US presidential election

[smile72]

No matter what I say, you are up in arms about defending the democrats massive spending, you run your mouth it was all bushes fault, and bill Clinton is a fiscal god. I still see absolutely no answer on how to defeat the 211 trillion dollar deficit, you lack even an inclining of detail.

Obama's proposed budget reduces discretionary spending by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. For every dollar in revenue from those making more than $250,000 per year (ending Bush tax cuts) and from closing corporate loopholes, Obama's proposed budget has $2.50 in spending cuts including the deficit reduction enacted over the last year. Including legislation from 2011, Obama's policies trim the deficit by around $5 trillion. Much of that is getting rid of the Bush tax cuts. Those are pretty specific numbers, so I'm not sure what your point is.

Paul Ryan had a great plan, but no one is giving it a shot

Paul Ryan's plan destroys Medicare as we know it and will later cause seniors to pay thousands more a year for health care. It also raises taxes on the middle class and decreases taxes substantially on the very rich. Finally, the TPS projects that the changes in Medicare, Social Security, tax increases on the middle class, etc. probably won't offset the tax cuts for the rich and the debt will continue to increase. So no, Paul Ryan's plan is not viable.

He had no major plans to reduce balance the budget, he cut a little here and a little there. We had a balanced budget thanks to the republicans in congress, not because of what Clinton did. Even the uber liberal news paper SFGATE agrees states it was the republican's plan that paved the way to a balanced budget

Actually, no. The major reason for the balanced budget was the increased revenue from tax increases on the rich. Because these tax increases did not get a single Republican vote, it is fair to say that the balanced budget was due to Clinton and the Democrats.

What actually reduced the deficit was Clinton's budget passed with Democrat majorities. There was a Balanced Budget Act in 1997 that was bipartisan, but it really just cut spending and siphoned the savings to other things (capital gains tax cuts, etc). In fact, it contributed slightly more to the debt.

The new Clinton budget replaces the formal one he submitted in February that called for continued $200 billion deficits. The new plan adopts the keystone GOP goal of a balanced budget, but postpones the 2002 target date by three years

This is a misinterpretation of the data:

1993 - deficit $255 Billion
1994 - deficit $203 Billion
1995 - deficit $164 Billion
1996 - deficit $108 Billion
1997 - deficit $22 Billion
1998 - SURPLUS $69 Billion
1999 - SURPLUS $124 Billion
2000 - SURPLUS $236 Billion

As you can see, the deficit was steadily decreasing thanks to Clinton's tax increases on the rich. The only thing the Republicans had anything to do with was the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and it actually did nothing to lessen the deficit. While it decreased spending, it only moved money around to offset tax cuts included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

Liberals who want to "spread the wealth around" will never help this great country in the long run, you only make things worse.

I can't respond to that unless you're more specific.

YES, wars cost money, but it doesn't help when you tack on amendments to defense bills

The fact that the spending bill was attached to the defense bill is not relevant in terms of war costs. Things are attached to defense bills all the time. A budget that dictated how things would be spent in the coming year was going to be attached to the defense bill regardless of who was doing it or what money was going to be spent on.

The fact that Bush massively increased spending on things like the wars and decreased revenue with massive tax cuts was the worst thing anyone could do to the debt. Democrats were very much against that. It is obvious that the Democrats are the ones who are fiscally responsible, not the Republicans. Likewise, the bill you are referring to increased spending by about $16 billion. I agree with you that spending did not need to be increased, but consider both that $16 billion is insignificant compared to the major causes of our deficit (Bush tax cuts, for one) and that Obama actually proposed spending cuts that were not implemented in that particular spending amendment.

The point about the housing market is, I know you didn't say that but it's the mindset I was getting at, WE TRIED TO WARN THE NATION, but no one gave a shit until it happened.

