Aaaaaahmen!

f you both and your politics.

The layoffs are at Edgewater MA. not Norwood

Bush was the worst president ever, started wars based on lies, bankrupted the entire banking industry all by himself and his stupid greedy policies, and forced unqualified homebuyers into terrible loans which caused the housing bubble. He wasted money on stupid education programs and guaranteed Medical going bankrupt w/ extra prescription benefits. He ignored Katrina victims until he could no longer deny federal help. He ballooned the debt after Clinton handed him a surplus, which forced Obama to spend trillions to clean up his mess. He set up the Patriot act which allowed Obama to look like a spy on the American people. He clearly underfunded TARP so Obama would get the blame for greater funding. He cut taxes so much that Obama was forced to spend and get us further into debt. He clearly is staying out of the spotlight in order to deflect attention to him for all the blame he rightfully deserves. Obama will still be cleaning up his mess till the last year of his second term and the next president will continue to clean it up. We will be paying for Bush's presidency forever due to the hug debt he was totally responsible for. So stop with the Obama is dumb crap.

We have no clue what you mean by "with in minutes of each other"

Looks like someone ran out of cheetos again. Gotten a little smarter on the timing though. It's really kind of obvious when half page long "dialog" entries are posted within a few minutes of each other.

"Both sides contributed to the housing crisis: Democrats because it made housing more available to lower income people (who, in the long run, couldn't afford it) and Republicans (who liked the banks and other wealthy people making more money)."

This is actually correct in a very basic way; the government in the 1980's forced S&L and banks to fund subprimes AGAINST their wishes or the institutions were punished. The trouble is, the government messing around with thoroughly sustainable and logical lending practices, disrupted the basic foundations of the RE market in the US. By forcing the funding of far too many unqualified borrowers thru subprime loans, it created a huge liability problem for the lending institutions; they were holding far too much liability that they could not sell fast enough to the secondary market. You see, when things are too risky for banking types, they find ways to limit their exposure. That is what smart financial minds do, they limit exposure to risk. So they packaged these subprimes and created mortgage backed ETF bundles and sold them as "low risk" investments to investors, who assumed that any ETF backed up by USA RE was a good risk. So now all of a sudden loans were a gold mine for lenders and huge profits were to be made by funding as fast as you could and dumping the risk via ETF's. You see, NONE of this would have occurred if the government just did not get involved, by forcing the funding of subprimes, in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was a typical feel-good-policy that dumbo Carter felt was a great legacy to leave for Democrats too be proud of; they were just too dumb to realize that such policies can have tremendously bad consequences way down the road, because you are forcing the markets to do something against their wishes and instincts. Well, we all know how this all turned out.

You see, IF THEY DID NOT force the subprime issue onto the lenders, they would have continued to require 10-20% down payments and good credit with documented long time earnings, in order to qualify for any mortgage........w/ few exceptions. There would have been no mad dash to fund liar loans just to pocket the fees, because the lenders would have had no easy way to dump the bad loans since mortgage backed ETF's would not have existed (since they were created for the purpose of dumping excessive amounts of subprimes, and if there was no excess...... they would not have been created! ).

So, do you assert more blame to the lenders trying to make the most money from liar loans, ro do you put more blame on the regulators who pushed for the huge amounts of subprimes in the first place?

As a conservative, I go for the root causes of problems and in this case, the crazy notion of forcing lenders to fund loans they know are extremely poor risk's is far, far, far more damaging than lenders trying to make a quick buck with the hand that was dealt to them. Same with welfare recipients; I don't put as much blame on the recipients as I do our government for allowing that lifestyle to be funded w/ taxpayer $'s........after all, I can easily see why a guy would prefer that lazy lifestyle if you can get it.

Once again, I know the Liberal's will see it completely 180 degrees around, but I just think they are wrongheaded.........it is very clear to me who/what was most responsible for the problem.

Lets, put it this way; if we did not allow ANY benefits to illegals (except for a bus ride home), would they continue to come?.........nooooooo.............there would be no point in coming if you could not get a job, schooling, welfare, SS, etc. if it all required legal residency. So there would be no illegal immigration issue, if the foundation for the lure of illegal immigration was not there to begin with. Precisely the same for the subprime fiasco; the foundation was set in place by a truly stupid US president.

What I said is still fact, like it or not. It's not a question of a pass. It is what ongoing debt Bush passed on. Not to Obama, but to the American public. The tax cuts didn't stop when Obama took office, despite his attempt to do so which Republicans blocked. The expenses for two wars and Medicare were ongoing and would have been there, just the same had McCain won in 2008. So this isn't about giving Obama a pass, it's about recognizing a reality, created during the Bush years, that any Bush successor would have inherited and been stuck with. The same goes for food stamps. Do you seriously think McCain would have cut food stamps?

The real point is where to go from here. I have said all along that both sides bear blame, from the excess spending on their particular favorite government program. At the risk of categorizing things, Democrats have tended to spend on social programs (often without evaluating their efficiency and ongoing need) and Republicans have tended to spend more on the military. Both sides contributed to the housing crisis: Democrats because it made housing more available to lower income people (who, in the long run, couldn't afford it) and Republicans (who liked the banks and other wealthy people making more money). And, as I've said, too many individual Americans borrowed far too much, borrowing more each time their homes appreciated. It isn't black and white and never was.

We have a deficit in spending every year and we have a debt to pay down. I have said I want a plan that balances the budget in 2 years no matter what the pain and to whom. You proposed some spending cuts, most of which I accepted, albeit with some reservations and concerns as to their impact. If that achieves the balance in two years, I'm satisfied. But if not, the other choice must be on the revenue side and I have made some modest proposals in that area too.

