President Obama

[chatfsh]

I wonder, though... what if Presidents, or other public servants, for that matter, couldn't occupy terms contiguously? Then they wouldn't have to worry about their re-election chances--a term "off" would be all the time they need to massage their image once out of office.

Not a bad idea.  But the current terms are relatively short, at least for the House anyway.  So what I would recommend is a single yet extended term for public officials.  Say 4 - 6 year congressional terms (senators already have 6 year terms and that

[Sneakgab]

Of course, if were going to go on about democratic design, then I would put forth direct democracy over the current silliness.

''Being aware of my political proclivities, you know that I can not complain about any of these results.Wink''

Anyone aware of my politics would know that I could care less either way; the Democrats and Republicans must be the two most similar opposing parties ever (at least in effect, since the Democrats never do anything other than what the Republicans do)

So either way you win Hwi  :P

Well, I guess the Republicans might keep abortion and stem cell research outlawed.

Great, you get to lose control over your own body and to have groundbreaking life saving research stopped.

I might seem biased only mentioning these negative things, but I'm honestly at a loss for anything positive to say about the Republicans that the Democrats don't have. I'm also at a loss to say anything positive about the democrats.

Fiscal responsibility? Obama is giving the working class, poor, retired, sick, e.t.c the finger. What more do you want?

No bailouts? Better luck next planet and/or era. Most countries (especially the wealthy ones it seems) gave their bankers and big businessmen big fat doles of cash that they didn't entirely have, creating dangerous amounts of debt.

''The Republicans have a reputation for fiscal responsibility bla bla''. That's what they all said/say.

The only notable difference I see is that the Republicans are backward enough to outlaw stem cell research and the democrats are weak and/or corrupt and/or separated enough to actually do anything about anything.

Methinks the unions and whatnot need to drop the Democrats like the garbage they are and attempt to set up a labor party.

[Wolf]

Well, Sneak, if you want good things to say about the Republican party... I always laud them for a commitment to lower taxes, pro-business legislation, and a strong military. The Democrats typically infuriate me by almost exclusively doing the opposite while nonetheless claiming otherwise. That sort of doublethink often precludes me from voting for them. On the other hand, the downright incompetence of many Republican politicians accomplishes the same. I think we always come back to this point in any political discussion on this forum, but please, please, oh God, let there someday be a viable third-party in America.

[Xaroth]

And they wonder why a large part of non-amerikans think the american govenment system is so wrong... it takes a dozen to get something done, and one to mess it all up again.

Now I'm not saying little ol holland is any better, I mean.. we're still being governed by harry potter himself (and they want him to lead the eu  ??? ).. but at least it's somewhat difficult to undo what has been put in stone, unless there's an equal great force that judges otherwise

To stick on the topic of Obama, as an outsider I can only see the critique and the fanboyism that follows him closely, but at least he's doing a better job socializing with the outside world than his predecessor...

[Edric O]

Breaking news: the Democratic Party narrowly secures a small victory over the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8348941.stm

Tune in for our next episode, which will feature the epic struggle between the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party in the Senate.

[Edric O]

Well, if you're in the White House, all you can really do about legislation is cajole, threaten and harass. If you ran Congress, on the other hand, you might be able to accomplish that. But, assuming it wasn't vetoed (alright, so you have to have a red flunkie in the now-interestingly-named White House), the "irreversible" part might be hard to come by: the courts may be the weakest branch, according to some, but they have some of the most sweeping governmental powers available to them.

And this shows perfectly why any reformist strategy is utterly doomed to fail in the United States. Can you imagine anyone being able to get a socialist majority in Congress, and keeping all those elected socialists honest and dedicated to the cause, in the face of enormous temptations (attempted bribery, etc.) to side with capitalism? Even if you could somehow get a socialist Congress through regular electoral means, your candidates would have to be saints to be able to maintain their commitment to socialism when offered great wealth and power by various capitalist lobbyists.

Not to mention that even packing Congress with socialist saints wouldn't be enough - you'd have to get the White House and the Supreme Court too.

When you look at it that way, a workers' revolution definitely appears to be the more feasible scenario. The US government is not reformable from within.

[MrFlibble]

When you look at it that way, a workers' revolution definitely appears to be the more feasible scenario. The US government is not reformable from within.

The only problem is, what will guarantee that the revolution-formed government is not going to get corrupted as well?

[Dante]

Nothing. So?

[nemafakei]

"The only problem is, what will guarantee that the revolution-formed government is not going to get corrupted as well?"

Not making it in the mould of existing failures? Not putting it into a context of such concentrations of wealth as are likely to corrupt?

