Why aren’t presidential candidates speaking more about our national debt? When President Bush took office, it was $5.7 trillion. When he leaves office in January of 2009, it will be around $10 trillion.
When you incur debt personally, you are responsible for it. The beauty of national debt as a leader is that YOU don’t have to pay it back. You spend the money; someone else will have to figure out how to deal with the debt.
To understand the looming crisis because of this irresponsibility on the part of our national leaders, check this.
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We all know we get Sports Illustrated for just one reason. (No — not THAT reason.)
Rick Reilly. He’s won the sportswriter of the year award eleven times. But after 23 years with SI, he just left. He’s beginning with ESPN next summer.
God even though our nation debt is $10 trilion may we as Christian advent. May we remember that you gave us your one and only Son for us. (John 3:16) Let us sacrifice and give to those in need despite high gas prices, the our own economic trouble, Lord help us to remember what this time of year is all about. Even in the church of Christ help us to Advent. Amen.
During war time you run the country with a debt. During peace time you pay it off.
Just the way it works. We are in the midst of WWIII, but this time the war is largely not against a country but a mindset of radical Islam. Fighting a country is easy, you know the borders you’re going against. You know the political people you have to take down. Cheap in the grand scheme of things. This war is not cheap, you must first identify the radical muslims from the normal ones (the vast majority of them by the way).
4 Trillion in debt vs. An annual 9/11 like event? Take your pick… I pick the extra debt… and the truth is, our economy is soooo big and powerful that if we really wanted to we could be out of debt in 10 years… easy.
http://www.redstate.com/stories/economy/are_we_good_or_what
And the ‘economic downturn’ the article talks about is a myth. We grew at 4.9% GDP recently… our economy grew larger by the amount of Moracco’s total economy.
I’m neither a prophet or the son of a prophet but I sense the “doctrine of election” will become a coping mechanism for upcoming blog posts.
“All who affirm the use of violence admit it is only a means to achieve justice and peace. But peace and justice are nonviolence…the final end of history. Those who abandon nonviolence have no sense of history. Rathy they are bypassing history, freezing history, betraying history.”
– André Trocmé
“We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose. We cannot afford to use methods of which we will be ashamed when we look back, when we say, ‘…we shouldn’t have done that.’ We must remember, my friends, that we have been given a wonderful cause. The cause of freedom! And you and I must be those who will walk with heads held high. We will say, ‘We used methods that can stand the harsh scrutiny of history.’” Desmond Tutu
I wondered if we invested 4.3 trillion into alternate forms of energy which helped lessen our use of fossil fuel, which in turn would keep us out of wars for oil, and our dependence on oil from terrorist supporting countries like Venezuela, Russia (soon to be the USSR again) & Saudi Arabia. But wait are not all of George’s old buddies living in West Texas…….hhhhhmmmmmmmm…
Wars cost money and this may indeed be WWIII. I am not convinced. But what is not justifiable is to give big tax cuts during a war. When in history did that happen? In my view this policy is
reprehensible.
Republicans like debt because it makes it hard to justify spending money on social programs like health care, medical research, and foreign aid.
Democrats like surplus because it makes it easier to justify spending for social programs.
Neither party wants to leave the country without adequate defense.
Rick Reilly is a national treasure. ESPN is moving toward the modern computer culture, grabbing all the best writers up from the newspaper and magazine industry. They got Matt Mosely from the Dallas Morning News this year and the list get’s longer and longer. The good news is Rick is not going away, we’re just going to find him in a different location.
Is this similar to debt that churches acquire? So often we hear “The Lord will provide” “Have faith” Yet churches all over the country continue to borrow money and pay thousands of dollars on a monthly basis to banks. The Lord is also the one that gave us the “knowlege” for good stewardship and common sense. Just like the national debt, we at church borrow the money then ask future members to pay it back (with interest).
Maybe if both parties run the economy into the ground and the church underground, Christians will realize the futility of putting one iota of hope or trust in the American political nightmare and begin centering their lives on the one true King.
If that’s the result of economic collapse (or even terror that reaches our shores), then I pray it happens.