This is an unsubstantiated claim. Even if one's interpretation of the video is correct, it is dated 2003. If Republicans knew what was to come, Bush and the Republican majorities chose to do nothing about it. Democrats had no power during that time. If you want to argue that your interpretation of the video is accurate, the Republicans are responsible for the housing crisis. However, I still say that it is neither party's fault.

@#5, I was just stating the obvious fact, it cost's just as much now as it did then, even bin laden said that there was a war in iraq between the terrorist and the united states, Do I like the way our soldiers had to fight with hands tied behind them? No, but it's a larger scale, we do not know everything, we are not high level operatives in the cia, and we do not have the right to call these things, if you are going to help someone out, great! It helps if we actually know WHAT THE MISSION IS! When is the last time that the mission in Afghanistan was stated? We are just "over yonder" We do not have an explicit idea what the mission is, and it looks like we are getting out even earlier now, so you can't blame the war much longer.

It has been confirmed that the reasons for the Iraq War in the first place were lies. Likewise, the increased spending combined with the decreased revenue put us in the debt situation we're in now. You talk about World War II like there's some kind of parallel, but there isn't. Even ignoring that World War II was unavoidable, steps (taxes, bonds, etc) were taken to at least help reduce the debt incurred from World War II. The Iraq War was unnecessary, unpopular, based on lies, and unpaid for.

I probably know more about carl marx than you ever did, fun fact! The lazy bastard refused to work, and let his child starve to death, because he didn't want to work. Horrible human being, horrible indeed! Communism is mass unionism, we have a mass union problem in our country right now... sound familiar? We need more union busting!

To say you know more about Carl Marx than I do is a bold and unsubstantiated claim. I made that comment that you might not know what communism is because you compared the stimulus (something that helped the economy and was the biggest tax break for the middle class in history) to communism. The stimulus is something that metaphorically jump-started the economy. That's the opposite of communism. Unless you're against tax breaks, for starters, and think they're communism, I was fair in my assessment that you weren't entirely sure what you were talking about.

As for your view on labor unions... what? Could you explain how that's relevant to any part of our discussion? I might honestly have missed your point. Regardless, labor unions allow the ability to collectively bargain, make sure workers and being treated fairly, etc. Labor unions are very much a civil rights issues, as evidenced by the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. was highly supportive of labor unions. Some conservatives like to argue that labor unions contribute massively to, for example, state debt. However, the busting of labor unions all over the states by Republicans has not helped the budget in any of those states. On the contrary, most of these Republican-controlled states are just cutting taxes for the rich and not balancing their budgets. Sound familiar? It should.

As for all this talk about English as an official language in the United States, it seems like a silly debate. I honestly understand peoples' fears that they won't be able to understand something that's going on because the business is being conducted in a language other in English, however racist those fears might be. But I'm a linguist, and one needs to keep in mind that languages are in a constant state of change. What we define as English now might not be English tomorrow. And where do we draw the line? Do we make it so official business conducted in the capitals cannot be conducted in, for example, AAVE? There are two vowel shifts happening in America, and some linguists believe that different parts of the United States won't, verbally, be mutually intelligible in the future. Are we going to make laws specifying what kind of English should be spoken then? It's my opinion that vaguely defining English as an official language is just tying our hands behind our backs in the future.

Thank you,Lacius finally someone says it. Paul Ryan's plan destroys Medicare and only increases the debt. And of course, we only had a surplus by raising taxes.

 

[Deleted User]

They're all wankers, I call dibs on Jeremy clarkson for the president of the world.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

They're all wankers, I call dibs on Jeremy clarkson for the president of the world.

THIS X1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

[BlueStar]

Jeremy Clarkson is a fucking wanker.

 

[smile72]

I didn't know who the fuck Jeremy Clarkson was. So I looked him up, he's a douchebag. This is about the U.S. presidential election, don't derail the thread. He is British born, therefore he's unimportant.

 

[ZenZero]

Clarkson is a brilliant man. Speaks the Truth, and says what the rest of us think, but are too scared of sounding not PC to say.