Those are only two ways in which it would have to be different. The third is active participation. If we're at the stage where a genuine socialist revolution is possible, that's a stage where people feel empowered to do something about the world they live in. A revolution that creates direct democracy as it progresses, - workplaces run by democratic workers' assemblies developed from assemblies formed for basic industrial self-defence, would have the best chance of bringing this about.

[Dunenewt]

Statue of Obama unveiled...in Indonesia...as a schoolboy

[Andrew]

Anyone watch Daily Show last night?

Apparently Obama promised at least 5 times to have health care reform televised on CSPAN.

He broke that promise.

[Kiyouta]

Anyone watch Daily Show last night?

Apparently Obama promised at least 5 times to have health care reform televised on CSPAN.

He broke that promise.

Heh, whatever. He'll be back next year to play in the Open. And you know what...? He'll win!

[Edric O]

Totally not racist critics of Obama express their frustration in a totally not racist way.

[Edric O]

Ok, so, after today's special election, the question is: how badly are the Democrats going to be slaughtered in November?

[Wolf]

Honestly, they had the chance to avoid it: they had a mandate from the people, they had a chance to win goodwill in the international community, they even had a chance to win the wars. But it's impossible to explain to people why you're taking their money to spend more money than the previous administration--when fiscal responsibility was a sticking point of yours in the campaign--when we're already 12 trillion in the hole! Utterly inadivsable. Should have made gay marriage legal, protected abortion rights, and left well enough alone, if you ask me.

[Edric O]

Paul Krugman says, and I agree, that the problem with the stimulus package was that it was far too modest. The Democrats should have spent more, not less - and of course, they should have spent more intelligently. At the same time, if you're worried about the deficit, might I suggest cutting back on the billions of dollars spent every day to blow stuff up in other countries?

[Wolf]

I agree with you that fiscal responsibility is key, but let me divide this up to tackle the two major points of your post.

1. Perhaps that's true with regard to the stimulus--where I can understand some form of an argument of economic necessity. However, a stimulus package, with an equally-sized TARP recovery package, combined with an equally-sized health care bill, I think, is beginning to wear on a public that doesn't understand and is extremely worried about a gross national debt in the tens of trillions.

2. "... cutting back on the billions of dollars spent every day to blow stuff up in other countries." This would have been great to point out 8 years ago, unfortunately, military spending in this case is more or less mandated. Now, I can see no way of cutting back without putting American and allied lives in jeopardy--and this is of course assuming all the while that you don't think fighting various terror groups worldwide is a good idea in any event. Even then, the total annual budget of the military is only ~$120 billion. When compared to the stimulus package (~$750 billion) TARP (~$700 billion) and health care (~850 billion over four years) military spending is clearly small potatoes. Telling us that we can be fiscally responsible and cut down on our budget by cutting military spending, but not these other things, strikes me as a little unreasonable...

[Edric O]

Wait, when did I say that "fiscal responsibility is key"? I don't believe that at all. This is the US government that we're talking about. The single most powerful organization in the world. They're the last people who should be worried about paying back their debts. Besides, trying to balance the budget right after a deep recession is stupid in any case. The proper time to balance the budget is during a vigorous economic boom.

Having said that...

1. Health care reform does not need to be so expensive. The main reason for the astronomical cost of the currently proposed health reform is because it consists of a massive bribe to the insurance companies. Switching to a single-payer system of universal health care would be much cheaper - in fact, it would probably start saving the government money within a few years.

2. According to my sources, the US military budget for this year is 901 billion dollars, and the budget deficit is 1405 billion. That means that military spending is equal to 64% of the deficit. And no, it's not mandated in any way, shape or form. The number of Americans who died in wars to "prevent terrorism" is greater than the number of Americans who died in terrorist attacks! The way I see it, more American lives could be saved by doing absolutely nothing at all than by the current course of action (I'm not advocating doing nothing - I'm only saying it would be better than the status quo).

Here's an idea: Set the American military budget to be equal to twice the estimated budget of all the groups you're supposed to be fighting. That seems more than reasonable - you'd still be spending twice more than they do - and I bet it would amount to a 99% cut in military spending. You know why? Because the glorious military of the most powerful nation on Earth is currently spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fight a losing war against a bunch of guys armed with nothing more advanced than AK-47s and home-made bombs. The Pentagon is pathetic.

[Anathema]

Well, the USA could have solved the Taliban/Al Quada problem back in 2001 relatively cheaply and with few military casualties on their side by bombing the [excrement] out of them. Not just vital infrastructures (insofar Afghanistan even has that) or training camps, but literally set the entire country in flames. Anything else would at best have produced a second Somalia, a country that would have to be bombed every 5 years or so to prevent its internal anarchy from crossing its borders.