What it comes down to is whether holding to the principle of never raising taxes again or balancing the budget is more important to you and other conservatives. As much as you want to do it all with spending cuts, I have yet to see a budget that starts to cut things in less than 10 years and that's a fool's budget because so much can change and there is too much time to weasel out of the deal. My way will hit the rich in the short term and also fix the problem in the short term. My proposals include help for both social security and Medicare as well as the overall deficit and debt (which I want to see brought down to acceptable levels within 10 years).

So going over the past may be fun and self-gratifying, but the real issue is where to go from here. Let's try to focus on that instead of our views of history, dogma, and personalities. I think I have shown you that I am not what you think of as a mainstream liberal. I am an individual who thinks independently and is open to reasonable ideas.

Yes, I have problems with your logic.

How many are left at the Siemens LA site? I thought they were already closed, as I do not work for Siemens DX but heard two years ago that they were being shut down, so I was surprised to hear they are still there.

Must be tough though, to work at a place where all the talk must be about when the doors will be shut. I was at a place where there was talk of the company closing so I know the feeling.

"Perhaps if you spent less time trying to assign blame and finding ways to blame everything on Obama.........The massive amount of spending on things like unemployment and food stamps arose from the crash which occurred on Bush's watch and Obama got stuck with the bill......"

So, you spend all your time defending Obama, and blaming everything on Bush............how am I any different than you?

Never mind the actual numbers of who authorized what expenditures, right? For your information Bush was terrible with spending/ debt......but what does that make Obama? By any measure he IS DIRECTLY responsible for by far the most spending. But the recession started when Bush was in office.......OK we will give you that one.

So that means since the next president will be inheriting a $20+ trillion debt, then he will obviously be responsible for the interest and the payoff of this entire debt, correct? And all the ramifications from it, while Obama gets a pass, correct?

Do any of you out there see any flaw in this logic?

xxxxxxx, ppppp

Hooray. Flagman is back. A welcome return to our minister of intellectualism.

Socky gets a little foamy around the mouth sometimes, don't he? Wait a minute. Maybe that's not spit. Now we know what those stains are...

"Somewhere there's a pale, mildly obese neckbeard with a bad complexion sitting in a darkened room furiously tapping these screeds into a crumb-laden keyboard. On one hand he wears a sweatsock decorated with a pair of googly eyes and covered with stains of a suspicious nature. He calls it "Socky". In between cramming fistfuls of cheetos into his gaping maw he talks to it. Socky answers in a gruff voice sounding like the father that he vaguely remembers. They argue a lot. And that's what we see here."

We have an older tradition of fear mongering and finding bogeymen hiding under everyone's bed. There is plenty on both the left and right to scare anyone. And, just to be picky, what you are probably referring to is not socialism. Under socialism, the workers control the means of production. There is no requirement that competition among companies cease to exist. What exists to some extent in both Europe and North America are social welfare states that have programs such as social security, medicare, and other forms of programs that help the needy. And Americans have to shoulder an even greater burden. We support one of the largest, if not the largest, military budgets in the world. So you can't blame all the spending on social programs. You will do a lot better when you learn to be objective and get over your own fears and stop spreading them to others. The dire predictions about socialism in America are over 100 years old, and we are still doing pretty well compared to the rest of the world.

"To paraphrase Ben Franklin: If we don't hang together now, gentlemen, we will surely hang separately later. In his case, he was talking about the British as our enemy. Currently we have a new enemy and it is us and our inability to work together."

We have an old enemy. Creeping socialism.
It will drive us bankrupt. The problem with Socialism, is that eventually you run out of other peoples money.

Perhaps if you spent less time trying to assign blame and finding ways to blame everything on Obama, our problems could actually get solved. Once again, when you look at the Obama budget, you immediately realize how much he go stuck with. The two Bush tax cuts affect the budget deficit each and every year. The war in Iraq affected the budget well into the Obama era. The Medicare Part D deficit is part of the Obama budget because it was never paid for. None of the above were one time charges that only occurred in the Bush era, but they have and will be carried over to all future presidents unless they are fixed (Obama has pretty much fixed the Iraq spending by getting us out). The massive amount of spending on things like unemployment and food stamps arose from the crash which occurred on Bush's watch and Obama got stuck with the bill. I have tried to make this point to you many times before, but you keep coming back to blaming it all on Obama. The real point is that rather than looking back and pointing fingers, we have the other option of how to fix things.

We have both made proposals. Many of your ideas are things I either accept outright or can live with if done properly. However, you like to talk about the necessity of austerity, but you seem to only want it for lower income people. What is wrong with a bit of austerity for millionaires and billionaires? Why should the people who are already hurt the most, have to bear most of the austerity when there is a very small group of rich people who can afford to pay more taxes for at least the short term? Why is their wealth sacrosanct?

I repeat that I am all for rational cuts first, but if that won't do the job quickly, then raising taxes on the rich must be on the table. Pushing things off 10 years is not acceptable because we always find ways to weasel out of the fix when given too much time. The only possible way that I see to fix our economic situation is for everyone to pitch in. We have had 2-3 decades of increasing wealth disparity in America and there is no way to fix things by increasing the the burden just on the poor while leaving the rich untouched. And we have to work together. If it makes sense to shut a specific military base in the US, we cannot have a situation where a single Senator can filibuster an entire bill just to save the base in his district, which is what happens every time this issue arises. We have to get past the mentality of: he can suffer but not me. People like you have to decide whether to do things for the overall good of the country or whether you will always put your personal interests first. If it is the latter, we will fail as a country.

To paraphrase Ben Franklin: If we don't hang together now, gentlemen, we will surely hang separately later. In his case, he was talking about the British as our enemy. Currently we have a new enemy and it is us and our inability to work together.

" If those numbers add up to a balanced budget within 2 years and surpluses after that to pay down the debt....."

First this will be short, I'm off to a short get away soon.

Trouble with your statement is that I do not think the math adds uo to that eventuality........that is why conservatives are scared; you never, never put yourself in these positions if at all possible. When I was young I nearly chose to live in a camper truck to save money for a house.......I was not "poor", I was trying to save about $20K to buy that house. But for me, getting my personal austerity to an extreme for the short haul nearly made sense. If an easy deal did not come when it did I think I would have spent a year in that camper! I use this to point out the basic philosophical diff. between our two groups. In the case of Obama, we needed to bite the bullet as a nation and get thru that recession w/o all the borrowing.......after all that is what we screamed at for Greece to do, and correctly, by the way. The Greeks pulled a typical me first attitude, and are still in trouble, certainly guaranteeing no solution in the future while the problem only grows bigger.

We in the US may have gone past that point also, which is very, very sad. All our talk and proposals actually mean little but rhetoric, as most of what we proposed will not get legislated. The correct attitude is NOT to get into great vols of debt.Trying to fix a fatal issue financially is like shooting a man several times in the gut, not killing him, then tying to figure out the best way to save his life......that is what Obama did, we just haven't gotten to the worst of it yet because it will be a multi-generational levy on the young folk. The only way it becomes an academic problem is for the debt to be paid down significantly in a short time..........and who in the world believes that?

I hate to admit this but the whole Mr. Liberal tag was intentionally used ti raise your ire.......that is how I can bring out the most form the left quickly, and start the counter- attack. We are not much different, just flip sides of a coin, bt what bothers me is how different we see the world.......that's why I spend my time here, I really cannot dissect this to my satisfaction. Well turns out I wrote too much.......I'm late.

Thank you for finally making a rational response. I will, however, ignore your last 5 paragraphs because I don't need your lecturing, especially the way you go about it. As for your proposals I will now try to show you why I am not your preconceived idea of a liberal. I actually agree or can accept most of your proposals, but have some commentary as well:

"Lets cut most military excursions currently in progress" - I agree and would make note that our current President has overseen the essential end of military action in Iraq and is winding down the effort in Afghanistan. I did not support the Obama surge in Afghanistan.

"Lets close most military bases overseas" - Either close them or have the countries in which they exist bear the costs themselves. The other big issue is jobs for those who are no longer needed to serve. (You will see this comment elsewhere and I believe it is a big concern that very few talk about when it comes to cutting spending since much of spending goes to jobs, salaries, etc.). I while I would agree with the basic statement, I do have some concerns that we should consider.

"Lets close down advanced nth generation bomber/ fighter programs;
(Our planes are already far ahead of any enemies)" - I agree, but with the same concerns about job losses as above.

"Lets raise SS benefits age to 69-70, and put a cap on current recipients until books balance a bit better": - I could accept this one if I were confident that older workers could keep their jobs or be just as hireable as younger workers if they were job searching. Since SS is meant to be a barebones minimum safety net, freezing benefits is something I would not accept, in particular, looking forward to periods when inflation rates are much higher than they are now. I would rather have all income including capital gains, rents, royalties, etc. be subject to withholding (only for individuals, not for employers which would remain at current levels) for SS (and Medicare for that matter).

"Lets put a 2-5 year limit on welfare recipients who are able bodied" - Once again I would be open to discussing this proposal including who defines able bodied and whether that would include things like skills matching jobs. Would you be open to training programs? For instance, lets say a family gets $25,000 a year in benefits, but the head of the household would require $50,000 in training to get him a decent job. Would you invest the $50,000 for a two year payback? What do you do with people who simply can't find a job through no obvious fault of their own? It's a thorny issue that really requires a lot of thought about our values and when and how we help those in true need.

"Curtail excessive public pension programs....may take executive orders, and a sniper attack on union leaders>" - I agree with you here but with the focus on the word excessive. Pension plans got a double whammy which is why they are in such trouble now. They invested in too many risky things and got killed in the market crash and that happened at a time when many layoffs were happening, people were taking early retirement and starting to get payouts from the funds at a time when they were at their lowest levels in years and when the payouts were not anticipated to be needed for 5 to 10 more years. This issue is related to retirement, obviously, so it has to be looked at in relation to things like personal contributions to one's retirement, 401(k)-like plans, IRAs, annuities, social security, and to a large extent, medicare. There are many ways to achieve security in retirement and pensions are just one of them.

"Lets tax all corp.'s w/ a min tax rate so that none pay zero." - I agree with the understanding that this will get into things like carryover losses and eventually other tax preferences and is more easily said than done considering the complexity and various vested interest.

"Lets tax fully profits by US co.'s who keep manufacturing overseas, but sell products here." - I agree with the understanding that the increased costs might be passed on to consumers.

"Lets set up some tariffs to encourage more US manufacturing" - Not sure on this one since these things have historically led to retailiation and escalation. We do, however, have a thing called favored nation status which we might want to examine.

"Lets limit severely SS, education, section 8, food stamp, etc. benefits to undocumented individuals" - Here I am even more conservative than you are. If you are undocumented, you get zero benefits of any kind from the governments. State governments that choose to provide such benefits should be at risk to lose federal funding. Having a tourist visa might, however, entitle a person to some emergency medical care, but overall, I think I'm much harsher here than you and certainly not typical of a liberal.

"Etc., etc. " - I agree. We all have our ect. etc. list.

Surprised? If nothing else you should have noticed that I tried to consider future impact of each proposal and that I am not some young whippersnapper that shoots from the hip. I have no way of adding up all of your savings even if I agreed to them as you stated them. I would want to include any lost revenue from people who lost their jobs as a result of cuts to be included in the numbers. If those numbers add up to a balanced budget within 2 years and surpluses after that to pay down the debt, I'm happy. But if not, then the only way to stem the tide is to raise revenues on those who have the money. I'm sure you know the Willie Sutton line. Increases would be mostly by re-creating the additional tax brackets for really high income earners that were eliminated under Reagan, and taxing all forms of income the same way. When the national debt returns to an acceptable level, rates would come down. And to maintain spending prudence, each program would be run like each department in a business. It would need a set of goals and objectives for each year, a review of the need for the program (anywhere from needing expansion to being no longer necessary), and how they met their goals and objectives and proposals for increased efficiency going forward. In other words, each program would need to be justified each year and hopefully in something less than the hostile environment that exists on both sides in Washington today. Angry people simply cannot negotiate rationally.

Like you, I am concerned about the future which is why I want to see that balanced budget within 2 years and the debt to start to decrease within 3-4 years. If it can really be done with cuts that are rational and can gain bipartisan support that would be perfect. Some of your (or, now, our) proposals are just non-starters to too many on both sides in Washington. Even if they were all to take effect as you stated them, I would still insist on revenue increases if the budget were not balanced within two years. I don't want another one of these 10 year out plans that gives everyone too much time to wiggle out of the deal. If we are going to do this at all, it needs to be done now, and if that means tax increases (and I'm talking mainly about people earning over a million a year and getting rid of certain income-related preferences), so be it. I don't want half a solution. And since I don't have the numbers, nor am I expecting them from you because you would have no way of getting them, I have no idea if your cuts cover what is needed or not.

I do, want to thank you again for making some concrete proposals and was happy to be able to support most of them in concept. I will reiterate that your 'Mr. Liberal' lecture is counterproductive and I'm sure that, as a businessman, you don't take that tone with those with whom you negotiate. If you are successful as a businessman, you probably have the ability to work with others that don't always share your views, but you find ways to get things done. And I'm sure you know that insults and lectures rarely contribute to fixing problems or simply moving ahead with a project or product or promotion or whatever.

Think about it.

"I've laid out specific things that may not be popular with you and other conservatives, but it is a proposal. I dare you to do the same. It's time to put up or shut up."

OK, these are very specific things that can be done and have an immediate along w/ long term effects;

Lets cut most military excursions currently in progress

Lets close most military bases overseas

Lets close down advanced nth generation bomber/ fighter programs;
(Our planes are already far ahead of any enemies)

Lets raise SS benefits age to 69-70, and put a cap on current recipients until books balance a bit better

Lets put a 2-5 year limit on welfare recipients who are able bodied

Curtail excessive public pension programs....may take executive orders, and a sniper attack on union leaders>

Lets tax all corp.'s w/ a min tax rate so that none pay zero.

Lets tax fully profits by US co.'s who keep manufacturing overseas, but sell products here.

Lets set up some tariffs to encourage more US manufacturing

Lets limit severely SS, education, section 8, food stamp, etc. benefits to undocumented individuals

Etc., etc.

Of course all of this will work, but all of it will have severe impacts on all entities involved, but this is precisely why we are here at this juncture in the first FREEEKING PLACE! Perhaps all of what I just recommended does not even quite add up to the interest we need to pay on Obama's (and, yes a bit of W.'s ) huge fed debt. that is looming by his terms end.

You see, Mr. Liberal we still have to pay the piper anyway don't we? We got our stimulus and "recovering" economy, so we didn't have to suffer austerity then, but we sure will in the future, my man. All he did was transpose the pain to another era and tack on a huge increase in the interest we continually need to pay, because of his huge borrowing. Sounds like a very, very, basic elemental error for the future good of the country.

If you will remember, we the conservatives were screaming bloody murder at the stimulus idiocy, well before the election.......we already knew what he was going to do. It was like watching an NFL, rock star or NBA player with millions and millions at his disposal, misappropriating his fantastic largess and setting himself up for bankruptcy in the future. Do these guys ever see that their free spending ways will mathematically guarantee aa bad ending?......noooo the money is free flowing so damn the torpedoes!

You see the smartest way to stay solvent is to always avoid huge debt and the resultant interest loses that you have to pay until the principal is paid back. Don't yell at me to find a fix now, my correct fix to the problem was always to minimize the problem in the first place! Sheeeeeesh, I feel like I've been taking to a doorknob.

In Obama's and the Fed's case it is even more precarious as they have the one function that even the most powerful actor's, singer's, athletes, or even CEO's do not have...........the authorized power to issue "unlimited" quantities of fiat currency.............if they choose to ignore the effect of debasing the almighty dollar. Well, we have seen how they feel about that, and the ultimate effect will not be know for quite awhile, but trust me there will be consequences, there has to be because issuing more notes of fiat currency w/o equity backing is simply dilution of it's value.

Sooner or later you have to pay the piper.

I think Norwood was part of the original Corning facility that later became a part of Chiron prior to being acquired by Bayer. Thus, it would appear that the Norwood facility is most closely associated with Centaur. The facility itself is located just outside of Boston, MA. Interestingly, there are a number of job openings at Norwood as well.

