• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

"Congress....you're FIRED!!!!"

TacticalEvilDan said:
However you split the baby, what it means is that if you have more money your support counts for more than just your vote.
Click to expand...

That could be said for alot of things.

What if I'm a prominent citizen and I endorse a candidate? No money spent, just my opinion expressed. Is that unfair? I'm worth more than just my vote after all.
 
MrVicchio said:
No, we're over spending.

You don't help an economy by taking MORE from the productive sector (that'd be private hands) and suck it into the wastedump of Government.
Click to expand...

Sure you can.

The "productive" sector isn't producing much right now, is it? It's afraid to take risks, for good reason. The government can take risks. It can spend instead of hording cash, and that can cause economic growth. For instance, it can spend it on things like roads and schools, which creates construction jobs, which in turn causes new spending by the workers, which in turn brings more growth.
 
Average pay for house and senate is 170K a year.



Why would ANYONE ever vote to give THAT job up? You work, what....80 days out of the year, and by work, I mean, sit around not accomplishing anything. You get a company house, a company car, free travel expenses, AND you get to accept bribes and kickbacks...and if you do business well, if you ever DO get kicked oout of office, there is going to be a pretty cushy job for you at some huge company you helped out in the past.
 
Cephus said:
That doesn't answer the question. Why should I trust taxpayers to know what the nation needs?
Click to expand...

Please explain to me why you believe that 535 congresspeople can know the public goods needs of our nation better than 150 million taxpayers could. In other words...please refute Hayek's well accepted concept of partial knowledge. By refuting that you'll also be refuting Buddha's idea that we are all just blind men touching different parts of an elephant.
 
Tastes Great! Less Filling!

Tastes Great! Less Filling!

Tastes Great! Less Filling!

Tastes Great! Less Filling!

Tastes Great! Less Filling! :duel
 
MrVicchio said:
No, we're spending more money then we have because... WE'RE OVER SPENDING! Damn, imagine that.
Click to expand...

hypothetical scenario:

in year 1, we have $500,000 in tax revenue and spend $500,000. which means no deficit & no surplus. then, in year 2 we cut taxes, thereby cutting revenue, by 10%....but we keep spending at the same level. Now, in year 3, we have $450,000 in revenue but $500,000 in spending..which means a deficit of $50,000.

in the above situation, do we now have a deficit because we spend too much..or because we collect too little in revenue?
 
Last edited:
Thunder said:
hypothetical scenario:

in year 1, we have $500,000 in tax revenue and spend $500,000. which means no deficit & no surplus. then, in year 2 we cut taxes, thereby cutting revenue, by 10%....but we keep spending at the same level. Now, in year 3, we have $450,000 in revenue but $500,000 in spending..which means a deficit of $50,000.

in the above situation, do we now have a deficit because we spend too much..or because we collect too little in revenue?
Click to expand...

This is an open ended question. It can be answered either way. Yes you can have a deficit becuase you spend to much, Yes you can have a deficit becuase your revenue does not match your planned spending.

What you have not considered in your example is, what if reducing taxes resulted in more people paying taxes (because of more jobs) at the lower rate, resulting in increased total revenue.

Its like do you want to sell one model x car a week at a price of 20K for a profit of 2K , or sell three model x car a week at a price of 17K at 1K profit each? At the end of the week by selling at a lower price you made 1K more.
 
A better analogy would be a family with and income of 100k and being 1M in debt decides it's time to fix things. Mom says Dad should take on a third job and she'll only get her nails done once a week on credit.
 
MrVicchio said:
A better analogy would be a family with and income of 100k and being 1M in debt decides it's time to fix things. Mom says Dad should take on a third job and she'll only get her nails done once a week on credit.
Click to expand...

Here's another great one. It's the early 2000's and life is good. The family had almost completely ended deficit spending, and so, feeling nice and comfortable, decided to take a pay cut for no apparent reason.
 
if the percentage increases in yearly Federal spending stays constant, but our increase in Federal revenue is reduced, that means we have a revenue problem...and not a spending problem.
 
Thunder said:
if the percentage increases in yearly Federal spending stays constant, but our increase in Federal revenue is reduced, that means we have a revenue problem...and not a spending problem.
Click to expand...
Two questions...

1) What percentage of constant increase is reasonable?

2) Why is a constant increase deemed acceptable to begin with?
 
MrVicchio said:
We're over spending. Not underspending.
Click to expand...

Can you prove that?

Why the hell, in a weak economy, would you RAISE taxes?
Click to expand...

Because we didn't bother to raise taxes during the strong economy.

Sooner or later we have to raise as much money as we spend. We should have been doing that during the last decade, but since we didn't, we need to do it now.
 
radcen said:
Two questions...

1) What percentage of constant increase is reasonable?

2) Why is a constant increase deemed acceptable to begin with?
Click to expand...

because our country and economy keeps growing, and prices keep increasing.

$100 in 2004 is not the same as $100 in 2005.
 
MrVicchio said:
No, we're over spending.

You don't help an economy by taking MORE from the productive sector (that'd be private hands) and suck it into the wastedump of Government.
Click to expand...

You do when there are billions of dollars sitting on the sidelines of the wealthy, and we are trillions in debt.
 
Samhain said:
Sure, suck more money from taxpayers, so the government can turn around and send it back into the economy by spending it. Makes total sense.
Click to expand...

