Efficient and effective
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I wonder how much of that is related to the military industrial complex? Ike tried to warn us, obviously we haven't taken heed. Big Pharma/Health Care is doing a good job of wetting their beaks too.
The time frame from the end of WWII to the breakup of the Soviet Union is barley a blip on that chart, but Afghanistan and Iraq certainly are fairly big chunk of the increase since 2000. I don't think there is anyone thing you can blame it on, other than just saying "disfunction".
Military spending is only about 20% of Federal spending. Social programs are 53%.
Edit: I do agree military spending is probably a bit high. But it's not the worst offender.
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What Reagan started ended the cold war and brought down the Berlin wall.
Things didn't really start going crazy until W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. The last four presidents have been piss poor on managing the debt. The last guy who tried to do something about it (HW Bush) got voted out of office for signing new taxes into law after vowing not to do so. Clinton loved to spend too much to fix it.
I know what'll fix it though....more stimulus! Let's get this albatross of a government funded, too! We need more regulation. More bureaucracy. Let's pay off those student loans. Let's keep funding Ukraine. That ought to fix it.
Well we could have just stayed out of Iraq and completed the mission in Afghanistan.
Trump could have vetoed the spending bills during his tenure during the height of Covid like he wanted, but he didn't.
Biden could have done the same after the vaccine hit the streets, but he didn't. Republicans never said anything about inflation until Biden took office, and they spent a pile of money before he did. January 21, they started immediately chirping.
But none of us would want to see what the economy would look like right now without that spending. So we take some inflation. People's retirement will be protected through growth in the market to compensate the new value of the dollar. So we take on the debt. Because no one at the time before the vaccine was out there in force, knew what the economy would have done if we would have cancelled all the Covid related spending.
At this point, do the things we need to do, and push this country into a varied energy dependent nation that we meet the needs domestically as best as possible. All of the above solution. Gas, Solar, Coal, Wind, Tidal, and more solar, and natural gas products. I am talking huge investments in natural gas and renewables. I want our country so isolated from the whims of the rest of the world we are literally free of the bull ****. I want every single roof surface covered in solar. I want every area that can produce from wind, to do it. I want fossil fuels to bring us along. All of it.
Next, pass comprehensive immigration reform. Get in a room, compromise, and protect US citizens while not slamming the door on workers. US workers are not stepping up to do the work needed, and that is a fact.
Then, make sure anyone that participated in, organized, stumped, or conspired in the fake elector schemes or January 6th (including people that gave speeches that demanded physical action on jan 6th) never see office ever again for any reason, at any point in the future. Those people are traitors and I don't care how you slice it. Until this happens, neither party will move forward with the Business of the United States. The random people that just got caught up in it, I feel for. But the people in the administration, in office, or part of campaigns knew what they were doing and it can never be repeated. Legal challenges, yes. What Trump and a bunch of other republicans did, no. Cannot be allowed to stand. This is only important to the debt because until we handle this, we cannot move forward with new direction. Time to stand up Republicans. Time to be vocal about letting these turncoats get what they should have already gotten, a kick in the *** out the door.
Go back and read my post. I think we can blame it on the MIC, that includes; lobbyists, politicians and military generals. Obviously incompetence from our elected and military leaders play a part, but corruption plays much bigger a role.
You'll get no excuses from me for spending under Trump. The first round of stimulus was justifiable. The second one was absurd. But Joe came in and killed domestic energy production and pushing big spending on additional stimulus and infrastructure. And who can forget that embarrassing "inflation reduction act?" And to be clear, Republicans are complicit. Mitch McConnell's *** supported most of Joe's agenda.
Republicans weren't saying anything about inflation when Biden took office because inflation was at 1.4% when Biden took office. At it's peak, it had risen 17% under Biden. The Joe Biden presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for middle class Americans.
