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  • #16
    Re: Republican Spending Cuts

    Originally posted by Kaonohi View Post
    So you want to cut the VA? Why don't you also lobby to cut Social Security and Medicare while you're at it? Why should just veterans suffer?
    I'm not lobbying to cut VA, I said it was my opinion that it was a bloated program and should be cut. But I'm not lobbying for anything. Just a couple of posts above, I said I was willing to pay more for Medicare. As far as SocSec, I don't get much, much less than the average. I planned ahead since I had no confidence in the SocSec system when I was working full time, that it would still be there when I retired. I made my own private arrangements for retirement over my full time working years. Take my SocSec away from me if you want. It will hurt a little but I will survive.

    So I laid my principles out there on the budget as have Scriv and AL, you have yet to do so.

    As far as losing my matapule status, only my noble Fakatulolo, the one who bestowed the honor, can do that and he is happy with my efforts.
    Peace, Love, and Local Grindz

    People who form FIRM opinions with so little knowledge only pretend to be open-minded. They select their facts like food from a buffet. David R. Dow

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: Republican Spending Cuts

      Originally posted by matapule View Post
      I'm not lobbying to cut VA, I said it was my opinion that it was a bloated program and should be cut.

      So I laid my principles out there on the budget as have Scriv and AL, you have yet to do so.
      Didn't know that was a requirement for presenting opinions here.
      My principles are simple:
      1. Honor your obligations and promises (Ex: VA and Social Security).
      2. Cut spending where there is obvious waste; apply common principles of cost benefit. (Do you know what Senators get paid? And their lifetime security blanket?)
      3. Let American dollars take care of America first.

      Other than that I'm hardly qualified to "lay out my principles" other than what I have experienced, and I experienced years of the VA ignoring and abusing its wards. I disagree with your opinion.
      Last edited by Kaonohi; February 11, 2011, 07:15 PM.
      Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!
      ~ ~
      Kaʻonohiʻulaʻokahōkūmiomioʻehiku
      Spreading the virus of ALOHA.
      Oh Chu. If only you could have seen what I've seen, with your eyes.

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Republican Spending Cuts

        When it comes to trying to solve money issues, you'll find a lot more complaining and blaming of parties, and very little offering of solutions. It's easy to say we can cut things here, and dissolve full-on departments. We can spend all day trimming branches and cutting back on some programs, but for representative morality, one of the first places that can use some refining is Congress itself.

        Without bringing up any of the Congressional retirement plan myths, their current retirement plan under CSRS and FERS sounds pretty reasonable. For the most part, they mimic a lot of other similar federal retirement plans, which makes it on par with other non-Congressional government jobs. Obviously, it's not flawless.

        On average, a Congressman's salary is approximately $175k/yr. Figuratively speaking, I think that's a pretty fair number based on the responsibilities their job description has, the hours they're supposed to put in, etc. That's lower than most corporate management positions, and yet these guys are supposed to be part of a national leadership structure. Congressmen are elected from all walks of life, from the grass roots small town nobody, to the multi-millionaire business owner. It's a job, and they deserve pay. But can their budget be trimmed first?

        One potential solution: Net worth salary cap?
        Some of these Congressmen already earn or have earned tens of millions of dollars prior to being elected to their position. For some, a mere $175K per year is less than what they earn on monthly interest. After a 'career' in Congress, they're eligible for retirement benefits (multiple methods depending on age and service and which program). If their retirement salary is but a fraction of that... is it really necessary to pay a multi-millionaire chump change for reaching 62? Many Democrats and Republicans already exceed $50M in net worth. How they earned it before is good on them, and I applaud their prior success.

        Partial spinoff...
        While I believe everyone who does a job is entitled to be paid for it, I find those Congressmen who have volunteered to lower their salary or benefit out of principle in the past to be admirable.

        One possible solution: "Retirement" is typically factored by years served and age. A "minimum of 5 years service" should not automatically make one eligible for a pension.
        For those of you who met reasonable requirements (aka "done your time"), of 20, 25, or 30+ years, and/or reached a retirement age with honorable service, you deserve your pensions. One retirement eligibility criterion available under FERS is: "Retirement with a deferred, full pension available at age 62 for any former member of Congress with at least 5 years of Federal Service." That's about as ridiculous as saying you'll join the military for a 5-year service obligation in your 20s, and being fully eligible for retirement by 40 years later based on your initial commitment. Considering a Congressman is already jumping straight in to a $150k+ salary, that is the easiest method of collecting free cash, and I feel that is a wrong.

