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sebster wrote:
Purely land based forces severely limit force projection. Aircraft carriers give you total control over the air in a given location of your choosing.

Point is, you could cut the total number of carrier groups maintained and still be capable of dominating any sea zone in the world in response to any conceivable threat (the only place that hypothetically might not be possible in the future is off China, and if so then the US is extremely unlikely to be willing to commit any carriers anyway). What land forces are also cut from there is just more savings.

With rotation schedules, that isn't true; especially if carriers are considered as replacements for land-based assets.

sebster wrote:
It's not only possible, it isn't even hard. We've had it in place for more than a hundred years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redistribution_(Australia)

Political officials are involved in that process. It is less political than the US process, but still political.

The fun is getting better. I love the clash of arms that is two parties fighting it out for a better resolution than the one party PRI state nonsense.

Evil Republicans now going to push a vote in both houses to life the debt ceiling in return for $2.4Bn in equivalent cuts and a balanced budget amendment or we're going to nuke the world Dr. Evil Style. Evil Democrats saying we needs us some taxes NomNomNom.

I love watching the sausage being made!

Frazzled wrote:The fun is getting better. I love the clash of arms that is two parties fighting it out for a better resolution than the one party PRI state nonsense.

Mexico did very well under the PRI until those pesky citizens demanded alternatives.

Someone a while back said it succinctly...the way out is to tax like a Democrat but spend like a Republican. I realize that's horrific and unthinkable in today's age. But IMO it's fairly obvious that in the wake of our economic problems, we have to make some sacrifices, and at the same time revenue has to increase at least until we get more people back working. That's what you'd do if you were running a troubled business, right...make some budget cuts while raising prices where you can? And yet this is something our government can't seem to agree to do.

gorgon wrote:Someone a while back said it succinctly...the way out is to tax like a Democrat but spend like a Republican. I realize that's horrific and unthinkable in today's age. But IMO it's fairly obvious that in the wake of our economic problems, we have to make some sacrifices, and at the same time revenue has to increase at least until we get more people back working. That's what you'd do if you were running a troubled business, right...make some budget cuts while raising prices where you can? And yet this is something our government can't seem to agree to do.

No, if you're running a troubled business you cut your overhead and expenses. I've yet to lived the day where the Federal government cut its expenses. Ever.

Frazzled wrote:
No, if you're running a troubled business you cut your overhead and expenses. I've yet to lived the day where the Federal government cut its expenses. Ever.

Clinton did it, so did Bush 1 and Reagan, and Bush 2 for that matter.

So, either you aren't that old, or you don't know what you're talking about.

It's a bad analogy, I suppose. Cutting a budget has much different implications for a government than a business. I have no problem with cuts. But in this last decade, we've been through two wars and the second worst recession in history, and yet taxes remain as low as they've been in decades. GE paid zero tax the last two years. I guess I'm just forgetting that a tax hike of any kind, anywhere is EVILMURDERBAD.

gorgon wrote:It's a bad analogy, I suppose. Cutting a budget has much different implications for a government than a business. I have no problem with cuts. But in this last decade, we've been through two wars and the second worst recession in history, and yet taxes remain as low as they've been in decades. GE paid zero tax the last two years. I guess I'm just forgetting that a tax hike of any kind, anywhere is EVILMURDERBAD.

No you're just what some would call a moderate, or others might call normal.

Having said that, raising taxes in a downturn is not going to help the downturn. Inversely a lot of the things being bandied about are quite reasonable, but we're not playing with actors dealing in good faith, and very few actually give a about the budget deficit or national debt.

People who do almost instantly come up with workable ideas.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
No, if you're running a troubled business you cut your overhead and expenses. I've yet to lived the day where the Federal government cut its expenses. Ever.

Clinton did it, so did Bush 1 and Reagan, and Bush 2 for that matter.

So, either you aren't that old, or you don't know what you're talking about.

Actually, none of them did. Here's the data. Since at least 1968, the total federal outlays have not been reduced year-to-year.

