What is the justification for spending such large amounts of money?

[Pangloss]

Not sure if you noticed this but I replied on the previous page that that chart is two years old. There have been quite a few bumps in the deficit ceiling since then, and when the last one took place the ceiling was said at the time to now be 80% of GDP, and that's assuming GDP isn't revised downward this year to reflect the recession.

[swansont]

It's all a matter of perspective:

 

 

 

The cold war started in 1981?

[Sisyphus]

If only we had kept spending money we didn't have, Al Qaeda would never have existed!

[Mr Skeptic]

Apparently President Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, thinks you need to care too, and that it's not just an economic concern, but actually a national security concern. Today she spoke up on the issue while defending her department's budget.

 

 

 

 

 

But perhaps it's just an empty talking point.

 

Well, sure, I care a little about who we are indebted to. However, if that was your concern, then you should have been talking about the amount of money loaned to us by China, not the total amount. If we go by the current debt distribution Sisyphus shared, it would be 50 Billion rather than 1,000 Billion -- big difference. Hence, empty talking point. Mincing the facts to make them appear scarier than they are is never conductive to proper debate.

 

Do you defend big spending programs on an ideological basis? If not, fine, I believe you and I respect your opinion that the spending you advocate is not ideological. You can do the same, and it's not going to kill you, I promise.

 

No. I support some big spending programs on a practical basis. You might argue who I think should pay for these programs is ideological, but I think it's also practical. A distinction of fairness: is it unfair to ask rich people to pay a larger share, or does it balance the fact that rich people can make more money simply due to being rich? If you were to switch a rich and a poor person of similar character, would not the previously poor person not only have more money but earn much more than before? The gap between the rich and the poor is also a national security concern, in case you were wondering.

[waitforufo]

A distinction of fairness: is it unfair to ask rich people to pay a larger share....?

 

Perhaps if you stated your question as in the following, more people would agree with you.

 

A distinction of fairness: is it unfair to force under penalty of law a minority of the population to pay a larger share?

[jryan]

The cold war started in 1981?

 

No,but you tell me where the cold war turned in the US favor. Was it the fall of Saigon, or the Killing fields? The fall of Cuba? The Bay of Pigs? I'm having a hard time finding a win in the cold war for the U.S. before Reagan called the Russian bluff and went all in on the arms race.

[swansont]

No,but you tell me where the cold war turned in the US favor. Was it the fall of Saigon, or the Killing fields? The fall of Cuba? The Bay of Pigs? I'm having a hard time finding a win in the cold war for the U.S. before Reagan called the Russian bluff and went all in on the arms race.

 

But how did that win the cold war? The Soviets didn't respond by increasing their spending. Are you proposing that the end of the cold war was a military victory, caused by our larger military capability after the Reagan buildup, rather than having a socioeconomic cause?

 

http://daggatt.blogspot.com/2009/10/great-myths-of-ronaldus-magnus.html

 

And why does the graph continue to rise after the Soviet Union fell? What's the excuse for that?

[Sisyphus]

We were winning the whole time, by living better. Our "losses" were when we managed to convince ourselves we needed to do stupid things, like invade Cuba, or "police" Vietnam, or run up crazy deficits.

[jryan]

But how did that win the cold war? The Soviets didn't respond by increasing their spending. Are you proposing that the end of the cold war was a military victory, caused by our larger military capability after the Reagan buildup, rather than having a socioeconomic cause?

 

http://daggatt.blogspot.com/2009/10/great-myths-of-ronaldus-magnus.html

 

And why does the graph continue to rise after the Soviet Union fell? What's the excuse for that?

 

Your chosen blogger (shown grinning with President Obama, no less!) and The Atlantic article (I must assume as the link is broken) made a rather obvious straw man argument... which I can assume is somehow connected to the "Here's me with Obama" photo.

 

The error is that Daggatt and The Atlantic make the false claim that for the assertion of a Reagan economic warfare win to be true then Russian defense spending would have to decline after the fall of the Soviet Union... but that couldn't be further from the truth.

 

As a matter of fact, his own evidence of the Reagan spending is evidence against his own assertion. It was the fact that Reagan COULD spend as much as he did and the Soviets could NOT meet that spending that lead to the knock-out blow to the Soviet belief in the superiority of their economic system. Reagan made quite clear to the Soviet command the error in their assumption of economic superiority.

