US Fiscal cliff explained

Lesson # 1:
* U.S. Tax revenue: $ 2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $ 3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

* Annual family income: $ 21,700
* Money the family spent: $ 38,200

* New debt on the credit card: $ 16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $ 38.50

Got It ?????
OK now,

Lesson # 2:

Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:
Let's say, You come home from work and find
there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood....
and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ......
Raise the ceilings, or remove the ****?​

 

KtK for US Senate! No, wait a minute, that wouldn't work. He makes too much sense.

 

That guy for US senate? Are you crazy!! He actually appears to use a brain, He would be lost amongst those brain dead sheep.. =)

Realistically, there need's to be a combined tax increase and budget spending decrease and on a large scale, You cant aim to just even the spending and tax revenue, You now have to increase tax revenue a 5% (preferably 10%+) above the spending to actually lower the debt and keep at it for years to come. As for where to cut it, I have my views and suggestions but for the time being I will keep them to my self until I see where this thread goes and to if it would be worth while saying or to keep my trap shut and not escalate any arguments =).

Cheers, Looks forward to this being a very civil debate. V_N

 

I'd have had a contingency plan..maybe insurance..one that didn't affect the neighbours.

 

It's pretty simple, but democrats will only vote for more spending. It's kind of like a household budget where mom and dad gave the credit card to Johnny, the 16 year old crack addict.

 

Wise move Lou, I wonder why these threads come back over and over again , they all look alike and mostly finish in the bin.

 

Why is it that every time I hear 'The Fiscal Cliff'....I think of The Doors ?

The Doors - YouTube

Go on - 'The Fiscal Cliff - is being filled.....a thousand girls, a thousand thrills.....'

Catchy, isn't it ?

 

Good one . "This is the End" comes to mind too .

The Doors - The End (1967) - YouTube

 

Sadly, no one mentions how poorly we really are at backing our troops and war machine with the hypocritical approach of borrowing from China to foot the bill.......if we valued our freedom wouldn't we be willing to increase revenue for a war effort at least enough so we didn't fall so far behind, that we visit hell on our offspring for so long? It is truly "Voodoo" economics we are glued to to expect some kind of budget cuts are going to fill the chasm of war costs we now face. It is easy to poke fun at the numbers......let us all sit back and evaluate how we have come to arrive at this condition of "hypocrisy". In my opinion there is no cliff deep enough for the architects of this plan, and the uninformed who blindly followed along as if it were some "wonderful" solution that we cut taxes just to feel good while it all went down. Amongst the many lies that led us into these wars are the yet accepted ones that we could finance war debt in this way and now we want an instant fix for a problem created over a decade. I say wake up and look a little past the obvious figures. Your Grover Norquist solution is simply a means of extracting the costs from the lowest echelon of society instead of those who owe for their freedoms earned on the backs of our soldiers. I don't believe this is even a partisan issue.....it is a moral and patriot issue.

 

Look! The graph below from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office shows how small Iraq really figures in the deficit. Look at the HUGE spike in 09 (gee, what happened in 08 that would cause a spike in 09?). It's spending in general that is creating the deficit.

View attachment 18162

 

Replace all the military with the bankers in Iraq - problem solved!

 

Just to point out how misleading graphs can be...............24% of our total budget is military spending and this graph is designed to show only 1 expense of two wars we are in and none of the other activities we have engaged in(military) around the world. No doubt we are spending too much.....but revenues have always been kicked up for our war efforts in most previous war time engagements....no graph can conceal 24% of what our tax payers of the future must pay! I am not against this spending but I do think it can be more carefully done but we had better face reality.......not smoke and mirrors. You mention the huge spike........24% is close to 1/4 of what made up that spike....sorry not going to let you gloss over a chart that misleads and leaves out whole wars such as Afghanistan and other middle east difficulties.

 

What the graph points out is that the "Iraq is causing the deficit" line is liberal propaganda.

I agree that we can afford to cut military spending, but what we can't afford is propaganda rather than the truth. Most of here are (or have been) associated with the military in one fashion or another. We know where the waste is and we know it can be eliminated.

We seem to have reached a state where propaganda trumps facts. It's completely obvious that the administration we have is completely unwilling to cut spending anywhere.

 

Does the post I made before you moved this thread to the stump still count then? Or was it retro-actively subtracted from my totals?

 

Military expenditure (% of GDP) | Data | Table

As the only super power around you are getting a lot of bangs for your bucks -US Defence spending sounds huge but its still only 4% of GDP.

With Chinese spending on the rise, it might be a bit unwise.

 

The hypocrites in the house want these projects to go forth as a stimulus for their own neighborhoods--
The Global Hawk Block 30 drone program;- The C-27J Spartan cargo aircraft;
- Upgrades to the M1 Abrams tank;
- Air National Guard funding;
- A proposed East Coast missile defense system
and the Pentagon has stated they don't even want or need these programs.....that is not bang for the buck.

 

Brutal. Won't go into business again. The "secret" knowledge that is accounting- all the loopholes only those in the know use, makes being in business prohibitive...Why can't they just use a flat rate?..They want ants...Lawyers and accountants charge unreal fee's... I only had 1 kid 'cause that's all I could afford. First world countries are not having enough babies...They take the jobs to China/Asia, reduce our living wage, bust the unions, bring in foreign labour who work for a fraction of our living wage...Why is (most of) our standard of living deteriorating?..My LA teacher assured us that we'd be at least as successful as our fathers. Not happening...Someone is to blame.

 

Hell if the US wants to get bang for there buck look at us Aussies, We have the worlds Best Over the Horizon Radar system that would work wonders at covering the US East and West coast, Hell depending on the weather JORN (Thats what we call ours) can get radar signatures as far away as North Korea, Hell when we first started testing it to see how good it was we drove an SUV through the Aussie outback and tracked it the whole way, Then there was the US stealth bombers we have been able to pick up so Id say for the $1 billion we have spent on it we have got a bloody amazing system.

 

Poppy - its just the same here only worse.

At least you can fire non-performers and you don't have to pay 12 months maternity leave and you don't have the same red tape and H&S stupidities.

Could the problem be democracy? Just asking!