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Enlightenend Society

How long will it take?

  • Total voters
    37
  • Poll closed .
Dooble said:
The US officially made a shift to the Left during this last election, as the majority of this Country voted for Barack Obama, for the second time. Liberals and Progressives are considered to be the "enlightened ones", so it stands to reason that America has officially stepped into the "Enlightened Age". In essence, we have become an (or the?) enlightened society, hence the name of this thread. It's now up to the shepherds of enlightenment to overcome what little opposition they have left, and guide this country to Utopia. The question is, how long will it take?
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We are NOT in any enlightened age as the conservatives still "run things" with their control of the House...
And, in a great many respects, our Mr Obama is a conservative !
Utopia is such a relative thing, compared to 1950, for many, we do have an utopia.
And, slowly but surely, I think we are approaching this state - but this chase will go on forever, in my opinion.
 
DVSentinel said:
I believe you are totally incorrect. Some of the laws that affected the economy and still affect it date back to FDR, however many of the rest go back to Kennedy and Johnson areas, with a few more thrown in during the Carter years and into the Clinton years. Even during the Nixon, Reagan, and G. H. Bush times, Dems controlled both house of congress.

DOD spending for 2012 was $707.5 Billion, the deficit for that year is $1.3 Trillion. So, even if we had not spent a penny on defense, the deficit would still have been 592.5 Billion. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Defense is not the sole, nor major problem. Not to mention that the DOD creates a lot of jobs and employs a lot of people. That is part of the problem, even those Congressmen/Senators who want to cut military spending only want to do so in someone else's district, not theirs because of the jobs and economic benefits DOD brings to an areas.

You are also leaving off the economic impact of Unions, OSHA, EPA, Fair Housing Act, Fair Credit acts, Free Trade agreements with countries who cannot economically contribute much if anything in our favor (One NAFTA, was Clinton's creation, South Korea was Obama's) and more that I probably don't know about or cannot think of off the top of my head.

You and others want to blame G.W. Bush, I won't deny that he probably had some to do with it. If you believe it was him, give us the facts of what he did to cause it. Where is your proof of what you say? It is easy to say things, but can you back them up? Come on, show us your facts and your logic chain. I for one am not going to just take your word for it.

P.S. one a personal note, you claim conservative as you lean, but I, for one, have noticed that a large number of your post espouse ideas/ideals in keeping with American Liberalism.
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Ruth Marcus: The shifting line on tax cuts - The Washington Post
Ruth Marcus: The shifting line on tax cuts - The Washington Post

That story will tell you why ol' GW initiated the tax cuts. He said the surplus was too big and we needed the cuts. Then he started two wars on the cheap, only a couple trillion dollars, on the credit card. Cranked up the Military Offense budget, bought mercenaries (Blackwater, etc.), new subs, new ships, too much of everything for the Corporate "Welfare Quieens," including Nuclear Energy and Fossil fuel Corporations, and including those Military 'wellie" projects. I'm a Conservative and I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

Commentary: A close-up look at corporate welfare | McClatchy (Corporate wellies)
 
DaveFagan said:
Ruth Marcus: The shifting line on tax cuts - The Washington Post
Ruth Marcus: The shifting line on tax cuts - The Washington Post

That story will tell you why ol' GW initiated the tax cuts. He said the surplus was too big and we needed the cuts. Then he started two wars on the cheap, only a couple trillion dollars, on the credit card. Cranked up the Military Offense budget, bought mercenaries (Blackwater, etc.), new subs, new ships, too much of everything for the Corporate "Welfare Quieens," including Nuclear Energy and Fossil fuel Corporations, and including those Military 'wellie" projects. I'm a Conservative and I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

Commentary: A close-up look at corporate welfare | McClatchy (Corporate wellies)
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Both your links are Opinion pieces, however the first does contain some facts. Now, how exactly did those facts cause economic problems? They did indeed cause budgetary problems, but what is you link between them and current economic problems?

The second article is based upon calling tax breaks corporate welfare. I understand that some feel this way, however, I do not equate tax breaks, even your article points out they were to attract business, to welfare which is a direct government handout from Tax Revenue. Obama's handing out money to green companies without expectation of return, that I would call a form of Corporate Welfare. However, setting up a tax system to attract business and jobs, is not "corporate welfare", it is investing in economic growth at worst.