        Going back to "doing your time," a Congressman should at least do double-digit service to have some form of eligibility. 10 years may be a little low, and 20 should certainly be automatic. But either way, the Congressman's retirement eligibility is also determined by how well he does. If he gets voted out before that eligibility tenure requirement, then too-bad-so-sad. You don't collect a pension from a job you got fired from after working 6 or 8 years. They shouldn't get it for doing a poor job in very little time.


        This is my partial contribution to throw into the thread. Just trying to keep it short before the list gets too long. There is more to add later.

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Republican Spending Cuts

          Originally posted by bjd392 View Post
          You don't collect a pension from a job you got fired from after working 6 or 8 years. They shouldn't get it for doing a poor job in very little time.


          This is my partial contribution to throw into the thread. Just trying to keep it short before the list gets too long. There is more to add later.
          bjd, you expressed wonderfully one of my pet peeves of top-heavy government - much more completely and succinctly than I ever could. Really put it into perspective, too. Kudos!
          Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!
          ~ ~
          Kaʻonohiʻulaʻokahōkūmiomioʻehiku
          Spreading the virus of ALOHA.
          Oh Chu. If only you could have seen what I've seen, with your eyes.

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Republican Spending Cuts

            Originally posted by matapule View Post
            Take my SocSec away from me if you want.
            Now, why would I ever want to do that? I certainly didn't say that I wanted to.

            I get the feeling that you are either misunderstanding my comments or deliberately twisting my words - for what reasons I can't imagine and find hard to believe since it would belie your "Peace, Love and Local Grinds" philosophy expressed in your signature. I currently believe it's misunderstanding.

            I also feel that ever since you accused me of baiting you in another thread (I never tried to bait you - you misunderstood that comment at least) that you have been trying to bait me - your above comment just one example - lashing out at my military service and subsequent sacrifices yet another.

            I'm sorry if any of my comments have angered you enough to make you lash out at me in posted threads. I suggest that if you have a problem with me you are welcome to contact me in a private message or even post it on my profile board if you want it on public record (that way others could join in, too); it's bad form to go off-topic with personal issues.

            If you have a concern, I await your contact; I will no longer respond to personal issues in any open thread.

            K?
            Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!
            ~ ~
            Kaʻonohiʻulaʻokahōkūmiomioʻehiku
            Spreading the virus of ALOHA.
            Oh Chu. If only you could have seen what I've seen, with your eyes.

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: Republican Spending Cuts

              Among the cuts is a cut to the Centers For Disease Control. The insanity speaks for itself. Behold the brilliance of the plan. First you assure that the gvt. will not have enough money to run adequately by cutting taxes for billionaires (that IS what the people voted for in November!), and then you have a perfect excuse to cut everything you never liked. That certainly includes the Environmental Protection Agency. Also liberal welfare cradle to grave nonsense like grants to poor people to afford their heating bills so they won't freeze to death. We want death. We must. Cutting the Centers for Disease Control, obviously you love death. All that money for the billionaires will make them so comfortable if, say, bird flu erases 70 % of the population. It gets you to some major questions: what is money for if not life? Would you rather have a billion dollars and be dead, or some minimum wage job and be alive? And what is the purpose of having a government? Why even have a government if it can't use the tools of medical science to preserve the people, the nation, from avoidable death by disease?

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                It was absolute genius to cut off the source of money to the government so eliminating meat inspection could be justified, or inspecting jets, or monitoring poisonous emissions from the campaign contributors' factories; anything that interferes with business. What sheer genius! And even though social security and medicare are funded by their own means, it will be possible to cut those back and give the money to rich people and speculators, too. Absolute genius!

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                  One of the most important agencies to underfund is the Securities and Exchange Commission, it will make looting of the social security and medicare trust funds a snap for the campaign contributors. And even if it is not possible to loot those, other scams like the mortgage derivatives melt down will earn the campaign contributors countless billions, and big gubbmint will be helpless to prevent it, the SEC will be a toothless tiger.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                    Its funny but it looks like the Republicans have an unbreakable hold on the election machine. Killing off the unions is a 2 sided blessing for them, not just enriching their corporate masters, but eliminating a big source of contributions for the Democratic Party. With the Citizens United decision, Republicans will be able to buy just about any election they want. The funny part is the citizenry does not want their policies, the citizenry does not want privatized social security, or medicare, it really does want good, well funded public education, it does want its working rights protected, it does not want Wall St. swindlers to have a free hand to steal their money. But thats what it votes for. Funny. Not funny ha ha, but funny strange. Pathetic, really.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                      I support Unions in the sense that they are supposed to be a voice to the workers that are typically undermined in our society. In the previous decades, teachers, bus drivers, fire fighters, etc., were really getting screwed over. What I don't support are the Unions who have become so powerful that they greedily shut down public systems.