Yes, it does, when the private sector isn't utilizing the money and when we have a huge budget deficit, and when taxes are among the lowest they have been during the past 100 years. Under other circumstances, it might not be so smart.
 
I am more than willing to cut the baby in half. Take the current yearly deficit - cut it in half and increase taxes to make up 50% of it and cut spending to make up the other 50% of it. And to avoid the messy details of whose oxe gets gored - it will be ALL OXES. We cut all spending by the same percentage across the board and raise all federal taxes by the same percentage across the board to get those figures.
 
KevinKohler said:
Average pay for house and senate is 170K a year.



Why would ANYONE ever vote to give THAT job up? You work, what....80 days out of the year, and by work, I mean, sit around not accomplishing anything. You get a company house, a company car, free travel expenses, AND you get to accept bribes and kickbacks...and if you do business well, if you ever DO get kicked oout of office, there is going to be a pretty cushy job for you at some huge company you helped out in the past.
Click to expand...

The part I bolded is exactly why I wonder why anyone wants to stay in office. The average corporate CEO job pays MANY times the wage of the congressman.

Ya know, conservatives tend to justify wages of top private executives by claiming that we have to pay them so much because they are so "valuable" and "rare" and "talented". Maybe thats the problem in congress. We arn't payint them competitive salaries, so we get the bottom of the barrel instead of the cream of the crop.
 
Thunder said:
radcen said:
Two questions...

1) What percentage of constant increase is reasonable?

2) Why is a constant increase deemed acceptable to begin with?
Click to expand...
because our country and economy keeps growing, and prices keep increasing.

$100 in 2004 is not the same as $100 in 2005.
Click to expand...
You seem to have a penchant for ignoring the inconvenient questions. In this case, you ignored question #1.

Even the answer you did provide is incomplete. Did the growth of spending match what the government said was the inflation rate? Or, did it increase by more? Not sure what you mean by the country growing, but if the economy was growing that would render points about revenue not growing moot.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
Oh, they don't forget who they're working for -- the people who have the wherewithal to bribe them. Let's hear it for money equaling speech!
Click to expand...
Sure...and while that comment applies very well to the bankers/brokers/unions and other corporations in bed with politicians, we cant forget the mutual backscratching that goes on with the appeal to the low income voting blocks, the senior citizens, etc. The whole system is corrupt and absolutely NOT sustainable.
 
mike2810 said:
This is an open ended question. It can be answered either way. Yes you can have a deficit becuase you spend to much, Yes you can have a deficit becuase your revenue does not match your planned spending.
Click to expand...

Thats the point. You can't prove if we are over spending or under taxing. Now with that in mind, you have to admit, that for the amount of spending we are doing, we do not have enough revenue. Thus, in the absence of our gov forming a policy of reducing spending, we need to increase taxation.

What you have not considered in your example is, what if reducing taxes resulted in more people paying taxes (because of more jobs) at the lower rate, resulting in increased total revenue. ...
Click to expand...

Well what if it did? You can theorize what you want to, but according to conservative economics, that can only happen if we are on the right hand side of the Laffer curve. I have been challenging people for months to provide the name of one single economist who has publicly stated that we are on the right hand side of the curve. So far, no one has has met my challenge. Honestly, no educated economist believes that we are on the right hand side of the curve.

Is that what happened when Reagan cut taxes? I'll give you a hint...NO. When Reagan cut taxes it took years before the adjusted for inflation revenue matched what it was before taxes. Also, our economy was ALREADY growing when Reagan cut taxes, and most economist feel that that the deficit spending that was going on at the time contributed to the economic growth. Yes, even though Reagan cut taxes, by the end of his second term we had a larger deficit that we started out with.

There's a reason why some people call trickle down economics "voodoo economics".
 
imagep said:
Thats the point. You can't prove if we are over spending or under taxing....
Click to expand...

again, I would suggest that if our rate of increase of spending has remained constant, but our rate of increase of revenue has NOT followed suit, then we have a revenue issue.

however, if our rate of increase of spending has increased and our rate of increase of revenue has stayed constant, then we might have a spending problem.
 
Cephus said:
The problem is, pretty much anyone else who is running for office is no better than the idiots you're throwing out.
Click to expand...

Not everyone. That is the point. If the incumbent keeps getting elected time after time by a very uninformed public we are definitely no better off. Getting him out of there at least gives us a fighting chance.
 
Thunder said:
Debt panel poised to admit failure - Yahoo! News

these selfish idiots and ideologues couldn't agree, after 2 damn months of negotiations, on a measily $1.2 trillion in savings over 10 years.

Hell, Obama & Boehner almost agreed on $3.8 trillion in savings.

If there was ever a time I felt that Congress was broken, its now. Maybe its time to enact term-limits for Congress.
Click to expand...

What do you expect from a parlay of government officials that are mostly lawyers? The problem with government is precisly in what kind of person chooses to become a politician. The problem with voters is in allowing the same type of people to continue to asipre to politics. Lawyers are bad, yet we keep putting them in charge of us year after year.. :)

Congress is exactly what we deserve. I, as a true conservative, would put my ideology aside for at least one election cycle if I could be guaranteed that everyone else would, and I would support throwing out every single encumbent, republicn, democrat, independant, all of them. That is the ONLY way to speak as the people.


Tim-
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom