kelpdiver 2 #76 October 18, 2013 beowulf The US has the most amount of debt of any nation in the world. It also have the largest economy of any nation in the world. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
OHCHUTE 0 #77 October 19, 2013 Hoorah for sending gov't workers home, and paying them for not working for two weeks. I heard the casino at Maryland Live, in the heart of Federal Gov. land, just miles from NSA was pretty busy all week. Federal workers on vacation! You've got to be kidding. The shutdown cost the US taxpayer zillions. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #78 October 19, 2013 billvon>They tried to fund everything but the ACA. Read up on what the fight was about. They were threatening to keep the government closed until OBAMA defunded the ACA, because the House felt they could not accomplish that via Constitutional means. Congress has the Constitutional power to defund Obamacare. It's spelled out right there in the US Constitution. If they want to use it, they can. The Tea Party alone does not have the power to defund Obamacare, even if they really, really, really, really want to. And this (fortunately) proved it. You are just toeing the typical Democratic party line. It's always the other parties fault. It's nothing but propaganda. Both were at fault. The Democrats were at fault because the Senate and the President refused to accept the continuing resolution submitted by the House that didn't include funding for the ACA. They also refused to even negotiate. It was pretty pathetic of Obama to refuse to talk to the House Republicans. The Republicans were at fault because they refused to include funding in the continuing resolution. But they were willing to negotiate and they did submit bills to keep everything else but the ACA funded. QuoteCongress has the Constitutional power to defund Obamacare. It's spelled out right there in the US Constitution. If they want to use it, they can. Are you confused? Who do you think Congress is? It's both the Senate and the House of Representatives. All spending bills come from the House of Representatives and they decide what goes into the bills. So it is their responsibility to decide what to pay and what not to pay. They didn't have to include funding for the ACA if they didn't want to and could have held out indefinitely because that his their legal constitutional right to do so. They also didn't have to raise the debt limit. It's not much of a debt limit anymore anyway. It's more like a debt target considering the number of times it has been raised. The Tea Party was not included in the Constitution. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #79 October 19, 2013 kelpdiver*** The US has the most amount of debt of any nation in the world. It also have the largest economy of any nation in the world. The bigger they are the harder they fall. The size of economy won't save us. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,651 #80 October 19, 2013 beowulf****** The US has the most amount of debt of any nation in the world. It also have the largest economy of any nation in the world. The bigger they are the harder they fall. The size of economy won't save us. Total lack of logic there. Like saying that your income has no bearing on the size of mortgage you can afford.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #81 October 19, 2013 kallend********* The US has the most amount of debt of any nation in the world. It also have the largest economy of any nation in the world. The bigger they are the harder they fall. The size of economy won't save us. Total lack of logic there. Like saying that your income has no bearing on the size of mortgage you can afford. When the debt is $17 Trillion the size of the US economy is irrelevant. There is no way the Government will ever begin to pay down the principal. If any individual had a similar debt to income ratio they would have long since declared bankruptcy. By the way the debt passed $17 Trillion overnight. They added $320 Billion. The actual debt limit was passed awhile ago. They have been doing the emergency measure I think is what they called it. All it means is they shuffled money around accounts to keep everything running. Then once the limit was raised they borrowed the money to put every thing back to normal. $320 Billion... How can anyone say government spending isn't out of control? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #82 October 19, 2013 Here some food for thought. China has been slowly positioning itself to capitalize on the US's irresponsible fiscal profligacy. If we don't change our path we will likely become a very poor nation. Unfortunately I don't see any politician having the balls or the backing to make the hard decisions that need to be made. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-18/9-signs-china-making-move-against-us-dollar Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chutem 0 #83 October 19, 2013 How "poor" would the US have to get before it becomes a conquering nation that takes what it wants/needs? Will we go from world's police to world's bully? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #84 October 19, 2013 beowulf When the debt is $17 Trillion the size of the US economy is irrelevant. There is no way the Government will ever begin to pay down the principal. If any individual had a similar debt to income ratio they would have long since declared bankruptcy. I already told you that most first world nations have a higher debt to income ratio - your reply was that ratios didn't matter, that 17T is just too big. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
