Who Can Tackle the Big Beast (Deficit)? Romney or Obama?

[hortysir]

Obama said he'd cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. That is a failure. That means we give someone else a shot.

Romneys plan is to increase the deficit by 3 trillion dollars.

Romney's Tax Plan Would Add $3T To Deficit Over A Decade - Forbes

Hes not the one who should get the shot.

Only 3?

Better than 7

 

[Wiseacre]

To do anything meaningful with the deficit will require new and/or higher taxes.

That lets Romney and the GOP out. The GOP, even should they not have the majority, will stop any tax measures with a filibuster..

Game over.

I am always amazed when somebody says this. So let me ask: do you really think that raising taxes will get you a meaningful reduction in the deficit? Allowing the Bush tax cuts on the top 1% making above 250k gets you maybe 70 billion/year against a 1.2 trillion deficit this year. Is that your idea of meaningful? Do you really think you can raise taxes that much without a meaningful impact on economic growth?

You think 70 billion a year is insignificant . Since Bush we have had two tax cuts and a prebate under Bush. The stimulus was 40% tax cuts. Then we have the reduction in payroll taxes.

You couple 70 billion in tax increases with a 400 billion reduction in defense, add on 150 billion in reduced corporate welfare and you suddenly begin to talk real money.

If all those tax cuts were supposed to create jobs I have just one question: Where are they?

Like to know how Obama cut taxes by about 345 billion dollars. How'd he do that? I don't think so.

Seriously, you want to cut defense by 400 billion? There is not one single member of Congress who would support that. Preposterous. How many jobs you think would be lost int he private sector if you did that?

150 billion in reduced corp welfare? Sounds great, I'd support that myself. But dems and repubs alike will not support those cuts when it affects their constituents.

Nothing in what you said supports your contention that new and higher taxes will make a meaningful difference.

 

[jimowencassidy]

I think if Romney gets in, he will do his best, but
people that need help will be hurting, but it is better off
than to contine like this.

Personally, I can only see him stopping the growth of the debt AT BEST
( if even that ).

 

[onecut39]

I am always amazed when somebody says this. So let me ask: do you really think that raising taxes will get you a meaningful reduction in the deficit? Allowing the Bush tax cuts on the top 1% making above 250k gets you maybe 70 billion/year against a 1.2 trillion deficit this year. Is that your idea of meaningful? Do you really think you can raise taxes that much without a meaningful impact on economic growth?

You think 70 billion a year is insignificant . Since Bush we have had two tax cuts and a prebate under Bush. The stimulus was 40% tax cuts. Then we have the reduction in payroll taxes.

You couple 70 billion in tax increases with a 400 billion reduction in defense, add on 150 billion in reduced corporate welfare and you suddenly begin to talk real money.

If all those tax cuts were supposed to create jobs I have just one question: Where are they?

Like to know how Obama cut taxes by about 345 billion dollars. How'd he do that? I don't think so.

Seriously, you want to cut defense by 400 billion? There is not one single member of Congress who would support that. Preposterous. How many jobs you think would be lost int he private sector if you did that?

150 billion in reduced corp welfare? Sounds great, I'd support that myself. But dems and repubs alike will not support those cuts when it affects their constituents.

Nothing in what you said supports your contention that new and higher taxes will make a meaningful difference.

I didn't say I would raise taxes by 70 billion. I would raise them at least to what they were in the 90s. I would prefer to go back to the Reagan era rates.

We don't supply our defense wholly domestically. We job out most of it to the lowest bidder, China included. Defense spending no longer has the impact it once did.

We have had 12 years of wet dream conservative economic policy. What did it get us? The worst recession since the great one. That one sordid fact remains. We did everything the Republicans said we should do to make us prosperous.

It hasn't, and there is no way around that one huge fact.

 

[Dr Grump]

The size of the state: A big beast to tackle | The Economist

For the record, I have not 'cut and paste' from the article... I've talked about the issues and this article gives some solid, factually accurate, balanced information regarding both Obama and Romney. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a debate.

Can we split the job?

