Name ONE Green Energy Success?

[rivalarrival]

Originally Posted by Eddie_T

Actually I am not going to cut anything as I have no more influence than you, but with my one vote I am going to vote for "anyone" that will start the process. Spending 1.69 times revenue is not sustainable but the "nanny-staters" will always scream when any cut is proposed, they just hope the crash doesn't come in their lifetime.

Eddie, awhile back, you complained that nobody ever wanted to listen to what you had to say about debt. Now, I've asked you directly several times in this thread and in several others: What do you want to do? What do you want to see happen? What programs do you want to see cut or reduced? How do you want to solve the "problem" you're complaining about. And you have yet to say anything specific. You complain about "nanny-staters" and other people wanting to keep programs, but you haven't even suggested ONE that should be cut or reduced.

AT SOME POINT, you're going to repeat the complaint that nobody ever listens to you, Eddie, and I'm going to point everyone right back to this thread and every other one where you refuse to bring up even one item that should be cut. It won't be hard: You've made it a point to spam every thread in this forum with that idea.

The problem with this country is people like you, Eddie. People who get a half-baked idea in their heads as to the source of all our problems, and then repeat it everywhere, long after that idea has been debunked. You're a chain-letter, Eddie.

Now, I'll ask you one last time: What programs would you like to see cut? What "government meddling" should be reduced or eliminated in an attempt to achieve your objective of reducing government spending below government revenue? What programs would a politician have to promise to cut in order to earn your vote? HOW DO YOU SUGGEST THE PROBLEM BE SOLVED?


I've stated one aspect of my solution - additional tax brackets above the current maximum to compel more businesses to choose additional hiring instead of a larger tax bill.

I've got another one that would address income disparity while increasing the job market - instead of a set, national minimum wage, we require employers to meet or beat the local poverty rate in their hiring standards. If 10% of the people in the region live below the poverty line, all medium and large businesses are required to hire less than 10% of their labor force at a pay rate where full time employment would put them under the poverty line. The remaining 90% would have to be paid at a rate that would put a full-time worker above the line. This would stimulate depressed areas by reducing labor costs.

Would you like to hear some more ideas? Would you care to present your ideas now? Would you care to comment on my ideas? Or is it your intention to continue trolling every thread with comments about the fact that there is a deficit and a debt, without ever showing us why they are a problem, let alone offering a solution?

I eagerly await your 1 to 3 sentence response about how we need to address the deficit and debt with spending cuts, but zero input on what should be cut.

[Eddie_T]

Everything will have to be on the table for cuts. Not only do we have to balance the budget but pay to service the debt plus a pay-down plan for the principal.

[rivalarrival]

Originally Posted by rivalarrival

Eddie, awhile back, you complained that nobody ever wanted to listen to what you had to say about debt. Now, I've asked you directly several times in this thread and in several others: What do you want to do? What do you want to see happen? What programs do you want to see cut or reduced? How do you want to solve the "problem" you're complaining about. And you have yet to say anything specific. You complain about "nanny-staters" and other people wanting to keep programs, but you haven't even suggested ONE that should be cut or reduced.

AT SOME POINT, you're going to repeat the complaint that nobody ever listens to you, Eddie, and I'm going to point everyone right back to this thread and every other one where you refuse to bring up even one item that should be cut. It won't be hard: You've made it a point to spam every thread in this forum with that idea.

The problem with this country is people like you, Eddie. People who get a half-baked idea in their heads as to the source of all our problems, and then repeat it everywhere, long after that idea has been debunked. You're a chain-letter, Eddie.

Now, I'll ask you one last time: What programs would you like to see cut? What "government meddling" should be reduced or eliminated in an attempt to achieve your objective of reducing government spending below government revenue? What programs would a politician have to promise to cut in order to earn your vote? HOW DO YOU SUGGEST THE PROBLEM BE SOLVED?


I've stated one aspect of my solution - additional tax brackets above the current maximum to compel more businesses to choose additional hiring instead of a larger tax bill.

I've got another one that would address income disparity while increasing the job market - instead of a set, national minimum wage, we require employers to meet or beat the local poverty rate in their hiring standards. If 10% of the people in the region live below the poverty line, all medium and large businesses are required to hire less than 10% of their labor force at a pay rate where full time employment would put them under the poverty line. The remaining 90% would have to be paid at a rate that would put a full-time worker above the line. This would stimulate depressed areas by reducing labor costs.

