Fiscal responsibility: suppose the govt "doesn't spend money it doesn't have."

[NAOS]

If my stance, as I have said a dozen times, is that I think a complete overhaul of budgets and spending control should be the primary focus, then why would I want to put the cart before the horse and answer a question prior to having the important empirical data necessary to answer?

For the record, this is not even close to an answer to the OP. It's a total dodge.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

allusions to shipwrecks; metaphors of self-control, bodily harm (bleeding and addiction), and machines out of control; money is over-simplified; justification of current pain for some supposed future betterment if we can just get our act together.

I'm not angling here, but I can have some real substance? This nothing but moralizing crap. Why must you speak in parables?

I suppose I speak in parables so that anyone with a brain can understand me. I appreciate the unintended compliment.
This is exactly what I expected of you and why I did not plan on continuing with this conversation.

You see, leaders speak about visions and ideas based on morals and goals. People with hatchets and axes instead of actually listening to understand what is being said, start to hack away and tear it down without gaining anything.

Hack, I like that for your new nickname, because you seem to wildly swing at about anything.

If two people having a conversation can't agree on the big picture, arguing about details accomplishes nothing. You are looking at a picture of an old woman, I see a young woman.

You want real substance, go get your food stamp money and buy yourself something to eat on my dime.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

Daddy is good at wagging the finger.

You my "friend", are acting like a complete Moran. I blame you.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Nope, never heard of FDR or JMK ...

I said I wasn't opposed to spending and I'm not. I said I'm opposed to spending more than what something should cost in the private sector. I think government waste is out of control ... and no conversations of Keynesian economics or historical enclosure theory will fix it. It will take the people demanding change and real financial oversight .. we must eliminate the piss-poor management.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

No, Scat, this thread isn't dedicated to you. This is a common refrain from the right. When you ask for an explanation you usually get some paternalist, moralizing stance that sounds more like daddy explaining the Protestant work ethic and staying off drugs than it does something about economics (see jazzspermzz).

NAOS = Moran

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

The problem is a solution would have to be enormous and just to hammer out the details would take huge hours/weeks/months/years of work to work out all the issues and get things done. Not many of the people paid to do this want to truly take on the task.

As to your blaming one side for this, you are part of the problem. There is plenty blame to go around, but blaming doesn't fix anything. It would take both sides letting go of the hate and working together, and I don't see that. You may want to blame the "far right whose extremism, intransigence, and irrational hatred of obama" but you see you have just labeled yourself as the "far left whose extremism, intransigence, and irrational hatred of (Romney or Republican)"... which means you are exactly the same but the other side of the coin.

Blame never leads to agreement or solutions whether deserved or not.

There is plenty of blame to go around; the left will mobilize to protect its pet programs as swiftly as the will the right. And you're right, resolving this issue would take a huge effort and--here's the kicker--compromise by principled yet pragmatic lawmakers (such as the Founding Fathers who the Tea Baggers claim to revere so much). These are becoming a scarce breed in the Republican Congress and if the Tea Party has its way, will become scarcer yet. There has been a steady parade of legislators, past and present, coming out and saying how the environment in DC is becoming poisoness--the worst its been in their memory, making actual legislating in the harder and harder. There can be no doubt where the blame lies for this.

Yes, the blame game can be counterproductive, but so is burying one's head in the sand and ignoring what's causing the problem. (If these morons had their way, they would have forced the US to default on its debt--is there any better piece of evidence of their irrationality?) The BEST thing that could happen to this county is for the Tea Party (and the extremists in the Republican Party) to go the way of the No-Nothing Party, their 19th Century counterparts, and to do so as soon as possible, so that some semblance of sanity can return to Washington.

Note I am not saying that the left doesn't have their share of nut jobs and extremists, but they are not the ones currently poisoning the well and making impossible the very thing you say is necessary to get a grip on and solve this problem.

 

[Scat]

I place the blame overwhelmingly on the shoulders of the far right whose extremism, intransigence, and irrational hatred of Obama has so poisoned the well that no actual solution is anywhere in sight.

Of course you do. Let's completely ignore the 800 lb gorilla in the room that is the greatest spender in the history of the United States.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

There is plenty of blame to go around; the left will mobilize to protect its pet programs as swiftly as the will the right. And you're right, resolving this issue would take a huge effort and--here's the kicker--compromise by principled yet pragmatic lawmakers (such as the Founding Fathers who the Tea Baggers claim to revere so much). These are becoming a scarce breed in the Republican Congress and if the Tea Party has its way, will become scarcer yet. There has been a steady parade of legislators, past and present, coming out and saying how the environment in DC is becoming poisoness--the worst its been in their memory, making actual legislating in the harder and harder. There can be no doubt where the blame lies for this.

Yes, the blame game can be counterproductive, but so is burying one's head in the sand and ignoring what's causing the problem. (If these morons had their way, they would have forced the US to default on its debt--is there any better piece of evidence of their irrationality?) The BEST thing that could happen to this county is for the Tea Party (and the extremists in the Republican Party) to go the way of the No-Nothing Party, their 19th Century counterparts, and to do so as soon as possible, so that some semblance of sanity can return to Washington.

Note I am not saying that the left doesn't have their share of nut jobs and extremists, but they are not the ones currently poisoning the well and making impossible the very thing you say is necessary to get a grip on and solve this problem.

I pretty much agree with your take on this, not necessarily on which side is worse. When a Repub is in office it is the other side that is "poisoning the well". We are in a tough situation as a country and I only see it getting worse before something big has to happen to try and salvage things and fix things. As things are currently, not much positive will happen because of the McCoy's and the Hatfields.

 

[NAOS]

You can ask Franklin if you'd like, he'll confirm that I'm genuinely torn on this issue. I actually have more in common with Babe (who is to the "right" of many of you), then I do with the so-called left.

But, yeah, parables are for the weak. Really, spazz, it was a weak attempt. drivel, actually.

 

[NAOS]

Of course you do. Let's completely ignore the 800 lb gorilla in the room that is the greatest spender in the history of the United States.

But why would you dismiss spending out-of-hand? This is the worst economic crisis since the last time we spent our way out of ****.

There is also debt forgiveness.... but I think only Jesus can do that in this country. I'm only sorta kidding.

 

[Dr. Jones]

You can ask Franklin if you'd like, he'll confirm that I'm genuinely torn on this issue. I actually have more in common with Babe (who is to the "right" of many of you), then I do with the so-called left.

But, yeah, parables are for the weak. Really, spazz, it was a weak attempt. drivel, actually.

Just curious why you have twice mentioned 'asking Franklin' about you in recent posts .. why Frank?

 

[NAOS]

I pretty much agree with your take on this, not necessarily on which side is worse. When a Repub is in office it is the other side that is "poisoning the well". We are in a tough situation as a country and I only see it getting worse before something big has to happen to try and salvage things and fix things. As things are currently, not much positive will happen because of the McCoy's and the Hatfields.

So, you really don't have much of a positive political program. It seems you can say a lot about what is WRONG, and a lot about what we SHOULDN'T DO. If both "sides" are broken, then why not think of an alternative? Does that flirt with the law in uncomfortable ways?