Put Romney in charge of the economy
Obama in charge of social issues...

 

[onecut39]

I am always amazed when somebody says this. So let me ask: do you really think that raising taxes will get you a meaningful reduction in the deficit? Allowing the Bush tax cuts on the top 1% making above 250k gets you maybe 70 billion/year against a 1.2 trillion deficit this year. Is that your idea of meaningful? Do you really think you can raise taxes that much without a meaningful impact on economic growth?

You think 70 billion a year is insignificant . Since Bush we have had two tax cuts and a prebate under Bush. The stimulus was 40% tax cuts. Then we have the reduction in payroll taxes.

You couple 70 billion in tax increases with a 400 billion reduction in defense, add on 150 billion in reduced corporate welfare and you suddenly begin to talk real money.

If all those tax cuts were supposed to create jobs I have just one question: Where are they?

Like to know how Obama cut taxes by about 345 billion dollars. How'd he do that? I don't think so.

Seriously, you want to cut defense by 400 billion? There is not one single member of Congress who would support that. Preposterous. How many jobs you think would be lost int he private sector if you did that?

150 billion in reduced corp welfare? Sounds great, I'd support that myself. But dems and repubs alike will not support those cuts when it affects their constituents.

Nothing in what you said supports your contention that new and higher taxes will make a meaningful difference.

OK I am a bit off. 41% of an 800 billion stimulus is 328 billion. But then you have to add in the payroll tax cuts. I don't know what that comes to but I am pretty sure it will be more than 17 billion.

If not I stand corrected.

 

[onecut39]

To do anything meaningful with the deficit will require new and/or higher taxes.

That lets Romney and the GOP out. The GOP, even should they not have the majority, will stop any tax measures with a filibuster..

Game over.

I am always amazed when somebody says this. So let me ask: do you really think that raising taxes will get you a meaningful reduction in the deficit? Allowing the Bush tax cuts on the top 1% making above 250k gets you maybe 70 billion/year against a 1.2 trillion deficit this year. Is that your idea of meaningful? Do you really think you can raise taxes that much without a meaningful impact on economic growth?

Yes I do. If you go the austerity route you will kill the economy, driving down revenues and just making it worse.

 

[Wiseacre]

To do anything meaningful with the deficit will require new and/or higher taxes.

That lets Romney and the GOP out. The GOP, even should they not have the majority, will stop any tax measures with a filibuster..

Game over.

I am always amazed when somebody says this. So let me ask: do you really think that raising taxes will get you a meaningful reduction in the deficit? Allowing the Bush tax cuts on the top 1% making above 250k gets you maybe 70 billion/year against a 1.2 trillion deficit this year. Is that your idea of meaningful? Do you really think you can raise taxes that much without a meaningful impact on economic growth?

Yes I do. If you go the austerity route you will kill the economy, driving down revenues and just making it worse.

So, lay it out for me: where/how are you going to raise taxes enough to get a meaningful reduction? I'm just not seeing it. Be nice if you can supply a link to a study somewhere, but I'm good with just your opinion if you would.

In Europe, their austerity involved raising taxes more than they cut spending, that's why it hasn't worked so well. You look at the countries in the worst trouble, they're the ones who are spending too much. The more successful ones have managed to control their spending.

 

[Avatar4321]

The size of the state: A big beast to tackle | The Economist

For the record, I have not 'cut and paste' from the article... I've talked about the issues and this article gives some solid, factually accurate, balanced information regarding both Obama and Romney. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a debate.

Can we split the job?

Put Romney in charge of the economy
Obama in charge of social issues...

Why would anyone want to do that?

 

[auditor0007]

How will the next President tackle the ‘big beast’?

The ‘big beast’… or deficit, to you… will be the major issue for whoever our next President is.

Obama wants to spend our way out of recession. Romney wants to cut our way out of recession. Which is the better way?