Anyway, despite being from england - I voted for Obama, as far as I can tell the guy has done brilliantly, and solved the problems that his dick of a predecessor setup.

 

[smile72]

Clarkson is a brilliant man. Speaks the Truth, and says what the rest of us think, but are too scared of sounding not PC to say.

Anyway, despite being from england - I voted for Obama, as far as I can tell the guy has done brilliantly, and solved the problems that his dick of a predecessor setup.

That's the problem you're from England therefore you haven't heard any Fox News or Conservative Talk Radio (such as Rush Limbaugh). (No this is not an insult, people who are not from Aamerica often don't understand why Obama has such low ratings).

 

[ZenZero]

Clarkson is a brilliant man. Speaks the Truth, and says what the rest of us think, but are too scared of sounding not PC to say.

Anyway, despite being from england - I voted for Obama, as far as I can tell the guy has done brilliantly, and solved the problems that his dick of a predecessor setup.

That's the problem you're from England therefore you haven't heard any Fox News or Conservative Talk Radio (such as Rush Limbaugh). (No this is not an insult, people who are not from Aamerica often don't understand why Obama has such low ratings).

Fair point, Our media over here is nearly always positive where Obama is concerned.

And surely the guy who was pres when they killed Binladen deserves a second term?

 

[smile72]

Clarkson is a brilliant man. Speaks the Truth, and says what the rest of us think, but are too scared of sounding not PC to say.

Anyway, despite being from england - I voted for Obama, as far as I can tell the guy has done brilliantly, and solved the problems that his dick of a predecessor setup.

That's the problem you're from England therefore you haven't heard any Fox News or Conservative Talk Radio (such as Rush Limbaugh). (No this is not an insult, people who are not from Aamerica often don't understand why Obama has such low ratings).

Fair point, Our media over here is nearly always positive where Obama is concerned.

And surely the guy who was pres when they killed Binladen deserves a second term?

No, it's not just that it's that Conservatives over here are never pleased, they give credit to the Army and Bush Jr. rather than the president for Bin Laden's killing. For Gadhfi, the Army and the French. They want to bomb Iran now,but if Obama does, "it wasn't fast enough", "we shouldn't have bombed iran", etc.

 

[I_AM_BIB]

All the votes are bullshit. Simply because you only have a choice of a few people who are all going to ruin America, maybe not in the same way, but equally. It's a government of lies with their secrets hidden in false information. How can you ever believe the news nowadays when on the new people just say stuff you have no proof of. A obvious example, Osama Bin Laden killed. They wont show his body, hardly anyone "saw" it. And then they say they threw it in the sea.

You may tell this to their faces, but they always have excuses of the laws they invented. "Why wont you show it on TV?" "Oh because people might find it horrible." Bullshit. People don't need to watch it if they always give them warnings before. They have everything their way, why would we want any one of them?... You don't have a clue what they might decide next.

 

[I_AM_BIB]

Jeremy Clarkson is a fucking wanker.

If Jeremy Clarkson is a fucking wanker, the rest of them are lower than anyone can describe.

JFK was probably one of the only good presidents of America ( I don't know many, I'm from England ), but what happened to him? People (and we know who the "people" are) got fire up their arse and killed him. Fuck this president of America bullshit. Scrap this law.

 

[BlueStar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0i0RXMvzMs

 

[Gahars]

All the votes are bullshit. Simply because you only have a choice of a few people who are all going to ruin America, maybe not in the same way, but equally. It's a government of lies with their secrets hidden in false information. How can you ever believe the news nowadays when on the new people just say stuff you have no proof of. A obvious example, Osama Bin Laden killed. They wont show his body, hardly anyone "saw" it. And then they say they threw it in the sea.
You may tell this to their faces, but they always have excuses of the laws they invented. "Why wont you show it on TV?" "Oh because people might find it horrible." Bullshit. People don't need to watch it if they always give them warnings before. They have everything their way, why would we want any one of them?... You don't have a clue what they might decide next.

I probably know more about carl marx than you ever did, fun fact!