Every time someone in Washington talks about a "budget cut," they don't really mean "cut." They mean "reduction in future growth." That is not a reduction in expenses.

biccat wrote:

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
No, if you're running a troubled business you cut your overhead and expenses. I've yet to lived the day where the Federal government cut its expenses. Ever.

Clinton did it, so did Bush 1 and Reagan, and Bush 2 for that matter.

So, either you aren't that old, or you don't know what you're talking about.

Actually, none of them did. Here's the data. Since at least 1968, the total federal outlays have been reduced year-to-year.

Every time someone in Washington talks about a "budget cut," they don't really mean "cut." They mean "reduction in future growth." That is not a reduction in expenses.

More Dogma on my thread. Anyone have a squeegee?
Here's a nice graph for visual special effects.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/US_Federal_Outlay_and_GDP_linear_graph.png

biccat wrote:
Actually, none of them did. Here's the data. Since at least 1968, the total federal outlays have not been reduced year-to-year.

When you normalize expenses, many Presidents have cut them.

biccat wrote:
Every time someone in Washington talks about a "budget cut," they don't really mean "cut." They mean "reduction in future growth." That is not a reduction in expenses.

No, they mean cut, because that's what "cut" means in the context of mandatory expenditures. And yes, that is a reduction in expenses.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
More Dogma on my thread. Anyone have a squeegee?
Here's a nice graph for visual special effects.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/US_Federal_Outlay_and_GDP_linear_graph.png

Thank you for illustrating that you do not understand inflation.

Fraz is a banker, right?

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Actually, none of them did. Here's the data. Since at least 1968, the total federal outlays have not been reduced year-to-year.

When you normalize expenses, many Presidents have cut them.

That doesn't mean that expenses were cut, it simply means that GDP growth outpaced the growth of government. Not only are you using manipulative statistics, the statistics you're using don't prove your point.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Every time someone in Washington talks about a "budget cut," they don't really mean "cut." They mean "reduction in future growth." That is not a reduction in expenses.

No, they mean cut, because that's what "cut" means in the context of mandatory expenditures. And yes, that is a reduction in expenses.

Actually, no, that's not what "cut" means. A "reduction in expenses" would mean a year-to-year reduction in expenses. Expenses have never reduced year-to-year.

dogma wrote:Thank you for illustrating that you do not understand inflation.

Fraz is a banker, right?

I liked the part where the philosophy doctoral student attacks the banker for not understanding finances. That's some funny **** right there.

biccat wrote:

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Actually, none of them did. Here's the data. Since at least 1968, the total federal outlays have not been reduced year-to-year.

When you normalize expenses, many Presidents have cut them.

That doesn't mean that expenses were cut, it simply means that GDP growth outpaced the growth of government. Not only are you using manipulative statistics, the statistics you're using don't prove your point.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Every time someone in Washington talks about a "budget cut," they don't really mean "cut." They mean "reduction in future growth." That is not a reduction in expenses.

No, they mean cut, because that's what "cut" means in the context of mandatory expenditures. And yes, that is a reduction in expenses.

Actually, no, that's not what "cut" means. A "reduction in expenses" would mean a year-to-year reduction in expenses. Expenses have never reduced year-to-year.

dogma wrote:Thank you for illustrating that you do not understand inflation.

Fraz is a banker, right?

I liked the part where the philosophy doctoral student attacks the banker for not understanding finances. That's some funny **** right there.

indeed at best we're talking a reduction in the forecast growth of the budget, never a reduction in the actual budget during that period of analysis.

Speaking of banking...$1,000,000,000.00 commitment BAM! I need a cigar and some Benjamins to light it.

biccat wrote:
That doesn't mean that expenses were cut, it simply means that GDP growth outpaced the growth of government. Not only are you using manipulative statistics, the statistics you're using don't prove your point.

