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(Wall Street Journal)   Blue Dog Democrats' website says they want to balance the budget and restrain spending. Not sure how the $21 billion in domestic spending they piled on top of Bush's budget will help, but it's a nice thought   (opinionjournal.com) divider line
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364 clicks; posted to Politics » on 27 Aug 2007 at 1:03 PM (15 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



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alywa
2007-08-27 10:59:10 AM  
21 Billion for Domestic Programs is far less than the $455 Billion we've wasted so far in Iraq.

Source: Cost of War (new window)

How about we get our priorities in order, eh subby?
 
Mordant
2007-08-27 11:03:52 AM  
It's not as much fun to cheer for domestic programs, war is freaking cool... it rocks... it's sooooooooo awesome.
 
2wolves [TotalFark]
2007-08-27 11:04:36 AM  
Subby, show me where you, or the WSJ editorial board, slammed the GOP Hill in a similar manner and you might have an ethical leg to stand on. Maybe.
 
soze [OhFark]
2007-08-27 11:11:19 AM  
Ooooh, $21B in domestic spending! SCARY!

At least the money's going back into our own country, farkhead.
 
TwoHead
2007-08-27 11:23:26 AM  
I guess we finally have our answer to Bush's question "Is our children learning?" Subby's headline shouts out a clear and resounding "I ain't learnt nothin!"
 
oldernell [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2007-08-27 11:26:45 AM  
The sad part is that no government, republican or democrat would ever suggest investing a half a trillion dolllas on Americans either in education, health care, or rebuilding the infrastructure, but they'll blow in on a senseless war in a heartbeat.
 
alywa
2007-08-27 11:36:42 AM  
oldernell: The sad part is that no government, republican or democrat would ever suggest investing a half a trillion dolllas on Americans either in education, health care, or rebuilding the infrastructure, but they'll blow in on a senseless war in a heartbeat.

Yeah, that's what always gets me. Folks argue that war is good for the economy (money into pockets of contractors, weapons manufacturers, etc), but never make that same argument for domestic spending (more money for teachers, road builders, nurses, etc).

"Conservative" spending apparently means spending only on the military; anything and everything it wants.
 
Mordant
2007-08-27 11:46:21 AM  
To be fair though, submitter does (inadvertently) make a good point against squandering money on education. If we were to budget billions of dollars on teaching pigs to sing because it would bring about world peace it would still be a waste of resources.
 
Sensei Can You See [TotalFark]
2007-08-27 11:51:01 AM  
2wolves: Subby, show me where you, or the WSJ editorial board, slammed the GOP Hill in a similar manner and you might have an ethical leg to stand on. Maybe.

WSJ's editorials have been griping constantly about runaway GOP spending for years. Here's just a few:

From January 2004--Title:

Drunken GOP Sailors: Even Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress didn't spend like this.

And in this article WSJ was one of the very first outlets to cry foul about Ted Stevens:

The much delayed omnibus appropriations bill for 2004, scheduled for a vote in the Senate this afternoon, looks set to cap the first term of the most profligate Administration since the 1960s.

Steve Moore of the Club for Growth calls this bill a pork-laden monstrosity worse than any ever produced when Congress was controlled by "tax-and-spend" liberals. There's federal money for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and one traffic light somewhere in upstate New York. There's $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Coralville, Iowa. (For that price we could send the whole town on a rain forest vacation.) There's $2 million for a golf awareness program in St. Augustine, Florida. The number of such earmarked federal expenditures has quintupled in the past five years to about 10,000, worth $23 billion, for 2004.

What's more, Congress's drunken spending sailors consider all of this special interest money not a source of shame but of pride. "The subcommittees have tried to accommodate your priorities and concerns in this bill," reads a recent letter to colleagues from Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens of Alaska. "Attached you will find a list of projects that may be of particular interest to you ..."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004579
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bminiter/?id=110007419

The recipe for Republicans is to stop acting like, well, Republicans--that is, Republicans of recent vintage. In Congress, they've been soft on earmarks, the source of so much corruption. They practically invited Democrats to trump them on ethics and lobbying reform. And they've allowed their obsession with illegal immigrants to get out of hand.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010499

...what seems to be confounding the Republican Party as a whole is a coherent and broad-based plan to shrink the size of government by controlling spending.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bminiter/?id=110007419
 
flaEsq
2007-08-27 12:12:04 PM  
It doesn't matter, come 2009 the Bush Dogs are gone. The nation is eager to toss all of these conservatives on the trash heap of history where they and their ill-considered philosophy belongs.
 
Control_this
2007-08-27 1:01:20 PM  
I keep getting the Republican WSJ editorials whore (Gigot) confused with the Zweibel dude on Onion.

[image from theonion.com too old to be available]
 
whyarefartslumpy
2007-08-27 1:10:07 PM  
alywa: oldernell: Folks argue that war is good for the economy.

Maybe somebody can correct me, but this line of thought hasn't been true since WWII.
 
neilio42
2007-08-27 1:11:40 PM  
Don't you have to spend money to make money? Or something like that.
 
LocalCynic
2007-08-27 1:13:35 PM  
Hey look, it's a Some Guy link!
 
whyarefartslumpy
2007-08-27 1:14:38 PM  
Amazingly, these guys could conceivably cut the deficit in half next year. This is good news. I, too, don't like the amount of war spending going on and think it would be better spent on infrastructure, but I think is is disengenous to get all frothy-mouthed and B-but Bush without discussing the merits of the plans that these Democrats have.
 
FlashLV
2007-08-27 1:15:38 PM  
Along with rising tax revenues, this could cut the budget deficit roughly in half next year, to well under $100 billion. But Republicans can't do that on their own: they need the votes of these moderate Democrats.

Jus more of the same. Spend more without cutting waste. Gotta love the Democrats.

This is one thing I fear if they take the WH, higher taxes and less money for me. Less money to go into my 401k and other retirement accounts.
 
Kal Ethanuel the Lionheart
2007-08-27 1:17:18 PM  
Love the comments in this thread. They give me hope that not all Americans watch Fox News and believe that anything labeled conservative is good.
 
Shaggy_C
2007-08-27 1:18:01 PM  
Interesting...people are already pulling the "B-b-but Bush" or "B-b-but Iraq!" to justify higher spending. Self-perpetuation erosion of personal wealth FTL. Thanks, everyone in power.

/Dies inside
 
carmody
2007-08-27 1:18:02 PM  
I'm old enough to remember when our last Democratic president ended up with a budget surplus.

With Bush cutting taxes and spending like a drunken sailor, almost any change in governmental behavior in this department will be positive for the country.
 
LocalCynic
2007-08-27 1:18:20 PM  
FlashLV: This is one thing I fear if they take the WH, higher taxes and less money for me. Less money to go into my 401k and other retirement accounts.

Actually, when taxes are cut, it's less money for a lot of people who previously were dodging taxes. Tax cuts "increase revenue" because tax evaders (who are illegal) decide to throw a few scraps onto the pile.

Tax cuts are just amnesty for evaders. Deport all tax evaders.
 
Asteroth
2007-08-27 1:19:16 PM  
Shaggy_C: Interesting...people are already pulling the "B-b-but Bush" or "B-b-but Iraq!" to justify higher spending. Self-perpetuation erosion of personal wealth FTL. Thanks, everyone in power.

/Dies inside

Hurry up and do it on the outside too.
 
mrjared
2007-08-27 1:20:35 PM  
FlashLV: Along with rising tax revenues, this could cut the budget deficit roughly in half next year, to well under $100 billion. But Republicans can't do that on their own: they need the votes of these moderate Democrats.

Jus more of the same. Spend more without cutting waste. Gotta love the Democrats.

This is one thing I fear if they take the WH, higher taxes and less money for me. Less money to go into my 401k and other retirement accounts.

That is what's all about after all...right? You? Just you. It's not like we are living in a society or anything.
 
Shaggy_C
2007-08-27 1:20:52 PM  
Asteroth: Hurry up and do it on the outside too.

I didn't realize advocated more limited spending would lead to internet tough guy death threats. It's a crazy world out there...
 
Headso
2007-08-27 1:21:57 PM  
[image from i16.tinypic.com too old to be available]
 
Huge Unit In My Dungarees
2007-08-27 1:27:15 PM  
MyNameIsNotMervGriffin: Steve Moore of the Club for Growth calls this bill a pork-laden monstrosity worse than any ever produced when Congress was controlled by "tax-and-spend" liberals. There's federal money for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and one traffic light somewhere in upstate New York. There's $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Coralville, Iowa. (For that price we could send the whole town on a rain forest vacation.) There's $2 million for a golf awareness program in St. Augustine, Florida. The number of such earmarked federal expenditures has quintupled in the past five years to about 10,000, worth $23 billion, for 2004.


Oh please stop the whining. All of that which is listed above doesn't even begin to touch the real "giveaways" - those that go to Corporate interests. We buy Wal-Mart an airport because they didn't make enough billions selling our country down the road to the Red Chinese to be able to afford one for themselves. We bail the airline industry out after 9/11 - when security was their responsibility. Tax breaks and no bid contracts are costing us a lot more than some rainforest in IA ever will, and Iowa actually has a chance to make money back on that attraction.

Meanwhile my treasury has been looted, much of the money going to Halliburton's Cayman and Dubai accounts, where it is not taxed. That's a farking crime but you're whining that some taxpaying citizen might be getting something you're not. Turn off the Fox News.