Would you like to hear some more ideas? Would you care to present your ideas now? Would you care to comment on my ideas? Or is it your intention to continue trolling every thread with comments about the fact that there is a deficit and a debt, without ever showing us why they are a problem, let alone offering a solution?

I eagerly await your 1 to 3 sentence response about how we need to address the deficit and debt with spending cuts, but zero input on what should be cut.

I should be a prophet.

[eye-M]

The GM EV-1 electric car with Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries would qualify, if GM and the Oil Companies wouldn't have blocked the battery use through patent purchase and scraped the Vehicle design due to greed as it would have made gasoline powered vehicles obsolete.

[YelloJeep]

The TYPE of spending that should be eliminated include things such as:

-$120 million in retirement and disability benefits to federal employees who have died
-$30 million to help Pakistani Mango farmers
-$550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union
-$10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan
-$764,825 to examine how college students use mobile devices for social networking.
-$113,227 for a video game preservation center in New York
-$765,828 to subsidize a “pancakes for yuppies” program in Washington, D.C.
-$100,000 for a celebrity chef show in Indonesia
-$175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of quail
-$606,000 for a study about online dating
$17.80 Million in Foreign Aid to… China – (Department of State & U.S. Agency for International Development)
The Super-Bridge to Nowhere – (Alaska) $15.3 Million
-$764,825 for a study on how college students use cell phones and social media
-$136,555 for teachers to retrace Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in England
-$55,660 on butter packaging
-$606,000 for a study about online dating
-$48,700 towards the Second Annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival
-$147,138 to build a magic museum
- $96,000 on iPads for kindergarteners
-$175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of quail
-$130,987 for dragon robots
-Forest Service to Replace Windows in Visitor Center that Closed in 2007 (Amboy, WA) – $554,763
-“Dance Draw” – Interactive Dance Software Development (Charlotte, NC) – $762,372
-$2 million to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and east
Africa, to capture, photograph, and analyze thousands of exotic ants.
-Town Replaces New Sidewalks With Newer Sidewalks That Lead to Ditch (Boynton, OK) – $89,298
-Scientist Attempts to Create Joke Machine (Evanston, IL) – $712,883
-A Georgia Tech assistant professor of music will receive $762,372 to study improvised music.
-The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) spent $350,000 to hire “experts” to help people hook up digital converter boxes made necessary by the federal government’s recent digital switch.
-Museum With 44 Annual Visitors Gets Funding for Bug Storage (Raleigh, NC) -$253,123
-researchers at Wake Forest University have received nearly $300,000 to
study whether Integral Yoga “can be an effective method to
reduce the frequency and/or severity of hot flashes” in
menopausal women.
-Cornell University scientists have received $296,385 in stimulus funds to study “dog
domestication.”



Those are the EASY cuts.

The hard ones are the ones that our country has gotten so addicted to like just about ALL subsidies...

[YelloJeep]

Subsidies..
-Between 1995 and 2010, $77.1 billion was given to farmers so that they could grow massive amounts of corn.
-The total subsidies for wheat between 1995 and 2010 was $32.4 billion
-Total subsidies for soybeans between 1995 and 2010 totaled $24.3 billion
-$880 million for sunflower oil (1995-2010)
-$3.4 billion for peanut butter (1995-2010)
-$3.6 billion for beef (1995-2010)
-$4.9 billion for milk (1995-2010)
-$10.6 billion for beer (1995-2010)
-$12.9 billion for rice (1995-2010)
And that's just a fracion of only the FOOD stuff! (these few alone are almost 34 billion dollars a year over that 5 year period!)

The list goes on and on as to what needs to be cut. And yes, I am aware we haven't really gotten to the "hard" stuff!

