President Obama want to spend 53 billion on high speed rail over the next

[cali]

10 6 years, but he's willing to make deep cuts in social welfare programs. That doesn't sit right with me.

[Brickbat]

1. Agreed. The decisions have no consistency.

[shraby]

2. I haven't seen where he is making deep cuts in social

welfare programs..the gop is trying to though.

[cali]

3. cutting LIHEAP.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/13/obama-budget-proposal-cut_n_822689.html

[TheWraith]

5. Cutting the temporary boost he gave it, cutting back to where it stood when he started the job.

Your premise is still invalid.

[walldude]

14. Yeah right, with the increase Obama gave it it was still

only covering a small portion of the people who qualify, I know for sure the number in Colorado is you have to be making 185% BELOW the POVERTY LEVEL to receive LIHEAP aid.

Keep telling me how this is a good thing :eyes:

Might be great for you, but I know people that are losing their aid and don't know what the fuck they are going to do next winter.

[phleshdef]

7. Which was only where it was because he boosted it in the first place.

No matter how unwilling you are to accept it, stimulus spending was never intended to last forever and you never should have expected that it would, not with people yelling about the deficit right and left.

[n2doc]

4. The fact is that his rail proposals are dead in the water

The House will never have a budget with them in it. The Senate won't bother fighting for them when there are so many other fights. And the stimulus money is already being allocated. So it really doesn't matter.

[dkf]

6. This really is the debate...do we invest in the future or in the elderly.

It's a choice of where we spend our money.

Frankly if we want to keep entitlements as they are, pretty much everything else will have to go because the elderly are growing in number and their expenses are uncapped and strongly tied to exploding health care costs.

[Vincardog]

8. That presumes that there is nothing we can do about the FUNDING side of the equation

This is not a zero sum game. There is plenty of money for war and corporations. GE paid no taxes and got a 2 BILLION tax refund.

[dkf]

12. There are economic studies showing that increases in taxes cause decreases in GDP.

Of course I'm not sure if rejiggering who is paying what within the tax system but keeping it revenue neutral makes a difference.

There is some kind of optimal level though. We are traditionally at 20% of GDP. The problem is at current promised levels spending as a % of GDP will go to 40% so that means a doubling of everyone's federal tax bill over the next 75 years or so.

You might want to read the GAO's citizens guide. It's a summary of the Governments financial position. Lots of interesting data.


http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2010/10guide.pdf

[Vincardog]

13. I believe that cutting taxes on the rich and the corporations has been demonstrated to hurt the GDP

WE need the money to be in PEOPLE's hands and circulated not the corporate coffers and hoarded.

[northoftheborder]

9. I have a question.

What is the 70 billion in cuts that Obama is talking about? What is he suggesting cutting? And is it also what the Senate will agree to? Since they didn't ever pass a bill, how do we know what we're comparing to the House bill? I'm confused. Sometimes they refer to it as the 40 billion cut. Do any of the cuts that the House bill and the President/Senate agreement overlap? What are the differences? I don't see how the public can expect to express an opinion with no information supplied about what they are talking about.

[JustAnotherGen]

10. We don't have to cut

Social Welfare programs. We can do both. We can rebuild and expand infrastructure and still provide services to those who need them.

Everyone focuses on the dollar figure with infrastructure . . . well guess what? When you do that you get what happened here in NJ a few months ago. A total loss of job opportunities and growth. That money will go towards salaries, supplies, interstate commerce, the diner down the street from the job site, the convenience store where someone stopped to get coffee on the way to the job site.

Roosevelt introduced the concept of the social program - and the concept of spending money to grow revenue . . . both during the Depression.

They go hand in hand in my mind.

[demmiblue]

11. I agree. n/t