Thune sketches scary picture of U.S. finances

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

Source: Sioux Falls ArgusLeader(Gannett)

As a purveyor of scary stories, Sen. John Thune gave a camp-counselor-around-the-bonfire performance to the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce at its Inside Washington luncheon Thursday.

An explosion of federal spending that will see it rise from 25 percent of the value of all the goods and services produced in the country now to 39 percent of gross domestic product by 2040 has the U.S. headed for bankruptcy if the government does not dramatically restrain spending, Thune told the packed luncheon audience.

"We need to change how we spend," Thune said. "I think the real solution is to grow the private economy and make the federal economy smaller."

Acknowledging that changing entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid with such tactics as increasing retirement age and reducing health care benefits to the wealthy would require a political will that Congress has yet to show, Thune said the alternative is to see massive cuts in defense spending or national bankruptcy.

Read more: http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110812/NEWS/108120324/Thune-sketches-scary-picture-U-S-finances?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s

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There they go again, trying to brainwash the masses that Social Security and Medicare are, "entitlements". This article is almost comical in Thune repeating the party line of, "you can't look at revenue".

Great response from the South Dakota Democratic Chairman towards the middle of the article. Great comments section, too. Look who gets the, "thumbs up vs thumbs down". If only more South Dakotans were as informed as the majority of the commenters.

[Turbineguy]

1. When you are spending $40 billion

for an aircraft carrier, you can go broke quick.

For that amount you could build just about 400 merchant ships, which is twice as much as the US has now. These ships would pay for themselves instead of costing an arm and a leg to operate. You could show the Flag all over the world instead. And you would be involved in peaceful trade.

[Downwinder]

2. Anybody see the social Security Trust Fund?

I think it went that-a-way at Mach 20.

[msongs]

3. south dakota home of credit card companies screwing the nation - how much do they give thune? nt

[unkachuck]

4. "I think the real solution is to grow the private economy and make the federal economy smaller."

....exactly opposite of what is needed to get our economy going....FDR maintained that if the private sector wouldn't create jobs, he would, and did....without money in peoples' pockets he understood there wouldn't be any private sector activity, growth or jobs....

....Democrats, who control the majority of our government, seem to have forgotten the lesson of our Grandparents....as long as the economic criminals who created this economic mess remain unpunished and in power with the same broken policies and economic rules governing, people will have absolutely no confidence in their government or economy and this depression will continue....

....as long as Democrats struggle to be like Republicans and their policies, 2012 looks to bring us a horrible outcome for the voters realize we have no economic agenda of our own....

[Warpy]

5. That sort of dumbfuckery is how we got to where we are

Thune needs to be retired along with all the other supply side, drown the government snake oil salesmen.

[caseymoz]

6. I have a better idea. Let's end two wars and raise taxes on the wealthy.

And then take another look at our finances.

The odd thing is, the wealthy own all these US bonds. They're fine with collecting the interest on them. They're not fine with being taxed to pay the interest on them, but if the US doesn't raise taxes, it either will default on the bonds, or we'll have to sell more bonds to pay for the bonds the wealthy currently own.

So, given this dilemma, of course they're calling for a cut in expenditures. Literally, they're screwing the lower and middle classes so they can draw interest.

[indurancevile]

11. +1 succinct.

[cutlassmama]

15. +2

[harmonicon]

7. It would amaze me if these people ever consider applying these same economic principles to their...

personal lives.

"Well, I'm not making enough money and I'm seriously in debt. I think the best thing to do is not to try to make more money, but just spend even less, even if I need those things to live."

With their logic, the most fiscally sound thing anyone could do would be to be homeless.

[hay rick]

8. Unfortunately, it isn't "personal."

Somebody else gets to be homeless and they don't know or care.

[harmonicon]

9. Oh, yes, I understand that, but it amazes me that anyone falls for it at all.

I do understand that people who vote for Republicans are either 1. very wealthy and know what's good for them, 2. incredibly stupid, 3. racists ... or some combination of those things.

I am cynical enough to think that the reason Republicans want to destroy public education is that they need a lot of people to be as dumb as possible so that they can get votes. What still does - but shouldn't - surprise me is that people would be dumb enough to fall for their lies yet be smart enough to drive a car, not put a fork in an electrical socket or gouge their own eyes out with scissors, etc.

[hay rick]

10. Makes me wonder how democracy ever worked in the past.

It clearly doesn't work now. We have an electorate that is either misinformed or willfully ignorant. But it wasn't always like this. What changed?

[harmonicon]

16. To some extent I imagine that this is how it's always been.

Do you think people were honest in the past? Not suckers? Sure, it wasn't as bad as it now, maybe, but these aren't new things.

I do think that people used to be more educated, even if they weren't as educated on paper. I had a grandfather (I never met the man - he died well before I was born) who owned a small trucking company. I don't know how much school he went to, but never college. Still, I know - because my parents still have the books - he belonged to book clubs and read Goethe, Dostoyevsky, etc. How many small business owners now do that? Who has the curiosity? People who aren't curious won't even look for the truth.

To some extent, I imagine that these things were inevitable. News used to be news, and people paid attention to it. Cities had several newspapers with various opinions, but they were independent of a giant national or international agenda. Who pays attention to the news now? I don't count ANY tv news in this, because I don't think the tv has included any real journalism for years.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

14. BINGO!!!

... I recognized it for what it is/was long ago. My brothers went to a Calvinist academy and the more I learned about Calvinism and how the theology figures, "making oodles and oodles of money is glory to god", it opened my eyes to a few things. One, a plurality of the original parochial schools in South Dakota, southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa are Reformed Church/Calvinist based going back decades. Seeing how charter school investors get such astounding returns on their money in another thread this past week, now I see how it all hooks together and where this method could have originated. I don't always enjoy being so obtuse when discussing religion, but put the Calvinist theology together with strong beliefs and business principles and you reach this likely sum or hypothesis.

But then I really do not have a place to complain, I went to a Lutheran college and loved it there, despite my own mostly North American Baptist upbringing. Just a few years of Christian Reformed there in the young adult years to cause me to be a cynic.


Have a good evening! :smoke:

[indurancevile]

12. +1

[izquierdista]

13. Thune the buffoon

Shouldn't he be officiating at some cow chip throwing contest back home? McGovern asleep is more aware than Thune awake.

[high density]

17. Defense spending has grown to a point where it is detrimental to the security of our country

If our options are either saving Social Security and Medicare or having a huge worldwide military presence, I choose spending money on the former.

[Necronomiconomics]

18. Anybody notice: They blame government, not private sector, for the economic crisis

The economic crisis originated with the PRIVATE SECTOR.

The economic crisis has NOTHING to do with the government debt/deficit.