Lisa Benson for February 03, 2015

^^^ Right and Barry wants more taxes to spend, genius.As for the 18 trillion in debt being paid off, good luck with that. Btw He has 2 more years to increase his all-time debt record. Here’s Barry’s record so far…….“The total federal debt of the U.S. government has now increased more than $7 trillion during the slightly more than five and a half years Barack Obama has been president.

That is more than the debt increased under all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined, and it is more debt than was accumulated in the first 227 years of this nation’s existence—from 1776 through 2003."

It’s a big country that takes a lot of money to run, wage constant war, maintain over 900 military bases world wide, infrastructure, regulatory, environment, etc, etc. The conservative/Republicans seem to want a strong military and all the goodies without paying the freight. They seem to believe in the Fairy Godmother / magic wand approach to financial responsibility.

Yeah, I just can’t stand the idea of maintaining roads and bridges. Let ‘em all fall down!! Of course the pothole party wants potholes. They require tax dollars to repair, and we all know tax dollars are much better spent invading countries who have not attacked us. Education is another thing that shouldn’t be funded by government at any level. Let the little buggers grow up ignorant is a way better course of action. Yay congress!!! Way to go!!

Oh wait, I forgot. Georgie W didn’t use tax dollars to fight stupid wars. He just borrowed the money. In large part from China. Nice.

ConserveGov seems to forget about inflation. A dollar in 1800 would be worth about 18 dollars today. Obviously you can’t compare the debt from years long past with today’s debt without making this adjustment. In any case the largest increase in recent times was caused by a couple of trillion dollar wars. The national debt as a percent of GDP is actually much lower than it was two hundred years ago.

Wow guys, it’s getting pretty deep in here. Lemme get on my waders. Be right back.....In all seriousness. ease up on the classifications as a whole, and Cross, ease up on the accentuation of conservatives partial name. You’re usually more serious than that.First, from a factual standpoint, Obama has added more debt in the past 5-1/2 years than any other president in the same time span. In addition, inflation cannot account for much of that, as inflation has been muted in the past few years. So … don’t attack people who are throwing that number out there. In addition, blaming Republicans for increasing the debt in recent history is like blaming a person who hits your car when you run a red light. It doesn’t make sense. Republicans have not had control over the budget for quite some time, and if Democrats were so insistent on reducing the deficit, they’ve had ample opportunity. This isn’t to say they didn’t spend like drunken sailors on leave when they did have control, but the past … Oh, $10 trillion is firmly at the feet of Democrats. It also is worth mentioning that the CBO has released reports that while our trend is currently dipping for deficit spending, it is going to resume its upward growth curve after Obama is out of office. I have to believe this is an intentional action by Obama and his Democrat allies, so they have a built-in foil in the future, so people like the ones on this board will point and say, “Look, it’s all Republicans’ fault, the deficit is spiking under their watch!” What will be forgotten is a large part of that debt and deficit will be the work of many Democrat-originated programs.As to those who think debt is not going to hurt the Economy, I recommend you read up on your economics courses. Debt, as a level compared to your GDP, impacts a country’s ability to borrow. In addition, once interest rates come back up, you will see the expense associated with servicing that debt spike. You talk about wanting to use that money to help people in this country, but with the ticking time-bomb we have on that debt, it’s only a matter of time that servicing that debt, combined with Social Security and Medicare, will consume some 90% or so of the budget. It’s grossly irresponsible to think having 20 trillion in debt is not going to have an impact on the US. It needs to get brought under control. And for those who believe that the military should have its budget slashed, I can tell you it already is under the “Sequester.” How’s Welfare or EBT doing? Did those get cut? Of course not. You can blame the military all you want, but in reality it’s a paper tiger. Yes, there is waste and abuse in the military, and there are programs that really shouldn’t be done. But federal “means-tested” programs are what is going to bankrupt this country. EBT, welfare, medicaid, the drain of unemployment benefits on employers, the PPACA, and others are dog-piling on top of our already weak economy. What frustrates me is that not only do people abuse these systems to enrich themselves, but any time there is talk of reform to these systems we discover how vicious people can get when they don’t want their “freebies” taken away. When Republicans pushed back on extending unemployment benefits, they were demonized for taking away the benefits of those families who needed it. The problem with doing that is it takes away the ability for people to have a serious discussion about the problem. This country does not have a taxation problem. It has a spending problem. And it’s not limited purely to the government. Our entire society is built around debt. Why do you think the housing bubble of the Great Recession was so bad? It’s because people overleveraged themselves, and they lost their homes because they made bets that they couldn’t hope to pay if they tossed snake eyes. We need to get back on track, and these means-tested programs need to be axed or reformed. The tax code needs to be reformed so everyone pays in, no one gets exceptions, and everyone pays their “fair share.” We need to cut back on duplicative programs… like the ones the Sarbanes-Oxley found… some 200bn a year, iirc. Low-hanging fruit. But bureaucrats are so entrenched in their own benefit that it’s anathema to cut the government apparatus. Something’s gotta change, or we will end up flying off that cliff, Elephant and Donkey alike.

