Warren Buffett had this line that we would have no budget deficits if it we're required that every Congress person who voted for such would be ineligible for re-election.
Pushing the cost burden on subsequent generations is a cowardly way to deal with our financial problems. When Reagan entered office, the debt was less than $1T (about $3.5T in today's dollars).
The #4 cost currently is paying off interest (not principle) on old debt.
We should bring back surpluses in the good times. If you are the head of a country and you are proclaiming that the economy is "the greatest ever" then you should be running a balanced / surplus budget.
If the economy is in the shitter you are perfectly entitled to run a deficit.
It makes nobody happy - people who think deficits are bad, people who think continual deficits are good, people with no trust in politicians to do the right thing.
>Warren Buffett had this line that we would have no budget deficits if it we're required that every Congress person who voted for such would be ineligible for re-election.
Yeah, and the USSR would have won.
>When Reagan entered office, the debt was less than $1T (about $3.5T in today's dollars).
Well, guess who won the Cold War? Who pushed the USSR to bankrupt itself?
It would be like saying "no private company should ever raise capital".
If that were the case, they wouldn't have contributed a narrative being used to support the fascist movement that gave us the big ugly spending bill. Sorry to anyone who was legitimately interested in actual fiscal conservatism (which includes myself), this is now just another lofty ideal Trump has burnt the credibility of in service of enriching himself. Maybe we can try again in 20 years, if we still have a country.
The conversation was about NASA, an agency that poured billions to Boeing and the United Alliance and was forced to accept SpaceX (way back during the Obama admin, I believe) whilst kicking and screaming.
And? The argument being made was the simplistic "cannot afford" meme, which is trotted out every time the fascists are crushing an agency, yet is conveniently ignored when the fascists spend trillions of dollars for new purposes.
If one wants to make a nuanced argument about NASA or fiscal responsibility despite the current political environment, it is perfectly possible to do so! But you need to work much harder to tease out the nuance and distance yourself from the fascists, lest your effort of espousing your lofty ideals just end up as fuel supporting them. Fascists don't respect ideals beyond power - the open hypocrisy is the point.
That's just the standard postmodern cognitive dissonance of supporting terrible politicians. "I don't like what they did, but not enough to stop supporting them". It's a defense mechanism against the obvious hypocrisy. Find me where they're completely condemning Trump, like say calling for impeachment, and then you'll have a point.
And no, the comment I responded to had absolutely no specific criticism about what from NASA should be "shaved". Notice how I didn't respond to the one about SLS?
Did you condemn Obama when he droned an American child and laughed that the kid had chosen bad parents? Did you call for his impeachment then or now? How about when he sicced the IRS on conservatives?
Did you call for Biden's impeachment when he coordinated with social media companies to violate American 1A rights?
Did you vociferously condemn what Biden enabled in Gaza?
Unless you too add these boiler plates on your messages you are full of it.
> Did you condemn Obama when he droned an American child and laughed that the kid had chosen bad parents?
Yes, unequivocally.
> Did you call for his impeachment then or now?
I didn't call for his impeachment because it didn't seem like a political possibility to effect change. I did not vote for him in the first place, and there did not appear to be a differing alternative in the cards.
> Did you call for Biden's impeachment when he coordinated with social media companies to violate American 1A rights?
My view is I do not see what is significant about "Biden" or the government here, apart from people trying to tenuously connect the palpable infringement upon their freedom to the 1st amendment as written. The larger topic, advocating for the right of free speech with the rise of corporate government is one of my pet issues. But yet again, there has been no political option on the table to actually change anything about this.
> Did you vociferously condemn what Biden enabled in Gaza?
Honestly, it seemed like Biden was doing the best he could given the Israel lobby. But I'll admit to not really being invested in that situation any longer.
... but what I most certainly did not do is post on any of these topics cheerleading for power. Especially with paltry appeals to values that when scrutinized, are being hypocritically used by power as justifications. It's not a matter of "boilerplate", it's a matter of expressing enough nuance to make it so that your opinion isn't simply contributing to the chorus cheerleading for power. There's a time and a place to call for good-faith reform of American institutions, but it's decidedly not when fascists are at the helm.
I was just skimming my threads for replies, and feel the need to clarify:
>> Did you vociferously condemn what Biden enabled in Gaza?
> Honestly, it seemed like Biden was doing the best he could given the Israel lobby. But I'll admit to not really being invested in that situation any longer.
I responded to your question in the context of being about Biden's policies, in line with the thrust of your other questions.
Regarding what was and is going on in Gaza (regardless which US politicians and policies may be enabling it) ? Yes, I certainly condemn that! It's fucking genocide.
As I said, I'm not super invested in the situation any more, growing older and not seeing any real angle to personally affect it. I had a few weeks after Oct 7 of writing off the situation as FAFO (but still realizing that this was unfair to the Palestinians who did not support that attack), but Israel burnt through that goodwill quick. I'm old enough to have become more conservative such that if Israel had occupied Gaza and implemented martial law with the (stated and apparent) goal of keeping the peace until a civil non-Hamas government could be sustained, I just might have accepted that. But they didn't. What they are actually doing is straight up take-no-responsibility genocide.