In my view, Obama screwed up from the ‘git go’ by focusing on healthcare instead of an economy in freefall. Yea, the healthcare thing needed fixing – and he promised his base that he would address that as a priority. Unfortunately, for Obama, he appeared to not notice that the world was collapsing around his feet. So, along comes the stimulus… for the record, I loathed the idea but agreed with him on that… we desperately needed to stimulate the economy. I had my reservations, because politicians generally have a habit of taking a good idea and completely fucking it up. Hey presto, that is exactly what happened with the US stimulus. Instead of being spent on infrastructure and value adding projects, he pissed away billion after billion of our money on pet projects that did next to nothing to ‘stimulate’ anything other than his left wing bullshit.

So let’s look at Romney.

Gaffe prone, clumsy, very much a self made multi-millionaire, a DC ‘outsider’, leader of a very liberal state. He says he’ll cut federal spending to 20% of GDP. Good idea, but is it practical to do that when our economy is already in the tank (and it is – despite the weeping, wailing and stamping of feet from the left insisting that it isn’t… get a clue, lefties… it’s tanking. And it will continue to tank for quite some time.) But how do you cut the federal budget when the country has no jobs, no prospect of jobs in the short-medium term and a growing… and aging… population? He says he’ll cut ‘entitlement’ programs (foodstamps, Medicaid, etc)… but, again, how can he do that when the country is facing such a bleak decade?

OK… back to Obama… re-elect someone who fiddled while Rome burned? We cannot afford any more expansion of federal government. Anyone who says otherwise, can’t do basic math,.

So, what say you… do we continue to expand federal government and implode? Or do we take our medicine in the hopes that our children will have it easier because we made the hard choice?

Self Sacrifice Conservatism or Cradle to Grave Liberal Government?

The size of the state: A big beast to tackle | The Economist

For the record, I have not 'cut and paste' from the article... I've talked about the issues and this article gives some solid, factually accurate, balanced information regarding both Obama and Romney. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a debate.

You are correct about the stimulus, for the most part. While it did work to a certain extent, for the most part it was a mess filled with unnecessary tax breaks and money going to programs that didn't really benefit anyone. The entire thing should have gone to infrastructure; at least we would have something to show for it.

As for what to do, I think it is very simple, and yes we should have another stimulus, but this time it should all go to infrastructure. Get the money into the private sector and get people working. Aside from that, we need to increase taxes. We don't need to go crazy with tax increases, but we need to increase taxes across the board. The wealthy should pay the bulk of any tax increase, but that doesn't mean we should put everything on them.

If we can get the economy moving again, tax revenues will increase, so we don't need massive tax increases. But in order to bring the budget somewhat under control we also need spending cuts. The problem is cutting funding to social programs when so many people are out of work is not going to help anything. What we need to concentrate on is cutting long term costs to SS and Medicare. I know Paul Ryan had his plan for Medicare, but it was an absolutely terrible plan that would have left tens of millions without any or only minimal health coverage when they needed it most. In the end, the federal government would have to step in to save all those people. His plan would not have worked. What would work and makes the most sense is raising the retirement age. Many people are against this, but in the end, this is what needs to happen. People are living longer and capable of working longer. These programs were not intended to provide for retirees for fifteen years. The other positive about raising the retirement age is not only would we cut a few years off the front end for people to collect, but since most people would have to work a few more years, they would continue contributing into those funds.

What we do not need are more tax cuts. American businesses are sitting on over $2 trillion. Taxes being too high is not the reason they are not expanding. The reason they are not expanding is because they see no need to, and they don't see an increased market for their goods or services. By getting long term debt under control, and putting more money into the economy through real infrastructure spending, the economy will start expanding again. While the debt is massive, it is not out of control, yet. We will never pay it off, but we don't have to, we just need to outgrow it. That means that we can actually allow it to increase, but it can't continue increasing at such a fast pace. It can only grow at a pace slower than the expansion of the overall economy. That is how we paid off the debt from WWII. That debt wasn't really paid off; the economy just grew so much bigger that the debt became a spit in the bucket as a percentage of future revenues.