No, that's wrong. In any instance in which expenses decrease as a percentage of GDP it might indicate either that expenses were cut or that GDP growth outpace expenditure; without additional information there is no way to distinguish between the two. Thankfully the graph I provided includes such information, notably regarding the fact that a negative relationship between expenses and tax revenue indicates either a positive change in the tax rate, or a negative change in expenses. Seeing as there has been no material change in the tax rate since the Regan administration, and what immaterial change there has been has been negative, my point is prove.

Also, manipulative statistics is not a sensible concept. Statistics indicate what hey indicate, and nothing more or less. The idea of manipulation only enters into the equation at the point of data, or algorithmic normalization (distinct from sample normalization), which itself is only relevant to tests of significance.

biccat wrote:
Actually, no, that's not what "cut" means. A "reduction in expenses" would mean a year-to-year reduction in expenses. Expenses have never reduced year-to-year.

That's false both in terms of gross dollars and adjusted ones.

We don't pass trillion dollar spending bills every year, so that takes care of the gross consideration, and we don;t positively adjust the Federal budget in terms of perfect assessments of inflation, so that takes care of the adjusted one.

biccat wrote:
I liked the part where the philosophy doctoral student attacks the banker for not understanding finances. That's some funny **** right there.

Philosophy? Sir, I'm a political science student. There is a massive difference in terms of the relevance of statistics.

But hey, if I'm left to run with it, why is it that a political science student has to explain inflation to a banker?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
indeed at best we're talking a reduction in the forecast growth of the budget, never a reduction in the actual budget during that period of analysis.

Still a reduction.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
That doesn't mean that expenses were cut, it simply means that GDP growth outpaced the growth of government. Not only are you using manipulative statistics, the statistics you're using don't prove your point.

No, that's wrong. In any instance in which expenses decrease as a percentage of GDP it might indicate either that expenses were cut or that GDP growth outpace expenditure

You realize that these two are the same, right? If GDP grows at 0% and government is cut 5%, GDP growth still outpaces government growth.

However, as the information I posted shows, expenses were never cut. That is, the gross year-to-year federal outlays has never been reduced since at least 1968. Although I do believe there was a slight actual dip from 1945-46. No idea what could have caused that, however.

dogma wrote:without additional information there is no way to distinguish between the two.

Yes, which is the problem with the information you provided. It doesn't actually address cuts.

dogma wrote:Thankfully the graph I provided includes such information, notably regarding the fact that a negative relationship between expenses and tax revenue indicates either a positive change in the tax rate, or a negative change in expenses. Seeing as there has been no material change in the tax rate since the Regan administration, and what immaterial change there has been has been negative, my point is prove.

Tax revinue has absolutely nothing to do with the point being made, because tax rate is not a predictor of GDP. If it were, then you would see a constant Tax/GDP ratio, and as you can see, it varies greatly. Further, taxes aren't stable, but vary greatly year-to-year. Therefore, I ignored that part of your chart, because it doesn't tell us anything.

Your chart shows one thing relevant to this conversation, and that only tangentially. It shows the ratio of spending to GDP. It does not address actual changes in spending. The information I provided did address changes in spending.

dogma wrote:Also, manipulative statistics is not a sensible concept. Statistics indicate what hey indicate, and nothing more or less. The idea of manipulation only enters into the equation at the point of data, or algorithmic normalization (distinct from sample normalization), which itself is only relevant to tests of significance.

I am not asserting that the statistics themselves are manipulative, but that they are being used for a manipulative purpose.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
Actually, no, that's not what "cut" means. A "reduction in expenses" would mean a year-to-year reduction in expenses. Expenses have never reduced year-to-year.

That's false both in terms of gross dollars and adjusted ones.

Please let me know in what year gross spending decreased year to year. Please provide information to support your claim. I've provided CBO numbers above.

dogma wrote:We don't pass trillion dollar spending bills every year, so that takes care of the gross consideration, and we don;t positively adjust the Federal budget in terms of perfect assessments of inflation, so that takes care of the adjusted one.