@ The Trusted MechanicIt is not widely reported that people who go to Community College will make nearyly $1 million more than those with a High School Degree. That is where your excercise fails and shows your bias against anyone not a Democrat and for “anything” this president does.

Better than spend and reduce tax, like G.W.B.

It’s worth mentioning, Cross, that Democrats had control of Congress since 2007. Congress, not the president, establishes spending measure.

That tin can is the money Bush and the right have spent on war toys, and wars, and they call it a tank. It appears to match the quality of most “defense contractor” products and research and development.

Enough of the Busk bashing. O has had 6 + year to make good and hasn’t moved a finger.

Benson and many of the commentators forget ( or are unaware of ) Oliver Wendel Holmes comment: “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

Our military troops, seamen, special ops and pilots are constantly being sent to volatile areas to protect the interests of our major corporations, owned by the top wealthy families in this country. I read in today’s Boston Globe that an average of 22 suicides by combat veterans occur EACH DAY. The simple fact that the ultra-wealthy have been given such services by these men and women, AND that they enjoy un-fettered access to the President and congressmen to demand and receive such “considerations” is reason enough for them, AND their off-shore corporate profits be TAXED, and significantly so, until this country can pull itself back together.

Reagan inherited less than 1 Tillion in debt. Since then, 17 tillion added under 14 years of Democratic presidents, 19 years of Republicans. Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, tax cuts proved near fatal under Reagan, until he set the record number of INcreases to attempt to save his mess, didn’t work. Reaganomics IS the number one economic disaster in American history, period, well, other than their wars. Clinton left “W” a surplus, soo much for THAT eight years of recovery! The deficit has come down, while INTEREST paid to the very people Republicans have repeatedlly “bailed out”, some friends we got there(!)continues to increase the debt.

Lisa hasn’t a clue about simple math, let alone economics, and the damage Republicans have done.

^To quote Cheney, “deficits don’t matter”, as long as it’s borrow and spend for defense, or paying off Halliburton and Dicks’ buddies! (Lynne on board at Lockheed, no cost to those contracts at all, right?)

“The debt from 1776 to 2008 was 10.8 trillion when Obama got in office.It is now 18 trillion and growing.What exactly is it being spent on?”The US military is our largest expenditure and rife with waste. It’d be pretty easy to start trimming that budget, except for Congress keeps adding to the budget to bring home the pork barrel spending.

You and your friend have very similar writing styles. It only took a couple of times for you to respond to my “mistake”. It must have been killing you. Most of your sources compare a High School degree with a bachelors degree. A Community College degree is not a realistic comparison in most cases. I know you will not agree with this from what I know of your writings.

“The fact that we’re here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means ‘The buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”

B.H. Obama, 2006

I pulled the 10 trillion out of my rear end, not an actual math calculation. It was more to get the point across that Republicans didn’t create this debt on their own. And the portion under Obama was 0% on the Republicans, because they didn’t have control of the budget until relatively recently. I’m not saying that Republicans aren’t responsible for any of this, but I am saying that it’s not only their fault. I know you grabbed those numbers under the presidents, but you also need to look at who had control of congress at the time of those additions to the debt.Here is a great chart showing who controlled congress during various presidencies. As you can see, under Reagan, we had a very heavily-leaning Democratic base in the house, with Republicans in the senate. Democrats, in fact, controlled the purse strings for 40 years, just prior to republicans getting the majority under Clinton (where the debt was reduced and a surplus was generated). In fact, when you are talking about the debt, Republicans were in control of both houses when there was a surplus, and major deficits were generated under Democratic leadership in Congress. One other fallacy to your argument is that you are using raw dollars, instead of percent of GDP. By those figures, Obama and the Democrats are really not winning any arguments. You will notice that in direct correlation to the chart I referenced above, the Republicans were the ones who brought spending down as a percent of GDP, and Democrats were the ones to cause it to spike. Indexing it against the GDP removes inflation from the mix, and links it to the direct activity of the economy, which is what we should be focusing on. And last, but not least, let’s not forget that during just about the entire tenure of the Democrats’ leadership from 2007 to to 2013, there was no operating budget. Why? Because of politics; they didn’t want there to be any ammunition that could be used against the POTUS in the election.

About time somebody did something…even if it is wrong! And this budget is far from wrong; so that leaves the onus on the Republicans.