There are so many good potential solutions. The big problem is that nobody wants to give an inch on anything. Cons refuse the suggestion of higher taxes even though taxes are at their lowest rates in over 60 years, and they want to cut them even lower. They want to cut spending to levels not seen since before the Great Depression. None of their ideas make any logical sense. On the other side, liberals don't seem to think we need to make any spending cuts at all and consider SS and Medicare sacred cows, which they are, but they don't even want to discuss things like raising the retirement age, even though they know the costs of Medicare in particular, are unsustainable the way things are now.

Anyway, I'm done. Romney is not the answer. Obama is by far the best choice, not because everything he wants to do is going to solve all of our problems. Obama is willing to compromise; the problem is Republicans are not. Without compromise we do not move forward. Until Republicans are willing to come to the table to actually work on real solutions, I will not support them.

 

[NYcarbineer]

How will the next President tackle the ‘big beast’?

The ‘big beast’… or deficit, to you… will be the major issue for whoever our next President is.

Obama wants to spend our way out of recession. Romney wants to cut our way out of recession. Which is the better way?

That is a false premise.

In my view, Obama screwed up from the ‘git go’ by focusing on healthcare instead of an economy in freefall.

That is simply not true. The first focus of the Obama administration was the stimulus bill.

There is a sizable spending cut in place that takes effect at the beginning of next year. The Republicans are now trying to stop it.

 

[Foxfyre]

I wish Romney was officially on the smaller government bandwagon, but realistically that is a dangerous platform to campaign on because his opponents will use his words to scare the elderly and other beneficiaries of government that they are all about to shafted and/or thrown into the street homeless, helpless, and without hope.

But in terms of policy that will give us the best chance to take government created uncertainty and anti-business policies out of the equation and promote private sector growth, prosperity, and economic activity, Romney's program wins hands down.

 

[Wiseacre]

How will the next President tackle the ‘big beast’?

The ‘big beast’… or deficit, to you… will be the major issue for whoever our next President is.

Obama wants to spend our way out of recession. Romney wants to cut our way out of recession. Which is the better way?

In my view, Obama screwed up from the ‘git go’ by focusing on healthcare instead of an economy in freefall. Yea, the healthcare thing needed fixing – and he promised his base that he would address that as a priority. Unfortunately, for Obama, he appeared to not notice that the world was collapsing around his feet. So, along comes the stimulus… for the record, I loathed the idea but agreed with him on that… we desperately needed to stimulate the economy. I had my reservations, because politicians generally have a habit of taking a good idea and completely fucking it up. Hey presto, that is exactly what happened with the US stimulus. Instead of being spent on infrastructure and value adding projects, he pissed away billion after billion of our money on pet projects that did next to nothing to ‘stimulate’ anything other than his left wing bullshit.

So let’s look at Romney.

Gaffe prone, clumsy, very much a self made multi-millionaire, a DC ‘outsider’, leader of a very liberal state. He says he’ll cut federal spending to 20% of GDP. Good idea, but is it practical to do that when our economy is already in the tank (and it is – despite the weeping, wailing and stamping of feet from the left insisting that it isn’t… get a clue, lefties… it’s tanking. And it will continue to tank for quite some time.) But how do you cut the federal budget when the country has no jobs, no prospect of jobs in the short-medium term and a growing… and aging… population? He says he’ll cut ‘entitlement’ programs (foodstamps, Medicaid, etc)… but, again, how can he do that when the country is facing such a bleak decade?

OK… back to Obama… re-elect someone who fiddled while Rome burned? We cannot afford any more expansion of federal government. Anyone who says otherwise, can’t do basic math,.

So, what say you… do we continue to expand federal government and implode? Or do we take our medicine in the hopes that our children will have it easier because we made the hard choice?

Self Sacrifice Conservatism or Cradle to Grave Liberal Government?

The size of the state: A big beast to tackle | The Economist

For the record, I have not 'cut and paste' from the article... I've talked about the issues and this article gives some solid, factually accurate, balanced information regarding both Obama and Romney. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a debate.

You are correct about the stimulus, for the most part. While it did work to a certain extent, for the most part it was a mess filled with unnecessary tax breaks and money going to programs that didn't really benefit anyone. The entire thing should have gone to infrastructure; at least we would have something to show for it.

