiamondDave]

So, Conservatives are talking about cutting the federal budget. Is this to reduce the deficit, or to eliminate federal programs designed to help American citizens?

Let's take a look.

One poster said eliminate the Department of Education. Fine. That will eliminate federal grants to college students. that means fewer people will have a shot at higher education. The Conservatives have already made it lucrative for corporations to outsource our manufacturing base by so called "free trade" agreements, granting Most Favored Nation status to Communist China and granting tax breaks to companies moving operations out of America. Now, they want to make damn sure the American worker is sub-par in education as well.

Oy,
Yeah, because without gov't handing out money no one would ever go to college, right?

College tuitions have risen faster than the inflation rate every year for probably the last 30. A very big factor in this is the wide availability of gov't grants and loans, which insulate families from price concerns for college.
Meanwhile the number of people in college who really have no business being there increases.
So gov't intervention in the education market (like every other market) has overall been detrimental to education, not an aid to it.

I suppose the G.I. Bill really screwed us too. All those ex-service men and women had no business being in college. All those degrees were worthless and all those careers launched as a result were shams? Please.

We see the benefits of education every day and in every sector of the economy.

Employment benefit.. much different than the Dept of Ed

 

[The Rabbi]

As for federal involvement in education. It's clear that it falls under the general welfare clause and I'm not going to get into a debate on the issue in this context.

The genereal welfare clause essentially says government may collect taxes for the general welfare. Madison and Jefferson further stated that the clause referred specifically to the enumerated powers that follow it in which education is not found.

Education always and everywhere was a matter for states and localities. The Federal gov't has no business in education, nor did they ever.
Claiming the "necessary and proper" clause (there is no general welfare clause, that's in the preamble) supports gov't intrusion in education is simply ignorance. But what can you expect from one of the top ignoramuses on this site?

 

[The Rabbi]

You're changing the subject. What happened to the economy between 2001 and 2006?

As far as the federal budget was concerned, we went from surplus to deficit with dizzying speed due to cutting taxes on the richest and fighting two wars without budgeting for them.


And your thread is titled What to cut: the Federal Budget.

We had no surplus.. and this has been shown time and time and time and time and time and time again.... You little wingers on the uber-left like to leave out a little something called intergovernmental spending

They never learn. The surplus myth has been debunked again and again and they still repeat it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Would it be possible to engage in a thoughtful discussion of some of the things mentioned in the Cato Institute link, rather than randomly and simplistically shouting out the names of Departments, or is this the wrong crowd for that sort of thing?

I was intrigued by the plan they outlined to control Medicare and Medicaid spending by converting them to a combination of tax credits to individuals and a voucher program for private insurance. The alternative of making Medicaid into a block grant to states, allowing states to implement more innovation without federal micromanaging, was also interesting.

I am definitely on board with the idea of cutting out all agricultural and rural subsidies from the Department of Agriculture. Ditto business subsidies from the Department of Commerce. While I'm not sure I agree with every proposal the Cato Institute has for privatizing the functions of these departments or devolving them to the states, I do think at least some action in that direction would be both beneficial and less-expensive.

As I move down through their list of departments, it appears I'm in agreement just generally on the idea of ending government subsidies. Most, if not all, of what the federal government subsidizes would be much better off handled either by the private sector or by the states. I definitely think that if the federal government needs to subsidize something, that probably means that thing has no business existing. If it was actually useful to anyone, it would generate investment.

 

[Care4all]

You're changing the subject. What happened to the economy between 2001 and 2006?

As far as the federal budget was concerned, we went from surplus to deficit with dizzying speed due to cutting taxes on the richest and fighting two wars without budgeting for them.


And your thread is titled What to cut: the Federal Budget.

We had no surplus.. and this has been shown time and time and time and time and time and time again.... You little wingers on the uber-left like to leave out a little something called intergovernmental spending

We did have a budget surplus, which has been shown time and time again...under the laws that exist on the books and under the laws we have operated under since Johnson and then Reagan..

But Yes, I agree it was a Social security surplus that got our budget to appear as though it was inline.

the reason we show money being added to the national debt during that period, is because President clinton took the social security surpluses and paid down the public debt with them, paid down the debt we owed other countries....so our debt moved columns from what we owed to foreigners, to what we owed ourselves, (social security), is my understanding of it.

And you do realize that President Bush, did uses $2.0 trillion dollars of social security surplus monies to help balance his budget and show less yearly budget deficits as well, right?