Quote Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy View Post
But what I see is if we cannot even do one through five, then WHY are we spending money on ANYTHING else? Is anything else more important? Is anything else more vital? Explain.

Why is a fish more important than a healthcare system? Why is a bridge to nowhere more important than funding social security? Why is a space program more important than underfunded law enforcement programs? Why is a bank bailout the solution, when you could just give a bailout to the home owners who have those bad loans, and repay the banks, and then the banks don't go under and people own their own houses?
The short answer; special interests. Believe it or not, there are groups that lobby for federal spending on a whole load of useless crap, like animals and plants and community programs and pet projects like ethanol that aren't on your list of necessities. For each one of them, the benefit from the special spending on their particular issue is much greater than the small negative impact from the increased deficit.

And there's only a few out of hundreds of congressmen who care enough to not tack on handouts to groups on every bill (ie John McCain).

Maybe I'm not understanding, and I'm hoping someone will educate me. But why are we subsidizing corn, when we don't have enough money to subsidize unemployed people or social security?

Some call for government works projects to create jobs. Some even say "pay people to dig ditches, and then fill those ditches" to combat unemployment. Well that's fine, but not everyone can dig a ditch or do manual labor of that kind.
Actually that's not fine. It's a colossal waste of money. GDP, or gross domestic product, is a measure of the value of goods created in the nation. Digging and then filling ditches has a value of zero dollars. So you're taking money (via taxes) from people earning it for useful work and giving it to other people to accomplish nothing. The people you're taxing would otherwise spend that money buying goods and thus increase GDP. So you're hurting GDP and people with jobs to accomplish, literally, nothing.

Government cannot efficiently create jobs. Each job it 'creates', through subsidies or whatever, costs much more to the economy than just the worker's wage. It creates significant inefficiencies.

For example, when the government enacts protective tariffs to protect domestic jobs, the net cost to the economy ends up being many times the cost of those worker's salaries.

1. Unemployment compensation goes DIRECTLY back into the economy. They spend it on food, rent, and bills. The capitalist economy gets close to 100% of that money right back, and you have people who aren't starving!
You also have people paid to do nothing. While you might constantly try to get a job, most people wait until the benefits are about to run out before really looking for jobs. Incentive wise, you're increasing the reasons not to hold a job and decreasing the reasons to hold a job.

2. Paying a doctor to treat the sick. Where does that go? Well if it goes into his pocket, he tends to spend it on consumer goods, or he invests that money in savings accounts or other investments. And he's providing a necessary service, and that money goes back into the economy. It's about saving lives and making sure doctors are paid for their well-trained services. How can you go wrong here?
If people don't pay for doctor visits they'll go more often, since they don't see any downside to constant doctor visits even if they aren't really sick. Again, you're punishing people who pay for insurance and rewarding those who don't pay.

3. Helping those who are "underwater" as it pertains to their mortgage would send 100% of that money right back to the very banks that were whining about not being paid.
Again, you help people who don't deserve it. Why should someone who foolishly bought something they can't afford have the government pay for it? It creates a moral hazard. That is, it says to foolish people; "Go ahead and buy things you can't afford, because the government will bail you out if it gets tough!". And so you have people making foolish purchases without worrying about the consequences.

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As for how to solve it - I don't have faith politicians can fix it, be they from any political party.

The main reason for that is that only half of the people pay any federal income tax. So half get all the services of the government without having to pay for any of it. Those people will always support more government spending.

Therefore, I think the simplest way to cut down on spending will be to take away the vote from people who do not pay more in taxes than they receive in handouts. A corollary would be to prohibit any business that gets more in subsidies than it pays in taxes from donating to any political causes or candidates. We'll still have people who whine for more spending, but they won't be pandered to because they can't vote.

Also, get rid of the amendment that made Senators elected instead of appointed by states.

CR