DCWoody
Posts: 1401
Joined: 10/27/2006
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The american government/election system has long since lead to a two party state, an either or option between left & right, although those terms are somewhat broadly definied in the usa. There are many flaws inherent in two party politics but that's not really what I plan to talk (type) about.
The current problem the usa faces...well, scrap that....the two big problems facing the usa are its foreign policy & the state of the global economy, but the third problem is the budget deficit/national debt....and that's a tricky one.
By default the usa electorate has a choice between high taxes and high public spending (relatively) with a democratic govt, or low taxes and low public spending (relatively) with a republican govt, the trouble stems from the way over the last ~30 years, you've not had that. You've had a choice between a democratic govt which will raise taxes and invest in the public sector, which right-wingers obviously won't like, and a republican govt which will lower taxes and yet at the same time increase public spending, which from an outsiders point of view (I really don't know how the republican party has been trying to justify it) is madness.
At this point I should probably say that I don't support the democratic party, or hate the republican party, I'm not even american....I'm just talking (accurately) about recent spending habits.
So now you've got Obama running the show, and I want to keep this purely about what to do about the deficit so I'm gonna say a couple of things. The usa is a democracy, and Obama, being the relatively left-wing candidate, won. So the right-wingers can't really complain when he enacts left wing policies...or you can, but you're just being childish...you live in a democracy, if you don't like the guy who won, tough, that's how it works. For the purposes of this post feel free to pretend that some middle ground candidate that everyone voted for won instead, it doesn't really matter. Lets call him Oswald.
So Oswald was left with a trillion dollar yearly deficit with no obvious easy thing to cancel, the various wars are not what's making up that trillion. Right now Oswald is increasing the deficit, partly because tax income has lowered because the economies in the sink, and partly because he's trying to get the economy out of the sink...this in a sense, doesn't matter....every western govt is doing exactly the same thing, and we can assume that when the economy picks up tax income will go back to roughly what it was and he'll stop giving out stimuli. Let's be generous to hypothetical Oswald and say that he can get the deficit down to 800 billion just by sorting out the economy and trying to run things more efficiently.
Although the usa national debt isn't as much of a terrible thing (yet) as some are making out, you shouldn't keep increasing it like that...and the longer you leave it, the worse it'll get. So, my question is...while ignoring other things, and not shouting at those stupid republicans/wishy-washy democrats....where do you think Oswald should find that 800 billion from?
For reference, the figures from 2007 are probably a decent base/guide for what sort of thing you may expect when the economy returns to normal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_federal_budget
Note that the debt interest is non-negotiable & will increase dramatically until you generate a surplus, and that the deficit for this exercise is a realistic number for two years time of 800 billion, not the ~500 billion that page gives the impression of there being.
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An outsider talking non-partizan american politics. - 
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