 

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the era of glasnost the Soviet markets were opened to new customers and in the mid 80s their GDP began to grow, nearly doubling immediately following the end of the cold war and the start of glasnost.

 

So why didn't Soviet spending drop? Quite simply because after the collapse of the hard-line Soviet leadership and the opening of their economy they could now afford it.

Edited February 26, 2010 by jryan

[swansont]

Your chosen blogger (shown grinning with President Obama, no less!) and The Atlantic article (I must assume as the link is broken) made a rather obvious straw man argument... which I can assume is somehow connected to the "Here's me with Obama" photo.

 

Poisoning the well much, as well as your own straw man? (what does posing with Obama have to do with anything, and why do you assume there is a connection with the (non) strawman? Does posing with Obama change any facts at all?

 

The error is that Daggatt and The Atlantic make the false claim that for the assertion of a Reagan economic warfare win to be true then Russian defense spending would have to decline after the fall of the Soviet Union... but that couldn't be further from the truth.

 

It would be nice if you could back this up some kind of source, rather than just make a bald assertion.

 

With the end of the Cold War, the combined military expenditure of Russia and other successor states of the USSR fell dramatically. The consolidated budget currently earmarks 2.5% of GDP, or 8% of total spending, for national defense programs. A return to the Soviet era means that 12-13% of GDP, or almost one half of the budget, will go on war.

 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mo-budget.htm

 

 

between 1991 and 1997 newly independent Russia's defence spending fell by a factor of eight in real prices.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_the_Russian_Federation

 

 

Russia's defense budget experienced a stunning plunge

…

Table 2 shows a rapid, prodigious, and so-far permanent decline in Russian defense spending

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=Zv_IV4jucKAC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=post+soviet+russia+defense+spending&source=bl&ots=5VLLwiy8ck&sig=RyyPoXoTr9_0Wf0cAx5Uv6Bhn5M&hl=en&ei=X4uIS7XDCY6vtgfjwsHEDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CB8Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=post%20soviet%20russia%20defense%20spending&f=false

 

 

As a matter of fact, his own evidence of the Reagan spending is evidence against his own assertion. It was the fact that Reagan COULD spend as much as he did and the Soviets could NOT meet that spending that lead to the knock-out blow to the Soviet belief in the superiority of their economic system. Reagan made quite clear to the Soviet command the error in their assumption of economic superiority.

 

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the era of glasnost the Soviet markets were opened to new customers and in the mid 80s their GDP began to grow, nearly doubling immediately following the end of the cold war and the start of glasnost.

 

So why didn't Soviet spending drop? Quite simply because after the collapse of the hard-line Soviet leadership and the opening of their economy they could now afford it.

 

Looks like the huge uptick in GDP happens in 1985, several years before the end of the cold war. This doesn't jibe with your contention that the Soviets couldn't have afforded to spend more. There's nothing here that contradicts the idea that the problem was present over a much longer term, and Bush just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

 

And why did the US debt continue to rise after the cold war ended, if the increased debt was incurred to win the cold war?

[SH3RL0CK]

I am surprised by this as I have seen credible information to the contrary (about a week ago). Right now I am quite busy and don't have time to look up my original source unfortunately. I'll try to do so when I get a little more time.

 

Well, I have to admit I must have mis-remembered my source or confused it with something else as it is pretty much in line with your information. As such, I retract my statement.

 

Not that I am in favor of tax increases. I am of the opinion the real problem is that our leaders have a spending problem and I would prefer the government spend our money more wisely.

[Pangloss]

The White House has now delayed implementing the "Cadillac Tax" until 2018 (previously it was going to be delayed just for unions). This is, of course, well after President Obama would leave office following a second term. I guess somebody else can deal with the unions, and those who object to the unions getting special treatment, at that time. That'll be easy, right? Right? <crickets chirp>

 

This was a key component for paying for the health care plan, and was supposed to slowly ramp up to eventually produce around $218 billion by 2020. (More than twice what the new fees on health care companies is supposed to produce.) Now it will... not.

 

Source:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704479404575087311436130980.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

 

Background:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%E2%80%99s_Healthy_Future_Act