When the Fed prints more money (as they did last week) it benefits those who get the first bite the most: banks and defense contractors profit handsomely, while the man in the street sees the dollars which actually trickle down to him diluted by the newly printed money.

I would much rather see pork going to things which benefit the average taxpayer and improving our infrastructure.

Fark the corporate welfare queens.
 
Asteroth
2007-08-27 1:29:49 PM  
Shaggy_C: Asteroth: Hurry up and do it on the outside too.

I didn't realize advocated more limited spending would lead to internet tough guy death threats. It's a crazy world out there...

I didn't realize that being tired of stupid hyperbole over domestic government spending (of all things) constituted a death threat.

/I don't want you to die. You're okay.
 
whyarefartslumpy
2007-08-27 1:29:52 PM  
Asteroth:

Hurry up and do it on the outside too.

Is this a good time to pull out the old "there's no hate like liberal (pick your poison) hate"?

I mean, Jehova on a jumpy-ball, he just made a valid observation - nothing to get all up in arms about.
 
Huge Unit In My Dungarees
2007-08-27 1:33:31 PM  
FlashLV: This is one thing I fear if they take the WH, higher taxes and less money for me. Less money to go into my 401k and other retirement accounts.

You fear higher taxes if Democrats take the White House? Have you not been paying attention to what the War is costing us? Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, that's going to cause taxation to rise? Just a little maybe?

And anybody who is banking on a 401k is smoking dope. The sharks on Wall Street are already circling the 401s. If you want to see what is going to happen to your 401, just look at the history of any retirement programs the USA has ever had. From Pensions to the S&Ls, whenever that money piles up high enough, they steal it. Your 401k is next. Enjoy.
 
Krymore
2007-08-27 1:35:37 PM  
I love how Democrats are criticized for spending money on things to help the American public while Republicans are praised for getting us trillions of dollars in debt over things that will line a few men's pockets and piss the rest of the world off for generations to come. Our government is spending far too much, but that doesn't have nearly as much to do with "teh ebil liebral sokalizm!1!" as it does with the fact that we spend entirely too much money on mass producing instruments of war that benefit no one but the people that make them. Look at where your money is really going and then try to tell me that things like policemen, firefighters, libraries and schools are the reason your taxes are so high.
 
whyarefartslumpy
2007-08-27 1:37:04 PM  
Huge Unit In My Dungarees: You fear higher taxes if Democrats take the White House? Have you not been paying attention to what the War is costing us? Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, that's going to cause taxation to rise? Just a little maybe?

.


So how is it that the deficit is going down? I agree it could go down quicker without the war spending, but it's an honest question. Tax reductions don't seem to be hurting, so why raise them?
 
Pro Zack
2007-08-27 1:39:32 PM  
you know who else couldn't restrain spending...

Imelda Marcos!

SHOES!
 
Pro Zack
2007-08-27 1:41:21 PM  
Krymore: mass producing instruments of war that benefit no one but the people that make them.

interesting. industries whose workers are united states citizens... no we'd better not send money to them!
 
Pro Zack
2007-08-27 1:42:27 PM  
A majority of the money "spent" on the war goes back into the pockets of Americans.

That is why the economy hasn't folded yet.

note I say yet...
 
FlashLV
2007-08-27 1:43:12 PM  
carmody: I'm old enough to remember when our last Democratic president ended up with a budget surplus.

With Bush cutting taxes and spending like a drunken sailor, almost any change in governmental behavior in this department will be positive for the country.

There was also a tax surplus after the tax cuts LOL.
 
Pro Zack
2007-08-27 1:43:18 PM  
Darn it, Late to the thread.
 
Headso
2007-08-27 1:46:04 PM  
Pro Zack: interesting. industries whose workers are united states citizens

wasteful spending is bad regardless.
 
FlashLV
2007-08-27 1:46:33 PM  
mrjared:

That is what's all about after all...right? You? Just you. It's not like we are living in a society or anything.

Yeah, why should I care about anyone else beside me and my family?

I give plenty to charity each year.

I look out for myself and my family, I don't expect people to look out for me. So why should I look out for them? We have the Democrats for that, and they think raising taxes and spending more money on people who don't care enough to do it on their own.
 
The Why Not Guy
2007-08-27 1:48:25 PM  
Spending money on programs that benefit your own citizens - Socialism! Boo! Hiss! Evil Democrats!

Spending a lot more money on a war of questionable benefit to anyone - Hooray! Woo-Hoo! Tough on Terror!
 
FlashLV
2007-08-27 1:48:53 PM  
Huge Unit In My Dungarees:


You fear higher taxes if Democrats take the White House? Have you not been paying attention to what the War is costing us? Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, that's going to cause taxation to rise? Just a little maybe?

It doesn't need to, if they cut porkand BS spending there would be no need to raise taxes.

