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Obama to propose spending freeze

What slack? Canada doesn't go out and make enemies the way the US does. We don't have imperial ambitions like you do. Most of the time we leave people alone, and they leave us alone.

If any country poses a serious invasion threat to Canada, it's the US, and frankly there's no way our military could stop you from invading us if you really wanted to. You'd just have to fend off the insurgency later, and deal with the international consequences. :mrgreen:

:roll:

"Imperial ambitions." "Serious invasion threat."

I guess we know for sure how seriously to take you now.
 
:roll:

"Imperial ambitions." "Serious invasion threat."

I guess we know for sure how seriously to take you now.

Iraq wasn't an imperial ambition?

I didn't mean serious invasion threat like you're actually going to invade us. Geez, learn how to take things in context. :roll:
 
I agree, but I didn't see much better from the last admin. either really, Obama's really been following Bush's policies in a lot of areas.

Obama is going to run more debt in a year and half than Bush did in all eight, with no end in sight to it after that. Until the recession hit, the Bush deficits were diminishing per year and were on track to disappear.
 
Obama is going to run more debt in a year and half than Bush did in all eight, with no end in sight to it after that. Until the recession hit, the Bush deficits were diminishing per year and were on track to disappear.

Perhaps, but he made deficit spending A-OK by precedent with his needless, wasteful Iraq War.
 
Iraq wasn't an imperial ambition?

No.


I didn't mean serious invasion threat like you're actually going to invade us.

Oh, I get it. The part about "serious invasion threat" didn't mean serious invasion threat. How silly of me. :doh


Geez, learn how to take things in context. :roll:

The "context" of the post is about your view of an enemy-making, imperialist, belligerent power. Again, how silly of me.
 
The "context" of the post is about your view of an enemy-making, imperialist, belligerent power. Again, how silly of me.

No, I was making a point to NYC re: our military capacity. Read my post....or you know, think what you want, I don't really care anymore.
 
He plans on getting through his other policies (I believe cap and trade is next on the docket), cutting taxes, lowering the deficit and freezing spending? I'm sorry, but this seems to have as much substance as "Hope," and "Change."

Which is "Zero" and "none".

BTW, Obambam and spending freeze?? Wouldn't that be a contradiction of terms??
 
What slack? Canada doesn't go out and make enemies the way the US does. We don't have imperial ambitions like you do. Most of the time we leave people alone, and they leave us alone.

Canada is part of the UN and NATO, right?

What do you think would happen if the US cut its military contributions to those organizations by 50%?

The ISAF in Afghanistan has 85,000 NATO troops, 46,000 of which are from the US. If we cut that in half, that's 23,000 troops that need to be supplied by other NATO members. Note that I'm not even counting the US troops in Afghanistan, but if they weren't there, that would require more involvement by other nations as well.

The UN has 116,000 peacekeepers operating globally at an annual cost of $7.1b. 22% of that is funded by the US. If we cut that in half, that's an extra $1.6b that the rest of the globe has to come up with each year.
 
Perhaps, but he made deficit spending A-OK by precedent with his needless, wasteful Iraq War.

He ran a large* deficit for his first year, during a recession, and it fell every year after that until the next recession.









*"large" by standards of the day; miniscule now, a low level the current White House never expects to reach again.
 
No, I was making a point to NYC re: our military capacity. Read my post....or you know, think what you want, I don't really care anymore.

No, I read the post.
 
Canada is part of the UN and NATO, right?

What do you think would happen if the US cut its military contributions to those organizations by 50%?

Honestly we don't really need NATO anymore, it's a cold war alliance that is only really useful now for organizational purposes. At least from a Western perspective.

The ISAF in Afghanistan has 85,000 NATO troops, 46,000 of which are from the US. If we cut that in half, that's 23,000 troops that need to be supplied by other NATO members. Note that I'm not even counting the US troops in Afghanistan, but if they weren't there, that would require more involvement by other nations as well.

The UN has 116,000 peacekeepers operating globally at an annual cost of $7.1b. 22% of that is funded by the US. If we cut that in half, that's an extra $1.6b that the rest of the globe has to come up with each year.

Canada is pulling out of Afghanistan next year. The rest of the Western nations involved cannot stay there indefinitely either, eventually everyone will have to pull out, and it will be unlikely that Afghanistan will be "won."

In general terms, the US is doing all of these things out of self-interest; it's not out of a huge sense of duty to the rest of the world. All those peacekeepers are great, but if the US cut them, the world would just make do.
 
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All those peacekeepers are great, but if the US cut them, the world would just make do.

The US provides funding but no troops. The US has not provided UN peacekeeping troops since forever.
 
Well admittedly the funding is still significant.

Oh of course it is, never denied that. But funding of UN peacekeeping is voluntary btw, and the normal contribution to the UN is not and can not be used for this. Kinda ironic all the UN peacekeeping around the world is run on charity.. both financially and troop wise.
 
While I'm not denying that DoD could use some cuts, it's by no means a panacea.

Defense spending is 18.75% of the 2010 budget.

SS + Medicare + Medicaid + Welfare = 50.75% of the 2010 budget.

Cutting DoD while ignoring entitlement spending will do nothing to fix our situation in the long term.

I agree. And your numbers show the root cause of the problem. Let's take a deeper look.

Cutting Medicaid brings about a hissy fit from the over 65 crowd. They are the most vocal group in America. And they fund the AARP, the most powerful lobbyist organization in America. So how does a politician cut Medicaid? They don't if they want to keep their jobs.