Again, how do you link this to the economic downturn in the country instead of it only attributing to budgetary problems?

Ok, Blackwater and entities like them were created when W.J. Clinton slashed the military budgets and caused manning shortages, those jobs were converted to private contractors. New Subs, new ships? Were they all planned during G.W. Bushes Presidency. And were they actually new additions or replacement for old equipment?

An example of what I am talking about would be the fielding of the F-22 fighter. It has been in development since the 1980s and was supposed to replace air-superiority fighters, the F-15s, which entered service around 1972 and the airframes themselves are very old, especially in terms of high performance military aircraft.

This also created and maintained jobs. Did the corporations gain from it, sure, but so did people who were employed by it and spent money that employed others. How is this contributing to the economic downturn?

And he only started one war, the first was started when someone directly attacked the US. Again, while this caused some budgetary crises, how did it cause or contribute to the economic downturn?
 
"Clinton has some intriguing facts on his side. Aside from a rounding error, his historical numbers are accurate (figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the tally under Democrats since 1961 rounds to 41 million, not 42 million). I crunched the numbers a few different ways to see if Clinton was cherry-picking the best numbers. His figures measure job gains from the month a president took office until the month he left. Since it takes a year or so for any president's policies to go into effect, I also measured job gains from one year after each president took office till one year after he left. Here's the score by that measure: Democrats: 38 million new jobs, Republicans, 27 million."

Clinton was right: The economy really does perform better under Democrats - Economy Watch on NBCNews.com

the proof is in the numbers.
 
DVSentinel said:
Both your links are Opinion pieces, however the first does contain some facts. Now, how exactly did those facts cause economic problems? They did indeed cause budgetary problems, but what is you link between them and current economic problems?

The second article is based upon calling tax breaks corporate welfare. I understand that some feel this way, however, I do not equate tax breaks, even your article points out they were to attract business, to welfare which is a direct government handout from Tax Revenue. Obama's handing out money to green companies without expectation of return, that I would call a form of Corporate Welfare. However, setting up a tax system to attract business and jobs, is not "corporate welfare", it is investing in economic growth at worst.

Again, how do you link this to the economic downturn in the country instead of it only attributing to budgetary problems?

Ok, Blackwater and entities like them were created when W.J. Clinton slashed the military budgets and caused manning shortages, those jobs were converted to private contractors. New Subs, new ships? Were they all planned during G.W. Bushes Presidency. And were they actually new additions or replacement for old equipment?

An example of what I am talking about would be the fielding of the F-22 fighter. It has been in development since the 1980s and was supposed to replace air-superiority fighters, the F-15s, which entered service around 1972 and the airframes themselves are very old, especially in terms of high performance military aircraft.

This also created and maintained jobs. Did the corporations gain from it, sure, but so did people who were employed by it and spent money that employed others. How is this contributing to the economic downturn?

And he only started one war, the first was started when someone directly attacked the US. Again, while this caused some budgetary crises, how did it cause or contribute to the economic downturn?
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I won't give an inch on the Military Offense budget. You need wars to maintain those levels of Military and I think we have politically powerful groups who work hard to start those wars to the benefit of their Corporate paymasters. Sure, makes jobs that could be doing small wind generators, solar panels, solar thermal, biogas digesters, and type decentralized energy network that puts people to work locally all over the Nation. I will not swallow the turd that Military makes good jobs. Bull****, and it's definitely Military Offense, not Defense. We were not attacked by Afghanistan. It was a terrorist named Osama bin Ladin and he's dead. We were not attacked by Saddam, not even threatened. As regards OBL, he was a creature of our own CIA. Backflash, eh? Nuclear Energy is Corporate welfare. Fossil Fuel energy is Corporate welfare. The Military/Industrial/Corporate complex is welfare. Corporate farms are welfare. Investment funds move paper, don't make jobs. The wealthier are wealthier than anytime in our history, ergo if wealth made jobs, we'd be swimming in them as we speak. Corporate prisons need laws that keep prisons full, ergo goofy but profitable drug laws. Torture, rendition, invasion, coercion, CIA NGOs making revolution, and we're just in the tip of the iceberg. An economy that runs on war is an embarrassment to its people, a black mark on it as a Nation, and an abomination to any religion.
 