Though you evidently don't know enough to spell his name correctly.

 

[emigre]

I've got to say Karl Marx's work is a brilliant yet difficult read. Easily one of the most important people to have ever lived.

 

[Lacius]

All the votes are bullshit. Simply because you only have a choice of a few people who are all going to ruin America, maybe not in the same way, but equally.

To argue that two political parties with radically different points of view will equally ruin the country is baseless. For example, in terms of the debt, we know that the Democrats have plans that are projected to reduce the deficit over time. Oppositely, all of the Republican plans cut taxes and raise the debt. Despite the fact that there will only be two viable choices, many important issues are at stake. The debt, women's rights, gay rights, the environment, investments in new technologies, energy, etc. To say that the results of the election will be inconsequential is absolutely not true.

It's a government of lies with their secrets hidden in false information. How can you ever believe the news nowadays when on the new people just say stuff you have no proof of. A obvious example, Osama Bin Laden killed. They wont show his body, hardly anyone "saw" it. And then they say they threw it in the sea.

You may tell this to their faces, but they always have excuses of the laws they invented. "Why wont you show it on TV?" "Oh because people might find it horrible." Bullshit. People don't need to watch it if they always give them warnings before. They have everything their way, why would we want any one of them?... You don't have a clue what they might decide next.

There are examples of the government lying (ex. the Iraq War). But to argue that the government is always lying sounds paranoid. For example, there's absolutely no reason to think that the government lied about the circumstances involving Osama bin Laden's death and disposal. Likewise, if you're arguing that the results of the presidential election are inconsequential because the government lies, then it should be noted that one could argue that the Republicans are more a party of lies than the Democrats. If lying is an issue for you, then the results of the presidential election absolutely matter.

 

[Hanafuda]

There are examples of the government lying (ex. the Iraq War). But to argue that the government is always lying sounds paranoid. For example, there's absolutely no reason to think that the government lied about the circumstances involving Osama bin Laden's death and disposal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111001/Osama-bin-Laden-WAS-NOT-buried-sea-flown-US-cremation-leaked-emails-reveal.html

 

[Lacius]

http://www.dailymail...ils-reveal.html

There's a reason why, when it matters, evidence has a CoC. The way it was obtained calls into question the the validity of the evidence. Am I saying it isn't possible that we were lied to? No, it's possible. But to what end? Why does it matter if Osama bin Laden was cremated or buried at sea? Why the lie? Anonymous makes a name for itself by doing things that gets it talked about. What better way to do that than to fuel a popular conspiracy theory? The way I see it, there's no reason to think we were lied to about Osama bin Laden's disposal, so the burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorists, and what was provided by Anonymous is far from conclusive/reputable.

In summary, it's possible but not probable that we were lied to about Osama bin Laden's disposal. Until there is real evidence, it remains a conspiracy theory.

 

[TLSS_N]

No matter what I say, you are up in arms about defending the democrats massive spending, you run your mouth it was all bushes fault, and bill Clinton is a fiscal god. I still see absolutely no answer on how to defeat the 211 trillion dollar deficit, you lack even an inclining of detail.

Obama's proposed budget reduces discretionary spending by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. For every dollar in revenue from those making more than $250,000 per year (ending Bush tax cuts) and from closing corporate loopholes, Obama's proposed budget has $2.50 in spending cuts including the deficit reduction enacted over the last year. Including legislation from 2011, Obama's policies trim the deficit by around $5 trillion. Much of that is getting rid of the Bush tax cuts. Those are pretty specific numbers, so I'm not sure what your point is.

Paul Ryan had a great plan, but no one is giving it a shot

Paul Ryan's plan destroys Medicare as we know it and will later cause seniors to pay thousands more a year for health care. It also raises taxes on the middle class and decreases taxes substantially on the very rich. Finally, the TPS projects that the changes in Medicare, Social Security, tax increases on the middle class, etc. probably won't offset the tax cuts for the rich and the debt will continue to increase. So no, Paul Ryan's plan is not viable.