Referring to this war as “World War III” certainly makes it sound legitimate. Too bad it doesn’t actually make it legitimate.
Shouldn’t we save phrases like “World War” for wars that actually involve more than one country?
A few quotes from Brian McLaren’s latest ["Everything Must Change"] seem appropriate:
“Ten years after the Cold War ended, well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government’s annual investment in defense had risen to 20 percent of its fiscal budget, more than a half-trillion dollars, and over half of the US national debt was military related (2.9 of 5.6 trillion). Since 9/11, expenditures have exploded.
By 2003, the US military budget was larger than the next fifteen nations combined, spending $2 billion per day on the military; by 2006, the US military budget had swelled by 49 percent over its 2000 levels, not including expense for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US military budget was then larger than the next twenty-five nations combined. In other words, the strongest twenty-five countries in the world would have to switch from being US allies (as most of them are) to US enemies in order for the United States to be confronted by a greater force.”
“The 2006 budget showed that US military expenditures were twenty-one times larger than diplomacy and foreign aid combined, and that the United States was dead last among the most developed nations in foreign aid as a percentage of gross domestic product. One wonders what would happen if good-hearted Americans realized that a mere 10 percent of the US military budget, if reinvested in foreign aid and development, could care for the basic needs of the entire world’s poor. Or if they realized that one-half of 1 percent of the US military budget would cut hunger in Africa in half by 2015. Would there be marches in the streets calling for budgetary reform?”
“My country can boast that we produce 53.4 percent of the world’s weapons.”
“In 1999, the US weapons industry supplied arms to 92 percent of the conflicts in process anywhere on the planet, and in a stroke of elegant fairness, often supplied both sides in conflicts. Perhaps most shocking and awful of all: between 1998 and 2001, the United States, Great Britain, and France earned more income from selling weapons to developing countries than they gave those developing countries in aid.”
Ouch!
I saw the most beautiful picture of an Iraqi Soldier being baptized in a baptistry made of sand full of water by an American Chaplin. A group of American Soldiers were around him singing amazing grace. The word of God is being taught and spreading in Iraq. How much is a soul worth?
Well then, shoot, preacherman — why don’t we pre-emptively strike Saudi Arabia or Morocco or Algeria next. Those countries are full of heathen and would be perfect for a few conversion photo ops.
One photo of a baptism (which I first saw about 3 years ago) circulating as an e-mail forward in no way justifies an outrageously expensive (money and lives) and ultimately futile invasion and occupation of a country like Iraq.
Plus, I’d bet that for every Iraqi we’re baptizing, we’re killing 1,000. Maybe more. No hard data to back that up … just my conservative estimate. How much is a soul worth, anyway? Sorry, preacherman — your argument just doesn’t hold water.
I am not supporting war. Or wagging war on other coutries like you assume. I am saying we need to praise God for the Iragi soldier and for others who now have the freedom in Iraq to worship Jesus.
In the places you mention we need to pray for the missionaries in those countries. Pray that the gospel may be preach boldly as Paul did despite the fear of persicution. I have freind Tim Kucuala who is a missionary in one of the places you mention and we to support and pray for those missionaries that they preach boldy gospel without fear of persecution or even death.
But in no way should we invade. That’s just crazy thinking. I am just saying the soul of the Iraqi and other now to have the freedom to worship God is pricesless. I hope we as Christians will understand that as we look the numbers.
No one ever wins in wars.
So God bring us peace.
Let the world see your mercy, love and grace through us as Christians.
I wanted to think of a short, smart, witty way to say this but I can not, so here goes. This is not directed at Mike or anything in particular said here today. However, there is a “the US is bad” tone which I feel in comments when any government issue comes up. I wonder if anyone else feels this way?
I get the idea that it is not considered “putting the Kingdom first” to be too proud or too loud when professing love or gratitude for our citizenship in the USA. Yet when someone judges, corrects, or second guesses the leadership, goverment and policies of the US, no one talks about how that reflects on the Kingdom. Am I just missing the respectful tones, or are they just not there?
You had better not direct your criticism at me, SG. I signed that marriage license. And I can unsign it!
