• 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!

Obama ‘Agnostic’ on Deficit Cuts, Won’t Prejudge Tax Increases

or because the majority of our spending is considered non-discretionary mandatory spending.
 
That's not true.

The problem is not with voters:
govt%2Bwaste.PNG


Uhh I'm really confused as to what this graph is showing. Is this a poll? As in, they asked some people how much they THINK the government wastes and took the average? The average person has absolutely no idea.

Dav said:
It is with politicians:

Adults Are Responsible

If you look at the fact that we have never reduced the size of the federal government a single year since 1965 (although next year will probably be the first time due to the high short-term expenditures this year), it makes it clear that the American people just aren't electing politicians who want to do that. The tax rates go up and down, but spending almost never goes down.

Rather than blaming the politicians, why not look at WHY they don't reduce spending and WHY the American people keep electing them. I think the only logical conclusion is that the American people simply don't care as much about small government as they claim to. They want smaller government in the abstract, but ask them if they favor cutting social security, medicare, defense spending, DoE spending, or just about anything else, and they'll say no.
 
Last edited:
Uhh I'm really confused as to what this graph is showing. Is this a poll? As in, they asked some people how much they THINK the government wastes and took the average? The average person has absolutely no idea.

It is a poll of how many cents people think the government wastes for every dollar it spends. Whether or not they "have a clue" doesn't change the fact that most people think the government is wasting a whole lot of money that it spends, which contradicts your claim.


If you look at the fact that we have never reduced the size of the federal government a single year since 1965 (although next year will probably be the first time due to the high short-term expenditures this year), it makes it clear that the American people just aren't electing politicians who want to do that. The tax rates go up and down, but spending almost never goes down.

Rather than blaming the politicians, why not look at WHY they don't reduce spending and WHY the American people keep electing them. I think the only logical conclusion is that the American people simply don't care as much about small government as they claim to. They want smaller government in the abstract, but ask them if they favor cutting social security, medicare, defense spending, DoE spending, or just about anything else, and they'll say no.

Re-read the quote carefully, because you do not address the point it makes at all.

EDIT: What evidence do you have that the size of the government hasn't been reduced a single year since 1965? How is that measured?
 
Last edited:
And this is exactly why we have a perpetual deficit. Because people freak out ZOMG TAX INCREASE over any suggestion that we cut the deficit. And other people shriek ZOMG ENTITLEMENT CUTS over the same.

If we're ever going to balance the budget, we're going to need to rein in entitlement spending and increase taxes.
How about eliminating entitlements altogether???
 
It is a poll of how many cents people think the government wastes for every dollar it spends. Whether or not they "have a clue" doesn't change the fact that most people think the government is wasting a whole lot of money that it spends, which contradicts your claim.

Well according to this chart, people perceived that the government was wasting about 45 cents per dollar, all the way back in 1985. Yet that didn't stop them from electing a couple new generations of politicians who increased spending even more.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. A poll that asks people what they think about an issue is not necessarily an effective way to measure public support, for many reasons. One, it doesn't measure how much people actually CARE about the issue in question. And two, it is affected by wording. As I said, the American people may think government is wasteful...but ask them to cut any specific program and they'll balk. Thus we had an unbelievably cynical sideshow of Republican senators rushing to the defense of the proletariat in light of Democratic attempts to rein in Medicare costs. (Not that the Democrats wouldn't have done the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot.)

Dav said:
Re-read the quote carefully, because you do not address the point it makes at all.

EDIT: What evidence do you have that the size of the government hasn't been reduced a single year since 1965? How is that measured?

Federal budget outlays.
 
Last edited:
Well according to this chart, people perceived that the government was wasting about 45 cents per dollar, all the way back in 1985. Yet that didn't stop them from electing a couple new generations of politicians who increased spending even more.

Despite promising not to, no doubt.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. A poll that asks people what they think about an issue is not necessarily an effective way to measure public support, for many reasons. One, it doesn't measure how much people actually CARE about the issue in question. And two, it is affected by wording. As I said, the American people may think government is wasteful...but ask them to cut any specific program and they'll balk. Thus we had an unbelievably cynical sideshow of Republican senators rushing to the defense of the proletariat in light of Democratic attempts to rein in Medicare costs. (Not that the Democrats wouldn't have done the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot.)