As for what to do, I think it is very simple, and yes we should have another stimulus, but this time it should all go to infrastructure. Get the money into the private sector and get people working. Aside from that, we need to increase taxes. We don't need to go crazy with tax increases, but we need to increase taxes across the board. The wealthy should pay the bulk of any tax increase, but that doesn't mean we should put everything on them.

If we can get the economy moving again, tax revenues will increase, so we don't need massive tax increases. But in order to bring the budget somewhat under control we also need spending cuts. The problem is cutting funding to social programs when so many people are out of work is not going to help anything. What we need to concentrate on is cutting long term costs to SS and Medicare. I know Paul Ryan had his plan for Medicare, but it was an absolutely terrible plan that would have left tens of millions without any or only minimal health coverage when they needed it most. In the end, the federal government would have to step in to save all those people. His plan would not have worked. What would work and makes the most sense is raising the retirement age. Many people are against this, but in the end, this is what needs to happen. People are living longer and capable of working longer. These programs were not intended to provide for retirees for fifteen years. The other positive about raising the retirement age is not only would we cut a few years off the front end for people to collect, but since most people would have to work a few more years, they would continue contributing into those funds.

What we do not need are more tax cuts. American businesses are sitting on over $2 trillion. Taxes being too high is not the reason they are not expanding. The reason they are not expanding is because they see no need to, and they don't see an increased market for their goods or services. By getting long term debt under control, and putting more money into the economy through real infrastructure spending, the economy will start expanding again. While the debt is massive, it is not out of control, yet. We will never pay it off, but we don't have to, we just need to outgrow it. That means that we can actually allow it to increase, but it can't continue increasing at such a fast pace. It can only grow at a pace slower than the expansion of the overall economy. That is how we paid off the debt from WWII. That debt wasn't really paid off; the economy just grew so much bigger that the debt became a spit in the bucket as a percentage of future revenues.

There are so many good potential solutions. The big problem is that nobody wants to give an inch on anything. Cons refuse the suggestion of higher taxes even though taxes are at their lowest rates in over 60 years, and they want to cut them even lower. They want to cut spending to levels not seen since before the Great Depression. None of their ideas make any logical sense. On the other side, liberals don't seem to think we need to make any spending cuts at all and consider SS and Medicare sacred cows, which they are, but they don't even want to discuss things like raising the retirement age, even though they know the costs of Medicare in particular, are unsustainable the way things are now.

Anyway, I'm done. Romney is not the answer. Obama is by far the best choice, not because everything he wants to do is going to solve all of our problems. Obama is willing to compromise; the problem is Republicans are not. Without compromise we do not move forward. Until Republicans are willing to come to the table to actually work on real solutions, I will not support them.

You are basically saying we need to raise taxes but not cut spending, sacred cows and all that. Nonsense, those programs are unsustainable in their present form and no democrat is willing to publicly step up and do anything about it. You say Obama is willing to compromise; I say if he was willing to compromise we could've had a deal last summer but he wouldn't make the deal with Boehner when he had the chance. He's not pragmatic like Clinton was; he is a man of the left, far left, and has to date shown no compensity at all to compromise. Neither has the democrats in Congress, and that is why I won't support them.

 

[Old Rocks]

How will the next President tackle the ‘big beast’?

The ‘big beast’… or deficit, to you… will be the major issue for whoever our next President is.

Obama wants to spend our way out of recession. Romney wants to cut our way out of recession. Which is the better way?

In my view, Obama screwed up from the ‘git go’ by focusing on healthcare instead of an economy in freefall. Yea, the healthcare thing needed fixing – and he promised his base that he would address that as a priority. Unfortunately, for Obama, he appeared to not notice that the world was collapsing around his feet. So, along comes the stimulus… for the record, I loathed the idea but agreed with him on that… we desperately needed to stimulate the economy. I had my reservations, because politicians generally have a habit of taking a good idea and completely fucking it up. Hey presto, that is exactly what happened with the US stimulus. Instead of being spent on infrastructure and value adding projects, he pissed away billion after billion of our money on pet projects that did next to nothing to ‘stimulate’ anything other than his left wing bullshit.