He had no major plans to reduce balance the budget, he cut a little here and a little there. We had a balanced budget thanks to the republicans in congress, not because of what Clinton did. Even the uber liberal news paper SFGATE agrees states it was the republican's plan that paved the way to a balanced budget

Actually, no. The major reason for the balanced budget was the increased revenue from tax increases on the rich. Because these tax increases did not get a single Republican vote, it is fair to say that the balanced budget was due to Clinton and the Democrats.

What actually reduced the deficit was Clinton's budget passed with Democrat majorities. There was a Balanced Budget Act in 1997 that was bipartisan, but it really just cut spending and siphoned the savings to other things (capital gains tax cuts, etc). In fact, it contributed slightly more to the debt.

The new Clinton budget replaces the formal one he submitted in February that called for continued $200 billion deficits. The new plan adopts the keystone GOP goal of a balanced budget, but postpones the 2002 target date by three years

This is a misinterpretation of the data:

1993 - deficit $255 Billion
1994 - deficit $203 Billion
1995 - deficit $164 Billion
1996 - deficit $108 Billion
1997 - deficit $22 Billion
1998 - SURPLUS $69 Billion
1999 - SURPLUS $124 Billion
2000 - SURPLUS $236 Billion

As you can see, the deficit was steadily decreasing thanks to Clinton's tax increases on the rich. The only thing the Republicans had anything to do with was the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and it actually did nothing to lessen the deficit. While it decreased spending, it only moved money around to offset tax cuts included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

Liberals who want to "spread the wealth around" will never help this great country in the long run, you only make things worse.

I can't respond to that unless you're more specific.

YES, wars cost money, but it doesn't help when you tack on amendments to defense bills

The fact that the spending bill was attached to the defense bill is not relevant in terms of war costs. Things are attached to defense bills all the time. A budget that dictated how things would be spent in the coming year was going to be attached to the defense bill regardless of who was doing it or what money was going to be spent on.

The fact that Bush massively increased spending on things like the wars and decreased revenue with massive tax cuts was the worst thing anyone could do to the debt. Democrats were very much against that. It is obvious that the Democrats are the ones who are fiscally responsible, not the Republicans. Likewise, the bill you are referring to increased spending by about $16 billion. I agree with you that spending did not need to be increased, but consider both that $16 billion is insignificant compared to the major causes of our deficit (Bush tax cuts, for one) and that Obama actually proposed spending cuts that were not implemented in that particular spending amendment.

The point about the housing market is, I know you didn't say that but it's the mindset I was getting at, WE TRIED TO WARN THE NATION, but no one gave a shit until it happened.

This is an unsubstantiated claim. Even if one's interpretation of the video is correct, it is dated 2003. If Republicans knew what was to come, Bush and the Republican majorities chose to do nothing about it. Democrats had no power during that time. If you want to argue that your interpretation of the video is accurate, the Republicans are responsible for the housing crisis. However, I still say that it is neither party's fault.

@#5, I was just stating the obvious fact, it cost's just as much now as it did then, even bin laden said that there was a war in iraq between the terrorist and the united states, Do I like the way our soldiers had to fight with hands tied behind them? No, but it's a larger scale, we do not know everything, we are not high level operatives in the cia, and we do not have the right to call these things, if you are going to help someone out, great! It helps if we actually know WHAT THE MISSION IS! When is the last time that the mission in Afghanistan was stated? We are just "over yonder" We do not have an explicit idea what the mission is, and it looks like we are getting out even earlier now, so you can't blame the war much longer.

It has been confirmed that the reasons for the Iraq War in the first place were lies. Likewise, the increased spending combined with the decreased revenue put us in the debt situation we're in now. You talk about World War II like there's some kind of parallel, but there isn't. Even ignoring that World War II was unavoidable, steps (taxes, bonds, etc) were taken to at least help reduce the debt incurred from World War II. The Iraq War was unnecessary, unpopular, based on lies, and unpaid for.