Welfare. We spent about 4 years under Clinton and a GOP Congress cutting the welfare rolls (remember welfare to work?) and most people will tell you it's now harder to cut any more. Even the GOP couldn't make deeper cuts when they had control of both houses for 6 years.

Social Security. Completely untouchable and you know that. The AARP will rip the head off of any politician that goes near it. Even Bush and the GOP got slapped when they tried to privatize a tiny percentage of it.

DOD. Again almost untouchable for the GOP and the Dems. We have such a macho "John Wayne" mentality in America about our military that anyone who cuts defense spending is considered a wimp.

So where does that leave us? You don't want to cut DOD spending, but no one else wants to cut anything else either. And that's the root of the problem. Everyone has an excuse for not cutting spending. Yours is that cutting DOD spending won't amount to much.
 
Bone head idea by Obama.. you do not cut or freeze spending in Government when the economy is in the toilet. You do that during the GOOD times...
 
A Democrat proposing a spending freeze?

BULL****. :rofl

He's putting sanctions on himself. :rofl
 
Bone head idea by Obama.. you do not cut or freeze spending in Government when the economy is in the toilet. You do that during the GOOD times...


Oh, that is just great logic.....Here are the numbers as released by the AP.


WASHINGTON (AP) --

Figures on government spending and debt (last six digits are eliminated). The
government's fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
Total public debt subject to limit Jan. 22 12,245,872
Statutory debt limit 12,394,000
Total public debt outstanding Jan. 22 12,302,465
Operating balance Jan. 22 142,454
Interest fiscal year 2009 383,365
Interest fiscal year 2008 451,154
Deficit fiscal year 2009 1,417,121
Deficit fiscal year 2008 454,798
Receipts fiscal year 2009 2,104,613
Receipts fiscal year 2008 2,523,642
Outlays fiscal year 2009 3,521,734
Outlays fiscal year 2008 2,978,440
Gold assets in September 11,041


Figures on government spending and debt - Yahoo! Finance


Now I realize that other governments such as Britain would just love to see the US spend itself into oblivion, thereby increasing their own standing at the table of global governance. But a pesky little thing called freedom, and the people being ultimately the sole arbiter of who they elect to represent their voice in DC is looking at these absurd numbers, and statements like the one you said above, and using some common sense in saying that we can't afford this level of spending.

I only hope it isn't too late.


j-mac
 
It's too late for me, that's for damn sure.

Funny how he only considers cutting back his excessive spending when he doesn't get what he wants - is that a presidential hissyfit?

I wonder if he throws hissyfits - do you suppose he has a heart like Bush did and cries himself to sleep at night over these war issues? I doubt it, he's made too many light-humor jokes about the war to have a real heart. He, afterall, went to law school - I'm sure that's a legal intercission procedure to remove one from their soul.

If he had a brain, which he does - but if he did - he would have proposed and followed through with a severe spending cutback at the very beginning of his presidency.

People would have loved him for it.

But he decided to wipe his ass with his people's opinions.

If getting him out of office means I have to bid farewell to Roe V Wade then TOODLES - I'll adopt a few.
 
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Honestly we don't really need NATO anymore, it's a cold war alliance that is only really useful now for organizational purposes. At least from a Western perspective.

Canada is pulling out of Afghanistan next year. The rest of the Western nations involved cannot stay there indefinitely either, eventually everyone will have to pull out, and it will be unlikely that Afghanistan will be "won."

So who, exactly, would have dealt with Afghanistan? Imagine a world where the US renounced all military endeavors and cut all military spending. Do you think that all the problems in the world, ranging from Afghanistan to NK to Israel/Palestine to Sudan to Iran to FARC to Somalia to Pakistan to Rwanda, would just disappear? The rest of the world would have to step up its game and intervent to resolve those problems.

Furthermore, such a power vacuum would create an opportunity for other nations to fill, and I think I know which countries would be most likely to take advantage of such a situation - China and Russia.

The fact is that a world without the US military is not a world in which you or other Western powers would enjoy living.

In general terms, the US is doing all of these things out of self-interest; it's not out of a huge sense of duty to the rest of the world. All those peacekeepers are great, but if the US cut them, the world would just make do.

Everything does everything out of self-interest - that doesn't mean it doesn't help others. Warren Buffet pays his taxes because he doesn't want to go to jail - does his self-interest mean that the thousands of people getting government money because of him don't really benefit from it?


The US provides funding but no troops. The US has not provided UN peacekeeping troops since forever.

We don't provide troops because other countries are more eager to provide them. Countries get paid a set wage for providing peacekeepers, which creates a strong incentive for poorer countries to supply as many as they can. Furthermore, the UN likes to use troops from smaller countries so as to avoid the image of its peacekeepers as occupiers or colonizers.
 
Bone head idea by Obama.. you do not cut or freeze spending in Government when the economy is in the toilet. You do that during the GOOD times...

You do that in good times when money is available? I mean, I assume good times means tax revenues are good....so....you further cut or freeze spending then.....you spend when times are bad and when you have much less money coming in.

Yer a socialist, huh?
 
Bone head idea by Obama.. you do not cut or freeze spending in Government when the economy is in the toilet. You do that during the GOOD times...

There are far better ways to kickstart an economy than by government spending. However, I realize Liberal/Progressive thinkers will disagree.
 
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