By the way, we think of you fondly every time we pass the anniversary of Megan’s death, remembering how you helped hold us together — even at such a young (as we look back on it now) age. And, a year or two ago you left a salsa recipe on this blog which I just got around to trying. Excelente!
I would never cross the BLOGFATHER…or the signer of my marriage license!
I love your family dearly and always will.
But abouthtese comments… I do think that we as Christians in the US reflect a lot of our own short comings on the government of this country. The USA exists to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”… Not to cure the world of injustice, or hunger, or to bring all who have sinned to Christ. Those are charges made to the church. God asked these things of his children, the church, the bride of Christ, not the government of the USA. I guess I would like us to please consider the reason this country was founded. When comparing the US living up to it’s reason to exist and churches living up to the reasons we exist, who is doing the better job?
Yeah.
Ouch!
Oh and Mike, your guacamole still rocks every time we have fajita night..but we do chicken, not quail!
It makes more sense to talk about Congress rather than the president when assigning responsibility for debt, since all spending is controlled by Congress.
It also makes more sense to talk about the rate of increase rather than the dollar amount (ie, use a logarithmic scale on the graph). In other words, how many years did it take to double? That rate is almost independent of political parties.
If you look at national debt as a percentage of GDP, it is tracking pretty consistently. Following the chart for the past 75 years, the thing that jumps out at you is that wars are the primary cause of the peaks.
Christianity was alive and well under Sadaam Hussein. There was a segment on 20/20 this past Sunday night (12/2) saying how the majority of Christians had either been killed or forced out of the country since we (the U.S.) had arrived. If we really want to preach the gospel, do what the Catholics do - go into these Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia. That’s one thing you have to give to the Catholics - they’re not afraid to die for what they believe.
As for the debt, we were in the black when Clinton left office. I’m not convinced our grandchildren will ever be out of the debt created by this administration. Oh - wait -yes they will! Since they don’t have health care, they’ll die before reaching adulthood.
bpb,
Here is an idea,
Why not give free health care to all of american children until they reach the 18. That we are protecting our future tax payers.
Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.” 1 Samuel 10-18
The more things change the more they stay the same.
SG.
I love my country. I vote everytime the polls are open. I do not try to get out of Jury Duty. I pay my taxes without resentment. I obey most of the laws (I have a bit of a speeding problem, but when I get a ticket I pay it without grumbling.) I have had family members or friends in every war this country fought until this one.
I love the kingdom of God and my church. I tithe. I support my community food banks and women’s shelter, and I provide scholarships for poor children to go to summer camp.
If I disagree with something at church, it does not mean I don’t love the kingdom of God.
If I disagree with the current administration it is because I love my country not evidence that I don’t.
I resent more more than anything the suggestion that if you don’t vote Republican you are not a Christian or a Patriot.
Linda,
If I suggested that, I am sorry, for that was not my intention. I was not saying you have to be of one political persuasion or another. That said, I hope that no one really thinks the US government created or can actually solve the world’s problems. I think Christians would do better to call on other Christians to respond to the poor, neglected, hungry, and forgotten populations of the world instead of trying to make the US government do things it was not made to do. I am not saying that if you disagree with something, you do not care about it. I’m just a stay home Mom who rarely watches anything other than Barney, so I may not know what I am talking about. But I don’t like the ugly anti-US tone I get from some comments that suggests you can not love America and be a Christian. Becasue I do, and I think I am…at least I try.
SG,
I am sorry that I misread your comments. I admit to having a chip on my shoulder about this issue.
We probably agree about this–the hope of the world is in Christ, not the US Government.
My point was that it is not anti-US to suggest that we are wrong in our policy in the middle east. If saying that sounds ugly, then I need to say it better. (Maybe give up the sarcasm?)
And thank you for being a stay at home mom. What a great opportunity to really change the world for the better.
I think it’s time for a group hug.
No, really. Meet me at the ATL airport tomorrow at the Chili’s on the Delta concourse.
Well?
I agree SG. One can be patriotic and love the Lord with all their heart mind and soul. One isn’t exclusive of another. I too tire of negative comments made about the country in which we reside.