How Biden torched the Trump recovery
One bad decision after another, compounded, to be sure, by certain events beyond his control, have scuttled the turnaround that was well underway the day Biden became president.
thehill.com
Ukraine is the cheapest money we will ever spend combating Russia. We should have done it with Georgia as well.
We don't need more domestic stimulus at this time, although my industry is booming because of it. Let what is there work through the system, and when its spending is close to be complete, target some other major need. People complain about the spending, but if our government would have been doing what it supposed to for the past 60 years, our bridges and energy infrastructure wouldn't be complete ****. There is no cheaper time to address it than today, unless you can go back and do it yesterday, and that is a fact.
The debt ceiling should be eliminated as it serves no purpose in this economy or at this time of technology. We elect Congressmen, that pass bills that spend money, we should pay our bills. I would argue that every time a bill is passed, adjoining legislation to fully fund that should be passed as an attachment every single time. Want Universal Healthcare? Cool. Well no instead of your company or you personally sending $600 per month to your insurance, your company will deduct the funds from you paycheck or cover for your contribution the same amount of money. The government, then because they are the single payer, can get cost manageable across the entire industry as they would have fixed pricing.
Regulation isn't that hard, it just forces you to do what you should be doing because people are watching. Without regulation, our entire financial sector would melt down inside of 10 years through companies acting like their actions are happening the dark. I don't say more regulations, but I say make sure people who break them get pounded.
Students should pay their own loans as like everyone with all their loans. But I believe loans should also be given out like any other loan, with stringent requirements on ROI for the degree you are earning. Like it would be easier to get loans for an engineer, then it would be for an elementary education major. That would then cheapen what schools could charge for low earning degrees and incentivize people not getting those degrees for **** tons of money.
I wouldn't say corruption exactly. Citizen's United really screwed this country up. That and the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine.
Hallmark of both parties is to clutch fiscal responsibility pearls while not in power, then spend like drunken sailors when in office. Been that way for most of my life. Surprisingly, Clinton was the only one to take a stab at stopping the bleeding in my literal lifetime:
"He had budget surpluses for fiscal years 1998–2001, the only such years from 1970 to 2023. Clinton's final four budgets were balanced budgets with surpluses, beginning with the 1997 budget. The ratio of debt held by the public to GDP, a primary measure of U.S. federal debt, fell from 47.8% in 1993 to 33.6% by 2000."
The economy and GDP are solid right now. COVID assisted inflation has abated but prices are not coming down ever. The generation entering the workforce in the last 3-5 years faces a lot of challenges that I did not face.You'll get no excuses from me for spending under Trump. The first round of stimulus was justifiable. The second one was absurd. But Joe came in and killed domestic energy production and pushing big spending on additional stimulus and infrastructure. And who can forget that embarrassing "inflation reduction act?" And to be clear, Republicans are complicit. Mitch McConnell's *** supported most of Joe's agenda.
Republicans weren't saying anything about inflation when Biden took office because inflation was at 1.4% when Biden took office. At it's peak, it had risen 17% under Biden. The Joe Biden presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for middle class Americans.
How Biden torched the Trump recovery
One bad decision after another, compounded, to be sure, by certain events beyond his control, have scuttled the turnaround that was well underway the day Biden became president.
Ukraine spending is money we don't have to prop up a truly fascist country (not the faux, freedom-loving fascism that you libbies despise, but actual, real, nazi-like fascism - the left wing kind). It's somewhere we should not have our nose. They're not a member of NATO although folks are trying to make it so to justify the spending. It's not the most egregious spending this gov't is involved in, but it's not insignificant.
I agree about not passing anything that isn't fully funded. And by fully funded, I mean fully funded, not funded based on future earnings projected over the top of happy path scenarios and pie in the sky theories.
The best regulator is the free market. The sooner you learn that, the better off you will be. I care about the gov't watching me because nobody is watching the gov't. We don't have an honest media anymore. We've got a populous that is more concerned with how they look in their tik tok videos than how they're going to provide for a family one day, and the intelligent voter is dying off. Shame on us if we continue to trust a gov't to look after us who just put us through the covid BS and the spending BS, and tanked the economy in the name of 'climate change' and whatever else is the new, big thing.