BTW another thread said that Siemens Norwood laid-off 80. Is this part of DX? In the UK? What do they make/do?

QUOTE
I repeat my request for the umpteenth time:
END QUOTE

Can someone please change the title of this thread to the quote above? And put us all out of our misery...

Excuses and diversions. I repeat my request for the umpteenth time: What government spending cuts do you, as an individual, propose to make that will significantly reduce the deficit and national debt? These need to be major cuts, not the minor, insignficant things like public broadcasting or planned parenthood which just don't add up to much.

My comments about Republicans are specific to members of Congress, in particular, those in the House and not to every Republican or conservative in America. The Ryan budget they have passed for the past two years is not politically viable since it's eventual elimination of Medicare will not pass the Senate nor survive a veto. Furthermore, under the Ryan plan, the deficit continues to increase for years and doesn't start to come down for over a decade.

One of the things you had on your list of variables was war. The last timne we got into wars, Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and White Housse and that should be a universally accepted fact. And rather than telling the American people that we have a war that needs to be funded (remember previous wars with the 'buy bonds' slogans), we were told that there was no need for increased taxes to support a roughly trillion dollar a year effort and, then, just to make the books look good (budget deficit), they did all appropriations via a supplemental process that didn't show up in the main budget. On top of that, even after the wars had started, not only did they not raise revenue for the wars, they had another tax cut in 2003 (yes, with the cooperation of some Democrats who share the blame) which was, once again, mainly for the rich. Is there anything in this particular paragraph that you care to challeenge as factually correct?

I've laid out specific things that may not be popular with you and other conservatives, but it is a proposal. I dare you to do the same.

It's time to put up or shut up. Your excuses and diversions only serve to take away any credibility you might have.

My other simple challenge to you, which you seem not to accept either, is to repudiate the racists on the right that show up on this thread occasionally, but who are all over the 'Piers Morgan' thread. As President Bush said: If you help our enemies, then you are our enemy as well. The parallel here is that if you accept or tolerate racists, you are no better than they are. Only a clear and absolute rejection of racism, birtherism, etc. will suffice here. WHERE DO YOU STAND ON RACISM?

"I have made proposals here several times to shrink both the budget deficit and eventually the national debt."

Are you sure about this? This is an extremely difficult and plastic calculation that will be heavily influenced by a host of factors beyond anyone's control:

Natural disasters
World economic threats
US sustained GDP growth
Real world Obamacare costs
Obama deficit projections (under-estimations)
Wars
Terrorism
Fuel prices
The Euro and it's baggage
Etc., etc.

So if you calculated that your proposals can actually reduce the Fed. debt then I commend you on some very fancy calculations.

" I have also expressed resentment at the concept that every liberal thinks the same on every issue and that we march in lockstep......."

But of course you believe that conservatives are all that way correct!?

Well, go back and read your postings, they all allude to the fact that no Republicans can come up with any good proposals, none on the right do any original thinking, the Repubican party is racist, etc., etc.

Sure sounds like you pigeon holed all off us, so we are just returning in like.

Uh, Norwood laid off 80 people this week. Any comment from the peanut gallery?

Time out polidiots.

According to another thread, 80 were laid off in Norwood last week.

Call it shrill if you wish. I will go back to a very fundemental point:

I have made proposals here several times to shrink both the budget deficit and eventually the national debt.

I have challenged the conservatives to do so with meaningful specific cuts since they reject any form of revenue increase including elimation of any tax preferences.

I have noted on many occasions how Demroats/liberals have contributed to our problems and have only seen rare acknowledgement of any level of responsibility on the part of Republicans/conservatives.

Yes, I get emotional at times when I hear some of the gross distortions and selective use of facts. I have also expressed resentment at the concept that every liberal thinks the same on every issue and that we march in lockstep. I have pointed out several times instances in which I disagree with the majority of liberals.

But back to basics. I still await a realistic proposal to cut spending, and by realistic I mean both politically achieveable which rules out things like eliminating Medicare and numerically realistic in that the numbers have to add up and be signficant. How you do that without major cuts in military spending, for instance is beyond my comprehension, but I still invite you to try.

In the absence of any concrete proposals, I feel I have the right to not take you seriously and to use words like complainers and scapegoaters to describe you.

I think I am being calm and reasonable here.

I await your attempt at the same level of discussion.

"in order to prove they are right, they only consider facts, data, and history that supports their point of view and either ignore or attack as false, any evidence that does not support their pre-conceived notions...."

First of all, it has become much more fun recently to log on to this thread after being away for a few months. Seems like I have quite a few conservative wingmen watching my backside......thanx guy's for being here, even if I think some of you are getting a bit testy. Then again I like Buicks and us older guys are always less shrill. My last post was about equating the debt's enormity to the equivalent cost of a $180,000 debt levied on each household and how only a little over 50% of the population will eventually be responsible for paying the interest on it. It seems to have lit a fire under a lot of you guy's, both the righties and Mr. Liberal. That is good because we need to fully comprehend the enormity of the problem, and the noisier it gets the more people are likely to get the impact of of it and spread the word. My feeling is that most young folk will end up realizing what a sucker punch this administration has given to their financial future.

As for Mr. Liberal's rant above, all I have to say is talk about the dirty pot calling the kettle black! He does have a point though in that conservatives are locked into knowing that they are right on a host of issues and that the left is wrong about them, but is this any different than the left? Just read that quote above; there is no give or mutual trust in that quote at all, so are not we all in the same boat?.............we just hang out at different ends of the boat. Mr. Liberal you are certainly noless shrill than my buddies here.

