by INFORUM
Omdahl: ‘Man up’ to debt crisis
December 5, 2010 at 6:00 pm in INFORUM
OK, folks, we’ve been challenged to “man up” to the national debt by the chairpersons of the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson Commission appointed by President Barack Obama. Continue Reading
I agree with Omdahl completely on this one.. which is rare.
Its a conservative mantra to take responsability, live within a budget and pay your debts no matter what the sacrifice… well, they don’t do this when it comes to the budget. Most of the suggestions from the commission are very good suggestions and should be followed. People are maintaining health longer and being productive to an older age; raise the retirement age. ALL income should be taxed.. even social security. Nobody needs more than one $1/2 million dollar house, let alone 2 or 4; Let them pay the interest on those houses instead of the government.
As much as we love to support the absurdly rich, and give them welfare, we need to balance our budget. We pay more money in INTEREST on our government debt than we do to support our childrens schools. There is something wrong with that picture and we need to fix it.
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What color is Lloyd’s hair shirt?
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Um, what does that have to do with the color of the sky in lebanon?
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The first question that needs to be ask is how did we get where we are? Why are we so deep in debt?
One only needs to go back ten years or so to find out.
Two things happened:
1. – The Bush Administration tax cuts. Why were they cut in the first place? Why were they so lopsided toward the well to do, the rich and the rest of us got crumbs?
2. – Bush’s two wars of choice, both put on the credit card to keep them off the books. Together these two items alone would have done it. But that wasn’t good enough for the Republicans. Throw in all the deregulation done during the Bush Administration, the Heads we win, tails you lose greed, fraud and gambling the banks and Wall Street did with our money.
Is it not obvious that the fix needs to be to let the temporary tax cuts expire?
Is it not obvious that stopping the illegal invasion and wars needs to be done. One Trillions dollars and counting. Wars don’t stop terrorists, they breed them. Terrorism is a crime, vandalism gone big time. treat it as such. War is not the answer. We don’t gun down innocents in crime areas to stop vandalism. Why do we think we can do that and it will work in other countries?
Now that we have undone the two major causes of the trillion dollar debt, Tax Cuts and Wars, what we have left it to re-regulate the Wall Street and the rest of the financial institutions. In other words undo the rest of what Bush did.
Social Security has nothing to do with the debt, nothing. Social Security only needs some fine tuning. Why? Because of all the job losses cause by shipping our Living Wage Jobs overseas. Our economy will never recover without those Living Wage Jobs in this country and the taxes and discretionary spending they provide. Never.
Our government is charged by Article 8 of the Constitution to “…provide for the common defense and general welfare…” Medicaid and Medicare both come under Article 8, as does Social Security as the government providing for the ‘general welfare. They are not part of any impediment to any recovery either. In fact they are needed to help the recovery as they get money into general circulation.
The Republicans, the Party of NO!, are on the record as to wanting to do anything necessary to bring down Obama. As such, does it not stand to reason anything they, the Republicans, would want to do then be suspect for their treasonous admission and goal of trying to bring down our government from the inside?
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Wow, Fgores… a bit.. um.. Democrat, aren’t you?
I do agree with much of what you have to say, but I think a bit more discussion on what you said about
“Why? Because of all the job losses cause by shipping our Living Wage Jobs overseas.” (Fgores quote)
This has happened because of the Democrat initiated NAFTA. Don’t get me wrong, I wholly approve of NAFTA, its actually part of the maturing of the world community.
Whats actually happening, is the world trade is balancing out. We cannot blame our economic problems on the fact that other countries, because of depressed economies and uneducated workers, can out produce and undersell us. China is revaluing their dollar, much to the chagrin of American economists. This means we won’t be getting China’s trade as cheaply any longer, which is a mixed blessing. With this happening, their products won’t be as cheap, making it more viable for American workers to once again produce. There was a time when America was Textile king, and it once again is heading in that direction.
Another dynamic happening with this worldwide market, is jobs are going overseas!! (rocket science there, huh?). Our children are going to be submitting applications in other countries, and with American educations, they will be doing much better financially than they would if they stayed here. IT support, for example, is farmed out to Inda. People working for Indian firms get.. .for THAT economy, much better standard of living than a comperable job in America. Yes, the wages are lower, but so is the cost of living. They will be hiring Americans in India for even greater wages because of their english fluency.
I do agree with much that you say Fgores, but keep in mind there is a bigger picture out there than Them v. Us… and just because we find our economy depending upon lower prices from china, and outsourcing jobs to keep the bottom line down, eventually we will be living in a world economy and what you say is just biased rhetoric on that issue.
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“This has happened because of the Democrat initiated NAFTA. Don’t get me wrong, I wholly approve of NAFTA, its actually part of the maturing of the world community.”
No, this has happened because of the greed of big business. The next bottom line being of prime of importance. The laying of and exporting of Living Wage Jobs to better the next bottom line.
