U.S. Debt Clock

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

If America was a Sims game, we’d have lost a long time ago.

and where does all that money go? right into the hands of the rich people that don’t pay taxes, receive bailouts, and make the profit of all the oil that is consumed by the military to, you guessed it, secure the oil supplies to the oil companies owned by, yes, those rich people.

they’re unfathomably rich, while the public as a group is greatly indebted to whom? international bankers. which is roughly the same clique of people.

have fun with that, slaves.

I couldn’t have said it much better, OmDo.
Lord knows, I’ve been at it on here for awhile….lol

Plus, Adolz (< sp?) did a good job of it on another thread.
If I have time…I’ll soon try to post it here.
It is most appropo

and where does all that money go? right into the hands of the rich people that don’t pay taxes, receive bailouts, and make the profit of all the oil that is consumed by the military to, you guessed it, secure the oil supplies to the oil companies owned by, yes, those rich people.

I never knew the $1.5t in entitlement spending in FY 2011 went entirely to rich bankers who pay no tax (which isn’t true, but hey, who cares – they’re just rich bastards) and to the CEO of Exxon-Mobil.

nor did i. because that’s not what i said.

Originally posted by OmegaDoom:

nor did i. because that’s not what i said.

and where does all that money go? right into the hands of the rich people that don’t pay taxes, receive bailouts, and make the profit of all the oil that is consumed by the military to, you guessed it, secure the oil supplies to the oil companies owned by, yes, those rich people.

Assuming you’re talking about the reason the US has a budget crisis. It’s because of entitlements. Maybe not what you meant, but it’s what you said. Oil subsidies and defense spending aren’t the issue.

So the defense budget that is equal to the defense budget of something like the next 13 countries combined…nope, that in no way contributed to the debt.
Not at all.
Nuh uh.

Originally posted by softest_voice:

So the defense budget that is equal to the defense budget of something like the next 13 countries combined…nope, that in no way contributed to the debt.
Not at all.
Nuh uh.

Cut defense to $0 softest – you ain’t balancing the budget and you aren’t paying back a national debt <100% GDP. Entitlements are nearly 50% of the budget, and that number is only going to increase.

Yeah why bother with that nearly 1trillion dollar drop in the bucket right?
Oh but the PBS budget?!
OMG how can we afford that?

Originally posted by softest_voice:

Yeah why bother with that nearly 1trillion dollar drop in the bucket right?
Oh but the PBS budget?!
OMG how can we afford that?

Don’t get me wrong – we spend too much on defense. Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan will help. And you’re also right, the PBS is completely symbolic, just as the President’s tax hike is. But, to say that cutting defense spending and raising $80-100b in new taxes will solve our fiscal situation as the President likes to do is dead wrong. It’s a band-aid measure when we need surgery.

Fair enough.
I just don’t think that we need to gut the social services, either.
Do there need to be cuts? Yeah, there probably need to be cuts.

But the stuff being proposed by the TeaOP lately is akin to executing the programs; a mistake.

I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to bring taxes up on the wealthy.
They’ve gained the most from this nation, they can pay back in. Not that they don’t already.

Fair enough.
I just don’t think that we need to gut the social services, either.
Do there need to be cuts? Yeah, there probably need to be cuts.

But the stuff being proposed by the TeaOP lately is akin to executing the programs; a mistake.

I agree with all of this – although I reckon we would disagree on the amount of cuts.

I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to bring taxes up on the wealthy.
They’ve gained the most from this nation, they can pay back in. Not that they don’t already.

I guess I don’t see raising taxes right now as the best situation. There are really two answers to the debt problem: long-term entitlement reform – specifically Medicare since SS is stupid-easy to fix, Washington just needs to do it. The second being economic growth. I think since the economy is so fragile right now, that implementing policies that would likely deter economic growth – whether it be severe austere cuts or raising taxes doesn’t seem to be terribly prudent. It seems like a cut for tax tradeoff should take place in a couple of years when (ideally) the economy is more robust.

But, it looks like we’re going to get the tax hike regardless, at least what I’ve read coming out of the fiscal cliff talks. Hopefully the economy can begin to pick up. I’m doubtful, but I’m hopeful.

entitlement includes just about all expenditure, so yeah…

why did pensions epxense rise so much during the 50s and 70s, and why did health expense double in 1991?

i’d say “defense” (why is it still called that when you’re not using it for defense but for aggression?) could suffer some.

entitlement includes just about all expenditure, so yeah…

I’m talking Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. You’re playing semantics.

i’d say “defense” (why is it still called that when you’re not using it for defense but for aggression?) could suffer some.

That still doesn’t solve the problem. If I’m hemorrhaging blood, tossing me a band aid won’t do much good.

sure. you can’t solve the issue by only addressing one type of expenditure. but you can’t take out defence, call it 5% or 15% or 25% or however much of the budget it is (sources are so contradictory on that one), and lump all the other 95/85/75% together and say that the latter is more significant and is the cause of the budget crisis and needs the cuts.

you’d need to make cuts in different areas, but looking for disproportional expenditures is a good way to start, and military spending certainly is one.

I THINK we all actually agree on that point.

ah, i get it. it’s 5% of GDP, but it’s 19% of total federal spending.