So let’s look at Romney.

Gaffe prone, clumsy, very much a self made multi-millionaire, a DC ‘outsider’, leader of a very liberal state. He says he’ll cut federal spending to 20% of GDP. Good idea, but is it practical to do that when our economy is already in the tank (and it is – despite the weeping, wailing and stamping of feet from the left insisting that it isn’t… get a clue, lefties… it’s tanking. And it will continue to tank for quite some time.) But how do you cut the federal budget when the country has no jobs, no prospect of jobs in the short-medium term and a growing… and aging… population? He says he’ll cut ‘entitlement’ programs (foodstamps, Medicaid, etc)… but, again, how can he do that when the country is facing such a bleak decade?

OK… back to Obama… re-elect someone who fiddled while Rome burned? We cannot afford any more expansion of federal government. Anyone who says otherwise, can’t do basic math,.

So, what say you… do we continue to expand federal government and implode? Or do we take our medicine in the hopes that our children will have it easier because we made the hard choice?

Self Sacrifice Conservatism or Cradle to Grave Liberal Government?

The size of the state: A big beast to tackle | The Economist

For the record, I have not 'cut and paste' from the article... I've talked about the issues and this article gives some solid, factually accurate, balanced information regarding both Obama and Romney. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a debate.

People have looked at Romney and his ideas. That is the why of this;

RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Electoral Map No Toss Ups

President Obama 332 Governor Romney 206

 

[auditor0007]

How will the next President tackle the ‘big beast’?

The ‘big beast’… or deficit, to you… will be the major issue for whoever our next President is.

Obama wants to spend our way out of recession. Romney wants to cut our way out of recession. Which is the better way?

In my view, Obama screwed up from the ‘git go’ by focusing on healthcare instead of an economy in freefall. Yea, the healthcare thing needed fixing – and he promised his base that he would address that as a priority. Unfortunately, for Obama, he appeared to not notice that the world was collapsing around his feet. So, along comes the stimulus… for the record, I loathed the idea but agreed with him on that… we desperately needed to stimulate the economy. I had my reservations, because politicians generally have a habit of taking a good idea and completely fucking it up. Hey presto, that is exactly what happened with the US stimulus. Instead of being spent on infrastructure and value adding projects, he pissed away billion after billion of our money on pet projects that did next to nothing to ‘stimulate’ anything other than his left wing bullshit.

So let’s look at Romney.

Gaffe prone, clumsy, very much a self made multi-millionaire, a DC ‘outsider’, leader of a very liberal state. He says he’ll cut federal spending to 20% of GDP. Good idea, but is it practical to do that when our economy is already in the tank (and it is – despite the weeping, wailing and stamping of feet from the left insisting that it isn’t… get a clue, lefties… it’s tanking. And it will continue to tank for quite some time.) But how do you cut the federal budget when the country has no jobs, no prospect of jobs in the short-medium term and a growing… and aging… population? He says he’ll cut ‘entitlement’ programs (foodstamps, Medicaid, etc)… but, again, how can he do that when the country is facing such a bleak decade?

OK… back to Obama… re-elect someone who fiddled while Rome burned? We cannot afford any more expansion of federal government. Anyone who says otherwise, can’t do basic math,.

So, what say you… do we continue to expand federal government and implode? Or do we take our medicine in the hopes that our children will have it easier because we made the hard choice?

Self Sacrifice Conservatism or Cradle to Grave Liberal Government?

The size of the state: A big beast to tackle | The Economist

For the record, I have not 'cut and paste' from the article... I've talked about the issues and this article gives some solid, factually accurate, balanced information regarding both Obama and Romney. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a debate.

You are correct about the stimulus, for the most part. While it did work to a certain extent, for the most part it was a mess filled with unnecessary tax breaks and money going to programs that didn't really benefit anyone. The entire thing should have gone to infrastructure; at least we would have something to show for it.

