4 ms·
No, it is not With level of debt and borrowing, cannot afford more spending
by Iwan-Zotow 1y ago
No, it is not
With level of debt and borrowing, cannot afford more spending
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mindslight 1y agoIf the debt is a problem worth addressing, then why did the big ugly spending bill raise the debt by trillions of dollars?
- mousethatroared 1y agoPresumably the OP believes the BBB is stupid too?
- clipsy 1y agoWhy are you speaking for him? Surely he's capable of denouncing the BBB himself if he chooses to.
- mousethatroared 1y agoBecause "mindslight" didn't have an argument? He just threw a little non-sequitar tantrum assuming that OP was a Trumpist.
- readthenotes1 1y agoWarren Buffett had this line that we would have no budget deficits if it we're required that every Congress person who voted for such would be ineligible for re-election. Pushing the cost burden on subsequent generations is a cowardly way to deal with our financial problems. When Reagan entered office, the debt was less than $1T (about $3.5T in today's dollars). The #4 cost currently is paying off interest (not principle) on old debt.
- fn-mote 1y agoIt’s funny but economically wrong to ban deficits. I agree we are spending too much now, but the solution should not be to stop all spending. The problem is deeper than just a deficit.
- blitzar 1y agoWe should bring back surpluses in the good times. If you are the head of a country and you are proclaiming that the economy is "the greatest ever" then you should be running a balanced / surplus budget. If the economy is in the shitter you are perfectly entitled to run a deficit.
- sethammons 1y agoCan the down voters help me understand the downvotes? The argument seems cogent. Doing good? Pay down debts. Need a boost? Invest and incur debt. Where is the flaw?
- mindslight 1y agoIt makes nobody happy - people who think deficits are bad, people who think continual deficits are good, people with no trust in politicians to do the right thing.
- msgodel 1y agoIt might be more optimal to run a small deficit but I don't think you can trust the legislature with it.
- aredox 1y ago>Warren Buffett had this line that we would have no budget deficits if it we're required that every Congress person who voted for such would be ineligible for re-election. Yeah, and the USSR would have won. >When Reagan entered office, the debt was less than $1T (about $3.5T in today's dollars). Well, guess who won the Cold War? Who pushed the USSR to bankrupt itself? It would be like saying "no private company should ever raise capital".
- mindslight 1y agoIf that were the case, they wouldn't have contributed a narrative being used to support the fascist movement that gave us the big ugly spending bill. Sorry to anyone who was legitimately interested in actual fiscal conservatism (which includes myself), this is now just another lofty ideal Trump has burnt the credibility of in service of enriching himself. Maybe we can try again in 20 years, if we still have a country.
- mousethatroared 1y agoThe conversation was about NASA, an agency that poured billions to Boeing and the United Alliance and was forced to accept SpaceX (way back during the Obama admin, I believe) whilst kicking and screaming.
- mindslight 1y agoAnd? The argument being made was the simplistic "cannot afford" meme, which is trotted out every time the fascists are crushing an agency, yet is conveniently ignored when the fascists spend trillions of dollars for new purposes. If one wants to make a nuanced argument about NASA or fiscal responsibility despite the current political environment, it is perfectly possible to do so! But you need to work much harder to tease out the nuance and distance yourself from the fascists, lest your effort of espousing your lofty ideals just end up as fuel supporting them. Fascists don't respect ideals beyond power - the open hypocrisy is the point.
- mousethatroared 1y agoTHE OP IS AGAINST BBB TOO The one who lacks nuance is not the one who thinks NASA could stand to shave a couple billions but the one who's making everything a partisan fight.
- mindslight 1y agoThat's just the standard postmodern cognitive dissonance of supporting terrible politicians. "I don't like what they did, but not enough to stop supporting them". It's a defense mechanism against the obvious hypocrisy. Find me where they're completely condemning Trump, like say calling for impeachment, and then you'll have a point. And no, the comment I responded to had absolutely no specific criticism about what from NASA should be "shaved". Notice how I didn't respond to the one about SLS?
- Iwan-Zotow 1y agoI don't like it
- mousethatroared 1y agoI didn't think so.