We need every tax dollar you pay just to keep a fire department at the ready to put the fire out of your pants. It's liars like you that are keeping our taxes so high. You won't get this since you have no sense of humor.

You know Sparky, Socky's starting to sound a little uppity. Maybe you should put him in his "special" drawer for a while.

Ignorant idiot !!!

Presidents may only propose budgets. Congress, and Congress alone enacts budgets. And for the last 6 years of the Clinton administration, Republicans controlled the House where all spending bills must originate. And it was more the Republicans who talked about the 'peace dividend' that they got from Reagan and GHW Bush and the demise of Soviet Union style socialism.

Interagency communication was not limited by the President as much as it was by Congress during the 1970s as a reaction to the over-reach of the CIA both domestically and for their illegal interference in the affairs of other countries such as attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and their participation in the overthrow of Salvatore Allende who was the legitimately elected leader of Chile.

Just more examples of how and why the right wing is losing credibility by distorting and lying about history. This is not about how one interprets history. It is about how the right wing only picks and chooses which facts they are willing to consider; the ones that support their ideas. Any other facts get ignored which makes the first word of this post quite appropriate and well justified.

"Revisionist history run amuck.
Now Clinton was the cause of 911?
Come on."

1)Clinton was able to balance the budget by gutting the military.

2)The restrictions he put on various departments to freely pass information between them CONTRIBUTED to 9-11.

The right has this really nasty habit of having a dogma to which they stick up to the point of irrationality. They are right and everyone else is wrong. And in order to prove they are right, they only consider facts, data, and history that supports their point of view and either ignore or attack as false, any evidence that does not support their pre-conceived notions.

I wonder what they would call a liberal who happens to support the use of drones as a legitimate weapon of war AND supports the judicious monitoring of all forms of communication including phones and the internet. I call such a person and independent minded person who cannot be labeled. The right cannot deal with individuals, but only with their two labels: conservatives who follow the party line (aka, the good guys) and liberals (aka, socialists, commies, evil, and un-American). It is little wonder that the numbers on the right are shrinking and, as a consequence, their remaining few voices grow louder and more belligerent all the time. When you have nothing to say, you have to shout, scream and use fear and hysteria as communication tactics.

"True, but we paid a price. Clinton gutted the military and did not let all agencies talk to each other . End result -- 9-11."

Revisionist history run amuck.
Now Clinton was the cause of 911?
Come on.

Add "ObamaPhones" to the freebees given out now a days.

During the big depression in the 30's, FDR started the WPA. ( Maybe Hover started some projects.) But workers were paid to build dams, roads, electrify the nation. Now they just pass out $$$ for people to sit on their a$$es collecting welfare, food stamps and unemployment.

but on the other hand he ignored the threat from Germany and Japan and we got caught flat footed. He also imprisoned many Americans just because of their race ( Japanese )

"We all know there is a big national debt. We all know the budget hasn't been balanced since Bill Clinton was President.'

True, but we paid a price. Clinton gutted the military and did not let all agencies talk to each other . End result -- 9-11.

Sorry, not revisionist but a correct interpretation of the actual #'s.

Do not get me wrong, I hated what Bush left us with; a significantly worse debt than when he entered office. But a lingering tech Wall street crash, 911 and yes the wars, mortgage crisis, prescription benefits, etc. made his a tough term. But his collective debt was still peanuts compared to what Obama has managed to engineer. In his 8 years Obama will have increased the debt more than ALL OTHER PRESIDENTS COMBINED.........what is so difficult to understand about this? Bush was also at fault but to keep bringing his name up in every conversation is like saying that
I stole candy bars from the liquor store as a 7 year old, so I am a criminal just like Bernie Madoff.

The problem is now so bad that we may have entered the point of no return on the debt; that is what worries me so much for the future (decades from now). We may very well string it along for 20 years or so ( like Japan has done for nearly two decades), but sooner or later you have to pay the piper and until you do you keep paying an enormous amount wasted on interest that does nothing but make the payee wealthier.

It is so enormous that even the example I used as a gauge to illustrate how much $20+ trillion is was understating it. It amounts to the equivalent of a $180,000 debt for EVERY SINGLE American household, but in reality it is far worse because nearly 50% of the US population does not pay income taxes. That means the ones who do (i.e. the ones who actively work and bring in a reportable salary) will also be footing the payments for the slacker households who pay nothing into the system........and we know damn well our country is overburdened by these households. Of course corporate taxes will also factor in along with other revenue sources, but the taxpayer base is a huge component of the revenue stream so the taxpayers will be heavily burdened with this responsibility. We can never hope to actually pay down the principle for this debt as the interest payments alone for such a huge debt will be problematic, so guess what?............it looks like a perpetual interest payment put on the working class American taxpayer's for eternity........ principally because of Obama as he was the generator for more debt than all of the other presidents combined. This is why it was so important to minimize the TARP/HARP etc. stimulus packages so that we could pay a significant amount of the principle back each year to end the debt interest payments at some point by paying off the debt.......even if it took 40 years or so. As it stands it can never be paid off in just a few decades and it may be a permanent liability.

So you think that might not be a problem for the future? It certainly may have minimal impact for the near future, but if it a fixed liability with no way to get out from under it?