As for what to do, I think it is very simple, and yes we should have another stimulus, but this time it should all go to infrastructure. Get the money into the private sector and get people working. Aside from that, we need to increase taxes. We don't need to go crazy with tax increases, but we need to increase taxes across the board. The wealthy should pay the bulk of any tax increase, but that doesn't mean we should put everything on them.

If we can get the economy moving again, tax revenues will increase, so we don't need massive tax increases. But in order to bring the budget somewhat under control we also need spending cuts. The problem is cutting funding to social programs when so many people are out of work is not going to help anything. What we need to concentrate on is cutting long term costs to SS and Medicare. I know Paul Ryan had his plan for Medicare, but it was an absolutely terrible plan that would have left tens of millions without any or only minimal health coverage when they needed it most. In the end, the federal government would have to step in to save all those people. His plan would not have worked. What would work and makes the most sense is raising the retirement age. Many people are against this, but in the end, this is what needs to happen. People are living longer and capable of working longer. These programs were not intended to provide for retirees for fifteen years. The other positive about raising the retirement age is not only would we cut a few years off the front end for people to collect, but since most people would have to work a few more years, they would continue contributing into those funds.

What we do not need are more tax cuts. American businesses are sitting on over $2 trillion. Taxes being too high is not the reason they are not expanding. The reason they are not expanding is because they see no need to, and they don't see an increased market for their goods or services. By getting long term debt under control, and putting more money into the economy through real infrastructure spending, the economy will start expanding again. While the debt is massive, it is not out of control, yet. We will never pay it off, but we don't have to, we just need to outgrow it. That means that we can actually allow it to increase, but it can't continue increasing at such a fast pace. It can only grow at a pace slower than the expansion of the overall economy. That is how we paid off the debt from WWII. That debt wasn't really paid off; the economy just grew so much bigger that the debt became a spit in the bucket as a percentage of future revenues.

There are so many good potential solutions. The big problem is that nobody wants to give an inch on anything. Cons refuse the suggestion of higher taxes even though taxes are at their lowest rates in over 60 years, and they want to cut them even lower. They want to cut spending to levels not seen since before the Great Depression. None of their ideas make any logical sense. On the other side, liberals don't seem to think we need to make any spending cuts at all and consider SS and Medicare sacred cows, which they are, but they don't even want to discuss things like raising the retirement age, even though they know the costs of Medicare in particular, are unsustainable the way things are now.

Anyway, I'm done. Romney is not the answer. Obama is by far the best choice, not because everything he wants to do is going to solve all of our problems. Obama is willing to compromise; the problem is Republicans are not. Without compromise we do not move forward. Until Republicans are willing to come to the table to actually work on real solutions, I will not support them.

You are basically saying we need to raise taxes but not cut spending, sacred cows and all that. Nonsense, those programs are unsustainable in their present form and no democrat is willing to publicly step up and do anything about it. You say Obama is willing to compromise; I say if he was willing to compromise we could've had a deal last summer but he wouldn't make the deal with Boehner when he had the chance. He's not pragmatic like Clinton was; he is a man of the left, far left, and has to date shown no compensity at all to compromise. Neither has the democrats in Congress, and that is why I won't support them.

Two quick points; I did say we need to cut spending and I laid out exactly how we could do that not just in the short term but the long term by raising the retirement age to 70 or 71. This would increase revenue into both programs between 5% to 10%, and it would reduce payouts by between 25% to 33%. Combined, we are talking about the overall cost of running these programs being reduced between 30% and 40%. As for my second point, please do not tell me that Republicans were willing to compromise on anything. Compromise on the budget would have involved some tax increases which they completely refused. To this day, they refuse to allow for any tax increases, so come January 1, I guess we just let the Bush tax cuts expire and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Wiseacre]

You are correct about the stimulus, for the most part. While it did work to a certain extent, for the most part it was a mess filled with unnecessary tax breaks and money going to programs that didn't really benefit anyone. The entire thing should have gone to infrastructure; at least we would have something to show for it.

As for what to do, I think it is very simple, and yes we should have another stimulus, but this time it should all go to infrastructure. Get the money into the private sector and get people working. Aside from that, we need to increase taxes. We don't need to go crazy with tax increases, but we need to increase taxes across the board. The wealthy should pay the bulk of any tax increase, but that doesn't mean we should put everything on them.