I probably know more about carl marx than you ever did, fun fact! The lazy bastard refused to work, and let his child starve to death, because he didn't want to work. Horrible human being, horrible indeed! Communism is mass unionism, we have a mass union problem in our country right now... sound familiar? We need more union busting!

To say you know more about Carl Marx than I do is a bold and unsubstantiated claim. I made that comment that you might not know what communism is because you compared the stimulus (something that helped the economy and was the biggest tax break for the middle class in history) to communism. The stimulus is something that metaphorically jump-started the economy. That's the opposite of communism. Unless you're against tax breaks, for starters, and think they're communism, I was fair in my assessment that you weren't entirely sure what you were talking about.

As for your view on labor unions... what? Could you explain how that's relevant to any part of our discussion? I might honestly have missed your point. Regardless, labor unions allow the ability to collectively bargain, make sure workers and being treated fairly, etc. Labor unions are very much a civil rights issues, as evidenced by the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. was highly supportive of labor unions. Some conservatives like to argue that labor unions contribute massively to, for example, state debt. However, the busting of labor unions all over the states by Republicans has not helped the budget in any of those states. On the contrary, most of these Republican-controlled states are just cutting taxes for the rich and not balancing their budgets. Sound familiar? It should.

As for all this talk about English as an official language in the United States, it seems like a silly debate. I honestly understand peoples' fears that they won't be able to understand something that's going on because the business is being conducted in a language other in English, however racist those fears might be. But I'm a linguist, and one needs to keep in mind that languages are in a constant state of change. What we define as English now might not be English tomorrow. And where do we draw the line? Do we make it so official business conducted in the capitals cannot be conducted in, for example, AAVE? There are two vowel shifts happening in America, and some linguists believe that different parts of the United States won't, verbally, be mutually intelligible in the future. Are we going to make laws specifying what kind of English should be spoken then? It's my opinion that vaguely defining English as an official language is just tying our hands behind our backs in the future.

Thank you,Lacius finally someone says it. Paul Ryan's plan destroys Medicare and only increases the debt. And of course, we only had a surplus by raising taxes.

If you are just going to sit there and continuously defend and not provide any fact's whatsoever I am not going to sit here and attempt to correct you over and over again, much like my sessions with bluestar who also lacked sources I will not stay up until 3 in the morning researching and providing links to documentation. I have school to worry about, I don't have time to screw around arguing with a fool who wishes to deflect deflect deflect.

Btw, Germany, France, the United kingdom Spain, Portugal and countless others must be "racist" for having an 'official language', everything was written in the native tongue and still is. So why should the united states be any different? <--- That's a rhetorical question, It doesn't warrant a response.

@[member='KarL'], who really gives a damn how it's spelled? I just jumped to the way I am used to spelling/typing that name, give me a break from the nit picking for damn sake.

 

[Lacius]

If you are just going to sit there and continuously defend and not provide any fact's whatsoever I am not going to sit here and attempt to correct you over and over again, much like my sessions with bluestar who also lacked sources I will not stay up until 3 in the morning researching and providing links to documentation. I have school to worry about, I don't have time to screw around arguing with a fool who wishes to deflect deflect deflect.

You're getting a little personal, don't you think?

Regardless, I've posted very specific facts and numbers. Saying otherwise is not going to change that. If you do end up wanting to continue our discussion, I recommend you start by posting evidence that Obama does not have a deficit-reduction plan or that any of the major Republican candidates won't worsen the deficit, for starters.

If you have a problem with any of the data I've provided, please say so and counter it with your own. Otherwise, I feel my points are extremely valid.

 

[Gahars]

@[member='KarL'], who really gives a damn how it's spelled? I just jumped to the way I am used to spelling/typing that name, give me a break from the nit picking for damn sake.

Why so defensive? And is it too much to expect that, when someone claims to be an expert on a specific person (their life, philosophy, etc.), they know how to spell their name correctly?