You're speaking my language on student loans. When someone gets a 300k in student loans to live the high life in an apartment and party every night while pursuing that gender studies degree for seven years, it's not my responsibility to pay it back. It's the responsibility of the person who signed the promissory note to pay it back.
This is dishonest Dorn, and you know it. I'm talking about oranges and you're talking about apples.
No. We are sitting on a very sizable bubble right now. The dollar is weak. Housing is stalling, wages are stagnant, and inflation is still crippling, despite what your president is telling you.
2024 is going to be a very rocky year for the economy. Very rocky. You heard it here first. Let's revisit later. But I'd advise taking precautions.
Biden didn't kill domestic energy production. He stopped some upcoming leases, which have mostly been renegotiated as of now. Our production dropped for a time, but the price increases were due to international issues and since the US has produced more energy over the last year than it ever has before.You'll get no excuses from me for spending under Trump. The first round of stimulus was justifiable. The second one was absurd. But Joe came in and killed domestic energy production and pushing big spending on additional stimulus and infrastructure. And who can forget that embarrassing "inflation reduction act?" And to be clear, Republicans are complicit. Mitch McConnell's *** supported most of Joe's agenda.
Republicans weren't saying anything about inflation when Biden took office because inflation was at 1.4% when Biden took office. At it's peak, it had risen 17% under Biden. The Joe Biden presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for middle class Americans.
How Biden torched the Trump recovery
One bad decision after another, compounded, to be sure, by certain events beyond his control, have scuttled the turnaround that was well underway the day Biden became president.
Classic response about inflation.... You do know inflation lags like 8-12 months from its leading indicators that caused it right. It is a very large ship that doesn't adjust daily. Your figures prove exactly the point. The figure you see today is a reflection of what happened 8 months ago if not longer. We are only seeing the beginnings of the first interest rate increase this past October.
Also, speaking of inflation, who gives a flip. Better that than an entire collapse of the world's economy. Also, overall inflation since 2019, the US is damn near the lowest overall inflation rate of all major countries on the planet. Even with Trump's spending spree from 2017-2019 not meaning a damn thing. You want someone to blame for inflation, better blame both Biden and Trump. The peak inflation was reached at the time the first and second stimulus were hitting the streets. All of that was signed into law by one Donald J. Trump, your orange Jesus.
We produce more energy today than we have ever produced even under HW, W, and Trump. We do so now, plus we have invested heavily in renewables that are only going to give us more and more of a day to day advantage over where we would have been. I would like to personally thank republicans that own the domestic oil producing companies for getting off their asses and stop sandbagging oil production during a democrats tenure in office.
Put it simply as this, sure inflation has been bad, which is terrible. The rate of inflation is coming down, awesome. Businesses are doing damn good across the board in this abysmal economy as you put it. If they could get the workers needed, they would be doing even better. Demand is high. Supply is still lagging. All in all, it is pretty awesome to have a **** ton of money working for me at the moment in the market and it is awesome to own a company that is absolutely destroying it.
And when the Supreme Court rules in favor of Orange Jesus not only being removed from every ballot in the country, and they actually demand that he is and state that he can no longer hold office in the US at any level, I am going to support whichever level headed Republican they put up in his place. Biden did exactly what we needed at that time. I personally wish, Romney would run but he won't.
Baby Boomers have really done a lot of damage. Large portions of our spending is going to provide care for them, and they’ve book-ended these benefits with several rounds of tax cuts which are only compounding the problem.
We also put the Great Recession, Afghanistan, Iraq, COVID stimulus, etc. all on the credit card and don’t have much to show for it.
We also put the Great Recession, Afghanistan, Iraq, COVID stimulus, etc. all on the credit card and don’t have much to show for it.