It's a big, big, big issue. At least you are now defining the debt as an enormous problem......at first it was all the ".....all he does is cry Chicken Little....". Trust me I am not crying for political or personal gain. It is the countries future at stake here, nothing less and we should all try to be on the same page. But you have to agree a more conservative administration would have generated less debt, and certainly not more than what Obama ha engineered.

You are an idiot then. You refuse to acknowledge two unfunded wars, two tax cuts, and unfunded Medicare part D. But that's not the point. You say Obama spends to much, but can't produced a single significant thing you would have cut. All you do is sit around and think of new ways to blame your chosen scapegoat for anything and anything. Liberals are all evil. Conservatives are knights in shining armor. There is nothing in between. Tell us what you would have done differently in 2009 or 2013 if your side had won. You can't because you have no ideas whatsoever. In contrast, I accept the reality that both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the national debt and the current budget deficits. I also make fairly specific proposals on how to fix things. You like to look back and re-write history to suit your point of view. I prefer to look forward and talk about things that we can do to improve the future rather than dwelling on the past and on blame. You like to talk about liberals as a monolithic group and, naturally, assume that I am in lockstep with them. I talk more about you as an individual and don't necessarily assume you are affiliated with any specific group. You continue to make assumptions about my age and continue to be way off base. But none of that matters to you. You are a conservative and that makes you 100 % right all the time.

And, on top of all of that, you really are quite boring with your constant barrage of re-writes, distortions, half-truths, and outright lies. And your excuses for not having any ideas of things to cut that will actually add up to some real money are completely ridiculous and embarrassing. I just hope your mommy isn't around to see you humiliate yourself like that.

Since no one else really seems to be reading this thread, I see no reason do so either.

Revisionist history yet again.
"It is YOUR FAULT that we got here not mine or other conservatives........we told you so"

When did you tell us so?
Was it when you were approving wars paid on a credit card?
Was it when you let the inmates run the asylum and the banks
and finance companies went nuts?
Was it when GBush II did the first set of bailouts?

"......My proposals are quite specific. Your solution is to just keep bashing liberal......"

You my friend are barking up the wrong tree. I along with every straight thinking conservative, even the ones who strayed and voted for "hope and change" the first time around, tried to scream as loud as we could about Obama's free spending ways well before the last election. You cannot deny this because all of you know damn well that that was one of the talking points pounded on by us tru out that campaign........we can say with no guilt that we knew exactly what the problem was going to be; a ballooning debt that would get so big that we would be in the dire situation that we are currently careening too. We know damn well the recession would have been tougher..........but the austerity would have shaken out all the businesses that deserved it and the lack of government largess would have made all of industry know they needed to fend for themselves even when the chips were down. Instead we got bloated, still poorly managed entities that "know government will not let to-big-to-fail co's actually go under".

You want me to suggest ways of cleanng the mess up......all I have is bad news because that is the reality. It is YOUR FAULT that we got here not mine or other conservatives........we told you so. So go bark up Obama's sorry ass tree and ask him what he is going to do. It's his and your mess to clean up, even as we all try desparately to do so. But the failure will be for the liberals to lick up dry. I have absolutely no guilt........I TOLD YOU SO.

We all know there is a big national debt. We all know the budget hasn't been balanced since Bill Clinton was President.

What separates you from me is that I propose a solution. You may not like it, but it is a solution. You, the other hand, whine about the problem, but propose nothing concrete other than a generalized message of spend less with no details as to what and how much you would cut. Any idiot can generalize like that. My proposals are quite specific. Your solution is to just keep bashing liberals and refusing to accept that any blame whatsoever belongs to the conservatives who controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for 6 years.

I will go out on a limb and guess that you are a Republican. So I will add this posting from another thread here (the Piers Morgan one):

I like the new Cheerios ad. It brings out all the racist Republicans so we know who they are. Republicans today are no longer about conservative economics. They are not just an anti-choice party (everyone is anti-abortion, but most people are pro-choice). They are not just against birth control. What it all boils down to is that today's Republican Party has become the home of racists and bigots and those who tolerate them. Today's Republicans are simply the KKK without white robes. All the other issues they raise are simply a cover for their racist objectives.

If you are still a Republican today, you are either a racist or someone who tolerates and accepts racism. It's as simple as that.

So tell us, Mr. Buick man ... do you repudiate the members of your party who are out and out racists? Do you accept them into your party because racism isn't that important to you? Man up for once and tell us where you stand !! This doesn't require discussion or researching tons of data. It is a simple yes or no question and my bet is that you are not man enough to deal with it.

Somewhere there's a pale, mildly obese neckbeard with a bad complexion sitting in a darkened room furiously tapping these screeds into a crumb-laden keyboard. On one hand he wears a sweatsock decorated with a pair of googly eyes and covered with stains of a suspicious nature. He calls it "Socky". In between cramming fistfuls of cheetos into his gaping maw he talks to it. Socky answers in a gruff voice sounding like the father that he vaguely remembers. They argue a lot. And that's what we see here.

I stand corrected because I always type/use "deficit" as it is easier to use than "national debt", but obviously when talking about the total vs yearly deficits, the correct term would be "national debt", so maybe I should just use "debt".

Ignoring the ugly truth and saying, "....never mind what the debt is, give me solutions!" is like saying "....never mind that I've just killed your kid what do we do now?"

You said there was no proof we could be in trouble; give me a break, the debt tally is all over the place in all it's digital glory........open you eyes.

You seem to look at the $20+ trillion debt and simply accept it as "doing business as usual". I think you do not realize how much money this is.