normiss 622 #85 October 19, 2013 I believe a number of nations already see us this way. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #86 October 20, 2013 chutemHow "poor" would the US have to get before it becomes a conquering nation that takes what it wants/needs? Will we go from world's police to world's bully? We already are the worlds bully. One big dumb bully. That is my opinion. But any nation that thinks they have a right to kill or bomb people in foreign nations which is an act of war is a bully. How poor? I don't know. All I can see is the path we are following, not the end results. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #87 October 20, 2013 kelpdiver*** When the debt is $17 Trillion the size of the US economy is irrelevant. There is no way the Government will ever begin to pay down the principal. If any individual had a similar debt to income ratio they would have long since declared bankruptcy. I already told you that most first world nations have a higher debt to income ratio - your reply was that ratios didn't matter, that 17T is just too big. I don't think you understood what I said. Just because other countries have a higher debt to income ratio doesn't mean the US is in the clear or that there is no consequence for this debt. There is no one to bail out the US. The smaller countries have the US/ECB to bail them out. Japan has a far worse debt to income ratio and it will be very interesting to see the outcome there. It's going to be very ugly considering their demographics. I think we will see Japan suffer the consequences of their fiscal policies before the US. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #88 October 20, 2013 Quoteyour reply was that ratios didn't matter, that 17T is just too big. Yeah I think $17 Trillion is too big to deal with. But it's not just that. It's that there is no political will to even try to reduce spending or really begin to deal with the problem. All the politicians want to do is continue borrowing and printing endless amounts of money. Why? Because it's easy and so far it hasn't bitten them in the ass yet. Or at least they can't see how it's biting them in the ass. Politicians are only concerned with short term issues regarding political positioning and keeping their party in power and paying off their supporters. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #89 October 20, 2013 beowulfQuoteyour reply was that ratios didn't matter, that 17T is just too big. Yeah I think $17 Trillion is too big to deal with. But it's not just that. It's that there is no political will to even try to reduce spending or really begin to deal with the problem. All the politicians want to do is continue borrowing and printing endless amounts of money. Why? Because it's easy and so far it hasn't bitten them in the ass yet. Or at least they can't see how it's biting them in the ass. Politicians are only concerned with short term issues regarding political positioning and keeping their party in power and paying off their supporters. the will was there in the 90s. It involved both cuts and taxes. And we had a committee formed just a few years ago to do the same thing- unfortunately neither party (nor even the members of the committee) were willing to actually do it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #90 October 20, 2013 kelpdiver***Quoteyour reply was that ratios didn't matter, that 17T is just too big. Yeah I think $17 Trillion is too big to deal with. But it's not just that. It's that there is no political will to even try to reduce spending or really begin to deal with the problem. All the politicians want to do is continue borrowing and printing endless amounts of money. Why? Because it's easy and so far it hasn't bitten them in the ass yet. Or at least they can't see how it's biting them in the ass. Politicians are only concerned with short term issues regarding political positioning and keeping their party in power and paying off their supporters. the will was there in the 90s. It involved both cuts and taxes. And we had a committee formed just a few years ago to do the same thing- unfortunately neither party (nor even the members of the committee) were willing to actually do it. Not really, spending never decreased to the point of zero deficit. I don't think increasing taxes is a good idea or would be successful. What they really need is drastic cuts in Federal spending. Whole departments need to be cut. Military spending needs to be cut significantly. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid need to be drastically restructured. All subsidies need to be cut along with Foreign aid. None of this is anything any politician in office would even consider doing, but for the long term fiscal health of the country it needs to be done. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DaVinci 0 #91 October 21, 2013 Quoteand yet, as Kallend loves to tell us, even Scalia wrote that it isn't an absolute Yes and Scalia listed examples... Felons owning weapons, not carrying in sensitive areas, not carrying dangerous and unusual weapons. But that does not fit for a non-felon with a pistol trying to carry on the street. A guy owning a handgun in his house. Yet Obama has been against exactly these things. QuoteGun control legislation that bans, or effectively, bans hand gun ownership, like attempts by DC and Chicago, don't stand up. And Obama was against these exact things... So his claim of the ACA being "settled law" to be left alone is hypocritical at best. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DaVinci 0 #92 October 21, 2013 OHCHUTEHoorah for sending gov't workers home, and paying them for not working for two weeks. I heard the casino at Maryland Live, in the heart of Federal Gov. land, just miles from NSA was pretty busy all week. Federal workers on vacation! You've got to be kidding. The shutdown cost the US taxpayer zillions. I don't think you understand what a "zillion" is. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites