Are you guys for or against the budget cuts?
Personally, as my dad works for the department of defense, It really freaks me out that Obama's plan relies on most of the money coming from cuts in the DoD and the military. Also, it sucks that they keep pouring so much into the public school systems. All that money goes to pay for technology anyway, not for teachers. I don't really care if I do my work on a computer or by hand. Doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. However, the fact my dad got his last pay check Thursday really makes the world suck! (No internet at home anymore ) I think they could cut the number of representatives or something. I don't think we really need 400 reps! Also, they could cut the president's spending money. He doesn't need to be taking all these vacations, esp. when he's selling himself out to Disney! (He and Michelle's face is all over Disney channel!) Also, we could drop Social Security Benefits and Health Care and stuff. Those are 100's of billions of dollar programs that are being abused, mistreated, and are scams anyway. (the technical term is a Ponzie Scam.) Also, we could increase the budget in gov't ads for getting jobs, drop the excessive import of materials (we consume 28% of the world's resources, but produce only 20%), focus on exportation, and otherwise try things that work instead of giving money we don't have away. In the mean time, at the end of this February, my family has no primary income, and we're going to have to look for a job for my dad. All because the gov't refuses to cut welfare (afraid of riots?), and chooses to cut the DoD. (Around since the beginning of the United States, designed to DEFEND OUR COUNTRY!) Yeah, life can suck sometimes. Thank God for all the tech at school, cuz I wouldn't have internet otherwise.

On a side note:
The things my family is cutting out of our lifestyle now:
-TV
-Internet
-Cell Phones
-Soda Pop
-Eating Out
-Band is on a fundraising-only basis
-Waste of utilities
-Brand name food items
-lots of other stuff....

Thank God we have no debt going into this time of struggle. We always have used debit.

I'm just going to do a bunch of individual quotes instead of composing another essay to address this. Sorry if this irritates anyone.



Well, which areas specifically?



How truly necessary is a large standing military? I'm not saying that we should slash the military budget to bare bones, but I'd find it hard to believe that it's perfectly efficient.



That sounds like an administration problem, which wouldn't be very well addressed by a budget cut anyway. The teachers would bear the brunt of any school budget cuts.



Blame the Connecticut Compromise. That's really at the root of the problem of too many politicians.



I'd hardly begrudge the man a few vacations given what kind of stress he's inevitably dealing with. Plus, in doing so, he's keeping himself known to the public. That said, his vacations probably a bit more numerous than absolutely necessary, like other recent presidents.



Everyone is scamming them? Wow, that's quite a generalization to make. Care to cite some credible studies that support it?

Also, Ponzie schemes are investment scams. Unless the benefits programs are defrauding the government itself, I don't believe that'd be an accurate label.



Um, I hate to point this out, but a good portion of the trade deficit is the result of private business, not the government. The blame for that should probably go to the American public, not the government. As for giving money away that we don't have, well, it's complicated. It's *much* easier said than done.



Having the largest military isn't always the best way to defend a country. It's sad/good, but the time when wars were fought directly on individual battlefields is probably long gone.



That sucks. Hope it gets better

You know, you never once hear all these politicians say anything about removing 50k or so a year from their paychecks. When it comes time for them to 'vote' on their pay raises, they simply 'don't get to it' and it automatically happens. :/

Want to help the local economy? Push to have NAFTA and GAT killed. These two would force companies in America to bring work back to the states, as the import fees would make it cost more than just paying American workers.

At this point, it no longer matters. Most families are a paycheck away from losing everything they have. The system needs to crash and be reset. My dad caught on the news someone admitting they are printing more money to artificially inflate the stockmarket. If the money isn't being backed by anything, then it makes the value of the dollar be a lot less.

Goodluck to you and your family, adept.

This is all true, and all things Democrats(or at least progressives) are trying to change. The problem is that the businesses that make loads off our broken system(either through overseas labor, or gambling on the stock market) pay off politicians(Mostly Republicans, but a few democrats too) to keep it that way.

One of the things in Obama's budget proposal that I wholeheartedly support is cutting all the subsidies and tax breaks for big oil, but that won't address the whole problem. We need to get people employed. Before we can look at the budget, we need to get our income back up to Clinton levels. To do that, people need jobs. This would mean more tax money for the feds, and less people on welfare, which makes the budget that much easier to deal with.

Social Security needs to remain untouched. The system pays for itself(each person gets back what they put into it), the problem is that politicians keep pulling money out of it to pay for wars and such.

Healthcare is something that does need to be dealt with, but democrats already tried and failed(twice) to do it, due to opposition from well-funded AstroTurf protests and paid-off politicians. As long as private business has complete control over our healthcare system, it will be prohibitively expensive. This would have been dealt with by a public option(which wouldn't have required any new regulations on insurance companies) but we couldn't do that, even though the rest of the world has gone even further and gotten rid of their health insurance industries entirely, because that would be "radical left-wing socialism". Happy new 1954.

Before I go any further, would it be appropriate to discuss the Wisconsin situation in this topic? I was thinking of making a topic for it, but decided against it per Kerm's attitude toward political topics.

Exactly.
But we are being out competed by other foreign companies and so we have no jobs (or near none) because we outsourced everything.

Hence my mentioning of removing NAFTA and GAT. These allow no taxes on imported goods into this country from others. Hence it is cheaper for a company here in the states to send out parts, have parts assembled, and then brought back into the country. If these were removed, and taxes imposed on imports, jobs would be coming back to us.

Bang! TiFreak has my vote should he ever decide to run for president.