SG said: “I think Christians would do better to call on other Christians to respond to the poor, neglected, hungry, and forgotten populations of the world instead of trying to make the US government do things it was not made to do.”
Debt incurred by churches is something that should be equally looked at. MEGA churches with huge staffs and enormous technology are not a sign of being more Christian. Many times it’s a sign of being more in debt. While none of those things are wrong, it’s difficult to understand why so many are concerned about the governments debt but believe the church’s debt is acceptable. They believe the government should be more cost effective and help the poor more, but don’t believe the same about the church. And sadly don’t think the church is even up to the task of caring for the needy.
bqb,
Where do you get the information that makes you think we were “in the black” when Clinton left office? We most certainly weren’t. They merely PROJECTED that there would be a surplus at some point, based on a WILDLY OPTIMISTIC model of indefinite economic growth that was absolutely impossible to attain (i.e. the “dot-com” boom/bust).
Even with a surplus of income, you aren’t “in the black”. If you have 5 trillion dollars of debt, and you take in 100 billion more than you spent this year, you are still 4.9 trillion dollars in debt, or IN THE RED. Or, in the case of a money-drunk congress, you just spend it…
The best thing for the morons in Washington would be a massive tax cut that deprives them of the money they so freely spend on everything from Alpaca research to bailing out idiots who bought too much house. They have created debt in the same way we have neurosurgeons with credit card debt: they are drunk with money, and it will NEVER BE ENOUGH. Cut it by 75% and make them figure it out, I say.
I don’t know bqb, have you ever felt a fine alpaca shirt or sweater? I can send you a nice alpaca rug from Peru, you’ll love it.
They taste good too…
A quick aside to BQB: annual deficits and total national debt are not the same thing. “In the black” under Clinton? Not by a long shot, and the U. S. economy did not take a monster hickey under Clinton the way we did on 9/11.
GWB certainly bears significant responsibility for the current deficit. It’s undeniable. Left-leaning folks here who are honest about their redistributionist urges will recognize, however - with what qb expects to be generous gratitude and moral gratification - that the projected deficit can be attributed in part to a major expansion in Medicare drug benefits (and educational spending?), which GWB had a significant hand in getting enacted. Taking care of the “needy,” and all that. We’re also proposing to spend more on AIDS relief in Africa. Anybody on the left want to claim that Bush’s fiscal profligacy in those regards is unwarranted or ill advised? I didn’t think so; if anything, the pitiful sums expended on these programs are going to be seen as insults to the dignity of the old and diseased, simply because the annual increases weren’t big enough to escape being described on the left as “draconian cuts.” *chuckle*
Under both Republican and Democratic administrations during the last 16 years, we have witnessed an all-out retreat from any sort of fiscal self-restraint. Bush is, in many ways, a CRINO, even including his first impulses for selecting SC justices. (Prithee who can fathom a conservative selecting a Miers before an Alito?)
Let us also pause to imagine where we would be, deficit- and debt-wise, if in 1993 Hillarycare had carried the day. The mind boggles!
In short, perhaps there is something to be said for taking more than one dimension of national financial health into consideration before making a sweeping political judgment or assigning unique political blame. Bush is profligate, to be sure; he also has about 500 willing accomplices on both sides of the aisle in both houses who are all too happy to let him take the heat for his free-spending ways while they just go innocently along with him.
BTW, Mike, would you be interested in holding forth on how our entitlement structures (and the systemically enabling, groupthink mentality that mandates them) contribute to our current fiscal imbalances? I mean, let’s just stipulate for the sake of argument that war spending is a huge component. Then what? Any chance that the proliferation of demographic classes entitled to a piece of your grandchildrens’ wallets is partially responsible?
We can’t have it both ways, prophesying against the accelerating debt on one hand while calling for more institutionalized, perpetualized, social spending (a. k. a., “rent-seeking”) on the other. But there is apparently no law against trying!
Amusedly,
qb
Sorry, I meant to address that to kerry.
This is how the Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union collapsed - endless wars and massive military budgets. They simply spent themselves into oblivion! The definition of hubris is believing we are different!
