The First Ever Recession in Washington DC is Coming!

How about all the corporate welfare?

 

All chump change. If he really cared about cutting some fat, reduce the ridiculously bloated military budget

 

Wow you just proved my original post. Look, we need to slash the budget EVERYWHERE including the military.

 

Of course the Avengers is art. More than that, it is art that people like and are willing to pay money to see. To me, art is a very broad term. It isn't limited to the kind of stuff that only appears on PBS. Pretty much any definition of art includes film, which is a combination of multiple artistic elements (performance, visuals, sound, music, literature, etc.) to create a whole. What you are really arguing is that the Avengers is a lesser form of art than a van Gogh. I disagree. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. There is no objective measure of what makes art good or bad, better or worse, only what you like and what you don't. A billion people liked to watch the Avengers. How many care to watch ballet in America (as in all ballet performances in America put together). Snobbery is not an effective form of argument amongst anyone but snobs.

 

Many of them live there simply to make a lifes work out of lobbying. Something that should never happen, but it does happen because our government is too big and too powerful and has too much control over the private sector.

I wish I could like your post a few more times because it was the best post of this thread so far. Tha_Dudes biggest concern with America is career politicians and lobbyists and the size of our government. It all needs to go away. As a small business owner myself, I pay more to the fed, local and state government than I do all other business expenses combined. Even my commercial insurance pales in comparison. This cannot stand, it doesn't promote a healthy avenue for competition which is what capitalism is supposed to be about.

Maybe, I've just grown too cynical about the way our country is being run. But, when you have senators who are making six figure incomes and getting extra money under the table who are allowed to stay in office as long as idiots keep voting for the incumbents, yet these same dudes only work for half of the year and absentee the rest of it, fkn A man. The dude will not stand for this.

 

It's already being run like Wal-Mart. I don't know what business you're in or what line of work you do, but for the everyday business owner like myself we've been experiencing it for the last 15 years.

We're the ones paying for it.

 

Snobbery? First of all, you, snob, claim to know the definition of art, and you expound on it for longer than anyone else in this thread.

But you, as the knower of art, considering yourself more qualified to judge than the National Endowment for the Arts, use a useless definition of art, which simply says that every film is art, which makes the term "art" pretty much meaningless. Tell us a film that's not art, O expert who knows the definition of art.

To you, The Avengers is equal to Van Gogh. I imagine you're going to tell your kids the same thing. God help them.

 

How about it? First, can you tell us how much of the budget that entails? If not, please educate yourself. Second, such welfare is almost always provided to spur business. So, cutting it would not save money, but reduce tax income. Governments don't give this out as 'welfare', they do it in their own self interest, and to create jobs. Why do you want to cut jobs? Why are you against the working class?

 

No, if he really cared about cutting the budget he'd reduce the ridiculously bloated social programs, which is where the majority of our spending goes, and none of it is stipulated in the Constitution.

In addition to accounting for over 60% of the federal budget (military spending is around 15%), these programs have an unfunded liability of over $200 Trillion. To put that number into perspective, that's three times the current GDP of the entire planet. Meaning if every person and company on earth contributed every dollar they brought in towards funding them, that would have to continue for 3 years just to provide for the portion of such spending, just in this country, that isn't funded.

How much of the military budget is an unfunded liability? $0. Ya, that's where we need to cut! Where none of the problem is!

 

Like giving oil companies billions in the middle of biggest boom a few years back?

 

Except welfare to needy individuals also spurs the economy. Almost every dollar spent on that will go directly back into the economy in addition to whatever funds the needy already are earning. Money to rich executives goes primarily to savings. Some of it may go back into the economy, but not like welfare to the impoverished and low income earners. So that's a far greater investment.

We know one thing that all businesses need to do well is demand for their product or service. If people have money to spend that demand will increase, and people will spend the money that businesses need to grow and hire more people. Money to oil execs, wall street execs goes into savings. Those folks already have money to spend in the economy.

 

Can you elaborate on why that was done, what the economic impact was, and what the alternatives were? if not, you are arguing against it from a highly uninformed position.