A few things:You'll get no excuses from me for spending under Trump. The first round of stimulus was justifiable. The second one was absurd. But Joe came in and killed domestic energy production and pushing big spending on additional stimulus and infrastructure. And who can forget that embarrassing "inflation reduction act?" And to be clear, Republicans are complicit. Mitch McConnell's *** supported most of Joe's agenda.
Republicans weren't saying anything about inflation when Biden took office because inflation was at 1.4% when Biden took office. At it's peak, it had risen 17% under Biden. The Joe Biden presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for middle class Americans.
How Biden torched the Trump recovery
One bad decision after another, compounded, to be sure, by certain events beyond his control, have scuttled the turnaround that was well underway the day Biden became president.
1) not sure how you define "energy", but oil production is at record levels, as a nation, for the entire world. I admittedly don't keep up with any other "energy" so you may have a point?
2) Our infrastructure is what makes us a strong nation and we are falling apart, so this was needed. It seems all republicans are now on board with it as well, since they all show up for photo ops the minute that the money they voted against hits their district. I'm certain that bill had a lot of fat in it, as they all do, but we have to do something at some point. I'd just as soon we start now and me help foot bill for my kids and grandkids.
3) The inflation rate has dropped from 9 percent to 3.2 percent, but it's pretty unlikely the Act did that by all objective accounts that I find.
4) It is interesting, and this is NOT directed at you just the topic in general, that a lot of people genuinely believe the "media" that tells them Trump was great for the economy when he is the first president since Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression to depart office with fewer jobs in the country than when he entered.
5) I've lived long enough and am more than capable enough to look at the data to see that the economy largely is the economy and doesn't have a particular political party affiliation.
No your response about inflation is the classic response. It's the one democrats make every time inflation goes up after their republican predecessor lowered it. It's kinda like Biden saying that he doesn't have control of gas prices when they're high, and then says "look what I did" when they drop.
Your comments about Jan 6 give your agenda away. The topic is spending and you're talking about Trump.
And just so you know, inflation is still increasing. It's just increasing at a slower rate than it was. So, the rate of inflation coming down is not awesome. This is an issue best resolved by the free market.
Ah, so you're for Social Security reform? Careful, they'll start calling you a republican before long.
You'll get no excuses from me for spending under Trump. The first round of stimulus was justifiable. The second one was absurd. But Joe came in and killed domestic energy production and pushing big spending on additional stimulus and infrastructure. And who can forget that embarrassing "inflation reduction act?" And to be clear, Republicans are complicit. Mitch McConnell's *** supported most of Joe's agenda.
Republicans weren't saying anything about inflation when Biden took office because inflation was at 1.4% when Biden took office. At it's peak, it had risen 17% under Biden. The Joe Biden presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for middle class Americans.
How Biden torched the Trump recovery
One bad decision after another, compounded, to be sure, by certain events beyond his control, have scuttled the turnaround that was well underway the day Biden became president.
Pretty bold strategy to say Biden “killed domestic energy production” while we set records for domestic energy production.
We shall see. Most of the "experts" that I've read recently seem to think we avoid a recession and the economy stays on pace. The market is cyclical so nothing would surprise me nor am I changing how I invest as my time horizon is adequate, I hope...
I would raise taxes rather than kicking grandma out to the street.
Trump and Bush’s tax cuts have been complete disasters. Especially considering both left office with us in deep recessions. COVID almost does Trump a favor. Most people forget we were having to cut interest rates in 2019 before Wuhan got involved.
1) production is higher. Capacity to process it is not. Also, demand is higher. There's a lot more people in the work today so comparing production to previous presidencies is dishonest. The issue is that there is not more expansion. We need to tap into additional resources. We need to invest in more refineries. We need to do more natural gas exploration. Your president killed those things. Production is higher from existing sources because we're trying to meet demand. That is not sustainable. So it's dishonest to talk about increased oil production under Biden to counter the argument that he didn't declare war on energy.