I could be wrong about this, I’ve been out of school a long time now, but wasn’t the government first formed to provide a military? That was the total function of govenment. It has been so changed along the way.
I also remember that when the first President Bush laid out a plan to put the govenment back on track finacially, it would take at least 8 years to target. He wasn’t President when that was suppose to of happened. Then a lot of new programs were started by the next president and at the end of his term, it was falling apart. When the second President Bush lowered the taxes, that was what fueled the economy. When business grows there are more jobs.
I love both his, Who’s Your Caddy? and Hate Mail from Cheerleaders. The later is a collection of his favorite back page columns in SI through the years.
Government grows bigger and bigger with no end in sight. Much prayer is needed in regards to how we collect and waste money.
Peace.
Thank you, qb! Thank you!!!
I’ll miss Reill’s more when he’s gone from SI. He’s so good - you sometimes wonder if he’s really that good - or if he just finds the best topics to write on.
Does the national debt looking anything like the cost of a college education? Maybe add a couple of zeroes -but who’s counting.
The only president who ever paid off the national debt of this country was… Andrew Jackson! That was before 1850. Not since that time has our national debt been zero.
Do not pine away for a debt-free country on the one hand and then pine away for the government to provide everything for free (health care, social services, etc.). Pick one or the other. But always remember the quote from the 1850’s: The death of a democracy occurs whenever the population realizes that they can vote themselves money from the treasury. That is where we are heading. (But as SG pointed out, it seems quite a few people reading this blog think that might be a good idea!)
Mike,
This is all that Ron Paul has been talking about.
According to my Macroeconomics teacher we blow the national debt way out of proportion. Even though the debt it very large it isn’t that large for a industrialized nation of our size. It is also healthy for a nation to have some debt. Of couse not as much as ours. Also he said that if we really wanted to we could impose a special tax and get rid of the debt very quickly but of course that isn’t the popular thing to do and will never happen. So it looks like we are going to have to live with our debt until someone steps up and taxes us like crazy for a year or two.
SG,
You wrote, “I hope that no one really thinks the US government created or can actually solve the world’s problems.”
I do believe that the U.S. government creates some of the world’s problems. It works evil. I thereby believe that it can lessen some problems by reversing its actions. (Note how you resorted to such absolute language when it isn’t called for. That’s a sign that your fooling yourself with a straw-man argument.)
Consider: the campaign to exterminate Native Americans; the Mexican-American War; the Spanish-American War; Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki; the School of the Americas; the IMF and the WTO; support for criminal leaders and their oppressive governments throughout the world (Pinochet, Samoza/Contras, the Sauds, Saddam Hussein); and the USA arms industry, as noted in Terry Cagle’s comment.
The U.S. government creates poverty. It creates, in your words, “forgotten people” (consider the “disappeared” of Nicaragua). It kills and destroys. If you aren’t actually aware of this, then I’m sorry that you have been so misled by your church and your society; you’ll be both liberated and called to repentance if you read some history. If you are aware of these things, then why would you object to those who point them out and criticize them? Should the church not prophesy against those things?
Let’s further break down your posts. You say, “there is a ‘the US is bad’ tone which I feel in comments when any government issue comes up.” From this, it sounds like you think that such a tone is inappropriate. But, as I suggested above, the U.S. government is bad.
Further, you state, “when someone judges, corrects, or second guesses the leadership, goverment and policies of the US, no one talks about how that reflects on the Kingdom. Am I just missing the respectful tones, or are they just not there?” You seem to indicate that judgment, correction, and second-guessing the government reflect badly on God’s kingdom, but aren’t those three things appropriate for God’s people when they see wickedness? Does it reflect well on God when his people support evil? Why are “respectful tones” necessary when addressing evil deeds? Will public opinion of the church suffer if it is critical of the U.S. government? Is such loss of public support inherently bad?