I do think it would be interesting to poll how many people think cuts should be made for each government program/spending project.

Federal budget outlays.

Hm.

US_Govt_Ttl_Budget_over_time2-823x566.jpg


Looks like it went down very, very slightly in 1969, 1987, and 1993, but for the most part I guess you're right. Scary graph.

EDIT: Wait, what about as a percent of GDP?

US_Govt_Ttl_Budget_as_percent_of_GDP_over_time2-824x567.jpg


As I suspected, it went down during the 90's (and somewhat during the 80's). Not as bad as the former graph implies.
 
Last edited:
Despite promising not to, no doubt.

I have a tough time believing that the American people have been duped into electing big-spending politicians decade after decade, and that they couldn't elect small government types if they actually wanted to. The more likely conclusion is that they simply DON'T want to.

For example, Republicans are supposedly the party of small government. Yet why don't their representatives regularly campaign on spending cuts, and then actually try to cut spending? I think it's because they are well aware that the issue is a political loser.

Dav said:
I do think it would be interesting to poll how many people think cuts should be made for each government program/spending project.

I'm guessing you'd find overwhelming support for social security, medicare, medicaid, education, defense, unemployment insurance, and just about any other major expenditure. And people would bristle at any attempt to cut them back. That's not to say that we shouldn't reform them to get the costs under control (in fact, it's absolutely imperative that we do so for Medicare/Medicaid), but there is going to be a lot of pushback against spending cuts...much moreso than there is for tax increases.

Dav said:
US_Govt_Ttl_Budget_as_percent_of_GDP_over_time2-824x567.jpg


As I suspected, it went down during the 90's (and somewhat during the 80's). Not as bad as the former graph implies.

Fair enough, but it's been fairly consistent in that 18-24% range for the last forty years or so. If that's where the political equilibrium lies, it's much more plausible to increase taxes to that level than to try to change the government spending preferences of the American people.
 
Last edited:
Campaign promises are irrelevant. You can't make the American people happy anyway. You might as well just do what seems to be effective.

Problem is nothing Obama has done has had a positive affect on jobs or the economy.
 
bush 41 said read my lips

he broke his word

he got voted out

by republicans

but 41's ancient history

fix this economy, obama, NOW

or suffer the consequences
 
I have a tough time believing that the American people have been duped into electing big-spending politicians decade after decade, and that they couldn't elect small government types if they actually wanted to. The more likely conclusion is that they simply DON'T want to.

For example, Republicans are supposedly the party of small government. Yet why don't their representatives regularly campaign on spending cuts, and then actually try to cut spending? I think it's because they are well aware that the issue is a political loser.



I'm guessing you'd find overwhelming support for social security, medicare, medicaid, education, defense, unemployment insurance, and just about any other major expenditure. And people would bristle at any attempt to cut them back. That's not to say that we shouldn't reform them to get the costs under control (in fact, it's absolutely imperative that we do so for Medicare/Medicaid), but there is going to be a lot of pushback against spending cuts...much moreso than there is for tax increases.



Fair enough, but it's been fairly consistent in that 18-24% range for the last forty years or so. If that's where the political equilibrium lies, it's much more plausible to increase taxes to that level than to try to change the government spending preferences of the American people.

Unfortunately it's all speculative, but your idea of what political sentiments right now are are pretty much opposite to mine. Spending cuts, even if they are unpopular, are always more popular than tax increases. And Republicans do campaign on spending cuts often, and some (not all) actually try to get it done. Sometimes it actually works, too.

And as I already said, we can't really raise tax revenues to cover more than 1/8th of the deficit no matter how hard we try, so to fix the problem, tax increases would have to be supplemental rather than the central issue.


EDIT: The idea isn't entirely that the people have been "duped" into electing "big-government politicians", it could also be that politicians who really and sincerely want to cut spending are elected, and then have no idea how to go about it once they're actually in office. As has been mentioned, incentives are very screwed up when you're spending other people's money.
 