                      I can understand if an average wage is $50K and workers united under a Union are only getting $40K. What I don't support is if they have a comfortable salary during a tough economic crisis and are unwilling to budge on 1, 2 or even 5% of their salary, even if it's to be put into their own retirement or health funds.

                      The government isn't trying to be like Singapore, where it's mandated that 30+% of your paycheck is placed in a managed retirement fund, and another portion of your pay is devoted to taxes. The government is trying to make cuts here and there due to the last few years of overspending.

                      For us responsible people, we've cut back on spending and extraneous luxuries knowing that the economy is in a bit of a bind lately. That doesn't mean we should be nitpicking and whining over 1 or 2 percent cuts (or even up to 10% as a figurative threshold for me), just because no one wants to (as Obama puts it himself) "give a little."

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                        As an open-ended question, when a Democratic supermajority owned the 110th and 111th Congresses, where were the American voices when we were realizing the Congressional budgets were overspending?

                        It's very easy to pounce on a newly elected Republican Congress (and imagine that... the tide predictably shifted as expected), when it comes to their desires to make cuts. It's got to start somewhere.

                        Looking at the 80+ amendments added to HR 1, I can't say I agree with many of them that passed, nor do I agree with a handful that were rejected. But knowing that this government has survived for a couple hundred years on a pseudo-roller coaster, I'm not at all worried about what 112 is doing.

                        It just seems funny how a collective majority always seems to back Obama with the phrase: "It's only been 2 years, give him a chance..." Right now, Congress has been in session for less than 2 months, and no one's really given them a chance yet. So much for fairness among political lines.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                          Seems in Wisconsin the young new Republican gov. began his administration with a $ 118 million tax cut to the wealthy privileged elite. Now he expects middle class public workers to take a loss to make up for it. Isn't that the very essence of arrogant Republican politics? The real aim is to destroy unions so that there will be no money available to the Democratic Party. Look at what the people voted for--the focus group slogan was Jobs Jobs Jobs, but the Republican House of Representatives has been totally about banning abortion AGAIN. They always count on the public's stupidity and the public never lets them down. No more Wall St. regulation, that will go well; unregulated Capitalism is so perfect, and if people get poisoned food or poisoned water or poisoned air and get their life savings stolen AGAIN, well, thats the marketplace, folks, you voted for it. Defund education, tax breaks for billionaires. Its what the people want. Well maybe not want, exactly, but vote for.

                          I seldom hate entire classes of people but in the case of fresh faced young Republican conservatives like the gov. of Wisconsin I make an exception. Arrogant little swine.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                            You're certainly right when it comes to the phrase "public stupidity." It's pretty sad how little people know about politics. I think it's sad how paper/red-taped politics have come over the last couple hundred years as well.

                            Whenever a new bill comes up in Congress, I get an email alerter, and the entire text is there for me to read. Whenever I have I legitimate question or concern, my district's Congressman is in my email address book. I'm willing to bet a couple hundred million American citizens don't even come close to that amount of contact, let alone know who anyone in office is.

                            Sadly, regardless of which press media bias people choose to read/listen to/watch, the only thing that gets covered in any bill that's being pushed is that percentage of the legislation that seems to be the sting, which is intentionally meant to piss certain public groups off. They don't see the other 90% of the bill or it's many dozens of amendments that may or may not be beneficial. But who has time for that when it's spent whining and complaining?

                            On the one hand, there's a lot of focus on Wisconsin's governor for wanting to cut certain items. On the other hand, the part that's not making much media headlines is the Connecticut 100% Democratic run state that is pushing for taxes on almost everything. In the short term, we'll have to see which one is the one that pays off, even though Connecticut (to me) is a miniscule state that I have no care in the world for (oh, much like Wisconsin). But this wouldn't be too big of an issue, except for the fact that over 40-45 states are already in the hole for the last decade.

