patrick.net

drew_eckhardt says

The Democrats want a big, powerful government run for corporations' benefit with its growth paid for by higher taxes.

have you ever known or seen growth occur due to higher taxes rates.. yet both in 1961 with the Kennedy Tax Cut and later with 1981 Reagan Tax Cut we saw economic expansion occur with higher employment and higher tax revenues. Higher Taxes rates have not resulted in higher tax revenues.

The current Federal Government shut down is the best news ever in America for the pathetic past 20 years. This one should last forever, unless you want the SOS for the future.

The Democrats and their big government fanboys who populate this site should be very worried that more and more Americans are getting fed up with the Federal government.

We've seen these past few years that our Federal government is not only incompetent (can't manage a budget) but also filled with vindictive corrupt hacks who want us plebes to feel pain if we don't share their political views or dare to criticize their incompetent stewardship of the Federal bureaucracy.

So I am really struggling to see how any of this is good for the longterm prospects of Liberalism where every day people are losing our trust in bigger and more intrusive government in our lives.

socal2 says

The Democrats and their big government fanboys who populate this site should be very worried that more and more Americans are getting fed up with the Federal government.

How can I be a member of the "fanboys"? I'm not sure what you're looking at, but more and more Americans are getting fed up with the tea party politicians.

socal2 says

So I am really struggling to see how any of this is good for the longterm prospects of Liberalism where every day people are losing our trust in bigger and more intrusive government in our lives.

See--that's where you're wrong. I think I'm what you would call a liberal (I think I'm moderate, but whatever), and I want a smaller government. Shrink the military industrial complex by at least 75%. It's the Republican's that want large government--they just want to grow it in different areas.

Yeah.... people blame both parties. Its just that they happen to be blaming the GOP more for this shenanigan.

tatupu70 says

See--that's where you're wrong. I think I'm what you would call a liberal (I
think I'm moderate, but whatever), and I want a smaller government. Shrink the
military industrial complex by at least 75%. It's the Republican's that want
large government--they just want to grow it in different areas.

If you really want a smaller government, then you logically need to support massive entitlement reform - right? Our entitlements are the largest and fastest growing segment of our expenditures.

The sequester "draconian cuts" hit the military the most by design. And Obama and some of his fanboys are even taking credit for reduced deficits without citing the sequester as the reason. So isn't it now time to address our entitlement ponzi schemes? Or will Obama and his supporters go 8 years in power without even trying to touch them? Worse - even adding to our ponzi schemes with Obamacare?

Unlike military spending which as a percentage of the US budget has been shrinking for the last 50 years, history has clearly shown that entitlement spending never goes away and has exploded exponentially taking up the majority of our outflows.

egads101 says

Obama may not be a great leader, fine. there is a big difference between
leading poorly, having flaws, but still trying to go the right direction on 9
out of 10 issues.

He may be trying to go the right direction on 9 of out 10 things but he keeps choosing the WRONG direction on 8 of those 9. Only the worst president EVER.

socal2 says

Unlike military spending which as a percentage of the US budget has been shrinking

Que?

yes...as percentage of GDP.. its been shrinking...

Vincente - I specifically said military spending as a percent of total US government spending. Even looking at our military spending as percent of GDP or comparison to other countries and you will see all the trends are going down.
http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855

Military spending is currently about 20% of the US Federal budget, down from 50% in the 1960's. Pretty big change - no?

Whereas entitlement spending has grown to over 50% of the US budget (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps......)

You could divert every last dollar of military spending to entitlements tomorrow, and our entitlement programs would still be Ponzi schemes.

I am all for reforming our military spending too. But it is a sideshow to point to our military budgets while people ignore the much larger (AND GROWING) entitlement spending.

Tim Aurora says

Yes after Clinton increaded taxes in 1995.

And on the contrary economy did not pick up after Bush Tax cuts. Instead Bush left us at the doorstep of depression.

How so many have forgotten...
.
.
.
The Dangerous Myth About The Bill Clinton Tax Increase

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/07/16/the-dangerous-myth-about-the-bill-clinton-tax-increase/

Speaking at a fund raiser in 1995, President Clinton said: ”Probably there are people in this room still mad at me at that budget because you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much, too.”

During the first four years of his Presidency, real GDP growth average 3.2%, respectable relative to today’s economy, but disappointing coming as it did following just one year of recovery from the 1991 recession, the end of the Cold War and the reduction in consumer price inflation below 3% for the first time (with the single exception of 1986) since 1965.

socal2 says

Vincente - I specifically said military spending as a percent of total US government spending. Even looking at our military spending as percent of GDP or comparison to other countries and you will see all the trends are going down.

you will have to excuse the uber pacifistics in the room.. facts dont mess with them well.