You go on to describe the purpose of the U.S. as stated in the U.S. Constitution. We could debate that purpose (Is it God-ordained? Is it good?) and how well the government’s actions match those ends, but that is beside the point. Even if the government does these things, it does not thereby escape responsibility for the evil it does. Your line of argument is like me defending myself after murdering my next-door neighbor by saying, “My purpose in life is to love my wife; it says so in my marriage vows!”. Did you really think that argument through? Maybe you should ask yourself why you latched on to a specious argument that so easily lets the U.S. government off the hook.
You appear to present in your follow-up posts a theology of sacred-profane compartmentalization and a theology of salvation that doesn’t address God’s opposition to evil everywhere, whether in individual hearts or in the workings of human society. Neither seems very biblical to me.
I hope you take the time to think this through.
I love that we can discuss these things on Mike’s blog. I think it’s safe to say that we need an outlet. While some comment on here with very narrow views (left AND right), it seems to me a healthy thing to debate these issues. We should know where we stand on them and we should allow our faith to penetrate these difficult issues. From what I have seen on Mike’s blog, that is one of his primary missions. I love being pushed to think. I like being convicted. And I am grateful that each of you do that for me.
Having said that…I vote to change Congress as well. Very disapppointed in this group of congress-men and women.
Jeff W - Well done.
I read Alan Greenspan’s autobiography, he sees this as a terrible situation. There is certainly room to spend some in this nation. But Greenspan was disappointed in Bush for increasing the debt.
http://www.matthewsblog.waynesborochurchofchrist.org
Jeff W
What Government that has ever existed on the face of the earth would you reccomend we replace this one with? The one nation that has ever been directly under God’s authority was instructed to eliminate every man, woman and child of more than one etnicity from the face of the earth. The history of the world is that every nation, people, ethnic group etc could be tagged with the same things you say about the US in your post. You neglect to say the 2 to 3 hundred thousand killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were considerably fewr than the estimates for a land invasion of Japan called for. Talk about straw man arguments.
It all boils down to the same thing time and time again. We have more faith in the government than in the church. We feel better about our service to man if we think the government is doing it for us. It’s easier and more in vogue among left leaning Christians to be mad at how the government responds to human need than it is to be upset with the church and our individual selves on how we respond to human need.
Upset about the nation debt? I think not. It sounds more like some are just upset that the government isn’t doing the church’s job.
Jeff W.
How does the US Govt role in ending WW1 and WW2 Jibe with your US is Evil mantra. How about the money being spent to fight aids in Africa? How does the US govt create poverty? How can it eliminate it when Jesus said the poor will always be with you? Again I ask What Govt. that has ever existed in this world has been better? Which would you replace ours with?
Mark,
You write, “What Government that has ever existed on the face of the earth would you reccomend we replace this one with?” Note that I didn’t recommend that we (Americans? Christians? American Christians?) replace the U.S. government with another; I didn’t even recommend that we vote to change the current one. I wrote that we should recognize its evils and speak out against them. My intent was to suggest prophetic action, but perhaps that wasn’t clear. (Note that you used very extreme language — dismantling or destroying one government and replacing it with another — when it wasn’t really called for. This, again, is a tip-off to yourself that you are creating a straw man.
You also write, “The one nation that has ever been directly under God’s authority was instructed to eliminate every man, woman and child of more than one etnicity from the face of the earth.” Further, some Christians, myself included, do not believe that God has ever so instructed a people (I assume you’re referring to Israel). Some of those Christians, myself included, even believe strongly in the authority of scripture. The issue of scriptural authority and genocide won’t be worked out in our fellowship in this blog commentary, so I won’t try to convince you of my position. Yet I worry about why you have brought this up. Does your treatment of the scriptures open the door for you, your government, or anyone else to perpetrate a genocide with impunity? Does it justify a war? Many an atheist would react to an affirmative answer by judging you a miserably wicked person. Think this through carefully: you are on very shaky ground. If this is God’s position on genocide, then the aforementioned atheist is beyond God’s reach, and God is an utterly incapable bringer of good news. Be very careful.
You further write, “The history of the world is that every nation, people, ethnic group etc could be tagged with the same things you say about the US in your post.” You are absolutely, totally, one hundred percent correct. And the church should speak truth to power in all places.