NAFTA was crafted with this in mind. The Democrats did not initiate NAFTA, they just bought the lie. Bush the Greater fast tracked it, but ran out of time.
Bill Clinton, the best Republican (Southern Democrat) President since Eisenhower, signed it into law.
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“This has happened because of the Democrat initiated NAFTA. Don’t get me wrong, I wholly approve of NAFTA, its actually part of the maturing of the world community.”
No, this has happened because of the greed of big business. The next bottom line being of prime of importance. The laying off and exporting of Living Wage Jobs to better the next bottom line.
NAFTA was crafted with this in mind. The Democrats did not initiate NAFTA, they just bought the lie. Bush the Greater fast tracked it, but ran out of time.
Bill Clinton, the best Republican (Southern Democrat) President since Eisenhower, signed it into law.
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If the Bush tax cuts were “so lopsided toward the well to do, the rich”, then why does continuing the cuts for the rich (those over $250k per year) cost $0.7T over 10 years and the discontinuing the rest cost $3.0T. That’s right, 4x more goes go those who aren’t rich. Yes, those who had more got a greater $$$ amount in tax reduction but a smaller % of income. Of course, you want to determine what everyone can have (note comment on houses).
Go back to the commission’d ideas that have BALANCE. Everyone has to pay more taxes. Rich have to pay much more (on a $$$ basis). And the government spending must be cut, SIGNIFICANTLY.
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I agree the Bush tax cuts which have lead to the top 50% of wage earners responsible for 97.3% of the tax burden leaving the bottom 50% responsible for 2.7% is rediculous. How could he make 50% of the people responsible to 2.7% of taxes.
And the wars of choice…we only need to elect a democrat supermajority in congress and a democrat president and they will put a stop to these wars of choice…..
This supermajority and democratic president will also close that torture area called Gitmo and set and give those crimials their constitutional rights.
Then the’ll suspend the illegial Patriot Act, rid our Congress of ethics violators.
Totally agree with Article 8…however “general welfare” also means Air Jordan shoes, Kobe Beef, Cars, Large home, Plasma TV, computer, internet…..all things necessary for my “general welfare.”
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Why is it when the government gives away unsustainable amounts of money, it is somehow the ‘rich’ that got away with something? Omdahl suggests raising the amount of money subject to SS taxes and adds means testing benefits so the same people who had their taxes raised have their benefits reduced. Basically, if you are successfull in life, you’re going to have more of your money put into the social security ‘lock box’ and never be given the key. With all the talk about making the tax system more ‘fair’, how fair is that? Please, no comments about how nobody feels sorry for the ‘rich’! It does not seem ‘fair’ that the segment of the population making $250,000+ a year are the only ones being asked to pay more. How about raising everybodies taxes rather then getting everyone to buy into raising taxes only on the ‘rich’. If raising taxes, and not cutting spending, is the way to go, how about everybody pitching in with an accross the board 10% increase in everybodies taxes (that is what the proposed increase on the rich is)? See how that one flies.
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I need to give a rare congratulations to someone I hardly ever agree with, Obama. Having finally come to his senses he now endorses the Bush tax cuts and is prepared to extend them. Kudos also needs to be given to future Speaker Boehner who has done more for the economy before he is speaker than Pelosi did in 6 years. Obama, who now realizes that tax cuts are the only way to increase growth, needs to be commended for finally realizing that his stimulus failed and to embrace the policy of his predecessor. The payroll tax cut proves that Obama now understands that we spend our money better than government, thank you President Obama. I’m sure all you dems agree since I never seem to see an ounce of criticism for the man.
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“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” ~ H.L. Mencken
It matters not how deck chairs are arranged or how shiny the brass, the good ship USS Economy is going down. The Unholy Trinity of Republicans, Democrats, and Bankers (http://venturacountyteaparty.ning.com/photo/art-of-the-collapse11010?xg_source=activity) have done their work dastardly work.
While the Forum’s opinion page seemed obsessed with with the Berg/Pomeroy election, so much so that two Sunday editions devoted a whole page to letters on the race, it’s outcome was of little or no consequence. The difference is in campaign rhetoric only. Once in office all politicians (with the exception of Ron Paul, Alan Grayson, and perhaps a half dozen others) serve the same special interests: Big government, big business, big oil, big banking, Wall Street, perpetual war, and globalism. To get elected, however, candidates must convince voters that their tax and spend policies will benefit them to the detriment of others. That’s whole game folks. Play it if you like but its not going to change anything.
H.L. Mencken died in 1956 and did not see the Great Society when we learned in ernest that we could vote ourselves a piece of someone else’s paycheck. Our whole pirate economic system is a violation of the most fundamental and immutable economic law found in in Exodus 20:15: ” Thou shalt not steal”. It is a systemic quandary, and the whole system is going under the waves.
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