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Chris
10-08-2012, 08:40 PM
The new meme is trickle down government, but the government bubble is about to burst.

A fiscal nightmare of government’s creation (http://triblive.com/opinion/2722481-74/federal-percent-fiscal-government-2011-cbo-debt-revenues-tax-trillion#axzz28jJ4iiy5)
...In fiscal year 2011 — Oct. 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2011 — the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that the federal government spent $3.6 trillion, or 24 percent of the gross domestic product *— 24 percent of the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in the United States in that year, the highest federal-spending-to-GDP ratio since World War II.

...The CBO reports that total federal tax revenues in fiscal year 2011 were $2.2 trillion, against $3.6 trillion in spending, producing a shortfall of nearly $1.4 trillion in red ink — a $1.4 trillion deficit added to the federal debt and paid for by borrowing and delivering the bill to future taxpayers.

In just these three categories — Social Security, the aforementioned health insurance programs and interest payments on the debt — federal payouts consumed 79 percent of the total tax revenues collected by the federal government in fiscal 2011.

Add the $159 billion that was spent in fiscal 2011 on the lost causes in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 79 percent increases to 86 percent.

That doesn’t leave much money for everything else, just 14 cents out of each dollar collected in federal taxes to cover the cost of bridge repairs, tunnels to casinos, small business loans, highways, free cell phones, aid to Syria, mail trucks, tuition assistance, medical research, aid to Pakistan, food stamps, American military bases in 109 countries, citizen surveillance, veterans benefits, aid to Egypt, subsidized Amtrak sandwiches, urban renewal, job training, farm aid, federal weather balloons, environmental grants, airport body scanners, day care, solar handouts, rent subsidies, Head Start, federal payroll, congressional junkets, subsidized lunches and development of a missile-defense system.

But it gets worse...

http://i.snag.gy/K72Vv.jpg

KC
10-08-2012, 08:48 PM
If there's one thing encouraging about that report it's that if we could just muster the political will to privatize social security, leave health care to the markets and end our foreign wars, we could pretty easily straighten things out. Of course electing anyone who will do just that is hard, but the solution itself is at least detectable from where we stand, isn't it?

Chris
10-08-2012, 08:54 PM
You mean like Ron Paul. No one who has the courage to stand for those things is electable.

Canadianeye
10-08-2012, 08:59 PM
If there's one thing encouraging about that report it's that if we could just muster the political will to privatize social security, leave health care to the markets and end our foreign wars, we could pretty easily straighten things out. Of course electing anyone who will do just that is hard, but the solution itself is at least detectable from where we stand, isn't it?

I find it shocking, that in America the TEA Party consisting of incredibly committed regular citizens attacking the very problem...does not find more purchase in the minds of some.

So little is understood about how the TEA Party is more against (R)s than (D)s in many cases, and how they just want to stop the massive government bubble of the OP.

An answer stares them in the face, yet their overriding NEED for their (D) party line just blocks that reality.

KC
10-08-2012, 09:05 PM
You mean like Ron Paul. No one who has the courage to stand for those things is electable.

http://i.imgur.com/y0fws.jpg

Chris
10-08-2012, 09:09 PM
I find it shocking, that in America the TEA Party consisting of incredibly committed regular citizens attacking the very problem...does not find more purchase in the minds of some.

So little is understood about how the TEA Party is more against (R)s than (D)s in many cases, and how they just want to stop the massive government bubble of the OP.

An answer stares them in the face, yet their overriding NEED for their (D) party line just blocks that reality.

Not sure I understand the last line there, but to me the problem is it's not The Tea Party, but a multitude of distributed grassroots tea parties.

Canadianeye
10-08-2012, 09:59 PM
Not sure I understand the last line there, but to me the problem is it's not The Tea Party, but a multitude of distributed grassroots tea parties.

I speak to a lot of different people, and a very high percentage of them are liberal. Oddly enough, almost every time they realize and agree that the crippling big and ever expanding government is crippling. Then, when explained about how this is exactly what the TEA Party is all about stopping (no matter what side of the political aisle they look to reign in) ...they start to waffle back to their party line.

It's like the answer is staring them in the face, but they can't break their comfortable party lines. They agree but are incapable of change.

Chris
10-08-2012, 10:25 PM
I speak to a lot of different people, and a very high percentage of them are liberal. Oddly enough, almost every time they realize and agree that the crippling big and ever expanding government is crippling. Then, when explained about how this is exactly what the TEA Party is all about stopping (no matter what side of the political aisle they look to reign in) ...they start to waffle back to their party line.

It's like the answer is staring them in the face, but they can't break their comfortable party lines. They agree but are incapable of change.

That's true and true for either political party, Reps or Dems.

Thanks for clarifying!!

Chris
10-09-2012, 12:33 PM
So how change? One example is...


In Florida, the Sarasota County Commission just voted to spend $218,000 to persuade two unnamed companies to move into the county. Not only is cronyism an abuse of government powers, but those business ventures seldom turn out to be sound investments for local communities. As Professor Dean Stansel of Florida Gulf Coast University writes in his article for the Naples Daily News:

“[P]oliticians working to improve their local economies would be wise to stop playing venture capitalist with taxpayer dollars. Keeping spending in check … will better enable them to implement the time-tested strategy of keeping tax burdens low, which will in turn attract more residents and businesses. That would be a much more effective way to get local economies back on track.”

@ Cronies Playing Venture Capitalist with Taxpayer Dollars (http://www.economicfreedom.org/2012/10/07/in-the-news-cronies-playing-venture-capitalist-with-taxpayer-dollars/)

The Stansel article is @ Politicians Should Not Play Venture Capitalist with Taxpayer Dollars (http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/oct/03/guest-column-politicians-should-not-play-venture/).

truthmatters
10-09-2012, 12:56 PM
http://mises.org/daily/author/796/Ralph-Reiland

Your author is a Mises guy.

doi you know that mises is a austrian school of economics site?

KC
10-09-2012, 01:07 PM
http://mises.org/daily/author/796/Ralph-Reiland

Your author is a Mises guy.

doi you know that mises is a austrian school of economics site?
That's a good thing.

Chris
10-09-2012, 01:11 PM
Most certainly. Not sure what school Stansel is.