This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
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Re: This is what hapens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
A balanced budget amendment isn't a magic wand.
If you can't do the basic math to get the budget balanced, making an amendment would have as much effectiveness as outlawing gravity.
Since the Bush tax cuts, no politician of any party has been able to offer a serious and practical plan to balance the budget. -
Re: This is what hapens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
Even Alexander Hamilton got it that the simple-minded "balanced budget" would destroy the Republic. But the oligarchs, their talking heads, and their followers keep putting it forward as if it could do anything except profit a very small minority in just the way third world dictators get rich.Comment
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Re: This is what hapens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
Did someone say something about a tenuous grasp on reality?David G
Harbor Woodworks
https://www.facebook.com/HarborWoodworks/
"It was a Sunday morning and Goddard gave thanks that there were still places where one could worship in temples not made by human hands." -- L. F. Herreshoff (The Compleat Cruiser)
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
Just mindless ideology."They have a lot of stupid people that vote in their primaries. They really do. I'm not really supposed to say that but it's an obvious fact. But when stupid people vote, you know who they nominate? Other stupid people." -- James Carville on the plethora of low-quality GQP candidates in the mid-term election.Comment
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
It has gotten to the point that if peffy espouses a certain position, if I head off at 180 degrees to it, I know I'll be on the side of the angels.Gerard>
Albuquerque, NM
Next election, vote against EVERY Republican, for EVERY office, at EVERY level. Be patriotic, save the country.Comment
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Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers. (Averell Harriman)Comment
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
It's a lot harder to pass a constitutional amendment than to pass a budget that shows a surplus, but you can pound the table and demand the amendment while voting for lower taxes and higher spending, and be Santa instead of Scrooge.On the trailing edge of technology.
https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-John-L.../dp/B07LC6Y934
http://www.scribd.com/johnmwatkins/documents
http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/Comment
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
The problem is not that the deficit is unimportant. The problem is the lawmakers who act most concerned about it don't actually care about balancing the budget. Pushing the amendment is a way to avoid making the hard choices while appearing to favor having them made.
It's a lot harder to pass a constitutional amendment than to pass a budget that shows a surplus, but you can pound the table and demand the amendment while voting for lower taxes and higher spending, and be Santa instead of Scrooge.Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers. (Averell Harriman)Comment
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
Then there is the problem of "what ifs". What if circumstances demand a huge government expenditure to save the country, save the economy, aid an ally, etc., etc.?Comment
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
You are apparently unaware of the 'two Santas' strategy.On the trailing edge of technology.
https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-John-L.../dp/B07LC6Y934
http://www.scribd.com/johnmwatkins/documents
http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/Comment
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Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers. (Averell Harriman)Comment
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
Instead of listening to Republican propaganda about the need to balance the Federal budget, and the false analogy between the Federal budget and every family's household budget, try to educate yourself about economics. Look up Paul Krugman or Joseph Steiglitz, university professors with books you can read as well as Nobel prizes to their credit. They will explain the difference between the borrowing and spending the government does and that which you do as an individual. If nothing more it may lift the terrible burden that worrying about the deficit has caused you and many others. The time to do something about the deficit is when the economy has recovered and is strong, when most people have jobs, when tax revenues are increasing. To curtail government spending in order to reduce the deficit will put the country back into recession and worse, it will not reduce the deficit. It's called austerity and has been recently expunged from the Republican lexicon. The UK economy is still trying austerity to its great disadvantage. Trying to enforce a historically discredited idea by amending the constitution borders on lunacy.
As Harry Truman once said, "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."Comment
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Re: This is what happens when you don't have a Balanced Budget Amendment
Instead of listening to Republican propaganda about the need to balance the Federal budget, and the false analogy between the Federal budget and every family's household budget, try to educate yourself about economics. Look up Paul Krugman or Joseph Steiglitz, university professors with books you can read as well as Nobel prizes to their credit. They will explain the difference between the borrowing and spending the government does and that which you do as an individual. If nothing more it may lift the terrible burden that worrying about the deficit has caused you and many others. The time to do something about the deficit is when the economy has recovered and is strong, when most people have jobs, when tax revenues are increasing. To curtail government spending in order to reduce the deficit will put the country back into recession and worse, it will not reduce the deficit. It's called austerity and has been recently expunged from the Republican lexicon. The UK economy is still trying austerity to its great disadvantage. Trying to enforce a historically discredited idea by amending the constitution borders on lunacy.
As Harry Truman once said, "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers. (Averell Harriman)Comment
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