And anybody who is banking on a 401k is smoking dope. The sharks on Wall Street are already circling the 401s. If you want to see what is going to happen to your 401, just look at the history of any retirement programs the USA has ever had. From Pensions to the S&Ls, whenever that money piles up high enough, they steal it. Your 401k is next. Enjoy.

I disagree with that on almost all parts. My grandfather retired with his pension from the UAW and he's living VERY well.
 
Rovian
2007-08-27 1:49:23 PM  
It's not Fark, its Freerepublic.com.

By far the lead story today is the resignation of the attorney general, a corrupt man who would still be in office if it weren't for a judiciary committee now led by democrats. Thanks democrat congress!
 
Pro Zack
2007-08-27 1:49:55 PM  
Headso: wasteful spending is bad regardless.

agreed. it should have been spent putting a colony on the moon, or a NEA. give us SOMEWHERE to put our heavy industry.
 
FlashLV
2007-08-27 1:52:42 PM  
Rovian: It's not Fark, its Freerepublic.com.

By far the lead story today is the resignation of the attorney general, a corrupt man who would still be in office if it weren't for a judiciary committee now led by democrats. Thanks democrat congress!

BWAHHHAHHHAHAAAHAHA Dude, that's the funniest thing on Fark today!
 
Mr. Xhin
2007-08-27 1:55:11 PM  
Must I? Okay...

Democratic spending tends to benefit the America people.

Republican spending ALWAYS benefits corporations and rich people, while ass-raping the middle class.

Hasn't the last 7 years taught us nothing?
 
Headso
2007-08-27 1:55:20 PM  
Pro Zack: it should have been spent putting a colony on the moon

because that isn't wasteful at all...
 
whyarefartslumpy
2007-08-27 1:56:33 PM  
Rovian: It's not Fark, its Freerepublic.com.

By far the lead story today is the resignation of the attorney general, a corrupt man who would still be in office if it weren't for a judiciary committee now led by democrats. Thanks democrat congress!

Nice threadjack. If you think it's so important, why don't you go to that thread. Not submitted yet? Here's your chance to be a hero.

Fark is no more freerepublic than it is Kos. Well, maybe not in the Summer, when all the kids are in their mom's basement, yelling about how cool Chavez is.

Now I jacked the thread - sorry.
 
Saiga410
2007-08-27 1:56:44 PM  
I might be able to be won over by the dems if just one major player would call for a small but across the board increase in taxs, something like 1 to 2% for income and cap gains. Everyones income tax would go up by 2% each year until we find the top of the laffer curve.

Lock spending to a simple 1% increase every year, while crossing our fingers the war ends.

No new entitlements til we get this figured out.
 
Shaggy_C
2007-08-27 1:58:12 PM  
Mr. Xhin: Republican spending ALWAYS benefits corporations and rich people, while ass-raping the middle class.

I'm middle class, and the tax cuts benefitted me. In fact, I got a check in the mail as well as a sweet job with one of the corporations that benefitted. I fail to see any semblance of 'ass-raping' occurring in my life right now. Maybe you live in a different America than I do?
 
Gulper Eel
2007-08-27 1:58:49 PM  
Mr. Xhin: Democratic spending tends to benefit the America people.

Republican spending ALWAYS benefits corporations and rich people, while ass-raping the middle class.

You're getting P.J. O'Rourke's quote all wrong:

"When you looked at the Republicans you saw the scum off the top of business. When you looked at the Democrats you saw the scum off the top of politics. Personally, I prefer business. A businessman will steal from you directly instead of getting the IRS to do it for him. And when Republicans ruin the environment, destroy the supply of affordable housing, and wreck the industrial infrastructure, at least they make a buck off it. The Democrats just do these things for fun."
 
whyarefartslumpy
2007-08-27 1:59:03 PM  
Mr. Xhin: Must I? Okay...

Democratic spending tends to benefit the America people.

Republican spending ALWAYS benefits corporations and rich people, while ass-raping the middle class.

Hasn't the last 7 years taught us nothing?

Well, that's more an opion of yours than it is true, but that's fine. Also there's a world of difference in State and Federal spending, although I assume that we are talking Federal.
 
Stratohead
2007-08-27 2:07:21 PM  
with the Housing Market collapsing into itself like a dwarf star, I hardly think this Corprate Welfare...sorry...meant "tax cuts" will be sustainable no matter who gets elected in '08.

though specifically responding to TFA... seems to me that if Haliburton and its subsidiarys were forcible made to repay all the funds they have been paid by the U.S. Govt in excess, overcharges, etc etc etc... then we could EASILY cover more than $21 billion in Domestic Spending.

FLashTard doesn't need to worry about his 401K anymore either... watch those start to fail unless the Housing Markey is fixed....which its not likely to be.
 
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