Let's try again; with roughly 114,000 million households in the USA that $20+ trillion debt that is projected by the end of Obama's term (largely due to his foolishness), is like a $180,000 debt slapped on to every one of those households. How in the world can you not figure out that that is going to be a huge, huge problem going forward? Can you afford an extra mortgage for life that comes with no house? He is laying a non-revocable debt essentially on every single American household, that is equivalent to a very nice home's mortgage..............but w/o the house!!!!!!!!! And this is just for the principle, we still need to account for the interest an it's inevidable increase in rates from current historical lows.

Yes indeed, he has looked our kids futures into a permanent debt spiral with just no easy way out. We needed to take our lumps when the recession occurred, and not passed on this ludicrous debt to our young folk. And let's face it, he did it for political expediency, not for what was best for America in the long run. After all he is the typical "I want mine know" mindset that has gotten so many of use in trouble in the USA.

You tell me what to do now, because my stand was always not to borrow so much money, because there IS NO SOLUTION to foolish spending and debt accumulation.....it always ends up badly. Anyone who has tried to run a profitable business knows this intuitively if he ends up succeeding. The ones that fail never learn these simple economic rules.....that's why so many fail.

You seem to confuse deficit and the national debt.

1. Interest rates are so low now that only a fool wouldn't borrow money, if needed.

2. YOUR side, the Republican conservatives were handed a budget surplus in 2001 which could have been continued and used to pay down the national debt. What did YOUR side do? They created Medicare Part D and two wars by borrowing money (increasing the debt) and then lowered taxes 'income' twice. Now what family or person would consciously lower their income if they were in debt. The idea was that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and they didn't now, did they?

3. Why would anyone in their right mind want to bring back the Republicans who have done so much damage to the national debt.

4. From the partisan politics viewpoint, President Obama was handed an huge recession. That means fewer people employed, less tax revenue, and higher government expenditures for unemployment and things like food stamps. Had McCain won in 2008, he would have had the same budgetary constraints.

Still waiting to hear what you would have done or would do today. Get off your high horse of trying to lecture me. I'm probably older than you are, fool. Stop making assumptions about me and just tell us all your plan for reducing spending and be specific including the amounts saved. Even the spokesman for the right, Mr. Paul Ryan can't do it. His budget won't balance for years and years and requires the elimination of Medicare which is a non-starter politically.

What is wrong with you? Can't your read or do arithmetic? You say we can reduce the budget with cuts only. I ask what you want to cut and to show me the math. You never do. So stop the BS. Unlike an individual or a family, we also have a choice to increase revenue, in particular from those who can afford it. I am talking about creating additional tax brackets for, lets say, 1 million a year, 2 million a year, and 5 million or more a year. If that affects you, congratulations ... you are rich and can afford to help out. I also would drop the limit for social security and medicare contributions (for individuals only, not employers) and tax all income the same (no more preferences for unearned income like capital gains or royalties, etc. Income is income pure and simple. I would look at military spending too which is currently at absurd levels compared to the rest of the world.

What are your ideas to reduce spending and what is YOUR math?

All you even do is criticize, but you have no concrete ideas to offer. The last time I asked, you talked about local zoning laws that seem to just affect your business. Can't you be a little more expansive and a little less self-absorbed? The problem with people like you is that you talk a good game, but come up short on ideas and facts.

Getting tired of your whining and BS.

Revisionist history strikes again!
Dick Cheney- " Deficits don't matter"
Bush II Let's have a war and not worry about paying for it.
What a novel concept.

" There is NO WAY we can get out of this mess by simply reducing government spending."

The spending till the deficit will be $20+ trillion in 8 years is why we have a problem, sonny.

What do you mean we cannot get out of this mess just by reducing spending?.............that is how we got here you fool!

If I get into personal debt by running up a bill of 10 million dollars in 8 years, are you going to accept my excuse that it was not possible to prevent me getting into this mess just by controlling my spending in those 8 years? Think now, very carefully about what I just wrote........this is your argument that just not spending the money would not have gotten us into our deficit mess in 8 years? Are you serious?

A simple economic lesson for you Mr. Liberal;
----If you spend a lot of money, for whatever good intentioned purposes, you have to pay it all back eventually.....and with interest, so you will be paying much more back than what you borrowed. There is no way around this, it is simple math.

So don't tell me we cannot cut enough spending to pay down the debt w/o huge tax increases, we just should not have spent so much.........then whaaaalaaa........we don't have to pay it back!

Obviously, some careful moderate spending to prevent terrible shock to the economy during a recession can be very helpful, but not spending trillions upon trillions upon trillions upon trillions, because you have to pay back even greater trillions upon trillions.

Just think about the equivalent of every household in the entire USA coughing up $60.00-90.00 a year for 2,000+ years (assuming each household lasts for 2,000+ years!) just to get anywhere near the total of what we will owe on the deficit by the time Obama leaves office ($20+ trillion)..........and this is just for the principle, it does not include the interest we will owe on it!!!!!

Still think it was worth spending THAT MUCH STIMULUS MONEY??? Well, you better be happy because you young'uns will be paying for the bulk of it for eternity.......congratulations. You see, you guy's just are not grasping what he has done to this country, because it is like a very slow growing cancer that you will not immediately feel..........but is incurable, and almost certainly fatal. Hopefully it really will not be fatal, but trust me we are getting very close to the point of no return on this.

I truly hope I am wrong and have overstated this situation, but I do not really think so......just think about the above level of payments every household would have to make to get a perspective of where we will soon be and it is not pretty.

I guess when SMAC I AND SMAC II were dominating the clinical chemistry market -- Technicon had 80%- 90% of the market.