Lords of Death Forums Lords of Death Forums LoD General Discussion As a Canadian looking in on the States...

Ya, I can spend my money better than the government can. But that doesn't mean I can pay for bridges to be built or roads. It doesn't mean I can pay for the police or firefighters. Hell, I don't think I can even pay for schooling in a fair way.

That is what I mean, by investing in our country. My point is that I don't care how much money we are spending or how much in relation to our GDP. What I care about is that we are spending over 65% of our discretionary spending (based on the wiki article you linked) on the war on terror, the defense department and homeland security. Whereas we only spend 13% on the department of transportation. That to me is the fucked up part.

We spend all this money on shit to "protect us" but fuck, what is there going to be to protect in 20 years? If we don't start spending money on this country there won't be anything left. And I don't mean bailing out AIG or GM. I mean education and roads.

Completely agree. Why do we need F22 raptors that cost hundreds of millions of dollars? Last I checked the terrorists were in little sand huts, not flying around on magic carpets loaded with snake propelled rocket launchers.

I think grandma and grandpa need a reality check too, their social security benefits arn't gonna last when they enter retirement and there are no baby boomers to work off their benefits. Shoulda went through with Bush's proposed phase out instead they were all out there with picket signs even though it wasn't going to affect them.

can you send 5% of that defense budget up to Canada with that we could develop anti gravity tanks and get your marines out of unarmored humvees.

P.S make out to cash

Hopefully the republicans will walk away and retrieve their roots which is small business. They used to be pro small business and pro small govt.

They've since been hijacked by big biz & religious nutcases. They've become a twisted fusion of a political AIG & a political christian taliban. If you look at the leadership (ie: Cheney is basically Darth Vader from Montana) and the direction, priorities you wonder why they are not based in the middle east. The govt spending has exploded in a manner unimaginable, the debt has turned into a zepplin on speed. They have become everything they stood against in the 70's. If they had won, the only good news is that the US would hit bottom sooner.

The USA needs a strong focused Republican party, focused on what is important to the USA. They need to ditch the "we are all for freedom, as long as you agree with us" attitude. The US needs them to be a true contender to offset the Dems.

Yes, the US spends a ton on the military. But that will change soon enough. That point can be debated back and forth, in about 48 months we can review it and see who is right. It will drop though, not due to the Dems, but the deterioration of the US.

I want the US to succeed, survive and prosper. However it has ripped off the world with bad investments (bad mojo), and depreciating it's currency (worse mojo).

All I can say is get ready for high interest rates within 24 months. Pay debt down.

absolutely true that congress is responsible for many of the problems particularly economy/budget/deficit
i've got no love for the dems, but if ur gonna get polarized on the issue it would be foolish not to mention that republicans controlled both houses for 6 out of the last 8 years. These last four years have shown us possibly the most inept and harmful congresses of all time (109th and 110th)

no point in hiding that bush jr was the most fiscally liberal administration yet, but i guess at this point each new administration will be the next 'most fiscally liberal yet' (unless we can get our ron paul on)

i think most people on this forum now realize that both parties have their heads way up their asses. its no secret that both parties elected officials only aim to please special interests/lobbyist and get re-elected... tossing blame solely on one side or the other is just doing urself a disservice and making it look like u really bite on the shit they have been feeding u

defense of our country is among the top responsibilities of our government according to our constitution, defense of our borders, citizens within them, liberties, security ect.

certainly isn't the responsibility of government to pay for the defense of half of the rest of the world. how many other cities around the world do our armed forces defend heavier than any city in the US? like 14? time to give tokyo and all the rest (including berlin) a one-year notice that we are going to stop providing them with their defence, better now that when we go broke and can give no notice right?

could safely cut a modest ammount out of defense spending if we brought the vast majority of our personnel and equipment home, and still be MUCH better defended than we are now with our military spread all over the planet.
how many countries do we have US military bases in now? i've heard 130+

'fight em over there so we don't have to fight em over here' is a wornout cliche that hasn't held a drop of truth since the soviets were a superpower imo

of course defense is not the only place to save money, hell its one of the only federal expenditures that gets results. the quality of education in this country has gone straight down since the department of education got involved.
we could cut out tons of wasteful spending in many many different areas, but will we? probably not
probably just come up with more ways to postpone going broke and make the problem worse in the long run for some temporary relief like we have for many years

(i also wouldn't mind it if not every road was a toll road )

I'm pretty sure we decided we couldn't trust the Germans after TWO world wars. But, I do agree we spend too much money in certain places defending countries.