CUT THE SPENDING.

[huisache]

Friday night I had dinner with a tea party friend of mine and his tea party wife; both are retired military and haven't worked in twenty years; they are both in the late 70s to early 80s stage. They are both full time demonizers of the Ivy League entity in the white house and demanding the government quit wasting money and live within its revenues and cut taxes too.

I suggested we could shut down some veteran's hospitals and cut back on military pensions or put limits on how much medicare money could be spent per year on people over 80. They were not inclined to agree because they have earned those benefits. I pointed out that most everybody getting medicare had paid into that fund and the ones who had not, mostly women, had done valuable work raising kids, etc.

They were not convinced.

They have this belief that there is a vast fund of people out there who are perfectly capable of working and just will not do it because it is more profitable to leech the government. I pointed out that most people who could work but are living free off the government are the folks in prison and that a majority of them were black market entrepreneurs taking advantage of the government's insane propensity for trying to outlaw pleasure. They didn't buy that either.

I don't think anything the government does will ever satisfy these people, be it a dem government or republican. They have this idea that it is possible to have an elected government that will quit spending large amounts of money on things people are now getting and hesto presto balance the budget.

I don't see that happening no matter who is running things. I guess it is some consolation to some people to imagine that it could happen if only Candidate X were elected. Of course Candidate X is not going to get nominated and if he did get elected he would turn out to be a Xino and another huge disappointment.

It is sort of like buying a lottery ticket for a trip to utopia.

 

[ShinerTX]

Rand Paul and Paul Ryan.

Cut the budget 1% per year and in 5-6 years it should be balanced. Real cuts, not the imaginary ones we usually hear about in Washington.

I'm quite certain we can find 1% just in waste and fraud alone in every budget associated with government.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Unfortunately, the minute someone actually proposes that, the big spenders will trot out the sob stories.

We'll hear the predictions of old ladies getting thrown out of nursing homes and living on the streets having to nose through garbage cans for food. We'll hear about children starving to death in classrooms because their school isn't providing breakfast anymore. We'll hear about inner city welfare recipients having to go back to selling drugs because their welfare isn't enough to buy food. The side advocating for fiscal restraint won' t be rhetorically prepared to defend against that, and they'll cave, and the spending will keep coming.

 

[Bronco]

Deez is correct about one thing, there is a large contingent of politicians just waiting for someone to propose real cuts to spending so that they can jump all over them and grandstand for their base. It is a bad cycle, but it helps win elections.

Term them. It solves so many problems inherent in our govt today.

 

[ShinerTX]

Well I mentioned Paul Ryan above. He is one of the few that has put forth a serious proposal for dealing with our deficits. He was chastised by the President and then the DNC put out a commercial with someone with his likeness pushing an old lady in a wheelchair off of a cliff. We really need some adults in government.