Actually, until recently, we did pass trillion dollar spending bills. They were to be called budgets. We haven't had one since 2009.

dogma wrote:Philosophy? Sir, I'm a political science student. There is a massive difference in terms of the relevance of statistics.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that doesn't depend from a BS is a scientific black hole. Whatever information is dumped in is completely destroyed.

dogma wrote:But hey, if I'm left to run with it, why is it that a political science student has to explain inflation to a banker?

Possibly for the same reason you need a lawyer to explain political science to you.

Frazzled wrote:Having said that, raising taxes in a downturn is not going to help the downturn. Inversely a lot of the things being bandied about are quite reasonable, but we're not playing with actors dealing in good faith, and very few actually give a about the budget deficit or national debt.

Y'know, at various points in my career I considered pursuing a job in DC. Plenty of opportunities there for communications types. But I just couldn't see myself working there or in any political capacity, really. It always felt like a distorted reality in which crises are as much political opportunities to advance agendas and acquire power as they are problems to fix.

Obviously I'm exaggerating and being simplistic. And certainly if you're in advertising of any kind, you're a hired gun and not every project you take on is going to fit your personal views. But I guess ultimately I'm not a political animal. The game isn't over my head, I just have no desire to play.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that doesn't depend from a BS is a scientific black hole. Whatever information is dumped in is completely destroyed.

In addition to being full of BS, I have one too!

So let me get this straight. The Democrats argument is we need to raise taxes to match what we are spending (or have promised to spend) and the Republicans argument is we need to reduce spending (or have promised to spend) to match the amount we are collecting in taxes.

Which one makes more sense?

biccat wrote:
You realize that these two are the same, right? If GDP grows at 0% and government is cut 5%, GDP growth still outpaces government growth.

I was using your terminology, according to which there is a distinction between the two.

biccat wrote:
However, as the information I posted shows, expenses were never cut. That is, the gross year-to-year federal outlays has never been reduced since at least 1968. Although I do believe there was a slight actual dip from 1945-46. No idea what could have caused that, however.

Which you have nicely illustrate here.

biccat wrote:
Yes, which is the problem with the information you provided. It doesn't actually address cuts.

That's true, it doesn't address the act of slicing pieces of things apart from one another.

However, it does denote variations in government spending which involved real, negative pressure.

biccat wrote:
Tax revinue has absolutely nothing to do with the point being made, because tax rate is not a predictor of GDP. If it were, then you would see a constant Tax/GDP ratio, and as you can see, it varies greatly. Further, taxes aren't stable, but vary greatly year-to-year. Therefore, I ignored that part of your chart, because it doesn't tell us anything.

When revenue and expenses have a negative relationship which favors the growth of revenue relative to expenses the metric of comparison, gross dollars or GDP, indicates that expenses were reduced relative to prior outlays. That's why tax revenue is relevant, you cannot assess expenses reliably otherwise.

biccat wrote:
Your chart shows one thing relevant to this conversation, and that only tangentially. It shows the ratio of spending to GDP. It does not address actual changes in spending. The information I provided did address changes in spending.

Said chart cannot address what you claim it does without addressing changes to spending.

biccat wrote:
I am not asserting that the statistics themselves are manipulative, but that they are being used for a manipulative purpose.

Well duh, so are yours. That's what persuasive argument is.

biccat wrote:
Please let me know in what year gross spending decreased year to year. Please provide information to support your claim. I've provided CBO numbers above.

It turns out you are correct, at no time in the given data period has the state spent less in terms of gross dollars. I assumed that the stimulus bills represented an unusual rate of increase.

Though I must note that spending in terms of adjusted dollars has fluctuated a great deal.

biccat wrote:
As far as I'm concerned, anything that doesn't depend from a BS is a scientific black hole. Whatever information is dumped in is completely destroyed.

Political science, particularly its sub-fields, are often granted as BS degrees.

biccat wrote:
Possibly for the same reason you need a lawyer to explain political science to you.

You are indeed very good at explaining bad political theor and, tangentially, virtue (read:awful) ethics.

None of it does, it's politics. The republicans are too worried about their image to make a compromise on this issue, they would rather lay all the blame on the democrats and get their party elected into office.

