[slomojoe]

And from the Huffington Post. (That's a liberal paper isn't it?)
Obama Calls For Defense Spending Cuts

LOL, that's not info from the Huff Post. It's a note about an unsubstantiated Fox news report about what an anonymous senior defense official told them.

As you will see, the issue is already addressed in the CQ article I linked to. The neo-cons are calling a "cut" what is in fact a budget increase that simply does not match a never-officially-released budget wish list from the Joint Chiefs.

By that token, if I ask my boss to double my salary and he only gives me a 10% raise, I could complain that I am getting a salary cut too.

[navcom]

LOL, that's not info from the Huff Post. It's a note about an unsubstantiated Fox news report about what an anonymous senior defense official told them.

As you will see, the issue is already addressed in the CQ article I linked to. The neo-cons are calling a "cut" what is in fact a budget increase that simply does not match a never-officially-released budget wish list from the Joint Chiefs.

By that token, if I ask my boss to double my salary and he only gives me a 10% raise, I could complain that I am getting a salary cut too.

Hmmm....you are opening a can of worms here. This is precisely what conservatives have been trying to call the government on for years!...Repub or Dem! The spin from the budget used by both parties is a joke! The logic you are pointing out is exactly what the right was criticizing Clinton for during his term, except it was concerning budget items traditionally backed by the left.

I'm one of those "neo-cons" you mention. I'm a conservative and very proud of it. I am NOT a loyal "republican" nor did I vote for Dubya. GB and the current crop of repubs have abandoned any semblence to conservatism years ago. Don't believe me? Look at spending from Bush. Hardly a conservative record. His spending and that of the later-years Republican Congress would make Bill Clinton blush! That is why so many of us traditional conservatives didn't vote for them! They don't represent us. And they lost. Good riddance. They still can't figure it out. I feel the same about Specter and Collins for caving in on the stimulus. Hopefully they will be gone soon as well. I predict at least one of them will.

I am also on record on this very forum after the election that Obama was a duly elected president. He is my president and out of respect for the presidency itself, I will respect the will of the people. That doesn't mean that I don't have a right to disagree with his policies. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and said I will let his actions speak, not the critics or the media. This man has a ton of pressure being put on him by the media who in reality helped him get elected because they refused to report much against him. He was made into a demi-god who could do no wrong. His image is not human! He has a lot to live up to if you listen to the media.

That being said, I'm not too impressed that we elected much change. Since inaurgaration, he has appointed at least 3 individuals who have tax problems the rest of us would be jailed for or at least had our property seized...one of them running the very organization that enforces tax policy!! He continues with Dubya's defense secretary. He says he will shut down Gitmo but then says we will still need a military court for trials as the sensitive info that will be in those trials would damage our military security...the very reason Dubya set up Gitmo to begin with. He said he would begin an almost immediate withdrawal from Iraq which is now being wishy-washed over as well. Now I see he has transfered the census to the White House (Rohm) from the commerce department where it has traditionally been to keep as many politicians out as possible...a move that raises a lot of fears (not just with Republicans) that the 2010 census wil be very biased towards the Dems, even if in image alone...and will ultimately damage it's credibility....not something you really want to do if you are trying to pull the country together as President Obama has so often said.

Think these are all just nit-picking against Obama? Ask yourself if you would give the same pass to Dubya and Karl Rove (one of Rohm's predecessors) if they were attributed to them. Ask yourself if you would be all for the stimulus package if it were a Republican Congress and GWB at the helm. I hope you wouldn't!

All these things are bad regardless of who is in charge, be they "left" or "right". I had the same complaints about Dubya and I'm seeing the same pattern with Obama. Government power grabs...more centralized control of our lives...politics as usual.

[Wheatfield]

And from the Huffington Post. (That's a liberal paper isn't it?)
Obama Calls For Defense Spending Cuts

You'all don't need to cut your defense spending, you need to cut your offense spending.
Just a thought.