[rivalarrival]

Originally Posted by YelloJeep

The TYPE of spending that should be eliminated include things such as:

-$120 million in retirement and disability benefits to federal employees who have died
-$30 million to help Pakistani Mango farmers
-$550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union
-$10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan
-$764,825 to examine how college students use mobile devices for social networking.
-$113,227 for a video game preservation center in New York
-$765,828 to subsidize a “pancakes for yuppies” program in Washington, D.C.
-$100,000 for a celebrity chef show in Indonesia
-$175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of quail
-$606,000 for a study about online dating
$17.80 Million in Foreign Aid to… China – (Department of State & U.S. Agency for International Development)
The Super-Bridge to Nowhere – (Alaska) $15.3 Million
-$764,825 for a study on how college students use cell phones and social media
-$136,555 for teachers to retrace Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in England
-$55,660 on butter packaging
-$606,000 for a study about online dating
-$48,700 towards the Second Annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival
-$147,138 to build a magic museum
- $96,000 on iPads for kindergarteners
-$175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of quail
-$130,987 for dragon robots
-Forest Service to Replace Windows in Visitor Center that Closed in 2007 (Amboy, WA) – $554,763
-“Dance Draw” – Interactive Dance Software Development (Charlotte, NC) – $762,372
-$2 million to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and east
Africa, to capture, photograph, and analyze thousands of exotic ants.
-Town Replaces New Sidewalks With Newer Sidewalks That Lead to Ditch (Boynton, OK) – $89,298
-Scientist Attempts to Create Joke Machine (Evanston, IL) – $712,883
-A Georgia Tech assistant professor of music will receive $762,372 to study improvised music.
-The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) spent $350,000 to hire “experts” to help people hook up digital converter boxes made necessary by the federal government’s recent digital switch.
-Museum With 44 Annual Visitors Gets Funding for Bug Storage (Raleigh, NC) -$253,123
-researchers at Wake Forest University have received nearly $300,000 to
study whether Integral Yoga “can be an effective method to
reduce the frequency and/or severity of hot flashes” in
menopausal women.
-Cornell University scientists have received $296,385 in stimulus funds to study “dog
domestication.”



Those are the EASY cuts.

The hard ones are the ones that our country has gotten so addicted to like just about ALL subsidies...

Again, subsidies are not necessarily bad. Subsidies to alternative energy R&D and production can force OPEC to keep their prices down, lest they make one of these alternatives feasible.

But OK, that's a start. Sure, let's go after the low-hanging fruit first. What's the sum total of all that spending? About 150 million?



There's a couple other numbers I want you to look at.
$5,100,000,000,000 <--- Total tax revenue
$6,430,000,000,000 <--- Total spending
$150,000,000 <--- Total cuts you just proposed.
$50,000,000,000 <--- Additional revenue generated by the Buffett rule

Originally Posted by YelloJeep

Subsidies..
-Between 1995 and 2010, $77.1 billion was given to farmers so that they could grow massive amounts of corn.
-The total subsidies for wheat between 1995 and 2010 was $32.4 billion
-Total subsidies for soybeans between 1995 and 2010 totaled $24.3 billion
-$880 million for sunflower oil (1995-2010)
-$3.4 billion for peanut butter (1995-2010)
-$3.6 billion for beef (1995-2010)
-$4.9 billion for milk (1995-2010)
-$10.6 billion for beer (1995-2010)
-$12.9 billion for rice (1995-2010)
And that's just a fracion of only the FOOD stuff! (these few alone are almost 34 billion dollars a year over that 5 year period!)

The list goes on and on as to what needs to be cut. And yes, I am aware we haven't really gotten to the "hard" stuff!

That's a 15-year period, not a 5-year period, but when I first parsed it, I made that same mistake in my head. It's 11.312 billion/year, not 34 billion. Now, these are staple goods consumed by every person in the US, in pretty much equal amounts. Any change here will negatively effect every last person in the nation pretty much equally. The guy earning 6 figures will have to pay a little bit more for his meals. So will those folks collecting foodstamps, and those pushed onto foodstamps by the increased price for food. The additional expenditure on food will mean a lower taxable income for all of us, so removing these subsidies will also lower tax revenue. So sure, let's put crop subsidies on the table, but let's also remember what those subsidies actually buy. Before we decide to cut them, let's make damn sure that they are going to actually do something useful.

The Buffett Rule is the most similar to the plan I have been proposing.