iacardsfan said:
"Clinton has some intriguing facts on his side. Aside from a rounding error, his historical numbers are accurate (figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the tally under Democrats since 1961 rounds to 41 million, not 42 million). I crunched the numbers a few different ways to see if Clinton was cherry-picking the best numbers. His figures measure job gains from the month a president took office until the month he left. Since it takes a year or so for any president's policies to go into effect, I also measured job gains from one year after each president took office till one year after he left. Here's the score by that measure: Democrats: 38 million new jobs, Republicans, 27 million."

Clinton was right: The economy really does perform better under Democrats - Economy Watch on NBCNews.com

the proof is in the numbers.
Click to expand...

Did you also adjust for when each party had full control of Congress and when there was split control of Congress?
 
DaveFagan said:
I won't give an inch on the Military Offense budget. You need wars to maintain those levels of Military and I think we have politically powerful groups who work hard to start those wars to the benefit of their Corporate paymasters. Sure, makes jobs that could be doing small wind generators, solar panels, solar thermal, biogas digesters, and type decentralized energy network that puts people to work locally all over the Nation. I will not swallow the turd that Military makes good jobs. Bull****, and it's definitely Military Offense, not Defense. We were not attacked by Afghanistan. It was a terrorist named Osama bin Ladin and he's dead. We were not attacked by Saddam, not even threatened. As regards OBL, he was a creature of our own CIA. Backflash, eh? Nuclear Energy is Corporate welfare. Fossil Fuel energy is Corporate welfare. The Military/Industrial/Corporate complex is welfare. Corporate farms are welfare. Investment funds move paper, don't make jobs. The wealthier are wealthier than anytime in our history, ergo if wealth made jobs, we'd be swimming in them as we speak. Corporate prisons need laws that keep prisons full, ergo goofy but profitable drug laws. Torture, rendition, invasion, coercion, CIA NGOs making revolution, and we're just in the tip of the iceberg. An economy that runs on war is an embarrassment to its people, a black mark on it as a Nation, and an abomination to any religion.
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So in other words, you cannot or won't answer the questions posed and defend your stance, only make more unsupported statements of you opinion. I was trying to find out how you came by that opinion. I cannot offer arguments about your opinion until I know what they are based upon.

No one is arguing that your opinion is just that, your opinion. However, the accuracy of your opinion and why we should give it any consideration is based upon what you used to form that opinion. That is what I am asking for and wish to debate.
 
Catawba said:
Its not just the Democrats, I just told you the Democrats were the only ones that voted against spending over $600 billion next year on the military. A majority of Democrats also voted against the needless Iraq war that cost taxpayers $2 trillion dollars. Name me the last Republican administration that came close to balancing the budget?
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Sorry, I couldn't let this gem of political spin go unnoticed...

Iraq Resolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As an averaged percentage of each house of Congress, a mild majority of Democrats voted for the war.
 
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Catawba said:
Its not just the Democrats, I just told you the Democrats were the only ones that voted against spending over $600 billion next year on the military. A majority of Democrats also voted against the needless Iraq war that cost taxpayers $2 trillion dollars. Name me the last Republican administration that came close to balancing the budget?
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Since Mr Fagan, at lest so far, has not responded, and you bring up basically the same point, lets see if you can answer the questions.

What does this have to do with the economy, either the downturn or it's recovery?
 
Black_Zawisza said:
Sorry, I couldn't let this gem of political spin go unnoticed...

Iraq Resolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As an averaged percentage of each house of Congress, a mild majority of Democrats voted for the war.
Click to expand...
To be fair, many of them were indeed against the war, but voted in favor of it for the troops' sake and/or political reasons.

If they voted to support the troops I can accept that as a non-hypocritical nod to practical reality.
 
RDS said:
Econimies around the world is subject to boom-bust cycles. When you thrive on wars the rocovery could take abt a decade. However, the recovery is imminent.
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So George is off the hook, right?
 
DVSentinel said:
Since Mr Fagan, at lest so far, has not responded, and you bring up basically the same point, lets see if you can answer the questions.