Vicente says

Unlike military spending which as a percentage of the US budget has been shrinking

Que?

It's an accurate statement.

The overseas contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are mostly funded through supplementary spending bills which are part of the military's spending but not its budget.

Similarly, the $51B a year (up from $12B in 2001) we spend on Homeland Security which doesn't run through the Department of Defense is on the budget but isn't military spending and doesn't count in that category. Nuclear weapons are handled by the Department of Energy and their $20B in related spending not the military with its separate budget. Veterans Affairs are a separate $70B item and military pensions another $55B. Interest on debt incurred by previous military actions is at least $100B of that budget line-item. A few billion of the budget for spy satellites comes from NASA.

Adding it all can get you to between $1T and $1.4T annually which is 50-100% more than the "military budget."

thomaswong.1986 says

you will have to excuse the uber pacifistics in the room.. facts dont mess with them well.

No pacifists here, just patriots who don't believe the American Military sucks so horribly that we need to spend that much to defend ourselves.

drew_eckhardt says

No pacifists here, just patriots who don't believe the American Military sucks so horribly that we need to spend that much to defend ourselves.

we did not ask to be attacked.. and no it was not in the budget we go to war. Unforeseeable.

for some people.. a single bullet is too much spending...

thomaswong.1986 says

we did not ask to be attacked.. and no it was not in the budget we go to war. Unforeseeable.

for some people.. a single bullet is too much spending

Did I miss the Iraq invasion of the US?

tatupu70 says

thomaswong.1986 says

we did not ask to be attacked.. and no it was not in the budget we go to war. Unforeseeable.

for some people.. a single bullet is too much spending

Did I miss the Iraq invasion of the US?

Yeah, I was watching TV the other day and these paratroopers were landing in some backwards Colorado town that looked like it was still in 1980. The military was no where to be seen and these kids had to defend our country using their hunting weapons. The enemies were all foreign dudes obviously from the Middle East because that's where they hate America for sending our traveling women through naked making machines instead of hiding their bodies with personal tents.

Wolverines!

tatupu70 says

Did I miss the Iraq invasion of the US?

Like I said... Uber pacifists will never be satisfied...

drew_eckhardt says

Yeah, I was watching TV the other day and these paratroopers were landing in some backwards Colorado town that looked like it was still in 1980.

Tell that to Obama.. regarding Putins recent comments.. and he called out to Romney

that the 80s were calling and wanted their Cold War back....

Laughable.. the more things change the more they stay the same.

It's best to just tune out Tom Wong's noise with the "ignore" feature.

drew_eckhardt says

Adding it all can get you to between $1T and $1.4T annually which is 50-100% more than the "military budget."

Thus the claim is disengenuous playing with words.

That so many expenses on the MIC are squirreled away in other categories now, doesn't mean real spending on the war machine has gone down. If your original claim were correct, the national debt would be quite a lot smaller.

thomas wrong.1986 says

we did not ask to be attacked.. and no it was not in the budget we go to war.

Attacked!
Go to War!
The raw hysteria inherent in this kind of dialog about a couple of buildings getting knocked down a decade and a half ago makes me cringe.
You are more likely to be killed by your toaster you simpering pantywaist.

socal2 says

Whereas entitlement spending has grown to over 50% of the US budget (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps......)

Where your Federal income taxes go:

freak80 says

It's best to just tune out Tom Wong's noise with the "ignore" feature.

cause your comments hold no water and sinking fast..

Vicente says

Where your Federal income taxes go:

come on Vicente.. be a brave soul and show a trend of Military spending as a percentage of GDP trended over the past 60-75 years ..

Robert Sproul says

ttacked!

Go to War!

The raw hysteria inherent in this kind of dialog about a couple of buildings getting knocked down a decade and a half ago makes me cringe.

You are more likely to be killed by your toaster you simpering pantywaist.

Ask yourself why the PLO never went after US targets during the 70s and 80s..
had they.. they ALL would be dead by now !

thomaswong.1986 says

show a trend of Military spending as a percentage of GDP trended over the past 60-75 years ..

So what is your point? That we should ignore that all the extra GDP is going to whom? and also allow that perverse mystery to excuse Gov't Shutdown Theatre that largely results from military spending?

You're just diddling yourself with percentages.

Vicente says

Where your Federal income taxes go:

and the web site it comes from ... a pacific web site....

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

and even worst the chart is discredited..