$5,100,000,000,000 <--- Total tax revenue
$6,430,000,000,000 <--- Total spending
$150,000,000 <--- Total cuts you proposed.
$36,700,000,000 <--- Additional revenue generated by Buffett rule (ultra-conservative estimate)
$50,000,000,000 <--- Additional revenue generated by Buffett rule (typical estimates)
$11,312,000,000 <--- Total subsidy cuts you proposed

[YelloJeep]

Originally Posted by rivalarrival

Again, subsidies are not necessarily bad. Subsidies to alternative energy R&D and production can force OPEC to keep their prices down, lest they make one of these alternatives feasible.

But OK, that's a start. Sure, let's go after the low-hanging fruit first. What's the sum total of all that spending? About 150 million?



There's a couple other numbers I want you to look at.
$5,100,000,000,000 <--- Total tax revenue
$6,430,000,000,000 <--- Total spending
$150,000,000 <--- Total cuts you just proposed.
$50,000,000,000 <--- Additional revenue generated by the Buffett rule

Eh.... The first two on my list combined make the 150 million. (?)
Actually, if you total all the numbers in the first list ONLY it comes to $204,418,115. Okay, we will add the 1 BILLION in tax credits for energy efficient home improvements were paid to people who didn't own homes (in 2011).

There is much more to be found is my point. I don't necessarily think we HAVE to cut just one or two big things... There are enough small things (in my opinion) that could get a large portion taken care of.

[rivalarrival]

Fair enough:

The direct cuts you proposed are still 4 orders of magnitude less than the deficit. Call me when you get to under 2 orders of magnitude worth of such cuts.

Originally Posted by rivalarrival

Again, subsidies are not necessarily bad. Subsidies to alternative energy R&D and production can force OPEC to keep their prices down, lest they make one of these alternatives feasible.

But OK, that's a start. Sure, let's go after the low-hanging fruit first. What's the sum total of all that spending? About 150 million?



There's a couple other numbers I want you to look at.
$5,100,000,000,000 <--- Total tax revenue
$6,430,000,000,000 <--- Total spending
$200,000,000 <--- Total cuts you just proposed.
$50,000,000,000 <--- Additional revenue generated by the Buffett rule




That's a 15-year period, not a 5-year period, but when I first parsed it, I made that same mistake in my head. It's 11.312 billion/year, not 34 billion. Now, these are staple goods consumed by every person in the US, in pretty much equal amounts. Any change here will negatively effect every last person in the nation pretty much equally. The guy earning 6 figures will have to pay a little bit more for his meals. So will those folks collecting foodstamps, and those pushed onto foodstamps by the increased price for food. The additional expenditure on food will mean a lower taxable income for all of us, so removing these subsidies will also lower tax revenue. So sure, let's put crop subsidies on the table, but let's also remember what those subsidies actually buy. Before we decide to cut them, let's make damn sure that they are going to actually do something useful.

The Buffett Rule is the most similar to the plan I have been proposing.

$5,100,000,000,000 <--- Total tax revenue
$6,430,000,000,000 <--- Total spending
$200,000,000 <--- Total cuts you proposed.
$36,700,000,000 <--- Additional revenue generated by Buffett rule (ultra-conservative estimate)
$50,000,000,000 <--- Additional revenue generated by Buffett rule (typical estimates)
$11,312,000,000 <--- Total subsidy cuts you proposed

(For the record, my mistake was a a few tens of millions - your mistake on the subsidies was 20 billion)

[YelloJeep]

Originally Posted by rivalarrival

Fair enough:

The direct cuts you proposed are still 4 orders of magnitude less than the deficit. Call me when you get to under 2 orders of magnitude worth of such cuts.



(For the record, my mistake was a a few tens of millions - your mistake on the subsidies was 20 billion)

My point is that there are LOTS of little things that are a waste of money that could be looked at first to get started. I'll bet that there are enough things that could be cut that it would put a good dent in our financial problem. Just like Dave Ramsey says, "..baby steps...".

You asked what we could cut and you got some answers... What's the problem? Do you think it isn't worth talking about because it doesn't solve the problem entirely? The silver bullet solutions are the ones that everyone has a reason not to use.... "higher taxes" or "cutting the handouts".. Neither of those will make most people happy. The ones I listed I think MOST of us can agree are wasteful.