Spending too many dollars

Was it "financially responsble" to give out tax cuts and turn around and borrow from China to make up for the lost funds adding billions in interest to the national debt? What do you do when cutting federal spending to the bare bone doesn't create a balanced budget?

we don't exist to support the federal government.

"lost funds?" "give out tax cuts"? ...well, i guess we deserve to be punished, huh?

so, in other words by wanting to keep more of the money we earn we're causing nothing but trouble?

it's our money.

how about reducing the federal workforce from the 2.5 million it is now to about 1 million.

keep only the essentials...military, etc......cut out the waste..trim the budget.

just like we have to in the "real world"

"the lost funds" ..you liberals refer to aren't your funds to play with...

while obama was riding around cape cod on a bicycle with a stupid looking hemet on this head, playing golf and eating lobster and shrimp, we hard working americans are trying to figure how to make do with less and brace ourselves for the tax increases his royal highness is about to hit us with.

the arrogance of you liberals is mind-boggling...you love making decisions with other people's money.

why not completely make up for he "lost funds"..by just taking everything we have and giving us an allowance...

the "lost funds" you're referring to is money that i worked really hard for and that other people have worked for too. obama has a slave owner mentality. so domost of you liberals. you feel you need to make decisions for others and that you know best what to do with other peoples money. only an out of touch fool would behave like obama does, with his excessive recreating while he tells us how bad things are and makes it worse by taking more of what we earn.

Well put, Francis.

We don't have a deficit because the government needs to tax us more. We have a deficit because the government spends too much of OUR money on things that aren't in the Constitution.

Start out by eliminating the federal departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Transportation, Labor, Commerce, Agriculture, and don't forget Homeland Security. None of them serve a legitimate Constitutional purpose. Many of their "functions" are useless or actually detrimental, and those few that are useful can and should be taken over by the states.

Gosh, the budget is looking a lot better already!

darn right, mountain joe.

Since so much of the budget goes towards the military (including the approx 200 bil a year for Iraq and Afghanistan, pensions and healthcare for veterans).. that'd be a nice cut... I guess I could live without my VA healthcare.. not long.. but I could.

Might as well cut the public funded prisons.. law enforcement.. public schools and pre school... shut down the public libraries, since no one will need a reason to read.

Cut the FDA and EPA budget... we don't need clean food and water to eat and drink. Heck, if the kids of the Philippine Islands can swim in the sewage burdened water under the bridge between the former Subic Bay installation and Olongapo City (which I have personally observed... while holding a moist bandana over the face to attempt to mask the stench) It's good enough for the kids of America.

yes... there is so much that isn't needed... glad to hear everyone is on the same page on these cuts

those few that are useful can and should be taken over by the states.

No thanks, I'd rather not have each state operate its own nuclear weapons program.

Also you do realize even if we ignore the common defence and general welfare clause implicitly giving Congress the authority it needs to form all of those departments it sees fit to meet those duties, then Section 8 does include a clause on Commerce between the states, as well as foreign nations and Indian tribes? I believe that would make it serving a legitimate Constitutional purpose something you'd have to disprove, not just assume to be untrue. I'd also cover Transportation under Post Roads, but then again if I were writing the Constitution today then I'd say we should include a national Highway/Transportation system as an explicit duty of the government, rather than the current description.

Some things you just have to keep up to date.

whatever and eeeeek...that's all very melodramatic and hysterical..

but, the federal government is the greediest and most wasteful entity around.

the governement is packed with entrenched beaurocrats and lazy lifers who are overpaid and have only their best interests at heart..

most federal programs can be eliminated....the necessary ones..and you know that they are..should be funded...but we are not slaves and it's not our purpose to line the pockets of fat, lazy, arrogant "public servants"

the government needs to spend less, we don't need to pay more. use our tax money wisely.

the jackass, masquerading as president, in the white house is the ultimate moocher and the epitomy of the bloodsucking "public servant"

So what you all are saying is that we should just turn our whole economy over to China because they will own us anyway with your plan.

you liberals constantly claim that it's a basic right to have a job.

i don't agree...i think it's a basic right to not be discriminated against in pursuing a job only ..aquiring one..is another story.

anyway...you claim that it's a basic right to have a job, but the right to keep what you earn is not so clear...how insane.

it's lunacy.

so what you're saying is ...cough up the "lost funds, a.k.a our hard earned money, or else. the fact that you refer to our hard earned money as the "lost funds" tells me you you don't respect, as most iiberals don't, the basic right to keep what you earn.

if we don't have that right, we're no better than farm animals or slaves.

we pay plenty...until it hurts. we don't have to give anymore. we can't afford to give anymore. it's time for the government to trim the fat.