These figures are at odds with official government figures:
"[Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller pointed] out that the 2004 military budget would represent 16.6 percent of all federal spending, compared with 27.3 percent in the late 1980's."[7]
"...War Resisters....count moneys appropriated for veterans' benefits and payment of the national debt as "taxes to support past wars." The group does this because the only way it can arrive at the figure of 47 percent of the federal budget going to the military is to count what they see as past military spending."

thomaswong.1986 says

War Resisters....count moneys appropriated for veterans' benefits and payment of the national debt as "taxes to support past wars." The group does this because the only way it can arrive at the figure of 47 percent of the federal budget going to the military is to count what they see as past military spending."

You don't think veteran's benefits should count as defense spending??

tatupu70 says

You don't think veteran's benefits should count as defense spending??

No. Veterans benefits should count as socialized medicine, and must be cut immediately. No real American supports socialized medicine.

thomas wrong.1986 says

Like I said... Uber pacifists will never be satisfied...

And chicken-hawks never have moral qualms.
Reputable, independent, studies now say the total costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars easily top 4 trillion. These lunatic, immoral, international war crimes have bled off the prosperity of the nation, as well as the potential for creative mitigation of some of our intractable dilemmas in resource depletion and infrastructure decay.
What all you war-mongering, chicken-hawks fail to notice, by virtue of ignoring all the lessons of history, is that huge standing armies, and the Perpetual War demanded by Empire wealth extraction, always comes home at the end.
This is visibly happening now in the "Homeland"

Around 2007, when the last of the keyboard commandos finally grew quiet in the face of obvious budget-busting abject Neocon failure, their talk immediately turned to "Boy, that Hillary will fuck up the federal finances real bad when she gets in."

You're talking to a brick wall. Self-examination ain't their thing. Conservatism is always right. It cannot fail. It can only be failed. Everyone but the most conservative person in any conversation is a socialist.

HydroCabron says

Conservatism is always right. It cannot fail.

"It's true because we believe it."

Far-right conservatism is built on two pillars:

1) The appeal to authority fallacy
2) The "it's true because we believe it" fallacy

thomaswong.1986 says

"...War Resisters....count moneys appropriated for veterans' benefits and payment of the national debt as "taxes to support past wars."

In what universe is that NOT a military expense? Oh right, yours. Where any accounting trick or pretense is OK if it let's you pretend we don't outspend everyone on the planet for military.

Vicente says

homaswong.1986 says

"...War Resisters....count moneys appropriated for veterans' benefits and payment of the national debt as "taxes to support past wars."

In what universe is that NOT a military expense? Oh right, yours. Where any accounting trick or pretense is OK if it let's you pretend we don't outspend everyone on the planet for military.

so you have an issue with the comptroller and GAAS.. good luck with that..

tatupu70 says

You don't think veteran's benefits should count as defense spending??

too bad it doesnt jive with your narrative...

thomaswong.1986 says

Vicente says

Where your Federal income taxes go:

come on Vicente.. be a brave soul and show a trend of Military spending as a percentage of GDP trended over the past 60-75 years ..

Come on thomas be a brave soul and show us how much spending that was dod is now in other departments as well as obvious military spending in other departments not on dod budget. Perhaps you should actually read your own chart. It says "Defense Budget" not military spending.

Let look back 60-75 years. All intelligence was military except the OSS which was tiny. Now the government admits ( I highly doubt it is all) to 53 billion for intelligence outside the dod. That would increase the dod budget by 9%. Military retirees went from dod to treasury in 1984, that's 39 billion. The space program was and is 90% military, not a cent came dod budget, god only knows what that cost. The VA at 87 billion would add 13% to dod budget if it weren't under HHS. How about nuclear materials production under D of Energy.

The list goes on and on. Go sell your claptrap the dod budget and military spending being the same somewhere else.

thomaswong.1986 says

too bad it doesnt jive with your narrative...

What's my narrative?

bob2356 says

Come on thomas be a brave soul and show us how much spending that was dod is now in other departments as well as obvious military spending in other departments not on dod budget. Perhaps you should actually read your own chart. It says "Defense Budget" not military spending.

you must have forgotten how much defense cuts we had since 1991.. how many bases were closed and military equipment scrapped.. how many Nukes and Silos have been decommissioned. Have you forgotten all this ? we are no where near 1980s spending ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_Realignment_and_Closure_Commission

Its been a long long time since I seen P3 Orions flying out of Mt View Moffet Field.

thomaswong.1986 says

you must have forgotten how much defense cuts we had since 1991

That's a load of crap. Overall defense operations are far more outsourced. Was Gulf War I operations infrastructure handled by Cheney/Halliburton? Were there paid bodyguards running all over war zone then? Fuck no. Maybe 1% of Gulf War I involved contractor operations. I suppose though that Blackwater is attractive despite higher costs, since you don't have infinite healthcare & pension obligations to them.