[clue-talk] How do CLUEbies vote?

[Brian Gibson]

--- "David L. Willson" <DLWillson at TheGeek.NU> wrote:

> Just to throw another stone in the bucket:  Has the
> national debt become
> a non-issue?  Isn't there ~anyone~ else who wants to
> wean this country
> off deficit and pay off the debt?  I'm so
> old-fashioned...
> 

I certainly do, but I'm also a fiscal conservative who
pays off his CC bill every month, bought a home that
cost 90% of what I can actually afford with a boring
30-year fixed loan, and adjusts my W-4 so that I pay
all my taxes while keeping my refund as close to zero
as possible.  I don't see what's so hard about NOT
spending money you do NOT have.  That may sound
old-fashioned but these days that kind of thinking is
borderline progressive!

That said I don't see how continuing a war effort that
was started for dubious reasons and has produced
marginal results (and I'm being generous here) at a
cost now approaching a trillion dollars is going to
help balance the deficit.  I wonder how much support
for a war a president can get if every citizen had to
pay for it directly out of their own pocket, rather
than as some aggregated line item on the federal
budget sheet amortized over decades. 

> All I ever hear anyone talk about is lower taxes
> and/or better programs;
> I literally never hear anyone talk about paying off
> the debt.  I brought
> it up in another place, and the only thing that was
> said was, "I don't
> know what the solution to that is, but it's NOT
> higher taxes for an
> already struggling work force."  Huh...  Am I the
> only person able to
> track standard-of-living?  We're NOT struggling! 
> We're richer than
> we've ever been, AND if we ever fall on thin times,
> we have no
> compunctions about maintaining the standard of
> living on credit, and
> then claiming bankruptcy just before things get
> better.
> 

Buying power of the dollar has decreased (just look at
the currency market).  Credit industry is crumbling
(lending companies folding, qualifications for loans
have tightened).  Housing bubble is about to burst
(homes are overvalued, numbers of foreclosures
continue to rise, too much supply).  

Now all of that isn't necessarily good or bad.  From
one perspective, it's simply the economy righting
itself.  It shows that this past growth was not
sustainable.

The problem is in how you're measuring standard of
living.  If you're doing it purely on simply
materialistic terms, sure I can see that.  However,
when you consider other factors, I really don't think
our standard of living is as high as it can be.  A
large (non-majority) portion of the population have
accrued more debt than they can handle, indicated by
the rising bankruptcy rate.  Many are without health
insurance and therefore do not have access to health
care.  As another poster pointed out, the nation is
often distracted by wedge issues rather than by issues
that a more relevant.  (It's no wonder why Paris
Hilton gets so much air time.)  So as a nation we're
divided.  (Secession anyone?)

In summary, deficits are bad when there's no plan in
place to pay it off.  How good the US
standard-of-living is, is debatable and depends on
what yard stick is used.  



       
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