Time to pay up. 100K each to pay off the national debt

[ryoder]

Check out the national debt clock.
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

it is sickening and we need to take this seriously. The current budget deficit is over 1 trillion. How many more years can the US have a 1 trillion plus deficit? How much debt can we reasonably service and at what interest rate? Currently rates are basically 0%. What happens when rates normalize and reach 6%+?
Can the country survive? What will happen to medicare, medicaid, national defense, education etc?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[msantos]

wow that is crazy!!

[ryoder]

Obama and the Congress have added over 3 trillion in 3 years. Back in 1987 the US national debt was 3 trillion. That means that Obama's federal government added as much as 200 years of presidents added. Its sickening. Its not all his fault but it was on his watch. If Bill Clinton gets to take credit for having a nominal budget surplus, Obama gets credit for adding 3 trillion to the debt.

[MRHTOAD76]

No matter who was in office past couple years they were screwed. It would be like making me the captain of the titanic after we hit the iceberg. Kind of like whoever wins this next election isn't going to fix anything. It will take time.

Its very interesting when you actually start researching politics and seeing how little power the president actually happens. Prime example would be how hard Clinton had to fight to get his budgets passed. If you have netflix or Amazon prime you should watch the biography show on Clinton and definitely watch the movie corporations.

Its funny that some other countries have a shorter work week, make more per hour, with universal health care and have better quality or life expentancys than we have here. We focus too much on how good programs would be abused than the good they could actually do because it is ingrained into us that the american dream is picking yourself up by your boot-straps which is a logical fallacy.

Hell if they ONLY legalized marijuana the national debt would be gone. I'm not naive enough to think there is a quick fix and everyone has good ideas ,but the bottom line is nobody's 1 plan will work. Forget party lines and left or right we need to actually work together to get out of this and pull ahead.

[ryoder]

Sorry man. The role of government is not to fix things, but to get out of the way so the free market can flourish and provide opportunity for all.
I am against minimum wage laws and regulations forcing employers to give free healthcare to workers. I will never ever vote for any politician who wants to make the US more like Europe with socialized medicine, steep taxes, etc. So there really are differences between candidates.
I agree presidents are not all powerful, and that is a good thing. Clinton couldn't pursue a bloated liberal budget because Congress was full of Republicans who wanted to limit the growth of government. Bush had to deal with a Democrat Congress since 2006. Check out our national debt. It went on a serious upward swing since the Democrats took office.
The Democrats believe in government investment and the multiplier effect it has on the GDP. Republicans don't. To a Democrat, 1 trillion in government spending can create 5 trillion in GDP growth or so. Its all based on a flawed GDP multiplier concept and is designed to justify runaway spending.

[MRHTOAD76]

Issue #1
Who determines what the role of the government is? "Power to the people" How far should we go back? When was a good time we should try to emulate? I've mentioned I have no side ,but to say we should go back to slavery and other injustice isn't what I had in mind. There weren't corporations and big business around the time our country was founded so you can't say they wanted us to be at the mercy of these giant conglomerates. Should we go back to where the government was supplementing land sales oh no that would be socialist

There is no no free market or socialist there is only mixtures ,but I know you already know that. I'm all for smaller government ,but not if that means the companies will take over. I'm anti-bully big time no matter who it is. That is the problem with power... When there is a vacuum created someone will rise to grab the reigns. I'd like to say the people would do that ,but I think we both know that wouldn't happen.

Issue #2
I don't recall seeing anything about forcing employers to give "free" healthcare to workers. (I'm guessing your talking about the rider)
I don't know if your objection is paying for others care or because of the increased dollars to support it.

Issue # 3 See you went and chose a party I specifically mentioned earlier this isn't about one side vs another it is about them both sucking
I can say there isn't a lot I agree with the Tea-Party except that original part before they got all crazy about how both sides suck and are just placating us tricking us into thinking one side is good and one side is bad. It is kind of like religion no matter what you believe it doesn't change the fact that more people have died in the name of religion than any other cause ever.

This whole socialist fear is just that another fear that has been played out through history to get people afraid. Several president have been accused of this before and for the most part people are sheep willing to jump on one side of a bandwagon and defend their point of view in the face of facts. The world is flat, strawberries are poisonous because they are red, you name it we have picked a side and defended it blindly.
I'm saying there is no yin without yang. It isn't as simple as one word like Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction, or Socialist, Communist, Left, Right, Democrat, Republican. (I'll bet if we talked on the phone Ryoder other than our choice of cars to drive we would have alot in common. Not the face value stuff but when you strip away all the external stuff.)