What does this have to do with the economy, either the downturn or it's recovery?
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The $2 trillion in unneeded tax cuts and the $2 trillion wasted on wars could have been used to support the US Economy internally. It ain't rocket science. The Opportunity Cost of monies. In this case missed opportunities.
 
DaveFagan said:
The $2 trillion in unneeded tax cuts and the $2 trillion wasted on wars could have been used to support the US Economy internally. It ain't rocket science. The Opportunity Cost of monies. In this case missed opportunities.
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Maybe not, but I don't know how you think we could of and It ain't rocket science but it is sure sounds a lot like socialism. Also, you are talking about a lot of money spent prior to the Economic downturn. Since the wars were mostly before the downturn, I don't see that they have jack to do with recovery and frankly what they have to do with the downturn.

I also don't see the Tax cuts having anything to do with the downturn or recovery. They limited what the government had to spend, but they managed to overspend instead. Taxes necessary to pay for all that spending/debt will have an impact on the economy, but until that is passed, Debt does not directly affect economic performances other than tax rates.

As to $2 Trillion wasted on wars, that is absolutely debatable and definitely not concrete. Plus, we could of easily paid for that by cutting Welfare, HUD, EPA, Medicaid, BATF and many other areas. But that is a different subject for a different thread, since as I said, that was almost all before the downturn and has nothing to do with recovery.
 
Dooble said:
Which part of the boom-bust cycle are we in now?
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Couldn't tell you. Maybe we are in a slow recovery, maybe we are about to have prolonged recession/depression. What I do know is that we have these recessions about every 18 years. Its been happening for about 200 years now. Until we recognize it as unnatural and until we strike the root of the problem it is going to continue.
 
Cephus said:
Their claims are inaccurate. Forbes has better numbers.
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The CBO is the most authoritative non-partisan organization. And you didn't answer my question, name the last Republican administration that came close to balancing the budget?
 
DVSentinel said:
We need to maintain our military. Actually we need to greatly improve the average equipment available, it is getting quite old.

You seem to wish to blame defense for budgeting shortfalls, but all defense spending only comes to about half of average deficits that Obama has been running up. Even if we dropped every penny from the defense budget, our deficit would still exceed, by almost double or mored, the highest deficit under Bush, which occurred when the Dems had control of Congress.

Can the military be cut some? Sure. But what do we cut? Since it obviously is not the total of our overspending, what else do we cut? What programs have the Dems offered up? Have they offered up spending from other programs to be cut, or only attack Defense and other budgets that the Reps are trying to protect? Compromise cannot come from only one side. Cuts to defense have to be looked at very carefully and not done hodge-podge.

If the Republicans were to offer up say, $200 billion from defense, would the Dems offer up $200 billion from their chosen pet areas? I guess it is possible, but I haven't seen much evidence of them doing so.
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The Constitution only says defense, it says nothing about wars of choice or spending as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. I have no problem cutting waste wherever it is in the government.

What waste besides the excessive military do you see needs to be made. Despite the GOP complaining about spending, they continue to spend as much as the rest of the world combined on the military and have not offered any specific cuts they want made.
 
Black_Zawisza said:
Sorry, I couldn't let this gem of political spin go unnoticed...

Iraq Resolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As an averaged percentage of each house of Congress, a mild majority of Democrats voted for the war.
Click to expand...


You didn't read what I said. Please try again!

"A majority of Democrats also voted against the needless Iraq war that cost taxpayers $2 trillion dollars."


61% of Democrats in Congress voted against the Iraq war compared to almost 100% of Republicans.


In what world is 61% not a majority?
 
Catawba said:
The CBO is the most authoritative non-partisan organization. And you didn't answer my question, name the last Republican administration that came close to balancing the budget?
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Entirely irrelevant, the Republicans ability to do it, and frankly, the Republicans are just religious-wingnut liberals at this point, has nothing to do with the spending of the Obama administration and you know it.
 
Cephus said:
Entirely irrelevant, the Republicans ability to do it, and frankly, the Republicans are just religious-wingnut liberals at this point, has nothing to do with the spending of the Obama administration and you know it.
Click to expand...

The president proposed cutting military spending by $500 billion over ten years and medicare costs by $700 million over ten years. No one else as put specific spending cut proposals on paper.
 
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