If we can get the economy moving again, tax revenues will increase, so we don't need massive tax increases. But in order to bring the budget somewhat under control we also need spending cuts. The problem is cutting funding to social programs when so many people are out of work is not going to help anything. What we need to concentrate on is cutting long term costs to SS and Medicare. I know Paul Ryan had his plan for Medicare, but it was an absolutely terrible plan that would have left tens of millions without any or only minimal health coverage when they needed it most. In the end, the federal government would have to step in to save all those people. His plan would not have worked. What would work and makes the most sense is raising the retirement age. Many people are against this, but in the end, this is what needs to happen. People are living longer and capable of working longer. These programs were not intended to provide for retirees for fifteen years. The other positive about raising the retirement age is not only would we cut a few years off the front end for people to collect, but since most people would have to work a few more years, they would continue contributing into those funds.

What we do not need are more tax cuts. American businesses are sitting on over $2 trillion. Taxes being too high is not the reason they are not expanding. The reason they are not expanding is because they see no need to, and they don't see an increased market for their goods or services. By getting long term debt under control, and putting more money into the economy through real infrastructure spending, the economy will start expanding again. While the debt is massive, it is not out of control, yet. We will never pay it off, but we don't have to, we just need to outgrow it. That means that we can actually allow it to increase, but it can't continue increasing at such a fast pace. It can only grow at a pace slower than the expansion of the overall economy. That is how we paid off the debt from WWII. That debt wasn't really paid off; the economy just grew so much bigger that the debt became a spit in the bucket as a percentage of future revenues.

There are so many good potential solutions. The big problem is that nobody wants to give an inch on anything. Cons refuse the suggestion of higher taxes even though taxes are at their lowest rates in over 60 years, and they want to cut them even lower. They want to cut spending to levels not seen since before the Great Depression. None of their ideas make any logical sense. On the other side, liberals don't seem to think we need to make any spending cuts at all and consider SS and Medicare sacred cows, which they are, but they don't even want to discuss things like raising the retirement age, even though they know the costs of Medicare in particular, are unsustainable the way things are now.

Anyway, I'm done. Romney is not the answer. Obama is by far the best choice, not because everything he wants to do is going to solve all of our problems. Obama is willing to compromise; the problem is Republicans are not. Without compromise we do not move forward. Until Republicans are willing to come to the table to actually work on real solutions, I will not support them.

You are basically saying we need to raise taxes but not cut spending, sacred cows and all that. Nonsense, those programs are unsustainable in their present form and no democrat is willing to publicly step up and do anything about it. You say Obama is willing to compromise; I say if he was willing to compromise we could've had a deal last summer but he wouldn't make the deal with Boehner when he had the chance. He's not pragmatic like Clinton was; he is a man of the left, far left, and has to date shown no compensity at all to compromise. Neither has the democrats in Congress, and that is why I won't support them.

Two quick points; I did say we need to cut spending and I laid out exactly how we could do that not just in the short term but the long term by raising the retirement age to 70 or 71. This would increase revenue into both programs between 5% to 10%, and it would reduce payouts by between 25% to 33%. Combined, we are talking about the overall cost of running these programs being reduced between 30% and 40%. As for my second point, please do not tell me that Republicans were willing to compromise on anything. Compromise on the budget would have involved some tax increases which they completely refused. To this day, they refuse to allow for any tax increases, so come January 1, I guess we just let the Bush tax cuts expire and let the chips fall where they may.

Glad to see you are willing to change the SSA program, too bad none of the democrats in Washington would even consider your ideas. I don't think they are any more willing to compromise on that than the GOP is on tax hikes. The story I heard was that Boehner DID agree to tax increases last summer, but Obama wanted more at the last minute. I know there are some recalcitrant repubs out there who demand a balanced budget, and won't compromise on that issue. Just as there are democrats out there who will not compromise on spending one dollar less. So let's cut the finger pointing crap and agree that both sides are at fault here.