National debt just topped 14 trillion.

[Nick Gromicko]

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[Samuel D. Butler]

We are watching the brazen looting and asset stripping of our nation by a bunch of criminal scum and if you protest or get angry about it you will be called dangerous and branded a threat. Home land security is not for the bearded cave men as the sales pitch claimed. If you start quoting Biblical versus you might be a security threat in the ''new america''.

[Nick Gromicko]

Yep. And they're keeping interest rates very low or at zero so that there is no incentive for Americans to save, and so that there is no way for Americans to keep up with inflation by putting money in the bank.

They should only pay Congress out of surpluses. No surplus, no paycheck.

[George A. H. Luck]

The decline of Empires has always been about the transfer of wealth from one state to another. It is a process that used to take hundreds of years. Who would have expected it to play out in less than fifty?

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

President Eisenhower in his visionary farewell address of 1961 understood that America was at a crossroad, unfortunately just like every other empire we too refused to take the road less traveled and have been suffering for it ever since.

When you worship at the alter of the Military Industrial Complex, expect to be commune with death & destruction, it is after the the only host served.

Originally Posted by President Eisenhower

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

[Michael Larson]

For most of the last century leftist/liberal policy reigned in this country.

Look what that has gotten us.

This debt has gone beyond sustainable levels. Period.

Across the board cuts is the only way to undo the mess they have created.

Does anyone think that everyone can't get by on 10% less?

[Joseph A. Ferry]

We're in the very best of hands.

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by jferry1

We're in the very best of hands.

Yep

[Nick Gromicko]

Things have improved in the sense that "cut spending" is what everyone on every TV and radio show is screaming. A few years ago, you rarely heard this. Now you hear it everywhere. This is a good sign.

[Doug Edwards]

Unfortunately in Washington, cutting spending does not mean what most Americans (or anyone outside the beltway for that matter) understands it to mean. Their definition of "cutting spending" means they are not going to spend as much as they have projected from previous years. We tend to think of it as "I am going to spend less than what I spent last year or previous years". They never go back down to the baseline or zero and below, just don't spend as much as we planned. Federal intake in 2009 was about a trillion less than what they spent. Trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you find yourself 14 trillion in debt. Right now we can't even pay the interest on the debt. How do you as Obama said it the other day, "dig yourself out of this hole". My first response was, WTF! Quit digging!!!!

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by dedwards

Unfortunately in Washington, cutting spending does not mean what most Americans (or anyone outside the beltway for that matter) understands it to mean. Their definition of "cutting spending" means they are not going to spend as much as they have projected from previous years. We tend to think of it as "I am going to spend less than what I spent last year or previous years". They never go back down to the baseline or zero and below, just don't spend as much as we planned. Federal intake in 2009 was about a trillion less than what they spent. Trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you find yourself 14 trillion in debt. Right now we can't even pay the interest on the debt. How do you as Obama said it the other day, "dig yourself out of this hole". My first response was, WTF! Quit digging!!!!

Your are right Doug.

There little tick is called base line budgeting.

Here is a good explanation of it.

Baseline budgeting tilts the budget process in favor of increased spending and taxes. For example, if an agency's budget is projected to grow by $100 million, but only grows by $75 million, according to baseline budgeting, that agency sustained a $25 million cut. That is analogous to a person who expects to gain 100 pounds only gaining 75 pounds, and taking credit for losing 25 pounds. The federal government is the only place this absurd logic is employed.

[Gary Farnsworth]

I was recently told that government spent more money from 2008 to 2010 than in years 1776 to 2006. Where in the heck is all of our money going?

One of my favorite movies of all time is "DAVE". We need him.