It doesn't matter really. The economy issues have been around longer than anyone wants to admit. I would actually be happy if those social security checks don't go out next month, a government that doesn't get anything done due to infighting is defective. I'd rather have a monarchy or even a despot that got gak done at this rate.

No, that's not the debate ATM. Dems are willing to make cuts, and the old guard in the GOP seem to want to get something done. The new guard of the GOP isn't willing to compromise. Still a simplistic representation, but more accurate than your outline.

gorgon wrote:No, that's not the debate ATM. Dems are willing to make cuts, and the old guard in the GOP seem to want to get something done. The new guard of the GOP isn't willing to compromise. Still a simplistic representation, but more accurate than your outline.

Actually its not.

There are a few in both party that want something done. There are many more that want something done, but not at the expense of their party's interests and ideology. There are others who don't care if anything is done, only that their personal interests or those of their respective party are furthered.

On the positive, I've now been informed Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) that the Republicans are not complying because they are racists. Yes! Pass the popcorn.

Frazzled wrote:
There are a few in both party that want something done. There are many more that want something done, but not at the expense of their party's interests and ideology. There are others who don't care if anything is done, only that their personal interests or those of their respective party are furthered.

In short, politics.

juraigamer wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
There are a few in both party that want something done. There are many more that want something done, but not at the expense of their party's interests and ideology. There are others who don't care if anything is done, only that their personal interests or those of their respective party are furthered.

In short, politics.

Awesomely correct.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
You realize that these two are the same, right? If GDP grows at 0% and government is cut 5%, GDP growth still outpaces government growth.

I was using your terminology, according to which there is a distinction between the two.

Yes, there's a distinction between GDP growth and a reduction in spending. However, I pointed out that your chart shows nothing about the values of either.

A chart that shows the ratio of X to Y doesn't show anything about X or Y unless there's a predictable relationship between the two. There isn't an easily discernable relationship between GDP and spending, and therefore the most you can say about the data you provided is "spending relative to GDP has done X." This is really quite simple mathematics, I'm frankly surprised you're having such a difficult time with it.

dogma wrote:Which you have nicely illustrate here.

Thank you. I'm glad you found it nicely illustrative.

dogma wrote:However, it does denote variations in government spending which involved real, negative pressure.

No, actually it doesn't. All it shows is variation in government spending relative to GDP. Which is irrelevant to the issue of whether government has actually cut spending.

dogma wrote:When revenue and expenses have a negative relationship which favors the growth of revenue relative to expenses the metric of comparison, gross dollars or GDP, indicates that expenses were reduced relative to prior outlays. That's why tax revenue is relevant, you cannot assess expenses reliably otherwise.

I'm not sure what exactly you're saying in that first sentence. Maybe you're missing some punctuation.

But like I said above, in modern America, tax revinue is independent of expenditures, and therefore is irrelevant. However, you might reasonably argue that this is a problem going forward.

dogma wrote:Said chart cannot address what you claim it does without addressing changes to spending.

Not true. If spending were held at a fixed gross dollar amount, it would still vary widely as a percent of GDP. Expenses could have decreased year-to-year and by varying GDP accordingly, you could achieve the same result. Therefore, since we don't know anything about GDP or expenses, the information you provided cannot be used to determine actual changes to expenses.

If a graph shows X/Y, then you cannot use that graph to analyze either X or Y without knowing more about either.

dogma wrote:Well duh, so are yours. That's what persuasive argument is.

It's not persuasive argument, you're arguing the fact that government outlays have never reduced year-to-year. I have proven incontrovertable evidence that this is in fact the case (at least since '68, I acknowledge that they may have reduced earlier). A fact you acknowledge following. At this point, you're simply arguing that the metric used doesn't support my contention. But since I gave the metric as part of my contention, I'm not sure what facts you're basing your argument on.

dogma wrote:It turns out you are correct, at no time in the given data period has the state spent less in terms of gross dollars. I assumed that the stimulus bills represented an unusual rate of increase.

