danivon wrote:Well, you told me what I believe. I was just pointing out what I actually do. When it comes to turning the argument into one about individuals, you, as they say, started it.
Strange. I say you're a liberal. You say I'm all wrong--you're a socialist. You then point to an alleged contradiction between my profession and my philosophy--as if a soldier, a fireman, or a police officer has to approve of a bloated federal government. I did no such thing to you. Yours was
ad hominem, mine was a summation of what you agree to believing.
I spent 20+ years "on the dole," I suppose. So what if I saved lives at the risk of my own? You're right. Since my philosophy is that smaller government is better government, I should have left public service to the slugs who don't care about government efficiency and simply wanted to collect paychecks. Good call.
Well, I guess you support smaller government, but feel the part you worked in was vital. Not sure you aren't completely unbiased on that one.
Not what I said at all. Funny how that works--you accuse me of doing something, then do it yourself. Hey, if you think law enforcement is optional (note that is a condition, not an accusation), then I guess you've not accurately described your politics. I certainly have never said I thought LE was optional. I have many thoughts on it, but that is not one.
By the way, I just saw the US GDP results for the last quarter. Your economy grew by 0.8% (I believe the convention is to annualise quarterly growth, making it 3.2% equivalent). That is pretty good recovery growth. Now, compare that to our fall of 0.5% (2% annual equivalent).
Really? Okay, Mr. Economics, please explain how $1.5T in debt to get 3.2% annual growth is "good." That seems a pretty minimal return on a pretty substantial "investment." Then again, I'm not as well-educated in economics as you.
Senator Kent Conrad (D-MT) must not be all that smart either:
We wanted to check Conrad's statement that "we're borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend." We looked at whether Social Security, Medicare and defense constituted 84 percent of the federal budget in a different fact-check.
We turned to the U.S. Treasury Department's Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government. For the most recently completed fiscal year, 2010, the department reported that the government had revenues of $2.16 trillion, spending of $3.46 trillion and a deficit of $1.29 trillion. Divide the deficit by the outlays and you get 37 percent, which is very close to 40 percent.
We initially found the numbers a little confusing, but one of the experts we interviewed for this story explained it this way:
"It's like a family that earns $60,000 per year, but is spending $100,000. How are they doing it? By getting a new $40,000 loan every year to cover the difference," said Brian Riedl, a budget expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
In rating Conrad's statement, we find he correctly described how much the government is borrowing in comparison with what it's spending. We rate his statement True.
This might seem dopey to you, but then you seem to know a lot about economics. You even know that 3.2% growth after borrowing 10% of our GDP last year is "good." I look forward to reading your next best-selling book on economics. What's it called? "Borrowing Your Way to Prosperity?"
We cut early. You have a deficit. The extra growth will make it easier to cut the deficit in the medium term. It represents new jobs - people off welfare and paying taxes. It may seem trivial to you guys, but the very bread-and-butter nature of it is important.
Extra growth? New jobs? Deficit cuts?
Let's see. I would expect borrowing 10% of GDP to return more than 3.2% growth. I would expect to see the job situation improving if we have "new jobs," but economists are projecting flat employment numbers for years. I haven't seen the President propose deficit cuts. He did make the same "freeze" proposal he made last year--how did that work? Oh yeah. $1.5T in additional debt. In fact, all he's done since taking office is find new ways to spend more money--like a juvenile with his first credit card and no concept of the consequences.
Mind you, a lot of the spending also draws demand across the private sector so if it's done too quickly, it may have a knock on effect.
Better to just keep spending. I mean we can do that as long as we can keep printing money, right Mr. Economics? We can already see how it's helping--so let's keep going!
After all, it's
Obamamoney, right? We elected him because he can lower the sea levels, create money, and
multiply gasoline so that it costs nothing, and pay our mortgages. Obamanomics!