Mitt Romney says that he wants to cap federal spending at 20% of GDP, reducing it from 24.3% (his figures). That would mean cutting the federal budget by 17.7%. You may think that sounds good if you think that Spending Is Evil, but this would have real consequences. The interesting thing is that this is almost exactly the same thing that Republicans did in the past. In 1937, Congressional Republicans insisted that after years of running large deficits to fix the economy, further stimulus was unnecessary, and the budget had to be balanced. President Roosevelt gave in to the pressure and cut federal spending from $8.228 billion to $6.84 billion. That's a 16.9% cut - more modest then what Romney is proposing today. The results were immediate. The economy tanked, GDP plummeted, and unemployment jumped by 4.7 points within a year. If Romney is elected and does as he says, we can expect pretty much the same thing to happen - a deep recession, dropping GDP and skyrocketing unemployment. A five point jump in unemployment would make it 13%. So Romney's campaign amounts to this: 13% unemployment for 2013! I don't know about you, but that's not a platform I'm voting for.
You are forgetting to factor in the fact that many business owners have pledged not to hire until Obama is gone. Romney will revive the economy because he is business friendly. Obama's tax policy for 2013, his ACA plan and the fact that there have been fewer small business startups during the Obama tenure have driven the economy into the toilet. The economy will only get worse if Obama is re-elected.
This is simple...you can't spend your way out of debt. You have to make cuts. At home you would start with cable tv then the internet, maybe no more Friday's at the movies, shorten trips etc...in other words you have to sacrifice something for wild spending. It ain't brain surgery. Will it be fun? No, but it is a start to the road of recovery.
It's what they did in Greece and Europe, with the same results, their economy tanked. I fail to see why the right wing is still pushing for something that we KNOW won't work and will in fact do more damage. But then, the right has NEVER been able to handle the nations economy, ever.
We kow, from history and current attempts, your plan of cuts and austerity doesn't work, it in fact damages the economy. Why do you keep thinking it will help when you know it won't? BTW, the debt isn't whats wrong, fixing it won't improve the economy, your on the wrong track.
The goal of an economy is not to get out of debt. It's to keep people working and to keep their economic opportunities high. If more debt means those two things then more debt is what we need.
If government deficit spending is so awesome why did the Bush years lead to a very large recession followed by very stagnant growth with more money being thrown at the problem? Bush spent wildly, the economy grew than faltered, Obama has continued the cycle yet the economy continues to sputter along at very slow growth? Why is this, if government spending money it does not have is so awesome, why is the economy tanking?
Regardless of which party you support you have to cut where it costs the least amount of jobs. Does anyone know what the impact will be if and when we get out of the war business?
Because of the deregulation of the banking industry. The debt had nothing to do with the utter destruction of the economy, that was the results of conservative ideals and policy's. Lots of reasons, not enough spending, not just govt spending but consumer spending is a huge factor. When the republicans destroyed the economy the middle class, lost most of their money, without that money they stopped buying, business's closed and more people were put out of work, taking more money out of the economy. The efforts by the President to correct the failed policys of the right, were hampered, by the right, and as a result they were not as effective as they could have been. I do fault the President for allowing the right to further destroy the country. They, the right need the economy to fail, for political gain, and they haven't been very secretive about working to keep the economy in the tank, they have been very open about their anti-American activitys. The big question is why can't the voters see that, and why do you still think that doing what failed and is failing in Europe is the solution to our problems?
Your problem is that you're confusing two completely different and only somewhat related problems. Generally speaking, until it becomes very large, the national debt has a pretty small effect on the economy. Greece's debt is 160% of their GDP, for example. There are lots of very good reasons to reduce the debt. Creating economic growth isn't one of them. Balancing the budget and stimulating the economy are mutually exclusive courses of action. You can do one or the other, but not both at the same time. We need to stimulate the economy and get it moving again, and then balance the budget. And balancing the budget will require a broad based tax increase. That ain't brain surgery either.
Deficit spending does stimulate the Economy. It worked in the Reagan years if one assumes that the economy was not about to turn around on its own. (And this is a big assumption). Some deficit spending is ok as long as it is not too much. The Reagan spending was way over the top. One needs to keep in mind that these things take decades to play out. Even with further increases in spending by Bush Sr we were still ok. Clinton got things under control (it took 8 years but he did it). In 2000 the debt was "only" 5 Trillion. This was still a massive debt but deficit was zero. If spending would have been kept in check after Clinton inflation would have eaten away half the actual value of that debt by now and we would be in great shape. The economy was not in the greatest of shape when Bush Jr took over. The raging masses would have had to suffer through some stagnant economic times and restrain foreign policy refocusing on rebuilding out economic prowess while curtainling our military prowess but we would be in great shape would we have done what was necessary. That of course is not what happened. Bush decreased revenue through tax cuts (which did nothing) and increased spending in an effort to revive an unrevivable economic situation. He relaxed banking regulations, lowered interest rates, and flooded the market with cheap money. To cap things off he went on a military campaign spending Trillions with no realistic hope of any return on investment. Even in his last 2 years of office not one spending bill was vetoed. As a result of his policy madness .. Bush handed off: 1) 12 Trillion in Debt 2) 1.4 Trillion deficit 3) Collapsed housing market 4) Financial system collapsing (credit markets frozen) 5) Stock market collapse (Dow from 14,000 down to 6,500) The funny thing is that we now have the same guys that caused this situation .. running around blaming the clean up crew who came in after. So audacious are the GOP that they even put up a debt clock at their convention. The age of stupidity is upon us .. and the Fox is truly in charge of the hen house.
So you are trying to make me believe that you can spend your way out of debt...great, please tell me the secret because I really want a 75 foot cabin cruiser and a red Ferrari, but I owe other people money. Your way I don't have to pay them and I can just borrow more and not repay it. Great...I love it...wait, is that legal?
Ryan's budget plan DOES NOT cut government spending. I slows the growth rate of government spending which over time would allow economic growth to catch up and make the spending 20%. Slowing the projected growth is not the same think as cutting spending, but Democrats are loathe to admit that as they prefer to continue to be dishonest to scare voters.
