China scolds U.S. 'addiction to debts'

• BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2011-08-07 15:19

  Quote from Cynic;541745:

  It doesn't matter if taxes go up? Uh, yes it does, since it hurts the poor even more.
  

  
  the cat is talking about raising taxes for the rich
  not for you.
  obviously everyone suffers but the rich.
  
  And yes, the U.S. has two unpopular options
  lower budgets even further or raise taxes.
  no one likes either
  
  especially since education is on the frontline to being cut.
  and about the military budget
  the cat would invest in revamping the spending
  too much money in military spent on random **** and not even on research
• Osayidan wrote on 2011-08-07 18:42
  Looks at the US military budget. It probably totals more than all the other stuff in the country combined. No matter how you look at that, it's a huge problem.
• Yoorah wrote on 2011-08-07 23:50
  No, it's not. You have to look at things in perspective:
  

  [Image: http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7817/spending.jpg]

  
  Medicare, medicaid, and social security dwarfs defence spending. And defence spending has been going down, while medicare, medicaid and social security spending has been on the rise and is expected to rise much higher, fast. By contrast, defence spending is predictable and nearly flat, with things like the post-sept 11 wars causing a small bump in spending--which, again, has since gone down.
  
  [source]
  
  Here's the president's proposed budget for fiscal 2011, although I dunno if that's what got implemented and/or any changes made to it since then:
  

  [Image: http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6393/budgetproposal.jpg]

  
  Notice the income from social security payroll taxes, and how that's supposed to fund said programs. It just doesn't add up, yo.
  
  And as I said before, defence spending brings in many more benefits and it's dumb to just think you need it for protection from invasion. Everyone knows the US isn't gonna get invaded any time soon, so using that as an argument is just.. utterly pointless. The US owes much of its scientific and technological progress to defence spending, be it direct government funded research for things like DARPA, or private R&D by the defence industry contractors.
  
  There are also geopolitical benefits associated with having a strong military presence. For instance, China can't be a pig and try to take over Taiwan, because the US backs it. Taiwan, then, is a major buyer of US weapons, which helps improve the US economy. In fact, the US is the world's biggest arms seller. You cannot ignore the revenue from that.
  
  The same could not be said for Hong Kong, which was taken over by the Chinese when Britain could not maintain a strong military presence. I'm no expert on the matter, but suffice to say, Britain must have lost some economic benefits there.
  
  Logically, you are not allowed to blame defence for the budget problems when you do not understand how it compares with other spending and what benefits it brings to the economy. To put it more bluntly, investing in defence is investing in America's industrial and scientific base. Investing in social security is "investing" in... jobless people (which I agree is needed, but you have to keep things prioritized and balanced). Again, I agree that there is no doubt about the likelihood of there being much inefficiency in defence spending, but you have to remember that there is far more waste in other programs, like medicare, medicaid and social security. As such, those have to be looked at first.
  
  
  I was told that about 1 in 5 American losers depend on food stamps. That surprised me quite a bit. Then I was told people can buy cigarettes and alcohol with those. That made me go WTF. Is this true?
• Random wrote on 2011-08-08 00:04

  Quote from Yoorah;542930:

  
  I was told that about 1 in 5 American losers depend on food stamps. That surprised me quite a bit. Then I was told people can buy cigarettes and alcohol with those. That made me go WTF. Is this true?

  
  
  No. The person that told you probably meant that some people who use food stamps still buy cigarettes and alcohol with their own money.
• Osayidan wrote on 2011-08-08 00:07

  Quote from Yoorah;542930:

  I was told that about 1 in 5 American losers depend on food stamps. That surprised me quite a bit. Then I was told people can buy cigarettes and alcohol with those. That made me go WTF. Is this true?

  
  
  If they haven't changed it from the depression era then yes it is. Back then those were, for whatever retarded reason, as much of a right as bread. If the food place sold alcohol and smokes, you used them there.