>>1465983

The problem is the 2 services that will actually make a difference are 100% untouchable, medicare and social security.

>Implying there where services left to reduce.

>Schools, shit tier
>Health Care, nonexistent
>Social Welfare, a maze

>>1465996
and yet we spend billions upon billions on the military...

>>1465995

Actually, the biggest problem for some states is the retirement funds for their government employees. I'm not sure about the others but I know this is huge in both California and Oregon.

>>1466004
and schools, and healthcare (soon MORE!), and social welfare programs

Bloated leftist policies that never made any sense financially made it impossible to sustain.

Big Pharma ran away with all our cash long ago, and its still happening.

>>1466004
You mean 3% of the GDP?

>>1466004

>Implying the individual states pay for the military.

>>1466009
Depends on the state, I know someone in the local government who reflected that the unions have a more secure retirement package than the public workers.

>>1466013
i would rather we spend money on social services than war. just saying.

also, no one is saying we need to throw money at the school system. there needs to be actual education reform.

>>1466014
Big Pharma, Big Military Complex, Big Private Contractors, Big Corporations going Oversees for their slave labor.

When you get rich, America becomes your bitch.

About time we ended this...

Boomers really want to get their entitlements, and they vote more than young people do.

However, they hate paying taxes.

DURP I THINK WE NEED MORE TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH HUUURRRR TAXES ARE OBVIOUSLY WHAT GOT US IN THIS MESS

>>1466032
I agree that domestic spending is more likely to benefit us than killing brown people. However, that's probably where we'll stop agreeing. Education policy should be determined at the state level, and school districts and teachers should have more autonomy to determine what works. The federal government is simply too divorced from the people to be able to design a silver bullet that works everywhere.

Healthcare - Not the responsibility of our government, the interstate we do anything we want clause notwithstanding. If anything, they need to increase the number of doctors by reducing the AMA's stranglehold on supply. Poof! Training and seeing doctors becomes less expensive.

Welfare programs...I'm not sure where to start on these.

Some of the states' problems are just plain stupidity. California, as always, is a prime example. Before its current budget crisis, a study was started to see how much money it cost the state to run its parks and whether some would be best left undeveloped or closed. The study came in and showed, by having its great state parks system, California actually made profit from the tax money gained from gas, food, entrance fees, and so on. Yet, what have the bozos in Sacramento doing including the head Bozonator, Governor Shwarzenigger? Cutting funding to one of the only things still making money in California and even thinking about closing parks. Meanwhile, we gettin' robbed by our corrupt corrections and state employees' union and have the most asshatted tax and regulation system in the whole country.

tl;dr fuck you California I'm out of here in exactly one week no more of my tax money for your failed state

>>1466065
That just about /thread

>>1466004
it is over a trillion, nearly 52% of the yearly budget. Tax cuts plus more spending equals debt.

>>1465995
The solution for the United States is to:
reduce Medicare payments and postpone social security payments
Raise income taxes across the board.
DERP NONE OF WHICH CAN BE DONE

>>1466107
Yes we can.

But they won't, because it wouldn't guarantee them re-election.

>>1466107
Yeah, punish the poor and downtrodden for being poor and downtrodden, then make their life even worse.

>anon cannot into policy

>>1466078
please elaborate on your opinions on how to fix health care. ive never heard the AMA thing before.

>>1466017
they do through ear mark spending jack ass.

The problem with all of this is that the majority of people in the USA want everybody else to make sacrifices but are willing to make none of their own.

>>1465996
you have no idea

>>1466126
http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high

The way I see it- more, cheaper doctors equals more preventative care and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

>>1466122

Poor? You're thinking of Medicaid. Medicare and Social Security are largely middle class entitlements. Either we raise taxes or cut benefits.

OId people, in their infinite wisdom, are unable to stomach higher taxes or lower benefits. Hence the mess we're in.

>>1466139
you know if in 2001 our taxes had only increased for the average tax payer by 1000 a year. we would not even be in debt.If Bush had not cut any of the clinton's taxes America would have been in the black & single payer would have been very possible with no noticeable taxes.

>>1466158
WE DON'T FUCKING NEED OLD PEOPLE
KILL THEM ALL

>>1466122
Look, it's even more unrealistic to just go fuck over the rich alone. Everybody needs to suffer a little bit. But the people who do need to suffer are the elderly, who are parasites on society and vote themselves more and more benefits all the time.

kill old people, lol

No we can't take money away from the redundant layers of managers that do nothing but manage other managers.

I first learned about social security when my grandfather had a heart attack followed by stomach cancer. He soldiered on after they pushed the benefit age back, but died before reaching it a second time.

About that time I was getting my first job, got my first paycheck with 20% missing for this mysterious "FICA" thing. The news is talking about how my generation will never pull social security because it's going to shit.

So my grandfather paid in to it all his life (he went back to work -again- after the heart attack, and basically worked all of his healthy life) but we got $255 back...and I'll likely never get any benefits at all.

In related news, my Oppenheimer mutual fund is still maintaining a rate much higher than inflation.

>>1466166
ya but even though we're the lowest taxed nation in the world, you raise it by a dollar and you get all the "HHHUUUURRRRPPP DDDUUUURRRRPPPP THE TAX MAN COMETH WE MUST CUT ALL BENEFITS THAT DONT DIRECTLY HELP ME HHHHUUUURRRRR DDDDUUUUURRRR!!!!" bullshit.

>>1466063

baby boomers are damn retarted. and i am about all of them. AND THEY RUN AMERICA NO WONDER WE ARE IN THIS MESS

>>1466202

Our taxes are actually pretty normal when you take into consideration state and local taxes as well as all the unfunded mandates our government puts on private citizens.

>>1466202
>lowest taxed industrialized nation
fix'd

>>1466223
no.

>>1466199
Republicans keep draining the money from Americans to spend on wars.

>>1466263

>Republicans and Democrats keep draining the money from Americans to spend on wars.

fixed

>>1466223
it's all just the way they package taxes. European taxes are very much in-your-face, like the VAT, while taxes in America are sneaky, and bite you when you least expect it.
Example- when you purchase a product in a country with the VAT, it has already been factored into the price. You have perfect price information, and can easily calculate the total of your purchase. In America, the sales tax is factored in at the cash register, and varies on different products and in different towns/counties/cities. You get bit in the butt by taxes that are harder to gauge.

The ruling class no longer has any interest in paying their fair share. They're using this economic meltdown as an opportunity to get even more powerful and tell the rest of us to fuck off at the same time.

>>1466279
>i'm jealous

you're also butthurt

>>1466279
>implying that's not what the ruling class usually does

>cut spending - no matter if defense, social sec, medicare
>get shot by angry redneck, sued by angry libtard
>never get voted again

too much people who think that their interrests are the only important interrests.

>>1465983
Good luck convincing the patronage class to take fewer services and reduces pensions. They outnumber the production class that funds them.

It's over. America is finished.

>>1466317
prepare for the revolution, yo.

>>1466317
more like people are just going to stop paying taxes

get fucked boomers

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

>>1467271
Thomas Jefferson knew it all along

I think the answer is to build more stealth bombers and nuclear super-carriers so we can flatten mud huts in countries with no infrastructure. That seems to be going well.

>>1467271
>200 years
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCKK!

>>1467271
he pretty much predicted it

hey, at least the united states lasted a little beyond average

Yo dude. lrn2voter man. The simple answer is no.

>>1467332
>elections mattering anymore