Hahahahahahaha....spend...spend.....it's almost the end anyway

Talk about farm animals. Just more crap from Francis the Mule running around in a oblong circle spreading it on the ground.

I think nuclear weapons come under the Defense Department, whatever. If not, they should be moved there. Nuclear energy (as opposed to weapons) should be up to private power companies to develop, or not.

The general welfare clause does not implicitly or explicitly give Congress the power to do anything. It only qualifies the powers enumerated in Article I, Section 8. Don't believe me? Ask the guy who wrote most of the Constitution:

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." - James Madison

Public funded prisons, eeeeeek? Law enforcement? These are almost completely state functions. The only crimes mentioned in the Constitution are treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. It wouldn't take much of a federal prison system to hold all the convicted counterfeiters and pirates. (Now if we convicted all the politicians in DC of treason for violating their oath to the Constitution, we might have to build a bigger pen for them ... if we didn't execute them, that is.)

If you really think it is impossible to have clean food, air, or water without the intervention of massive federal agencies full of bureaucrats, I strongly disagree. The EPA sells permits to pollute, for goodness sake. I venture to guess that we would have cleaner food, air, and water if individual states, or even better, private watchdog groups, were monitoring those resources, instead of Uncle Sam.

Haven't been electrocuted by an appliance lately? Don't thank Uncle Sam, thank Underwriters Laboratories ... a private product safety organization. Government intervention is NOT the answer to every problem.

As Ronald Reagan said in his first inaugural address, "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." (If only he had followed through on his campaign promises!)

whatever and eeeeek...that's all very melodramatic and hysterical..

but, the federal government is the greediest and most wasteful entity around.

Ahem, exactly WHO is being melodramatic and hysterical? I think it's the person making such extreme statements.

the jackass, masquerading as president, in the white house is the ultimate moocher and the epitomy of the bloodsucking "public servant"

Yeah, it is you.

Tell you what, you want to eliminate a given government program, or reform the civil service system? Make some proposals, but don't complain about other people being melodramatic when your own words are couched in such hyperbolic terms as you freely use.

I think nuclear weapons come under the Defense Department, whatever. If not, they should be moved there. Nuclear energy (as opposed to weapons) should be up to private power companies to develop, or not.

Well, for the first part you'd be wrong. Nuclear weapons are by law the province of the Department of Energy, and loaned to the various military units. The reasons for this are basically involving the idea that the civilian government should be the one owning the weapons instead of the military. It is a question of philosophy and you could change it, but at least do know why it was done that way.

For the rest of the duties of the DOE, you might be able to justify handling them on a state-by-state level, but not that one, thank you very much. K?

The general welfare clause does not implicitly or explicitly give Congress the power to do anything. It only qualifies the powers enumerated in Article I, Section 8. Don't believe me? Ask the guy who wrote most of the Constitution:

Or I could ask Alexander Hamilton, whose view is slightly different, and which has been supported more extensively in the case law.

But really, I just don't see any need to argue over it, not like you're going to change affairs so easily.

I'd be right with you if you wanted to hold a Constitutional Convention, but so far small chance of that. It'd be really nice though.

The only crimes mentioned in the Constitution are treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. It wouldn't take much of a federal prison system to hold all the convicted counterfeiters and pirates. (Now if we convicted all the politicians in DC of treason for violating their oath to the Constitution, we might have to build a bigger pen for them ... if we didn't execute them, that is.)

Ahem, I hope you do realize Treason is defined in the Constitution in much more restrictive terms than you suggest applying here. Getting back to the Federal prison system, you overlook the authority that Congress has within the District of Columbia and all lands purchased by the federal government from the states. Not to mention their authority to regulate the armed forces, which would include defining and punishing criminal acts.

I think I can respect having their own prisons to handle that.

As Ronald Reagan said in his first inaugural address, "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." (If only he had followed through on his campaign promises!)

You left out the start of his sentence: "In this present crisis," as I'm sure Reagan knew that government was the solution to many problems. He was certainly willing to expand it in certain areas.

But have you read later in his speech?

"All must share in the productive work of this “new beginning,” and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy."

I think he might have been a commie. ;P