[slomojoe]

I'm one of those "neo-cons" you mention. I'm a conservative and very proud of it. I am NOT a loyal "republican" nor did I vote for Dubya. GB and the current crop of repubs have abandoned any semblence to conservatism years ago. Don't believe me? Look at spending from Bush. Hardly a conservative record. His spending and that of the later-years Republican Congress would make Bill Clinton blush! That is why so many of us traditional conservatives didn't vote for them! They don't represent us. And they lost. Good riddance. They still can't figure it out. I feel the same about Specter and Collins for caving in on the stimulus. Hopefully they will be gone soon as well. I predict at least one of them will.

Ah, the mythical conservative, fiscally responsible, a wise, spendthrift administrator of the public's moneys! Are you harking back to Reagan, under whom federal spending increased as never before and deficits ballooned; Bush 41, who kept spending just the same but had to increase taxes because the deficit was out of control; or perhaps the 1994-2000 Republican-controlled congress, who kept spending just as before, but also raised taxes under a Democatic President, and managed to get a nice surplus going that they were able to squander away as soon as they got a Republican in the White House?

Seriously, who's your paragon?

[navcom]

Ah, the mythical conservative, fiscally responsible, a wise, spendthrift administrator of the public's moneys! Are you harking back to Reagan, under whom federal spending increased as never before and deficits ballooned; Bush 41, who kept spending just the same but had to increase taxes because the deficit was out of control; or perhaps the 1994-2000 Republican-controlled congress, who kept spending just as before, but also raised taxes under a Democatic President, and managed to get a nice surplus going that they were able to squander away as soon as they got a Republican in the White House?

Seriously, who's your paragon?

Reread my last post about "republicans", mythical liberal.

Did you even read my post or did you just get to my second paragraph declaring myself a conservative and "assumed" the rest? Or is that just a trait of the "mythical" liberal? But I digress...I won't stereotype you. I don't know you just as you don't know me. I've enjoyed many of your posts on the forum and I know your a nice person.

You assume that I vote strictly "Republican" because I said I was a "conservative". While there are probably more repubs that are "conservative" in belief than dems, they don't necessarily have it all locked up. I will vote for the candidate who wants a limited federal government...period. That is my litmus test...not whether they have a "D" or "R" behind their name. George Bush and Karl Rove failed my test....I didn't vote for them. Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel are not looking like limited government types either. I'm from Minnesota...and no fan of Norm Coleman either. Personally I hope he goes down in flames. He's no different than his opponent. They might as well be on the same team!

I was pointing out how BOTH Repubs and Dems have screwed things up. There is enough blame to go all around. It's a path we've been on for many a year now...a path I fear we cannot turn back from regardless of where you fall on the issues.

So many are willing to criticize their opponent over an issue, but will just as easily dismiss the same when it's held against their guy, such as the method used to declare a spending "cut" or whether their guy paid his taxes or whether their guy raised taxes or increased the deficit.

As far as your statistics go, you can quote all day. I wholeheartedly agree! We tax and spend too much! What's your point?

Please, before you stereotype me, get to know me! I may be a conservative, but I'm not such a bad guy!...no matter what my wife says!

Ah, the mythical conservative, fiscally responsible, a wise, spendthrift administrator of the public's moneys! Are you harking back to Reagan, under whom federal spending increased as never before and deficits ballooned; Bush 41, who kept spending just the same but had to increase taxes because the deficit was out of control; or perhaps the 1994-2000 Republican-controlled congress, who kept spending just as before, but also raised taxes under a Democatic President, and managed to get a nice surplus going that they were able to squander away as soon as they got a Republican in the White House?

Seriously, who's your paragon?

Dude, Reagan HAD to spend money because the Peanut Farmer pretty much destroyed our military and national defense. Not to mention the economy. Wrap that Rascal did just about the same thing 43 had to rebuild the military again plus the fact of that day in 01. What was that now? Oh yeah. 9-11. Listen, if you don't do maintenance on your house you too can have a surplus. But eventually you WILL pay the piper.
Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. The same type of things The Annointed One wants to do probably extended the depression. Japan did it too. Yeah, the lost decade. Throwing money at it will make it worse. Face it. Most people will save that Crapulus money. The economy will not change until the mindset of the consumer change.

