Wishful Thinking 101: Can We Talk About the Deficit Now?

[Lemur]

House Democrats Propose More Spending for Military and Education
GOP Says Plan Would Imperil Efforts to Balance Budget

The first line is depressing. The second line is hilarious. If Don C is lost in a German art film, this headline makes me feel like I'm wandering through a piece of Dada experimental theater ....

[rory_20_uk]

I thought that in both relative and absolute terms the current deficit and indeed national debt are breaking records.

On the news it was saying that when there is a bipartisan set-up, spending usually decreases (probably just as it ends being a logjam).

[yesdachi]

Read my lips, lots more taxes!

Our “new” government is going to have to come thru on some of them promises they made to get elected and that is going to mean more spending. Maybe in a few years we will start to curb spending, after the “new” government solves the Iraq issue the next big issue for most people is $$$, it will become an issue but not until tomorrow.

[Lemur]

Read my lips, lots more taxes!

Our “new” government is going to have to come thru on some of them promises they made to get elected and that is going to mean more spending.

Oh give it a rest. If we froze all spending tomorrow, a tax hike would still probably be necessary. It took the Republicans exactly six years to take our unfunded liabilities (translation: money we owe that we don't have) from $20 billion to $50 billion. I am completely unimpressed with any G.O.P. whining about fiscal responsibility at this late date.

With a divided government, at least we have a chance to rein in the beast. Let a lemur hope a little, okay?

[yesdachi]

Oh give it a rest. If we froze all spending tomorrow, a tax hike would still probably be necessary. It took the Republicans exactly six years to take our unfunded liabilities (translation: money we owe that we don't have) from $20 billion to $50 billion. I am completely unimpressed with any G.O.P. whining about fiscal responsibility at this late date.

With a divided government, at least we have a chance to rein in the beast. Let a lemur hope a little, okay?

i did say...

Maybe in a few years we will start to curb spending

[Spino]

The first line is depressing. The second line is hilarious. If Don C is lost in a German art film, this headline makes me feel like I'm wandering through a piece of Dada experimental theater ....

Hey, I'm the guy who said he feels like he's lost in a German art film! Personally I'm hoping this is all a bad dream and I wake up and find myself in one of those Italian art films from the same period...

Truth be told I think Don C feels like he should be somewhere on an interstate racing towards Vegas, white knuckled and hell bent on a weekend of glorious self indulgence; a brief respite from the blackened skies looming in the distance...

The scary thing about 'more money for education'? There's relatively little correlation between the amount of money spent per student and how well students do in school. If more money actually worked, I would actually support it. But Western states (Utah, Colorado, New Mexico) spend less per student than Southern states (North Carolina, Alabama) but they do markedly better. States in the Northeast have not kept up in growing the per-student spending, falling to the upper third from the top, but their test scores remain top of the list.

The problem with education in America is the NEA. Plain and simple. They don't want to require teachers to do their jobs, and incompetent teachers get rewarded along with the good ones (and there's plenty of those). Add to that so much class time is taken up with enacting social policy these days, it's very hard for teachers to actually teach.

Quit with the "social experiments" like the schools out in California making kids pretend to be Muslims for a month, and teach the 3Rs.

I understand what Dems say about standardized tests, that in the end, kids learn how to take a standardized test, not a real education. But by any yardstick, we are failing our children miserably, and if vouchers aren't the answer, fine, propose one. But "let's just give the schools more money and hope the problem goes away" is a recipe for more failure. If schools really need more money, then lay it out and explain how it will improve student performance. But don't just handwave with 'more money for education'.

Absolutely!

I would imagine that raising teacher salaries would eventually be effective in raising quality of education.

Also, according to Crazed Rabbit, private schools are the best, and what are private schools if not public schools with more money?

What? You mean like the teacher salaries in NYC? LOL! Our teachers are extremely well paid and yet our public schools are awful! Paying teachers well is one thing, holding them to high standards is another. It is extremely difficult nowadays to find truly qualified teachers and the ones that do pass the muster are easily discouraged from sticking around because the latest generation of students are spoiled silly and behave like animals in class. I've met numerous private and parochial school teachers who used to teach in public schools but left because could not handle the stress and agitation. Most preferred a massive paycut in exchange for a a more rigidly disciplined environment and a less stressful existence. To pad their income these people will get part-time jobs (preferably off-the-books types like bartending). No amount of money is going to improve America's public schools because the problem begins with the students and their upbringing and ends with a curriculum that is muddled with too much social engineering and not enough basics.

Private & parochial schools are, for the most part, better than public schools because they are devoid of the sticky issues and personnel that can plague every government institution. Private schools can set their own agenda and with the exception of Catholic schools, do not have to answer to a centralized bureacracy regarding curriculum or anything else.

[Lemur]

Hey, I'm the guy who said he feels like he's lost in a German art film!

Ooops! Sorry I misattributed that line; it was good enough to make an impression on my tiny lemur brain. I can see why you feel that way. There's something mean and spiteful in a universe where Hillary Clinton is your and Gawain's Senator ....