                            Honestly, the utilitarian in me says a Union is nothing compared to the needs and goods of the entire state. The media biases want it to look like this nuclear bomb on middle-class union workers, but it's been clearly stated and documented in the bill(s) that what it's asking for is a shift in where wages are going. As much as I feel sympathy for some of their causes, their state voted for their legislators for this two-year term and that's what they get for the next two years. Depending on the outcome, the 2012 election will decide whether they keep them, or re-shift it back.

                            It's definitely sounding like a game of political football. Only this time, after 4 years of Democrats hoarding the ball, the Republicans have possession on their own 2 yard line (and in this forum, they seem to be the visiting team).

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                              Originally posted by acousticlady View Post
                              (1) I'd first cut military. Don't believe in war and certainly not big weapons...

                              (2) Secondly, I'd cut medicare. I believe western "medicine" has gotten so far out of control that in many respects they are doing more harm than good.

                              (3) Then I would put some of the excess that would result from deeply slashing the first two of the big 3 into social security. We need to honor our elderly and afford them a comfortable existence.
                              We'll all admit that 2001 was a make-it-or-break-it occurrence that basically said, "if we don't fight against this, then we'll allow you to walk all over us on our home turf." So given the end of 2001 and a year or so into 2002 or 2003, it's understandable this war was reactionary.

                              (1) Now that it's been going on since then, recall some silly little document... let me pull it out of my desk drawer..., here it is... Article I Section 8 paragraphs 11-17 of the US Constitution, that basically states that the military's provisions fall under the Legislative Branch. (Yes, we know the President is the CinC by Article II.) Under those paragraphs, the responsibility for funding and maintaining the budgeting for the military indeed rests on Congressmen and their yearly budget appropriations. Also recall that up until January 2011, the House and Senate were both Democratic (super)majorities, which could have easily defunded the Defense Bill over the last 10 years. Unfortunately, when the downturn of Iraq (which was the optimal time to pull out) was shifted to that POS worthless crap country called Afghanistan, it bought the 111th Congress a commitment. Defunding the Defense Department after authorizing the Presidents' (both Bush and Obama's) military movements is probably the worst thing you can do. Placing the burden on the newly installed 112th Congress and complaining that Republicans won't reduce the Defense budget or pull out is basically telling your neighbor to clean up the poop you just left on their porch.

                              (2) I don't have any intimate knowledge on Medicare, but I don't revolve my future around a government system that is neither all that reliable, or most recently, honest. We'll have to see how this investigation on the siphoning of Medicare and the many millions of dollars in stolen money by fraudulent or deceitful doctors turns out.

                              (3) I don't look forward to Social Security because I don't expect it to be around by the time I get to receive it. But by that time, it wouldn't matter because I've been saving on every paycheck I received since I was 17, and unlike a lot of people in my age category, I'll probably be better off than them. But Social Security is really its own beast that deserves its other thread. Increasing an age will always piss off those who are just months away from the benefits; yet mathematically, I'm still trying to figure out exactly which age bracket won't have any money by the time they're eligible. Is it up to the 40 year-olds yet, or still in the 30s?

                              Based on what's left, it literally is a trimming of the fat. Every year the steaks get bigger, but the fat gets slimmer. Looking at these HR1 amendments, there are a lot of committees that oversee committees that ensure some bureaucratic agency is nitpicking something absolutely worthless, and each of those are receiving millions of dollars annually. Those little cuts are a good start. But with every trimming of fat, sometimes a little meat goes with it. It just depends on if it's the good part that you waste, or the bad parts in the grissle.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Republican Spending Cuts

                                The idea is to promote a recession or a depression in time for the next election. Seems kind of selfish, kind of destructive to the nation. Ideally your country's government should not deliberately adopt policies to harm the nation, to harm the people. And all just so Wall St. can be set even more free to steal even more money. You get the public to vote for it with diversionary """issues"""like: gay marriage, abortion, etc. The budget shortfall could soooo easily be made up by ending 2 needless wars and raising tax rates on the highest 2% of taxpayers by a modest 4%. 39% delivered a surplus for President Clinton, 35% plus two wars = economic oblivion for the US. But you have a clearly biased supreme ct, a national press that finds it more profitable to cover Lindsay Lohan's latest debacle rather than real news. No more Planned Parenthood = more abortions and more welfare but who cares when it feels so good to stick it to Planned Parenthood? Oh well.

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