Lisa Benson for February 21, 2013

I heard a description on NPR of what a lot of the DOD cuts will entail. They would have to furlough civilian workers for a total of 22 days in a period of 6 months, amongst other military cuts. They would have to cut the state dept. budget and slow down Kerry’s big plans for climate change money and other pet projects. So far the draconian cuts Obama talked about are fantasy and I think this cartoon is actually relevant to the analogy of spending issues. The sequester is chicken feed and IMO they should just let it happen. Obama initiated the process in 2011 and now it’s another “crises” because neither Obama or congress can get themselves together to work out the issues at hand.

Sequestration is the Spendocrats worst nightmare and would probably the best thing the Republicans have done in a while.Oh no, government is going to get a little smaller!!!!!!I think most Americans agree that DC already has enough of our money. If they have to move money around, like they always do, then good. They will cut only the fat first. About time.

The problem with sequestration is the cuts are not targeted. Waste/fraud may continue while a necessary service is cut. For example subsidies to companies will continue while funds to schools are cut and first responders are furloughed or laid off. I am sympathetic to mickey’s comment, but I would prefer the legislators target specific cuts rather than dodge their responsibilities by letting a ‘lottery’ of cuts take place. These kind of cuts may actually protect some of the waste/fraud for which our taxes are paying.Ms. Benson’s cartoon is mostly accurate. The size of the threats are, imo, closer than the art shows, and Mr. Obama’s squad car should be a SWAT van full of congressional legislators- with Mr. Obama in the driver’s seat and Mr. Boehnor in the passenger seat. That bigger rock was being built up long before any of these guys were in power. But all of them have the power and duty to make intelligent choices in a bipartisan effort. The current plan is designed to create political ads blaming the other side for the damage our economy is about to experience.Respectfully,C.

Good cartoon, except that the entitlement asteroid needs to be a whole lot bigger…

Here’s the thing that blows my mind. The supercommittee was responsible for finding 1.2 trillion in 10 years (aka 120 billion per year) in cuts. They couldn’t make it happen, so this is what we get. Now, compare this to the Simpson-Bowles commission, and they found 2 trillion (200 billion a year) in duplicative programs and waste. So… why again are we having a sequester? If Obama was serious, he would go back to the recommendations from his own commission and use that. Those recommendations had bipartisan support. He’s already got his revenue (600 billion more), now it’s time to make cuts.

Forgot defense

Too bad there’s isn’t room to show the Defense Spending meteor.

The problem is that “entitlement spending,” as it’s called, is a problem. I am not rich, I am not a corporate executive, but I also don’t approve of the extensive “social safety net” programs we have. I have come from a very modest background, and I have earned everything I have; at one point I was working three jobs just to make end’s meet. And yet, I am still against just about everything the government is doing right now. 3 years of unemployment coverage? Social Security disability approvals spiking? Free phones for the “poor”? Red Bull and chips on food stamps? Social workers helping people get bigger welfare checks? Tax returns bigger than the taxes they paid in? Those are all unacceptable in my eyes, because they are all coming off my paycheck. The entitlement programs are named that because people feel entitled to them, even if they don’t rate them, at least that’s how I see it. I’ve been working since I was 16, been paying SS for my entire working life, and I am confident the system will collapse under its own largess and abuse by the public. And yet I’m the bad guy for saying that these programs need to be trimmed? What about those useless turds that abuse the system? You all know full well that most of those social security disability applicants are not disabled; they are simply out of unemployment coverage. And when you folks also attack oil companies (aka corporate welfare) and tax breaks on the “rich” (welfare for the rich), you are missing the bigger picture. The oil companies make 3 cents profit per gallon of gasoline pumped. The federal government takes about 48 cents a gallon. The rest is baseline cost. So while these oil companies aren’t hurting for money, taxing them more because they have 3 cents profit is silly. As for the rich? The top 5% pay 50% of the taxes in this country. There is only so much people will endure before they take their toys and move away. Then that 50% becomes 0%. And then where is the money going to come from? They also are the ones with the money to throw around the stock market, invest in new companies, provide investment capital, and buy bonds that fund our government. Why do we want to punish and discourage these activities with higher taxes? Without these activities, our economy contracts.

One thing that C Downs and I both concur on is the necessity to sent out an army of trained auditors that can go through the waste and fraud rampant in the entitlements, the military contracting and government in general. I think we would find that a huge amount of our spending is wasted in blatant fraud, inefficiency, redundancy just to name a few causes.I’ve been looking through the myriad of reports on what the sequester would entail in real agency by agency cuts and would love to find a source to one list of detail. I also heard on NPR that this sequester is in reality a cut in the growth of federal spending, not an actual reduction of current budgets. There is too much conjecture and opinion being slung about and not enough documented fact, especially as it is being portrayed in the media.

And it may not be as accurate as it could be. I didn’t do the accounting research myself, so your argument is a fair one. Like I mentioned, though, my thrust is not to justify how the “poor poor babies” oil companies are so bad off (which they aren’t). It’s to show that we demonize them for producing a good we consume and they make a profit on it, but We the People sit idly by and say it’s okay when the government pulls in significantly more per unit of measure than the individual corporation that’s making it. To me, that’s wrong. It’s a symptom of a much larger problem.