The cuts you are proposing would effectively amount to giving a bunch of hillbilly's from Oklahoma assault rifles and dropping them in a warzone. That would not end well for any of the parties involved...

[MrFlibble]

Well, the USA could have solved the Taliban/Al Quada problem back in 2001 relatively cheaply and with few military casualties on their side by bombing the [excrement] out of them. Not just vital infrastructures (insofar Afghanistan even has that) or training camps, but literally set the entire country in flames.

Either I don't get it, or do you seriously propose genocide as a sound method of dealing with terrorism? :O

[Anathema]

No, I don't.

The point I was trying to make was that to neutralize Afghanistan as a terrorist threat would either require occupation (= basically what the US and NATO have been doing up till now, at high expense), or genocide. I don't approve of the latter option.

[Wolf]

Edric:

1. You're right, I shouldn't have assumed that you also felt that fiscal responsibility was a noteworthy goal, one that even the greatest superpower might pursue such that it might occupy a meaningful position of moral authority when engaged in negotiations with other countries. That being said, I take issue with your analysis of this year's annual spending. Health care is now a moot point, so I'll move on to 2.

2. It's curious to me that defense spending could constitute 901 billion dollars out of a budget of 1405 billion when Congress has approved over 4400 billion dollars in stimulus spending alone for the next several years. Even a quarter of that amount, if spent for 2009-2010, is going to nearly double the size of the deficit as you've described it? It's also curious to me that you say this when Wikipedia claims that, in fiscal year 2008, defense was only 613 billion out of 2979 billion. Given that we've actually de-escalated our operations in Iraq (which were at a high point last year) I am actually at a loss to explain your proposed 33% increase in defense spending for this year. That seems a little odd to me, doesn't it seem odd to you? It also seems odd to me that we'd be spending another 1500 billion dollars on other projects last year--under a Republican administration--but not this year under a Democratic one that promised to expand them? The spending freeze aside (I think we can agree that a freeze on 250 billion dollars' worth of projects is paltry regardless of whether we're talking about defense or health care), it seems to me that your sources freely omitted the government's mandated social security, medicare, and other compulsory spending, which alone totaled at 1597 billion dollars. That, to me, seems to reconcile these figures, provided that no absolutely glaring changes have occurred from last year to this one. (Given also that the changes you would require to make sense of your "figures" rely on assumptions that are, in fact, contrary to the general nature of both parties... I think it's a dubious endeavor.) Would you not accept these as perhaps a more accurate disposition of our Federal spending? If that's not enough, here are two more quotes from Wiki:

The U.S. defense budget (excluding spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Homeland Security, and Veteran's Affairs) is around 4% of GDP.[23] According to the CBO, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000-2009.[24]

...and...

Mandatory spending accounted for 53% of total federal outlays in FY2008, with net interest payments accounting for an additional 8.5%.[9]

Unless you feel that "your sources" possess more authority than Wiki, I think I can satisfactorily disprove your notion that defense spending is the "largest" federal outlay--indeed, to me, it seems that the mandatory entitlement programs are several orders larger.

EDIT: And real quick, total debt is roughly 60% of GDP. That's helpful information. As is this. Wow. Isn't it interesting that the total additions to the debt under the Bush years is each less than half what the Obama administration spent in one year? Cool, huh? You'd expect the opposite if you... well... believed half the people you talked to. Not that the other half are any more inherently trustworthy.

[Edric O]

Wolf:

1. You're right, I shouldn't have assumed that you also felt that fiscal responsibility was a noteworthy goal, one that even the greatest superpower might pursue such that it might occupy a meaningful position of moral authority when engaged in negotiations with other countries.

Heh. Moral authority? In world affairs? The United States trying to recover moral authority by fiscal responsibility is like a man trying to clean himself by brushing his teeth when he's covered in dung. With the exception of one short period (1941-45), there hasn't been the slightest hint of morality in American foreign policy since the Monroe Doctrine. The history of America's role in the world is a long litany of invasions, conquests, military coups, and occasional massacres of civilians, punctuated by some instances of self-interested help to allies.

To be fair, other capitalist powers have done largely the same things, so it's not like the American ruling class is particularly evil. It's not. It displays an average degree of evil.

That being said, I take issue with your analysis of this year's annual spending. Health care is now a moot point, so I'll move on to 2.

Eh? How is single-payer health care any more of a moot point now than it was before? ???