Yup. After every liberal pres the Conservative has to come back and rebuild. So we will just need to do it again in 2012.

This problem didn't occur overnight. It's been building for years. Since Peanut Farmer started the deregulation of Freddie and Fannie. Then Slick doing it even more. Don't forget Dubya did try to rein it in in 2005. So thank you Barney and Chris. (They should be tarred and feathered)

There are a lot of Republicans around now are what are termed RINOs and are NOT conservative by any means.

Just listening to the Annointed One on the tube talking about Drs and hospitals still filing things in triplicate. Yeah put you local print shop out of business. Whay to go, We need more forms filed in triplicate! Support your local printer. Damn Kinkos.

[slomojoe]

Dude, Reagan HAD to spend money because the Peanut Farmer pretty much destroyed our military and national defense. Not to mention the economy.

Glad to see you have come to the realization that increased spending is actually needed when the economy is in a downturn. Of course, the economy in 1981 was not half as bad as it is now, so I am sure you will now warmly support Obama's stimulus bill. Or is spending only absolutely needed when it is Republicans who want to do it?

Glad to see you have come to the realization that increased spending is actually needed when the economy is in a downturn. Of course, the economy in 1981 was not half as bad as it is now, so I am sure you will now warmly support Obama's stimulus bill. Or is spending only absolutely needed when it is Republicans who want to do it?

READ the rest of my post. Do not put words in my posts that are not there. Also that spending we had to do to rebuild the MILITARY. America must have the best military. The tax cuts took care of most of the economic trouble. If PF hadn't destroyed the military then the money wouldn't have been needed. Just the tax cuts.
Lets face it Carter was inarguably America's worst president. Reagan probably the best.
For the record under GWB we had a lower tax rate then under Slick

[navcom]

Glad to see you have come to the realization that increased spending is actually needed when the economy is in a downturn. Of course, the economy in 1981 was not half as bad as it is now, so I am sure you will now warmly support Obama's stimulus bill. Or is spending only absolutely needed when it is Republicans who want to do it?

Huh? Our house interest rate in 1979 was 13.5%!!! You can get a house loan today for around 5-6%. Core CPI inflation was over 12% back then (it's about 4-5% now). The current unemployment rate is the same as it was in the early to mid 90's.

We've spent our stimulus already. You don't take money out of an economy that is already strapped for credit and expect that to help. The government needs to take or borrow from the very economy it's trying to help. This won't help. If you borrow too much, you create inflation. Stimulus plans have never worked no matter who has tried them...democrat or republican. They give a short-lived gain in exchange for a long-term debt that if allowed to continue ends up devaluing the dollar and creating inflation. Again, I don't care what side of the isle proposes it.

The banks were told they had to make risky loans (to companies, individuals, etc.). They were told that if these loans defaulted, the feds would have their backs. This was done to create a "stimulus" in the low income and bad credit sectors. The thinking was this would boost the economy from the bottom up. The inevitable happened. A housing bubble was created causing the price of houses to skyrocket. Pretty much anyone could get a loan. Many defaulted. The bubble burst. Now it needs to correct in order to get things back to normal.

But instead of letting this happen, we have another spending program...the biggest in the history of the world...aimed at keeping that bubble alive. It won't work. All it will do is prop up the bad companies and bad individuals and encourage continued bad investment. When it crashes again, it will be worse. The bad companies need to pay up or close and be bought by a stable company. The individuals that took out bad mortgages or ran up their credit debt need to declare bankruptcy and be encouraged not to do it again. Housing prices need to stabilize and come back to what a stable mortgage market will bear. We need to let it correct. If we don't, we risk creating yet another artificial bubble...a bubble that will crash on both the Republicans and the Democrats. BOTH have the blood of the current crisis on their hands.

Things are bad. It sucks. People are hurting. But it's not the end of the world yet. More government and more confiscation of private funds (either through taxes or devaluing of the dollar) is not going to stop the pain. We've borrowed and taxed enough. We have a huge debt and we still have an economic problem. We have a huge regulatory body and we still have crooks in both business and government. We have spent trillions and trillions on poverty and still have the same poverty rate. It's time to face the facts that more money or more governmental control is not the answer. We need real change folks. We need leaders that are willing to face this fact and come up with alternative plans.

