Serious question. What do Democrats say to this?

[landrun]

Here's an article discussing the belief that we'll soon enter the greatest depression in our history.
This article does a good job making points I've tried to make when discussing health care etc... with my liberal friends (and I do mean friends)
In short, we can't afford it. Not even close. Not only can we not afford it, if we don't seriously cut spending... NOW ... we won't exist as a country much longer.
I have my own beliefs of how we got here but I'll not point that out right now because I don't want this to turn into a thread debating repubs and dems.
I will say that no one is off the hook here. Both parties are to blame.
My question to the left is do you even see any of this as real issues or is it just smoke and mirrors and you simply don't believe these are problems we need to address.
There are no consequences??

To me, it is plainly obvious. But I want a level headed opinion from some of our more liberal posters so I can understand their perception of these issues.

And finally, to the leftist who are annoyed but the right, try to over look the fact that is article is from fox news. I'm a strong conservative but I'm open minded enough to read the NYT, msnbc and watch the channel, etc... and am honest enough to admit when they make a valid point or at least present a common sense argument I've never considered. I just want an honest response rather than a narrow minded partisan answer like ... I started reading then realized this was from fox and quit ... :o)

Here's the link and some points the author makes (for those who want the brief version)

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/23/why-are-on-brink-greatest-depression-all-time/



-- $16 trillion in debt, plus facing over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. That’s over $360,000 in debt per citizen.
-- In 1929, most of our states were not bankrupt, insolvent and dependent on federal government handouts to survive. One county (Cook County which includes Chicago, Illinois) now owes over $108 billion in debt (the biggest part of it in unfunded government employee pensions).
-- 77,000 federal employees earn more than the governors of their states.
-- Staggering numbers of federal government employees retire at a young age with $100,000 pensions for lif
-- 21 million government employees with bloated salaries, obscene pensions, and free health care for life. In Illinois there are retired government employees making over $425,000 per year
-- one seventh of America's population would be on food stamps
-- millions of illegal immigrants and their children collecting billions of dollars in entitlements from U.S. taxpayers.
-- In one state (California) illegal aliens cost taxpayers over $10.5 billion annually just for education, health care and incarceration.
-- When income taxes started in 1913, the average American was untouched. Only the richest 350,000 Americans paid a 2% income tax. Today the average American works until April 12th just to pay his or her taxes.


The solution is actually simple: dramatically cut the size, scope and power of government; cut spending; cut entitlements; cut taxes; cut government rules and regulations that smother, damage and destroy businesses, prevent startups, and kill jobs; reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; reform public employee pensions; stop the wars (we can no longer afford to police the world); end or reform the Fed; end bailouts and stimulus (ask Japan about the failures of repeated stimulus); end the Democratic obsession with green energy and high speed rail (ask Spain about the waste in those two programs); encourage oil and energy exploration; encourage job creation by small business and the private sector; term limit politicians; institute school choice; and back the dollar with a gold standard.

[hawaii 5-0]

What do you think about bringing down our debt by giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy?

When I saw that you used Foxnews as your source I immediatley discounted the veracity of it.

I'm all for fiscal responsibility and bringing down the debt. Just not the way Republicans/Paul Ryan want it done.

5-0

[diverdog]

I hope you are not implying all these problems were created by democrats?

[rock on sooner]

I have made numerous arguments on many threads about the
size of gov't, how to fix "entitlements", fiscal fact that you can't
cut revenue and spending, gotta raise revenue and cut spending,
need to downsize the military, easy fix on SS, just raise the salary
cap, clean fraud, waste and abuse from Medicare/Medicaid, green energy
is good, leave it alone or cut the giveaway to fossil fuel, too. Stimulus
saved HUGE numbers of jobs, many tax cuts for small business, ACA
will, long term,help bring down the deficit, agree about being the cop
for the world, term limits is a wild dream, don't think the gold standard,
at this point in time, would do much, except roil all the financial markets
in the world, school choice? Hell, all 50 states gotta a different idea about
what works, even with Dept of Education, agree about energy exploration
'cept gotta pursue renewables at the same time. Immigration issues, just
eliminate whose hiring and they'll stop coming (at least not nearly as many.)

Brief version presented, brief answer given. Tax break issue from 5-0?
Not a lot of revenue but sure would show a fairness not currently present.
JMO...

[hawaii 5-0]

I didn't mean in any way to imply that giving tax breaks to the wealthy would bring down the debt.

I was asking the OP if he thought it was a good idea.

I think it's a terrible idea.

5-0

[rock on sooner]

I didn't mean in any way to imply that giving tax breaks to the wealthy would bring down the debt.

I was asking the OP if he thought it was a good idea.

I think it's a terrible idea.

5-0

I know what you meant, 5-0, just wanted to point out the
fairness issue....

[ictsooner7]

What i say is this, first, stop watching fox "news" they are habitual liars, how many times have they been busted for lying? Second, stop voting republican, reagan ran on too much debt with carter then quickly tripled it, HW doubled that, clinton took it from 1/2 a trillion a year debt to 238 billion dollars surplus, bush tool over and went from 238 surplus to 1.2 TILLION debt while doubling the deficit again. Have you ever noticed that all of the republican/conservative cures for spuring on the economy centerpiece is always more and more tax cuts for the rich? Do you not understand that if you "seriously cut spending... NOW" will drive into a double dip recession? First it was ireland, then greece then portugal and now britian all tried austerity and it is a monumental failure. Economies have crashed and not restarted, britains economy shrank .5 of a point in the second quarter this year.

We have the biggest strongest economy in the world we won a world war with two major wars going at the same time all financed by debt. What has happened now is wealthy people - conservitive wealthy people have decided since they are the glorified "job creators" they shouldn't have to pay taxes, talk about a sense of entitlement! Do you understand why your party loves to talk about small business so much? Because the kochs are a partnership, which a lot of small businesses are, if the tax laws for partnerships are changed it applies to the koch's. With the new governor in kansas and his new tax plan, koch industies along with the koch family will pay ZERO state income taxes. It also applies to mitt and people like him who use those same tax laws that they say are for small businesses

Of course we see the real issues, we need to increase revenues, mainly through growth. The problem is that republicans are so fixated on the rich paying less and less taxes - when tax cuts for the rich don't grow the economy and the republicans doing everything they can to slow growth so they can get back in power, the recovery fueled by democratic policies is slowing to bring us out of the recession caused the republicans.

[marfacowboy]

Well, first of all, the U.S. currency supply has consisted overwhelmingly of paper money, not gold and silver coins, since the early 1800s. Secondly, with one brief exception, "the federal government has been in debt every year since 1776. In January 1835, for the first and only time in U.S. history, the public debt was retired, and a budget surplus was maintained for the next two years in order to accumulate what Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury called 'a fund to meet future deficits.'”

Every Democrat I know believes there should be deficit reduction. Where Democrats and Republicans differ (except for Reagan, who was a big spender) is on when and how to do it. Democrats are typically Keynesian and believe governments should spend in times of economic hardship and downturn in order to stimulate the economy. This is what happened in the Great Depression and what Reagan essentially did, although that's not publicized in GOP circles. The economic history of the United States and the current situation in Europe strongly suggest this works. But Democrats also believe you should start paying down the debt once the economy improves.

Republicans, on the other hand, favor austerity programs, which are proving to be disastrous in Europe. The exception is Germany, but Germany enjoyed an unfair trade situation that no one else in Europe could claim.

Oh, and by generally accepted standards, we've already been in a depression and mostly because of policies enacted before Obama took office.

Are the economic achievements of the Clinton years lost on everyone?