[snip]

Social Security and Medicare are the two serious
threats to fiscal stability, not the debt,
which is actually a barrier to further disasters
like SS and Medicare.

[snip]

If your economy can't keep it's populace free from poverty and fight
disease, what's the point of running it? Making more profit? What a
shallow and empty exercise.

"AKA" <fallon@das.com> wrote in message
news:8eSMh.2781$Kd3.940@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net...

'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a
commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political
capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted
it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invadeˇ.if I had that much capital,
I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want
to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

Candidate George W. Bush 1999

Wow, he was so set in proving daddy wrong that when it came to 2004, he
didn't realize that his capital was hemorrhaging away at a fatal pace.
What a fucking idiot.

Wow, he was so set in proving daddy wrong that when it came to 2004, he
didn't realize that his capital was hemorrhaging away at a fatal pace. What
a fucking idiot.

"Geoff" <gebobs@yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:WtednZqrIqz8RJ7bnZ2dnUVZ_smonZ2d@giganews.com...

"duke" <duckgumbo32@cox.net> wrote in message
news:v1j70354ks88rlv5g93fqi8ridq00r4t1c@4ax.com...

On 23 Mar 2007 04:03:12 -0700, "Useful Info" <useful_inf@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Congress Sets New Federal Debt Limit: $9 Trillion

Full story here:
http://muvy.org/

War is hell.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think
they are going to profit from it.
George Orwell

Asked why nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently
from Iraq...Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. deputy defense minister said:"Let's look
at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq
is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on
a sea of oil."

June 2003

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes
think they are going to profit from it.
George Orwell

One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Albert Einstein.

On Mar 23, 10:28 pm, "j.m. #1491" <j.m.1...@gmx.net> wrote:

<Groups trimmed>

t1gercat wrote:

On Mar 23, 7:03 am, "Useful Info" <useful_...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Congress Sets New Federal Debt Limit: $9 Trillion
Full story here:
http://muvy.org/

Just a point: We're in all that debt because we've deferred taxes, not
cut them or eliminated them, just deferred them.

We've rarely run any surpluses since World War II, when our debt was
the highest it has ever been, before or since. Essentially, we have
borrowed for decades upon decades and yet paid almost none of it
back, Somehow, for decades upon decades, we manage to keep paying the
bill. How could we do it? Easy--we didn't have to pay it back. We
borrowed and we borrowed but our economy, our tax base, all those
taxable transactions that generate our government's revenues, also
kept growing.

Bush's "tax cuts"

were taxes deferred, put off for payment later. The gap between
revenue and expenditure is filled by borrowing money. Prior to this
era, borrowing money wasn't such a bad thing. Almost all of the debt
was held by Americans, so it was money we owed ourselves. Today,
however, a big proportion of the debt is held by foreigners, Chinese,
Japanese, Europeans and Middle Easterners.

And none of them can demand the money back before a bond expires, or
even influence a US policy decision UNLESS ELECTED US CITIZENS ARE
WILLING TO ACCEPT BRIBES. Or are you now selling bonds with US voting
rights or early withdrawal options?

This means that when we
finally do get around to paying back those loans, i.e., paying our
deferred taxes, we'll have to pay WITH INTEREST

Paying INTEREST to foreigners. The idea! Outrageous!

Want to know something: factor in inflation rate and exchange rate, see
what happens. And both of those are at least partially under US control.

to people who are our
economic rivals and in some cases our military rivals.

How about that: You folks prohibit us foreign devils to lend you money,
and AT THE SAME TIME you prohibit your own people to lend money to us?

Next, you cut the foreign imports AND EXPORTS. Not just the cheap crap
from China, but all of it. This includes the cheap oil from the Middle East.

Among all the destructive things the Republicans have done,

Example:

I used Defense because it covers more than 50% (64% in 2007) of the US
total budget.http://thebudgetgraph.com/view/

In 2006, we spent 19.6% of our budget on defense. Your source is
calculating discretionary outlays only. Essentially, it is ignoring
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, TANF...among other major
programs.

Appropriations for the Department of Defense 2007http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR05631:@@@R
House Roll Call: 394 - 22
Senate Roll Call: 100 - 0

Appropriations for the Department of Defense 2006http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR02863:@@@R
House Roll Call: 308 - 106
Senate Roll Call: 93 - 0

Appropriations for the Department of Defense 2005http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR04613:@@@R
House Roll Call: 410 - 12
Senate Roll Call: 96 - 0

Appropriations for the Department of Defense 2004http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR02658:@@@R
House Roll Call: 407 - 15
Senate Roll Call: 95 - 0

I'm not going to look now, but I think this goes on forever, for all
departments!

Now I'll admit, I'm an interest demanding foreigner, so perhaps I don't
understand the US political system as well as I should, but to me it
looks that at a time House and Senate were split about 50-50, give or
take a few seats, both parties supported this!

You know, one thing I always thought is special about the USA: All
political groups agree to do something, but only one is held responsible
for it if it turns out bad. Usually the one the individual talking
doesn't vote for.

You make a good point.