2) you should read what was in that big infrastructure bill that was passed. Very little of it went to infrastructure. And that's the fault of both parties.
3) The inflation rate has dropped, yes. But prices are still rising on top of the all time high that was previously hit. There is no relief there.
4) That's a dishonest argument. Trump lost jobs due to covid and 80% of the jobs Biden gets credited with creating are jobs that were created under Trump and restored post covid. So you can take that BS to someone stupid enough to believe it.
5) But you clearly haven't lived long enough to understand that policy matters. How we're spending our money matters. The effects that overspending our money matter.
Which I have answered elsewhere in this thread. Apples and oranges.
If I have 0 credit card debt, I guess that means that PDH owes $202K… 
Here’s where that graph comes from by the way:
www.dailymail.co.uk
Here’s where that graph comes from by the way:
US national debt hits $34 TRILLION - and it could affect your finances
The staggering figure, which is a major point of contention between Republicans and Democrats, is equal to $101,233 in federal debt for every person in America.
I'm not really interested in some big back and forth, but you said Joe killed domestic energy production (I presume you mean petroleum?) and in fact we hit peak production in 2023. What am I missing?
Edit: I see your answer. I find it largely non-sequitur, but no need to rehash.
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Hahahaha.. uh huh..
Did you address it by looking up the actual levels of oil and gas production and the editing your post?
In 2017, 2018, and 2019 it was constantly discussed, on here even, that the long run of low inflation and low interest rates was not sustainable and the inevitable correction would be brutal. Like anyone with any semblance of honestly knew this. It was inevitable.You'll get no excuses from me for spending under Trump. The first round of stimulus was justifiable. The second one was absurd. But Joe came in and killed domestic energy production and pushing big spending on additional stimulus and infrastructure. And who can forget that embarrassing "inflation reduction act?" And to be clear, Republicans are complicit. Mitch McConnell's *** supported most of Joe's agenda.
Republicans weren't saying anything about inflation when Biden took office because inflation was at 1.4% when Biden took office. At it's peak, it had risen 17% under Biden. The Joe Biden presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for middle class Americans.
How Biden torched the Trump recovery
One bad decision after another, compounded, to be sure, by certain events beyond his control, have scuttled the turnaround that was well underway the day Biden became president.
Add in covid spending and no surprise- inflation was brutal. Pending inflation was known ahead of time and it was global in scope, which should help show it wasnt as simple as you calling it a Biden created issue. We could call it a Trump created issue since he demanded interest rates stay low even when the Fed continually floated the idea that rates would need to soon increase.
Or if we want to be honest, like actually just assess the issue, we can recognize that it is complex and the result of many factors- Fed, global cost increases, Trump initiatives and spending, Biden initiatives and spending, Covid checks, and more.
Would you like to be honest on this?
Inflation is increasing? Well it is inflation, so...
Inflation is not inherently bad. Arguing against inflation means arguing for deflation. Artificially suppressed inflation (and interest rates) during the late teen years is in part what led us to where we are now.
Agreed. I don't think what we get for the military is too much but I think corruption drives that price up.
Nah man more regulation is the answer. We've already been told that places like MDEQ are underfunded and very efficient.
Should 'offender' be used? I get it, its just a word so who cares...but at the same time, words matter to all of us and which ones are used often determine how something is viewed.
Just because something takes up half of a budget doesnt mean its an offender.
If spending is wasteful and does not benefit society in any number of ways, then call it an offender. I am not sure 'social programs' as a general category can be honestly argued as not benefitting society.
In hindsight knowing that he wouldn't have gotten reelected either way i wish he had. But he did it b/c it was suicide if he didn't. And i don't blame him for that one.
The money that was spent in 2020 and 2021 on stimulus and covid was 100% pushed by Democrats. And that money along with shutting down the economy had a huge impact on inflation.
Flood the market with money (increased demand)
Eliminate the access to items wanted/needed due to covid restrictions (decreased supply)
EQUALS INCREASED PRICING
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