Wrong yet again Skippy.United States Government Entitlement Programs: 529 or Coverdell Home Mortgage Interest Deduction Hope or Lifetime Learning Tax CreditStudent LoansChild and Dependent Care Tax Credit Earned Income Tax Credit Social Security—Retirement & Survivors Pell Grants Unemployment Insurance Veterans Benefits G.I. Bill Medicare Head Start Social Security Disability SSI—Supplemental Security Income Medicaid Welfare/Public Assistance Government Subsidized Housing Food StampsTax cuts are not an entitlement. The progressive thought that the working American people should be a slave to continuing expansion of the waste, fraud and abuse that is our government is wrong. It’s also counter to what our forefathers built and foresaw for this nation. You might try reading a little history and the original writings of the founding fathers, you may get a clue then, but I doubt it.

Your history misses a few keys points.You should really do a little research, the truth can set you free and expand your narrow mind.Your little cartoon is wrong and doesn’t provide all of the relevant information, besides that simple fact that you are using a cartoon from a completely slanted source. But never mind the truth, it doesn’t fit your meme.Let’s look at 1913 Marginal Tax rates for instance;1.0% $3,000 – $20,0002.0% $20,000 – $50,0003.0% $50,000 – $75,0004.0% $75,000 – $100,0005.0% $100,000 – $250,0006.0% $250,000 – $500,0007.0% $500,000 – overDoesn’t look like the top rate is 77% to me, but then again the numbers a maybe hidden in the somewhere.What was the average annual salary in 1913?$800 and the Income Tax did not kick in until $3K, so how many were actually paying income taxes back in 1913.You really do need to get the full set of information and the full context before making stupid proclamations.

Another example of the “earned benefits = entitlements” myth.

It today’s society, I would be excoriated for my opinions and my skeletons. People have suggested I approach public office. With my background and coarse language, I would get myself in trouble with those who love to use snippets instead of listening to the whole conversation. I’ve served the public before (US Marine), and I would do so again if I felt I could help the country as a whole. I just am skeptical that I would actually be able to, given our current political geography.

Mike, I think they are talking about furloughs, not terminations.

Crazy, since his deficit spending breached 5% of GDP 3 quarters out of 32. Now, compare that to the historical rates since 1948, in that same chart, and you will see the ONLY president to consistently to have deficits above 5% is Obama. In fact, Obama has never had deficit spending below 6.8%, the only president to have his entire tenure marred by deficit spending on this magnitude. And even more disturbing, there is only one quarter out of our entire history (besides Obama’s tenure) that has had a deficit rate above 6% (1975), and never before Obama has it been 9% or above (Which he has done 5 times while he has been in office). Why does no-one seem to see this as a problem? This is our money he is wasting. The numbers don’t lie.

Careful Mechanic, your excuse-making is showing. Here’s why I use % of deficit instead of real dollars: % of deficit shows amounts based on government revenue and government spending, aka the habits of that government. Reagan, historically, didn’t spend much more or less than his peers. Also be careful with the “inherited” comments. That “inheritance” excuse can only be used for so long. It also doesn’t hold any water when you see your revenues dropping (which he did before he even was elected), and then you hammer down on the spending gas pedal. You didn’t inherit that decision; that was all his own. You want to compare deficit spending to the Great Depression? Okay, here you go. WW2 is what spurred the deficit spending, not the Great Depression. Government revenues and expenditures were flat during the Great Depression. But what’s telling about that graph is the simple fact that the average duration of the downturn is measured in a few scant years, with the exception of the civil war. I measure WW2’s deficits to be around 4-5 years, from start to finish (dip to return to normalcy). WW1 was even shorter, just a couple years. The returns have always been sharp and powerful. But not this one. We are 5 years into this thing, now, and we are not back on the upswing yet. Instead, the deficit spending is accelerating. That is entirely Obama and the Democrats’ doing, not Bush’s. It’s already been proven that the seeds of the housing and financial market implosion were planted well in the past. There is plenty of blame to go around to everyone, but what is very apparent is that the Democrats’ and Obama’s agenda was akin to taking gasoline and dumping it out on the floor while your house is on fire. You don’t put the fire out by pouring more gas on it! That is entirely at their feet, and no amount of Bush Blaming is going to change that.

I don’t have the time right now to discuss your post, but I will say that you are making hay out of inaccurate information. That chart I provided shows the deficit spending didn’t spike until we already ramped up for WW2. Take another window and line it up vertically (to make sure you don’t angle it accidentally), and you will see that we nose over into large deficits once we became embroiled in the war. The War is what pulled us out of the Great Depression, not housing.Your other comments are you simply grasping at straws, attempting to discredit me. Especially your response to the “more gas” comment I made. Your analogy doesn’t even make sense. Controlled burn my ass. That means that what Obama is doing is intentional?!?!. That means he wants to sink the US Economy? I don’t like the guy (mostly because of his policies), but even I don’t think that.And lastly, no. Bush doesn’t deserve a pass. He should have dismantled Fannie and Freddie when he had the chance. He should have leaned on Congress to reform the tax code, the SS and Medicare spendings. He had a 3-chamber control (not supermajority, but w/e). He squandered his domestic opportunities on his foreign wars. I fought in one of those wars. And while I think what we were doing was right and just, there is a lot more we should have done both on the foreign and domestic part. Bush is far from perfect, he made many mistakes. But he, at his very core, believed in America’s exceptionalism and strove to make her safer and more prosperous. I don’t see that coming from Obama. I see him trying to breed mediocrity and placate the world’s leaders so they don’t think ill of us. Bush may have waved at Stevie Wonder (dumbass), but at least he didn’t bow to a Saudi prince.