2. It's curious to me that defense spending could constitute 901 billion dollars out of a budget of 1405 billion...

I was talking about the discretionary budget. That is the spending that comes before Congress for review and approval every year. There are other items of government spending - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - but those are run by semi-autonomous entities and (theoretically) have separate budgets that the government cannot take and re-allocate as it sees fit. In addition, stimulus packages are not counted in discretionary spending, because they are one-time expenses, not recurring yearly expenses.

Also, I said the budget deficit is 1405 billion. Not the whole budget itself. Obviously, the budget is different from the deficit... but not by much. The discretionary budget for 2010 is 1421 billion dollars. As for total government spending, I don't have the data for 2010, but in 2008 it was 3591 billion.

I suspect the differences in our figures come from counting different things.

Unless you feel that "your sources" possess more authority than Wiki, I think I can satisfactorily disprove your notion that defense spending is the "largest" federal outlay--indeed, to me, it seems that the mandatory entitlement programs are several orders larger.

Right, except I never said that defense spending is the largest federal outlay. I said that a drastic cut in defense spending would go a long way towards paying for the deficit, and suggested that any good plan for fixing the deficit would need to begin with a drastic cut in defense spending (and it would need to continue with a drastic tax increase, but that's another story).

My point was that if you're looking for something to cut, cut defense. It may not be the biggest outlay, but it's up there, and represents about 25% of all government spending.

EDIT: And real quick, total debt is roughly 60% of GDP. That's helpful information. As is this.

Yes. That's the total debt, which is the sum of all deficits for all years since the beginning. It's quite clear that, in the next few decades, the United States government will have to drastically raise taxes, default on the debt, or collapse (since even cutting all spending entirely would not be enough to pay the debt; at current tax rates, Americans would need to continue paying taxes for several years and receive nothing in return in order to pay the debt - which would spark riots, which would need to be put down by the military, which costs money...).

It's not a hard choice. The US government will default on the debt. The only question is when. In the mean time, I'd advise against buying US Treasury bonds.

The inevitability of the Great Default means that the current global economic order definitely has an expiry date - we just don't know what it is. I hope it will signal the beginning of the end for capitalism. And the greatest irony will be that this will all be brough about by the chronic unwillingness of Americans to pay taxes. The Great Default could be avoided - and capitalism saved from a major crisis - by a massive tax increase. But the US government can't do that, because of its ultra-capitalist ideology. What a conundrum. I love it.

Alternatively, there may be a way for the countries of the world to devise an agreement whereby they all borrow money from each other in order to pay the interest they owe to each other - or something like that. But anything that relies on borrowing to pay interest on the money you previously borrowed sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me.

Wow. Isn't it interesting that the total additions to the debt under the Bush years is each less than half what the Obama administration spent in one year? Cool, huh? You'd expect the opposite if you... well... believed half the people you talked to. Not that the other half are any more inherently trustworthy.

Since the debt is already so large that the US cannot possibly pay it all back, going on a spending binge probably doesn't make a difference.

I mean, think about it: 60% of GDP! That means that all Americans would need to give up 60% of their current yearly income to pay the debt. Can you imagine that ever happening, even spread out over 10 years? Defaulting is the only option.

[Edric O]

The cuts you are proposing would effectively amount to giving a bunch of hillbilly's from Oklahoma assault rifles and dropping them in a warzone. That would not end well for any of the parties involved...

Actually, I was thinking of using a very small number of highly trained operatives to infiltrate the enemy and carry out assassinations and sabotage - which is basically the same strategy Al-Qaeda is using.

The point I was trying to make was that to neutralize Afghanistan as a terrorist threat would either require occupation (= basically what the US and NATO have been doing up till now, at high expense), or genocide. I don't approve of the latter option.

What exactly do you mean by "neutralizing Afghanistan as a terrorist threat", and why is it necessary?

Consider the following simple math: Suppose that, in the absence of US military spending, there would be one 9/11-scale attack every single year. This is an extreme assumption that vastly exaggerates the scale of the terrorist threat; I am trying to concede as much as possible to your fear of terrorists. Now, this means about 3000 Americans killed by terrorists every year. Like I said, it's an extreme scenario. If this nightmare is what would happen in the absence of 900 billion dollars of military spending, that means that the amount of money spent for each life saved is... about three hundred million dollars. This is without a doubt the absolute worst, most costly, most inefficient way of saving lives ever known to man! If you put all that money into health care, or disaster relief, or fire-proofing buildings, or almost anything else, you could save far more than one person for every $300,000,000!

Even on the assumption of imminent catastrophic terrorist attacks, current levels of military spending are still far too high. The opportunity cost is too great. It's not worth it. Use the money for something else instead, and you'll save more people.

[athanasios]

Dismantle the armies and give the money to the needy ones! ;-)