 

And can you elaborate what would happen when we cut social programs and the economic impact of that is? Frankly, energy and food are things I want the government to have their hands on since it's so vital.

Considering the Constitution was written and adopted during an era when essentially 9 out of 10 humans were farmers, there wasn't a need for large scale social programs since everyone was busying trying to stay alive. I just find the argument that the Constitution doesn't outright stipulate social spending a very weak argument.

 

It's not a matter of the executives, it is a matter of the workers. What does more for the economy...highly skilled tech workers, or people on welfare?
FWIW, there is some good data on the on the actual economic impact of these programs, what they do to the various money supplies (M1, M2, and M3), and often often each dollar spent gets respent. It does validate some of what you are saying. Money put into welfare programs does get spent, and does get respent. Is that of more value to the economy than creating high tech jobs, though? I think you would find that a tough argument to support, economically. Open to it, if you can find some data to support it, though. I've had this discussion before on other forums, and it is enlightening....there is evidence supporting your side of it. But I'm not going to dig up a lot of the data just to have it casually dismissed. Most people don't want the facts, and aren't really willing to engage in the discussion. Here is a good starter article, though, which covers pros and cons (and levels) of government spending in general, and the impact that has on an economy.

I tend to agree. Why, then, do governments provide tax incentives? To spur business, which then brings in more money, which they can then tax.
I have found that people tend to be against such spending on businesses they don't like, but are just fine when it happens to businesses they do like. Were you against, for example, all the money the government provided as incentives into various alternative energy companies and solutions? People tend to not be against corporate 'welfare', they tend to be against certain recipients of it.

 

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. It's almost like a circle. Spending more into the economy whether from welfare or anywhere else can spur the need for more high tech jobs which will be created.

I'm not against targeted tax incentives. But it needs to be targeted. A well run business won't hire more people unless there are jobs for them to do in order to meet a demand. So they can get all the incentives in the world, but they won't hire people unless there is a need for more people to do a job. One way to increase the demand is to pour money into the hands of people that will spend it.

Creating more high tech jobs will definitely boost the economy because people with jobs will have money to spend. High tech jobs will also possibly be skill sets that people can use to build a long career. So I'm in favor of that. The only thing I would be cautious about is that just because a company gets some incentive, or break, it doesn't mean they are going to offer more jobs. A well run company won't offer jobs unless there is a demand or expected demand which would make the jobs necessary.

 

First of all, yes, the Avengers is art on some level and yes pretty much every film has some artistic value.....even if you don't appreciate it.

That said, the argument was about viability. If your art isn't valued enough to be able to create it, then why should the US borrow money from other countries in order to fund it? Why should citizens be robbed at gunpoint in order to create it?

I argue that they shouldn't. If the artist wants to fund his project, they need to raise that money from people who want it created or they need to create things commercially viable which will help fund what they really want to create.

Now that said, if the individual states or local governments want to do so, that's fine. If the people don't like it, they'll be voted out over it. I just think that it shouldn't be something done at a national level.....especially when the federal government is facing massive deficits just adding to even more massive total amounts of debt.

 

Ok, it sounds like you are willing to engage in an actual discussion on the matter, so I'll continue. You have reasonable points, worthy of discussion.

As to the first: can you elaborate what would happen when we cut social programs and the economic impact of that is? Yes. There is a lot of evidence that shows that a high amount of government spending hinders an economy. Here is an article showing this, which is the same article I linked in another response. This also just makes economic common sense. The private sector is going to grow the economy a whole lot more than the same spending in the government (what does the government do for profit? nothing). Further, massive amounts of debt create tax concerns for business, that they then factor in when deciding on long term capital investments. They withhold spending for fear of future tax increases. Here is a long slate of articles elaborating on this.

As to the second (re: energy and food), I'm not against government spending, per se, anywhere and those do seem like vital areas. What I am concerned with is how that money is spent, and whether such spending was actually beneficial. The government mandate on ethanol from corn, for example, massively drove up the price of corn, and anything that eats or uses corn (like beef, etc), yet corn is an inefficient ethanol source. Sugar cane, and industry that is suffering, is a better source. Government tends to make a lot of bad business decisions like this, and we should monitor them on it.

As to your third point (re: the Constitution). The Constitution was written with one very clear purpose. To restrict the role and scope of the Federal Government. That concept applies even more today than it ever did. Problems are addressed far more effectively through local means. The Federal government should, therefore, only be involved in things the states, or even more local governments, cannot do. Providing for the common defense is one of those things. Social programs are not. I'm not against social programs per se. But they are clearly optional spending. We currently have unfunded liabilities that are three times the total annual production value of everything on earth. That is clearly not sustainable. So, what do you do when you have an unsustainable level of spending? You make cuts. What do you cut first, those things that you must do, or those things that you decided to spend on, but that are optional?

As to most people being farmers then...wouldn't that mean there was MORE need for social programs, not less? Farming isn't exactly a high tech, high paying, growth enducing job. Plus, these social programs didn't spring up until after WWI, and many of them after WWII. They are fairly recent inventions. Which begs the question: What great social ills that they were created to solve have now been solved? The answer is...none of them. We have all the same issues now that we did then, we just waste a whole bunch of money on them. We didn't even have a permanent income tax until after WWI. Government operated solely on excise taxes and other similar sources of income. And managed on that just fine. Now we have this huge redistribution of wealth, when economic studies show that such spending is a hindrance on our economy. If we had a better economy, that would take care of most of the things this social spending addresses, only it would do so more efficiently and effectively.

Finally, as to "I just find the argument that the Constitution doesn't outright stipulate social spending a very weak argument." Really? The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit the power and size of the Federal government. It was crafted specifically to prevent creation of anything other than that which was explicitly listed. So, what you are saying, perhaps without intending to but saying nonetheless, is that you find following the Constitution a really weak argument. Meaning you are apparently in favor of simply disregarding it, even though it is the entire basis for our government. I find THAT a really weak argument. Which doesn't mean one can't argue for or against things outside of the Constitutional perspective, but simply disregarding it as weak seems to ignore the entire basis on which this country was founded.

 

It is disgusting that you only recognize value according to whether people will pay money for a thing or not. Is that how you judge humans, whether someone is willing to buy them? Is that how you judge love in your life, whether someone will pay for it? How much money will you pay for an American flag? Is that all it is worth to you?

Judging from this thread, people don't even know what the NEA does, so I can give you some examples. I just applied for a fellowship to translate the work of a 19th-century Vietnamese poet. This guy opposed the emperor throughout his life, fighting for democracy, basically. He eventually went into battle against the emperor's forces, was killed in battle. They burned his head. The emperor ordered all of his works destroyed. And they executed three generations of his family.

Suppose that the U.S. government wants access to this poet's work. They want it to exist in English, for the sake of literature and history and SE Asia Studies. Now, no one in this thread will pay one cent to bring that into existence, but sometimes the government might. This poet wrote in Chinese, so modern Vietnamese can't translate him; Chinese don't feel like translating a Vietnamese. So maybe some American guy needs to do it.

I know: you think Avengers is better than every movie that made less money. You think Michael Jackson is the best musician coz he sold the most units. And the best football team is the one that made the most money. You just look at the price tag and then you know if a thing is good or not.

 

This is a classic straw man argument. You start off with the premise that I only recognize value according to whether people will pay money for it and that's not only not what I said or suggested, it's not even true.

What I said is that if a world of art isn't valued enough for people to willingly pay for it to be created then you shouldn't force people to support it on a national level. This would include art that I absolutely value. I don't personally think that people should be robbed at gunpoint to pay for it and I don't think that the US should borrow money from foreign countries in order to pay for it. I even gave examples of how it could be funded in order to still exist without burdening others who don't care about it.

Don't be the straw man argument guy.

Sounds like a fun project.....but I still see no reason why the federal government should be the ones funding it. You do understand that there are many other ways for projects like this to be funded yes?

And we get yet another series of straw man arguments.....come on kid, be better than this. It really makes you seem like you lack the intelligence for this kind of conversation and I'm sure that's not the case, so work with me here. Make valid, intelligent arguments and avoid this kind of idiocy in the future.

 

All right, **** it. I quit the argument. Have your way with the NEA.