Last edited:
We will not see a drastic reduction to the budget until unemployment begins to point to a recovery. Sorry to break your hearts, but this is econ 101 stuff boys.
 
Spending cuts, even if they are unpopular, are always more popular than tax increases.

Depends on what type.

And as I already said, we can't really raise tax revenues to cover more than 1/8th of the deficit no matter how hard we try, so to fix the problem, tax increases would have to be supplemental rather than the central issue.

I would love for you to explain the two lines on the bottom of your graph.

If ever there was a time to increase deficits, this would be it.
 
We will not see a drastic reduction to the budget until unemployment begins to point to a recovery. Sorry to break your hearts, but this is econ 101 stuff boys.

Only if your econ 101 professor is a Keynesian.

I would love for you to explain the two lines on the bottom of your graph.

If ever there was a time to increase deficits, this would be it.

?

This thread is about reducing the deficit, and that's what I was talking about. Anyways, which graph?
 
Last edited:
We will not see a drastic reduction to the budget until unemployment begins to point to a recovery. Sorry to break your hearts, but this is econ 101 stuff boys.

No it's not. It's just the economic dogma you've bought into.
 
or because the majority of our spending is considered non-discretionary mandatory spending.
All that means is that a bad program must be funded.
 
It is a poll of how many cents people think the government wastes for every dollar it spends. Whether or not they "have a clue" doesn't change the fact that most people think the government is wasting a whole lot of money that it spends, which contradicts your claim.
In other words it's completely meaningless. People believe in UFOs, deities, gnomes, trickle down economics... and other fairy tales.
 
I have a tough time believing that the American people have been duped into electing big-spending politicians decade after decade, and that they couldn't elect small government types if they actually wanted to. The more likely conclusion is that they simply DON'T want to.
Most people don't understand that they are, generally, presented the candidates to vote on. The political party selects the primary contenders. How do they get to be selected? Generally they have shown that they can fund raise and campaign, who do they get most of their funding from? Corporations and PACs.

Only recently, and I say this with much chagrin, some localized Tea Party movement has presented real grass roots candidates in at least one recent election so I give them props for that effort.

For example, Republicans are supposedly the party of small government. Yet why don't their representatives regularly campaign on spending cuts, and then actually try to cut spending? I think it's because they are well aware that the issue is a political loser.
Becasue they are also the part of big corporate interests and they need a large government to hide all of the corporate welfare that doesn't go directly through legislation.


I'm guessing you'd find overwhelming support for social security, medicare, medicaid, education, defense, unemployment insurance, and just about any other major expenditure. And people would bristle at any attempt to cut them back. That's not to say that we shouldn't reform them to get the costs under control (in fact, it's absolutely imperative that we do so for Medicare/Medicaid), but there is going to be a lot of pushback against spending cuts...much moreso than there is for tax increases.
Mostly because the cutbacks will simply be cuts instead of reform.
 
Problem is nothing Obama has done has had a positive affect on jobs or the economy.
That's not what the majority of people who study economics for a living say. But you're probably right because you heard it on Fox E-news. :roll:
 
bush 41 said read my lips

he broke his word

he got voted out

by republicans

but 41's ancient history

fix this economy, obama, NOW

or suffer the consequences

Yeah, are you listening Mr President? You better fix the ****ing hellacious mess the republicans left behind or else you're going to get blamed. Get to work.
 
Generally I would expect "conservatives" not want the president to "fix the economy" but stay out of it entirely
 
Yeah, are you listening Mr President? You better fix the ****ing hellacious mess the republicans left behind or else you're going to get blamed. Get to work.

absolutely correct

another day has gone by

and still---NO RECOVERY!

he's already been blamed

especially in massachusetts

he really needs to hurry, don't you think?

i know he does
 
That's not what the majority of people who study economics for a living say. But you're probably right because you heard it on Fox E-news. :roll:

You mean the ones paid by the feds to say that. Just like the IPCC and their lies have been revealed.
 
Back
Top Bottom