So are you for or against technology in the classroom, then?

imo, our school could use less money for incompetent teachers who all they do is just walk in the halls, and more for some computers that don't suck (only teacher's get the newest technology, and they are only allowed to use these newest computers for taking attedence, for all other things they have to use the shitty ones...).

The teachers should use an 84 and the Global Calc Net for all their email. Then us kids could have their cool computers!
@all the holes in my plans you guys saw
I was just suggesting places I could live fine without. I'm not saying those aren't probably useful programs; it's just that the cuts they've decided on really screw my way of life. I look at my neighbor who hasn't had a job in 6 months, and how good he seems to live, I say to myself, "Why the heck does he live so nice, even without a job?" I guess its all a matter of perspective.

I support the idea to run email over gCn for teachers. I think I live pretty frugally for my standard of living and the costs of living in a big city; I look for good food prices and sales, try to make food when possible instead of eating out (which is healthy!), get store-brand household goods, use coupons when appropriate, and don't impulse-buy. Works out pretty well for me.

The poll asks a silly question. Which of many possible budget cuts are THE budget cuts to which you are referring?

I think he means the governmental budget cuts; it doesn't sound like his familial economic budget cuts are optional.

But which governmental ones?

Oh, between the cuts he's criticizing that led to his condition, or the new ones that he is proposing instead? I have not the faintest clue.

This. Over-generalizations are just another way of reinforcing expectations of shallow politics. There are a great many budget cuts being considered across the country right now, in pretty much every area of our government's operations. His question is like driving someone to the Jelly Belly factory and asking "DO YOU LIKE THE JELLY BEAN." I may like jelly beans in general, but Jelly Belly makes hundreds of flavors, and me responding "YES I LIKE THE JELLY BEAN" won't communicate anything about what I actually like or dislike.

But for the record, I feel that most of the familial budget cuts are good ideas anyway.

Politicians make *very* little from their paycheck. If anything, we should *INCREASE* their pay to make it more attractive to more people. There are a lot of people out there who would make great politicians, with strong leadership and intelligent decision making, that instead got into business because they could make 1,000x more money. The President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, makes a mere $400,000 in salary. The Speaker of the House makes $225,000. Non-officers make about $170,000. For some of the most powerful and influential people in the world, that salary is an insult. I graduated less than 2 years ago and I already make over $100k in base salary not including stock options, bonuses, and perks. I'm not saying that to brag, just to give you some context. That the salary of government office is very low compared to the pressures and requirements of the job. If anything, government salary is *too low*.

If you have a feeling of déjà vu while reading the above, it's because I've told you all this already. You apparently just don't give a damn that you are way off base in your beliefs, and would instead prefer to rant like a mindless idiot about government waste while knowing jack shit about what you are actually ranting about. Honestly, reading your rant is an awful lot like watching this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6HsiixFS8



That would destroy the economy. It would not bring back local jobs, it would simply make everything a *LOT* more expensive, thus greatly increasing the poverty line, thus driving a ton more people into poverty. All you have to do is look at the cost of goods in Europe to see this clear as day. The VAT tax and crap is passed *directly* on to consumers.

Here are some examples, comparing prices in the US to those in the UK (using google's currency conversion, prices from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk):
4th gen iPod touch 8gb: $200 vs. $270
Intel Core i7-950: $280 vs. $350
Dell U2311h (would have compared TVs, but that's more or less impossible given that we have different spec'd TVs): $311 vs. $428

Also, NAFTA only affects trades with Canada and Mexico, which isn't much. And a google search for GAT turns up nothing, what are you referring to?



That's just people on the news being fear mongers. They always print money, and it's always affected the value of the dollar - most of us just call it "inflation". They aren't doing anything different now, that hasn't changed. Inflation would also affect the cost of normal goods quicker than it would affect the stock market. As in, if they were printing money at a quicker rate than usual, the stock market wouldn't be affected any quicker than the cost of snickers bar or a soda.



Over the years the military's budget has only grown as it is considered unpatriotic to want to cut it. The military absolutely should have it's budget reduced.



1) There isn't much money in the first place, it doesn't go very far at all. There needs to be more money for public schools, a lot more.

2) Technology absolutely matters. It is hugely important. Other countries have far surpassed us in this area, and over time it will hurt us more and more



The term is actually "Ponzi scheme", and no, social security and health care are not ponzi schemes (for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme )



But you just said you want to reduce the number of representatives - aka, cut government jobs. How do you propose the government create more jobs by cutting jobs?



Uh, not the government's problem or fault. That would actually be your fault, as a consumer. Welcome to the perks of being a first world country.



That sucks and all, but that is an awfully selfish reason to keep an inflated DoD budget that could otherwise be put to better use. Your objectivity on this issue is lacking.

We need to cut the numbers in our military significantly. The only reason you need a huge standing army is to occupy. I think we could go for 50% fewer basic infantrymen (or fewer!), shift 25% of the savings to R&D for new tech, and cut the remaining 25%. If not more. Our military's superior technology would make any modern war just like a repeat of the Gulf War (i.e. Our missiles shoot farther than your missiles. We win). No nation would seriously consider invading us. You might argue that we wouldn't get invaded by a nation, rather, by small groups of guerrilla fighters. We already have those. They are called gangs. Police and SWAT take care of them.

The problem with cutting the Military is that it makes up very little of the total budget, so you piss off a lot of people without actually fixing the problem.

Very little? According to the 2012 Budget proposal, it makes up approximately 19.3% of the budget. The only allocated areas that get more money are Social Security and Health care, at around 20.0% and 22.6% respectively. That means that the military budget is 96.9% and 85.9% of the other two largest accounts. Perhaps I'm missing something, but if we can't cut from that apparently small portion of the total budget, I don't really see where it would be possible to significantly reduce spending at all.