Issue # (the rest lol) Let me start by saying you know I respect ya and I like you so don't take anything personal we are just discussing :hurray:


What I'm saying is the issue isn't that simple. Actually that is reganomics that think the more breaks they give to the rich it will trickle down.

We need to fix the economy first then worry about the deficit. The experiment to lower taxes for the rich didn't work.
Link to one of the popular graphs from people who aren't Pro-Obama (Don’t Blame Obama for Bush’s 2009 Deficit | Cato @ Liberty)
I'm sure you know there are tons of charts and stats can be selected to choose whichever view you support.

We import so much and are so overextended we couldn't support ourselves if we wanted too. Our economy isn't even in our own hands.

I like a lot of Ron Paul's ideas ,but not all of them. You can't pull the net out and say sink or swim. Case in point people mad at Obama for
bailing out the banks he really had no choice. So he should have let the banks fail and whichever bank was left standing would be the victorious
monopoly and we would all be ok? So end social security, dismantle the military,stop medicare too many damn people having kids anyway,

The reason the government got involved in the first place was because they had to. Stock market crashes, child labor, etc forced the government
to get involved so we should go back to that? We wouldn't have made it to 2000 without government involvement.I never got how people could be ok with a program that allowed them to be born ,but now want it gone. I don't have figures ,but I would go so far as to say half of us in this forum wouldn't be alive today if not for some type of aid/ government intervention.

War is very profitable, Drugs and healthcare is very profitable, Oil is very profitable. (If they are only passing on the extra costs to us how
are they all posting record-breaking profits) So we the people need to say forget each other lets do what is best for these businesses so they
can turn around and be good to us.... How many people agree with you to subsidize the companies but not people are even benefiting from that stance? So if your not profiting from war,drugs,healthcare, or oil why would you want these companies to thrive and your ok supporting them ,but not your fellow living breathing humans.

How many people here wouldn't even have been able to get their degree without grant money or student loans? (social program) Fire Dept, police,

military, public schools, community colleges (social programs)
home-mortgage interest deduction(social programs)
Heck we couldn't even be speaking in this medium if it wasn't for "government involvement"
Insurance companies already get tax breaks for providing their portion on health care.

Funny story if you read the first comment at this link. I can understand if you don't want to read the article ,but at least read the first comment (Half of US social program recipients believe they "have not used a government social program" - Boing Boing)


I don't have unwavering faith or trust in our government , but if you give me a choice of going to sleep next to a cannibal or a mentally
challenged person who may have violent tendencies I'll pick the latter every single time. There is no way I could ever have more faith in someone
who tried to tell us that smoking was beneficial and a myriad of other outlandish lies.

Once again keep in mind I have no side I'm not defending Dems or blasting Rep. ( I hate playing lesser of the two evils every election)
But the whole boot-strap idea of sink or swim is beyond silly. Heck if anything if we really want to go back to survival of the fittest(wild wild west) its not going to be the middle and upper class who survive lol.

If you boil it down to just the money with lobbyists and the power the corporations have now they get whatever they want ,they have the actual
power! So the road we keep heading down is controlled and chosen by the companies. To fix the problem yes we need to educate people ,but you always need people to consume and buy and make stupid choices so they don't want people to be educated or have the blinders removed.

So if its all about the money and you don't have enough to weather the storm why support and agree with those that do. The Illusion is that you
will make it to the inner circle , but that is just a lie. There is no cake , the cake is a lie!! My favorite movie is the Matrix I find it very
amusing most people don't even get the point of this movie or of the movie V. (Using fear to keep the people under control)

The guy who said I know this isn't really a steak ,but I don't care I want to be plugged back in to the matrix. Heck you can even go back to an old school movie called "They Live" its on netflix I'm sure. As a kid I loved this movie and when I got older and able to understand more about it, It became even better. Consume , Stay Asleep, Don't question. :roflol:

I digress if anyone is still awake....

***I've edited out the last part ,but I can e-mail/PM it if ya want Ryoder. (too much personal information to post lol ) ***

[ryoder]

Funny, I just watched They Live two days ago! Rowdy Roddy Piper man!

[MRHTOAD76]

Put on the darn glasses!! I ain't putting on the glasses

[gnpine]

Hell if they ONLY legalized marijuana the national debt would be gone.

wait what? how do you figure that?

[ryoder]

wait what? how do you figure that?

Well I wouldn't be worrying so much about it so thats a plus