- Larrikin 1y agoSo why did Congress increase the deficit, they don't care so why should we cut back spending on actually good things.
- Iwan-Zotow 1y agointerests and idiots are everywhere
- lumost 1y agoThe US can easily afford its obligations. The problem is that the tax base has shifted into alternative forms of income such as dividends and cap gains which are taxed at lower rates. It’s a policy choice that these returns are not taxed at comparable rates to income. The trend of nation-wide capital returns vs income is telling.
- mousethatroared 1y agoI disagree. Instead of looking at where the tax revenues can come from, which I don't necessarily disagree consider what proportion of the nations economic activity is government spending. I consider govt spending/GDP a much better indicator of economic health. In fact, tertiary_sector/GDP is better still. The US government has too much presence in the economy and can't even provide health care and free tuition.
- lumost 1y agoThe issue here is that no one can agree on which portion of government spending is wasteful. It’s almost taken as a tautology that the government is wasteful. After 50 years of cost cutting and wage freezes, I tend to find it fanciful that individuals paid 1/4 of their private sector compensation to work on core civil infrastructure, national research priorities, and policy are somehow a bad deal for the American taxpayer at large. If anything, I’d imagine that the government could incentivize greater productivity by normalizing the pay scales. At a minimum, maintaining a public capability can often neutralize monopolistic pricing practices. Have you considered who the narrative of wasteful spending benefits? Even our narratives of tax increases never discuss tax increases on what is now the bulk of personal monetary gain.
- jpadkins 1y agoit's a straw man argument to say that the average civil servant is the beneficiary of the trillion dollar deficits. No one is making that argument. Very wealthy people, politicians, and corporations are the beneficiary of the government largess. > After 50 years of cost cutting and wage freezes It's hard to say the federal government has been cost cutting for 50 years when the budgets have been growing at exponential rates.
- KPGv2 1y ago> With level of debt and borrowing, cannot afford more spending It doesn't matter how much debt you have if taking on the debt raises your revenue by more than serving the interest payments. Imagine telling a corporation they can't borrow money at 3% to grow 15% because "debt is bad." Or telling someone who needs a car to get to work that they should go without a car (and thus not become employed) rather than taking on a car payment because "debt is bad." And on this front, the US has been doing great (but is currently shooting itself in the foot under the new administration)
- unethical_ban 1y agoWe could * Not cut taxes on the very wealthy by $4,000,000,000,000 over ten years * Not give $500,000,000,000 to military and police expansion in the immediate future * Not have one person dictating global trade policy with the US that impacts our relationships and competitiveness for the next 30 years NASA is not something we should skimp on.
- jpadkins 1y agoThe constitution clearly sets up one person as having sole control of foreign policy. There is a lot of wisdom in having a single vision / strategy when dealing with external entities. If you disagree, the constitution also has a clear process for updating it.
- unethical_ban 1y agoRead up on the responsibilities of the Senate again, please. They approve treaties. The president only has the power (allegedly) to do the tariffs moves he is doing based on a 1970s emergency powers act. Anyway, that was just one example of "ways to be fiscally responsible that don't involve cutting science research"
- Iwan-Zotow 1y agoWho are "we" kemosabe? BBB was proposed by freshly elected president to a freshly elected Congress, and it was passed and signed. I don't like it much, but people (yes, millions of americans) had spoken
- unethical_ban 1y ago"We" being the US government. I'm not arguing anything about its popularity, I'm arguing its wisdom. My point is that there are other ways to pretend to be fiscally responsible than to cut NASA funding.
- hello_moto 1y agoTax the wealth of your billionaires my dude. Their wealth grow unchecked depressing yours.
- insane_dreamer 1y agosure we can but instead we're giving a massive tax break to rich people and increasing the military budget by $150B
- Iwan-Zotow 1y agoWho are "we" kemosabe? BBB was proposed by freshly elected president to a freshly elected Congress, and it was passed and signed. I don't like it much, but people (yes, millions of americans) had spoken
- insane_dreamer 1y agook, fine: "they"