I don't care if they are Democrats or Republicans. If someone can realize that we started this country with the goal of having a limited federal government and want to restore that, I will vote for them. The "father of the Constitution", James Madison, said that the word "charity" is purposely not in the Constitution because the federal government is supposed to have limited powers and providing charity programs would corrupt it. He was right. The government has become corrupt, and more funding for corruption is not the answer.

Not bad Navcom, not bad. Confuse them with facts. I like it.

My house during the high time I could easily have sold for 400,000. Forget that it was, in my mind then borne out by a subsequent appraisal, only worth 250,000. Yet I could have sold it for about that and in fact my neighbor sold his for 430,000. And no, it definately wasn't worth it. It sold last year for 290,000. About it's true value.
Face it, there are people who have owned houses who shouldn't have. But it was made way to easy. Now we are paying for the deregulation and demand for increased lending to subprime.
But lets not forget about the other boondogles such as the dotcom bubble burst and oh I don't know what about Enron just to name a couple.

The best cure for what ails us?

Time. Time for things to right themselves. Sometimes the right thing to do is nothing. Things need to play out and settle. Like water seeking its own level it needs to play out. This is the time for weeding out and making ourselves stronger. Not a bailout. Oh, and reregulating Freddie/Fannie

[creampuff]

The US is basically bankrupt.
It will have to print more money to pay for the infrastructure spending needed to absorb the swelling ranks of the unemployed. Doing nothing is not an option. Invariably spiraling inflation will rear its ugly head and if not managed well the US dollar will be all but worthless (like some banana republic). Nationalizing the banks is the only way to compel the banks to restart the credit markets instead of preserving their capital and paying their senior management obscene amounts for poor performance, the hallmark of US corporate greed.

[stewart_photo]

(snip) As far as the defense budget goes, the Obama administration has just released its initial budget proposal, and here is a Congressional Quarterly article about it. As I said, the proposal includes an 8% increase in defense spending (war efforts excluded), and matches the Bush administration's forecast for 2010.

If "all [you]'ve seen and heard is cuts in military spending", methinks you need to update your information sources.

And that's several percentage points less than what the military was asking citing growing roles in Africa and elsewhere. The government cannot keep asking the military to expand operations around the world (opening new bases, etc) without funding (paying for) those increasing manpower and material costs. As it is now, without funding increases to match increasing costs, that expansion comes at the expense of other things (real budget cuts). For example, the military's Armed Forces Television Network (AFN) here is Europe is already talking about things which might be cut or reduced in light of the current Obama budget proposal, such as a planned cost of living increase in October (FY09–10) for soldiers overseas.

By the way, the forecast is simply an estimate based on projections from previously gathered info, not the actual budgetary requirements within any given fiscal year. The military is currently establishing a new Africa command (AFRICOM), which is costing far more than was originally projected - requires a lot of money to pay off all those local "leaders" and so on.

So, while the OP (graphicgr8s) might have exaggerated things a bit, he's certainly not that far off when it comes to problems with Obama's proposed military budget.

stewart

[navcom]

The US is basically bankrupt.
It will have to print more money to pay for the infrastructure spending needed to absorb the swelling ranks of the unemployed. Doing nothing is not an option. Invariably spiraling inflation will rear its ugly head and if not managed well the US dollar will be all but worthless (like some banana republic). Nationalizing the banks is the only way to compel the banks to restart the credit markets instead of preserving their capital and paying their senior management obscene amounts for poor performance, the hallmark of US corporate greed.

In a sense, I agree with you. We are bankrupt. And inflation will rear it's ugly head...especially if we end up with trillions in spending. We are printing money like there is no tomorrw...hopefully there is! But to think that we can spend our way out of a problem that is the result of too much bad spending is ridiculous. In order to fund all these spending programs, you need to take money out of the private sector. And the feds never give back what they take. There are TONS of administrative costs on top of the political "extras". You get taxed a dollar and get back $.20 in return. That is NOT what a cash-strapped economy needs.

