That Sounds About Right

Obama's commission to reduce the federal budget deficit . . . says it needs more money.

Comments

[Hobie Hanson]

Ever heard the expression "you have to spend money to make money?"

[Episiarch]

The government makes money? You're so cute when you're being a moron.

[Hobie Hanson]

Who's more the moron, the moron or the one who misunderstands the moron?

[Episiarch]

You're pretty much the most moron, Hernia. I mean Dan T.

[prolefeed]

If by "makes money", you mean "confiscates money", then yeah, it takes money to do that.

[Ryback's Cook]

No, no, Hobie Hanson is right. The bureaucrats need to take your money to make money. For themselves.

[Groovus Maximus]

There is the U.S. Mint, Treasury, and the Federal Reserve with the control of the wonderful printing press of inflation and its artificial expansion of the money supply, all the while looting the citizens of the fruits of their labor.

Perhaps the foolish Mr. Hanson might have hit the mark with, "The Government has you have to spend money to steal more make money." It is apparent that the irony, a commission charged with suggesting ways the Federal Government can live within its means and cannot operate within its own, is lost upon Mr. Hanson.

Mr. Hanson, wealth distribution is not "making money." Perhaps you are familiar with the terms steal, theft, and pilfer, no?

[Hobie Hanson]

What I meant is that it costs money to figure out ways to save money. All the corporations pay efficiency experts to come in and help them find ways of saving money. And we all agree that if corporations do something, it must be right, because they survived the Trial By Ordeal of the Market.

Why can't the government do the same thing? Or do you expect the people advising the government to do it for free.

[James]

I wouldn't say that asking for subsidies, anticompetitive regulations, laws requiring that citizens purchase a corporation's service, or outright government-granted monopoly are right, though they also aren't a part of the Grand Trial by Ordeal of the Omniscient Libertarian God-King Marketus. Have an actual conversation with one of us sometime, you may be surprised and enlightened.

The government can do the same thing, and they clearly are. The point is the only kind of money-making the government does involves a printing press, and they're not in the printing press industry, so "you have to spend money to make money" doesn't exactly apply.

[Contrarian P]

Not all business does this. In fact, small businesses, which form the bulk of the economy, rarely employ such people. They're too expensive and the return on the investment is small. The government is different, in that it doesn't worry about something being too expensive or the return on investment. It just spends the money.

I frankly am at a loss as to why it costs this much to realize that there are only two possible ways to shrink the deficit: increase revenue or cut spending.

[Hobie Hanson]

That's just begging the question. What ways of increasing revenue will be most effective? What ways of cutting spending will be most effective?

[prolefeed]

What ways of cutting spending will be most effective?

Cut out the 80% or so of the federal budget that is not an enumerated power under the Constitution.

It's not that hard to figure out.

[wylie]

efficiency experts

Those exist outside the world of Dilbert?

[RM]

Link is broken, should be
http:/bit.ly/c8E5xm

or alternately
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org.....overnment/

And yeah, huge surprise.

[Ghost of Keynes]

Wow, did I really fuck things up when I was alive or what?

[Paul Krugman]

No, you didn't, Mr. Keynes. And if you were alive now, I'd have your baby.

[Satan]

Mr. Keynes can't talk right now... he's getting a pina colonic.

[The Terminator]

Thanks for the visual.

[sage]

Stupid joke name is terminated.

[Sarah Connor]

Thank god for that!

[heller]

In the long run, we are all dead.

[sage]

On a long enough time line, the survival rate of everyone drops to zero.

[Tulpa]

Speak for yourself, mortal.

[buermann]

Your link is broken, points to "http://www.cato-at-liberty.org.....overnment/"

[buermann]

->

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org.....overnment/

[?ato]

And our case for deficit reduction commission extension vouchers is made.

[electronic cigarette]

Not happy the hear that!

[Jason]

One would think that there are organizations out there that have prepackaged ("off the self" so to speak) ideas on reducing the Federal deficit that the commission could simply submit to the CBO for evaluation.

But then again, the Enlightened One has appoint a commission of Enlightened Experts to propose Real Viable Ideas to reduce the deficit.

[jester]

irony is the best literary device (and the best political vice.)

[Brian Defferding]

Clearly, we must take more money because it was a good idea to spend our way out of a recession that we created. It is never the government's fault, it's that pesky 5% of freedom that the economy got back in the last ten years.

[Jason]

Damn you, Jimmy Carter!

[rctl]

You libertarians should just stop whining.

[JW]

What's that rectal? The epistomology turns you on immensely, which is why you come here? Why, I bet you're rubbing one out now to the contrarian thought, as we speak.

[R C Dean]

Obama's commission to reduce the federal budget deficit provide political cover for massive tax increases . . . says it needs more money.