madmallard wrote:
Its hard to wrap your head around, but lets shrink it to an individual scale.
I'm familiar with the math. The fact that you're using the whitehouse plan which I have already claimed is ridiculously insufficient to "disprove" what I said indicates you didn't read and/or didn't comprehend it.
The only thing the Whitehouse plan has going for it is that it's better than the GOP plan. And let me tell you, that's damning with faint praise.
But now you've moved onto debt limits (which ties in with the thread as a whole, but not with your post that I replied to).
If we're talking endpoints, I'm much more in tune with what the GOP or even the Tea Party want than the Dems. Or in the case of the GOP, what they claim to want, their actions distinctly indicate otherwise. The GOP will never get there because they don't really want to, and the Tea Party's version to do it all at once is even more irresponsible than either of the big two. As such, we're left with the woefully inadequate Dem plan as the best of three very E36 M3ty options being currently pushed.
Frankly taxes could make up a big chunk (big chunk != all or even most) of that and we'd still have low taxes compared to more than one first world nation, but that's not what I'm endorsing, so isn't really relevant. And wouldn't relieve the need for major cuts as opposed to the token ones we're getting now.
Note: even a 1:50 ratio isn't orders of magnitude. I'm not suggesting it should be made up with half taxes. Or even a fifth taxes. A tenth is probably pushing it pretty hard, but despite the what some would claim is almost certainly less damaging than anything the Tea Party endorses (there we go damning with faint praise again) by cutting everything immediately and skyrocketing the unemployment rate which there's no way would be made up in time for by reduced taxes.
Since nobody is willing to cut entitlements in a rational manner, almost any cut is going to directly correspond to job's. Even then it's doable in stages, but all at once is economic armageddon. (see there's the endpoint vs means bit)
Not raising the debt limit is similar but less drastic. Less drastic != very very bad thouugh.
Also, your military #s are actually wrong, but that's neither here nor there. As I agree that even the complete elimination doesn't solve the problem (and is stupid) and therefore the specific #s for it aren't terribly relevant.
The biggest single issue is medical costs, and half-assed approaches like the compromise we got isn't going to cut it (it;s worse than doing nothing). Medical costs require serious reform. But like the military, even if that were completely eliminated it doesn't solve the problem. The "free" market (which it really isn't, thus the quotes) is terrible at setting prices for certain things. Medical care is at the top of that list. Followed by some utilities.
The very fact taht you can say "see even if you completely cut all of this, and that and the budget still isn't balanced "supports rather refutes my claims that cuts alone are insufficient.
