Number One Place to Cut Spending

[jmowreader]

Since the Republicans in Congress think we need to "cut spending first," let's start by cutting out the money needed to pay Republican congressmen.

[Ozymanithrax]

1. I think the bloated defense budget is better. n/t

[jmowreader]

2. That's the second place they need to cut

Seriously, guys: if the Republicans are as antsy about spending as they claim to be, they should prove it by volunteering, en masse, to work for free.

Give 'em a meal card for the Senate Mess and a room in a barracks at Fort Myer, and bus them to and from work.

[Mark Maker]

3. Except that right now it's the biggest public works program

we have. As Paul Krugman has written about FDR's New Deal...

What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/opinion/10krugman.html

17 million Americans under arms rekindled the economy and provided untold benefits to the returning vets after the war.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. Take your choice Social Security/Medicare on one side and Defense on the other...

Which should it be?

Republicans will defund Medicare and try to remove Social security before they touch the sacred cow of defense. Since is is the largest expenditure in the budget, you'd think.

If they were trying to boost the economy, they would not cut anything until there is real improvement and the private sector is humming.

[jmowreader]

10. More like Medicare on one side

Social Security funds itself by loaning the money we pay in to it, in the form of Social Security's share of the payroll tax, to the government. The interest the government pays the Social Security Trust Fund provides a lot of the revenue needed to fund its operations.

This of course is the thing liberals cannot figure out: A bank makes loans. The notes the borrowers sign when they borrow this money are basically IOUs. When a bank in the private sector does this, the Republicans call the loans "assets" and cheer about how wonderful it is they're using their money to make more money. When the Social Security Administration does the exact same thing, the Republicans bitch about how terrible it is the SSA is loaning out this money, calling the bonds "IOUs."

Actually, there IS a difference--the Social Security Administration's loans are nowhere near as risky as some of the toxic paper the Republicans think the private sector has every right to sell.

[RC]

7. Yeah but, during WWII, we manufactured all of our own stuff right here in the United States.

We don't do that any more.

[jmowreader]

11. This is a great concern for me

The reason the United States had a chemical industry in the first place, was the Germans used to make all the dyestuffs in the world. When we entered World War I and the Germans cut off those supplies, we found out we couldn't fight a war with no dyes. (Try fighting in a white uniform when there's no snow on the ground and watch what happens.) Therefore, the US entered a crash program to build a dye industry, which became the chemical industry that created such wonders as teflon and nomex.

Today, our dyes, resistors and capacitors--all strategic materials--come from China. I got news for ya, guys: the freepers are wrong about how the Democrats are going to hand the US to China through our debt. The Republicans ALREADY handed the US to China because, for some strange reason, they decided it was a good idea to let the Chinese make all of these strategic materials. If China attacks one of our allies we're fucked. If we DON'T go to war against China every assurance the US will protect our allies from invasion is immediately nil. If we DO go to war against China the Chinese will cut off our supplies of discrete components and dyestuffs and we won't be able to fight once we use up the very limited stocks of materiel we've already got.

[phasma ex machina]

5. +1 Congressional swine can slop down greenbacks; just stop the war machine. nt

[Swamp Rat]

6. Cut military spending in half and END THE WARS NOW!!

And double the taxes on the rich.

[Capt_John]

8. they can take a 20% reduction is salary

a 30% hike in health care costs and elimination of their pensions.

[Quantess]

9. Hah! Sounds like a plan.

Welcome to DU! :hi: