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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (103784)	11/2/2011 10:44:18 PM
From: Oblivious	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

What will the increase be with the National Debt after 4 years of Obama? What happened to all the shovel ready jobs? Why do 45% of our people don't pay income tax?

To: koan who wrote (103784)	11/3/2011 9:21:35 AM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 149317

So where did that money go? To massively bloated goverment? NO, to the rich, corporations and MIC! I couldn't agree with you more. It's why I voted for Kerry against Bush and voted for Obama against Cain. However, you call what I'm saying bullshit. Here are the facts. Our government IS BLOATED. We spend $3.7 trillion, but bring in tax revenues of $2.2 trillion, for a deficit of $1.5 Trillion per year! There is no way you can call that anything but bloated. Spending is way out of control. It has increased dramatically over the last 10 years. Look at the chart below. This is obscene. The military is a large part of it, yes. But so are Entitlements. Entitlements now represent 45% of our budget spend and that will increase every year as 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day! To make matters worse, the Social Security Trust Fund has no money in it! The money that gets paid out comes from current payroll taxes and deficiencies come from general revenue funds. Since we spend more than we earn, in reality it means deficiencies come from borrowing or printing money. These are all facts. You cannot deny mathematics, Koan. It's like denying the sun will come up tomorrow. Acknowledge the above and then we can have a rational debate about what to do. For example, you know I also am a big believe in massive military spending cuts and bringing our troops home. I also am in favor of dramatically increasing taxes on the rich. I am also in favor of raising the age on retirement and means testing both SS and Medicare. There are things we can do, but what we can not in good conscience do is sit on our hands and pretend everything will take care of itself. That is fantasy land.