But what I find fascinating is that we are all real quick to point out corporate greed (in many cases well deserved) but very few people point out government greed and corruption as though there is no cost associated with it. Corporations must compete to survive and thus there is the chance of an eventual "karma" event taking care of the greed...UNLESS....they are in bed with the feds. Many of them are just that and thus the crisis we have! Wall Street greed? It's all ultimately driven by the federal government.

With the feds, they have no competition and waste and greed are allowed to run rampant...party affiliation doesn't matter. The feds are the main reason we are in this crisis. They have mismanaged their power and our funds with bad regulation and politics. And now we think they are the solution to the problem???

We need to address the problem, not feed the beast and get even more problems. They ARE the problem!!

Spending is not the answer. If it were, high tax and spend states like California would be financial paradise. Instead they are bankrupt and people are leaving...many going to low tax and spend states.

So is the answer to tax them even more? Spend even more? When will it be enough to solve the problem? At a tax rate of 60%? 80%? 100%? When do we sit down and finally realize that more taxing and spending will not solve the problem...it only transfers power. And the feds will always want more and more and will always justify the need to have it. That is the definition of greed. It is the reason the founders of the country believed a limited federal government was a necessity if we were to ultimately remain as free as possible.

If we want to ultimately remain a free people, we have to learn how to take care of ourselves again and make responsible decisions with our finances and our tax dollars. The U.S. is not Europe. There is a different mindset here. We have been successful simply because we are independent and self-reliant. But those attitudes are changing. The more we transfer responsibility to the feds for our "well-being", the more we will become like a banana republic, as you say.

[slomojoe]

Huh? Our house interest rate in 1979 was 13.5%!!! You can get a house loan today for around 5-6%. Core CPI inflation was over 12% back then (it's about 4-5% now). The current unemployment rate is the same as it was in the early to mid 90's.

Except of course that most people (and businesses) could get a loan in 1979, and cannot get one now, no matter how hard they try. Foreclosures are at record highs, major banks are practically defaulting and have effectively (if not officially yet) been nationalized, essentially every State out there is in the red, and job losses this fast and steep have not been seen since the 30s. Look, it's not just crazy libruls who say this: pretty much every mainstream economist out there, from Krugman to Greenspan, agrees that this is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it may get worse.

Also that spending we had to do to rebuild the MILITARY. America must have the best military. The tax cuts took care of most of the economic trouble. If PF hadn't destroyed the military then the money wouldn't have been needed. Just the tax cuts.
Lets face it Carter was inarguably America's worst president. Reagan probably the best.

Not bad Navcom, not bad. Confuse them with facts. I like it.

Yup, facts. FACT1: military spending increased under Carter. FACT2: non-military spending increased under Reagan at a faster pace than military spending. FACT3: military spending was essentially flat under both Bush I (actually, it shrank a tad in those years) and Clinton (it raised a little overall), consistent with the diminished threat from Russia. FACT 4: the rate of growth in both total and non-military federal spending under Reagan was significantly higher than under Clinton. FACT 5: The largest proportional increases in non-military spending under Clinton occurred after 1998, under the Republican-controlled congress. FACT 6: the rate of growth of non-military federal spending under Bush 43 exceeded the growth of military spending, and it did not change significantly between under Republican or Democratic-controlled congress.

FACTS (graphs) courtesy of usgovernmentspending.com (from top to bottom - Nixon/Ford budget years; Carter budget years; Reagan budget years; GHW Bush budget years; Clinton budget years; first 7 GW Bush budget years - we are under the 8th right now):

For the record under GWB we had a lower tax rate then under Slick

And we can all see the results!

So where did all the money Peanut Head sent to the military go? And was it the US Military or Iran? All's that tells me is we got NO BANG FOR THE BUCK! He wasted it. Because the military was in worse shape afterwards.

You forget September 11, 2001. We went into a downturn after that. The tax cuts did spur back the economy though. Military spending had to increase. Clinton didn't do his job. If he did 9-11 would have never happened. We were and still are at war.