Thanks.

dogma wrote:Though I must note that spending in terms of adjusted dollars has fluctuated a great deal.

Here's the spending in adjusted dollars. Note that this is different than spending as a percent of GDP. GDP is different than inflation because the total wealth of the United States is increasing, not remaining constant.

As you can see from the green line expenses have not "fluctuated wildly," but rather steadily increased.


Interestingly, Nixon appears to have been our most "fiscally responsible" president, under this metric.

Actually, no, that's not what "cut" means. A "reduction in expenses" would mean a year-to-year reduction in expenses. Expenses have never reduced year-to-year.

There is no hard dictionary definition for "spending cut" and the terminology for cutting as a verb or a cut as a noun do not fit the term. The U.S. budget is a relative and normalized object that exists comparatively to GDP. To handle it in real, hard terms is useless as the only metric by which the number can be compared to make sense is revenue and GDP growth. A number of presidents have cut spending as a percentage of GDP, just as a number of presidents have risen it. If no president rose government spending government would collapse in line with inflation.

Ideally every president from the beginning of this nations history should grow the budget inkeeping with inflation, otherwise the strength of the government wanes and it's institutions lose the ability to function. This is an unrealistic expectation as wars or social programs can force a raise and higher then average economic growth can induce a relative fall. Writing a number in the sand then cutting it by 10% arbitrarily and calling it a cut "because it's smaller then before" implies a direct lack of understanding of the subject matter.

It's not the kind of thing you should pat yourself on the back for.



My chart is the easiest to understand and illustrates areas of budget reduction or "cutting" as relative to GDP.

ShumaGorath wrote:If no president rose government spending government would collapse in line with inflation.

the strength of the government wanes and it's institutions lose the ability to function.

It's almost like you're saying these are bad things.

biccat wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:If no president rose government spending government would collapse in line with inflation.

the strength of the government wanes and it's institutions lose the ability to function.

It's almost like you're saying these are bad things.

You should really move to somalia. You would love it there. The government's pretty weak. You'd love Yemen too.

ShumaGorath wrote:

biccat wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:If no president rose government spending government would collapse in line with inflation.

the strength of the government wanes and it's institutions lose the ability to function.

It's almost like you're saying these are bad things.

You should really move to somalia. You would love it there. The government's pretty weak. You'd love Yemen too.

It's been a while since I've heard the Somolia "argument."

Would you care to address the issue of an ever-expanding government? If president X institutes a policy that costs $1 trillion a year, what obligation do future presidents have to maintain and further support that policy, especially if it isn't effective? If they cut that program, should they institute a new $1 trillion/year program to maintain government spending?

It's been a while since I've heard the Somolia "argument."

And it's been like four hours since I heard the "Cut the government to nothing" argument. I wish it could stop.

Would you care to address the issue of an ever-expanding government? If president X institutes a policy that costs $1 trillion a year, what obligation do future presidents have to maintain and further support that policy, especially if it isn't effective? If they cut that program, should they institute a new $1 trillion/year program to maintain government spending?

Ideally every president from the beginning of this nations history should grow the budget inkeeping with inflation, otherwise the strength of the government wanes and it's institutions lose the ability to function. This is an unrealistic expectation as wars or social programs can force a raise and higher then average economic growth can induce a relative fall. Writing a number in the sand then cutting it by 10% arbitrarily and calling it a cut "because it's smaller then before" implies a direct lack of understanding of the subject matter.

I would say cut programs that don't work and institue ones that do. Have a targeted % of annual debt that is relative to an acceptable number in terms of comparison to GDP. Maintain it based on current modern events and requirements of the government. There is no issue with the "ever expanding government" so long as it grows in line with the economy that it draws revenue from. Thats what it's supposed to do. A governments expenses should grow every single year as long as its economy isn't in recession. If it doesn't grow then as time goes on it's ability to administer its duties lessens as the money it has loses relative value to the efforts it is trying to make since the government falls under the sway of inflation just as everything else does.