You end your first reply with, “You neglect to say the 2 to 3 hundred thousand killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were considerably fewr than the estimates for a land invasion of Japan called for.”
These estimates are much disputed. Lots of ink has been devoted to the history of how Truman made his decisions, how rationales for behavior were crafted during and after the war, and how true accounts of the bombings and the decision-making process were kept from the public. Two things appear certain: the U.S. government did not act truthfully in the affair, and Truman elected to kill thousands of powerless people.
You write, “How does the US Govt role in ending WW1 and WW2 Jibe with your US is Evil mantra.” I don’t have such a mantra. You have patently made that up.
You write, “How about the money being spent to fight aids in Africa?”. What about all the money being collected to fight wars in Africa? Don’t both deserve our attention?
You write, “How does the US govt create poverty?”. It does so a lot through the IMF and WTO. Read up.
“How can it eliminate it when Jesus said the poor will always be with you?”. Straw man.
“Again I ask What Govt. that has ever existed in this world has been better? Which would you replace ours with?”. Again, straw man.
You must do better.
Jeff B.
Jeff w.
You are correct that you didn’t say the US govt was evil, you said it “works evil” not that it is evil. Maybe I felt you thought it was evil because you say it is Bad. Your original post was in answer to SG feeling that people were bashing the US when complaining about it. You say speaking truth to power, what happened to speaking the truth in love? That is where I and I assume SG are coming from. You use examples of what you say are the US Govt working Evil from WW2 to condemn the US but when I ask about the US working good you dismiss it and attack my question. I’ll rephrase, how does the good the US worked in WW1 and2 jibe with your US is bad mantra You did say it was BAD. Just because you say you and many christians don’t think the Bible says what it says is true and just because you can find a source or 2 to question Trumans decision doesn’t mean my comments are not relevant I’m sure I can find more source material for either of my contentions than you can for yours. Just because you say straw man to any of the points I ask you to address doesn’t make them so. The original post was about tone. You choose to take a Derisive tone toward the US because it Worked evil and was BAD. I asked what about when it works good? Do you acknowledge that the US works Good ? You said the US was bad, I asked what you would replace it with, you refuse to answer saying you never said to replace it. Deriding something without having a way to make things better? Thats the exact tone that was offensive to begin with.
Ck and others, there is absolutely no connection between this war and 9-11. The most recent National Intelligence Estimate demonstrates the amazing duplicity and misguided nature of this administration.
You are correct. War causes debt. It would be nice though if the war that creates such debt were somehow defensible. This war is anything but that if the goal really is to respond effectively to 9-11 and terror.
Oh, and Kerry, use Google and search it. We had a budget surplus when Clinton left office.
I think kerry said we were not in the black as far as the deficit went. There is a difference between not adding to the deficit (having a surplus in any given year) and being out of debt.
Believe everything you find via a google search huh? Take any side of any issue and you can find a google search to back you up.
And war is not the only thing that causes debt. Try a google on that topic.
Mark,
I have graciously granted you my attention, concern, thought, effort, and time. You have repaid me with careless reading and careless thinking. This is an unfruitful exchange that I do not wish to continue. You should reconsider how you participate in on-line dialog.
Here’s an idea:
Those who support the war, don’t take any tax exemptions this year. Put your money behind “We support our troops.”
No Snapshot, I don’t. But in the case of the Clinton data the sources will be from the U. S. government itself. Google is just the easy way to locate it.
Wow, Jeff W. you are almost as articulate as you are arrogant with your “I have graciously granted you my attention, concern, thought, effort. . . .”
Jeff, do you own any property (real or otherwise)? If so, will you graciously return it to the native American tribes who own it? If you plan to ever buy any property in the future, will you here and now, graciously plan to return any future property to the native Americans from whom your forefathers stole it? Please put your money (and property) where your mouth is. After all, any material possessions you may have gotten from this country are not yours, but have simply been “earned” off of the backs of the native Americans who had all of their lands stolen and were systematically eliminated by the government under which you now make your living and live securely. It is very easy to criticize the group of which you are a very small fraction (an American citizen), but it takes a much bigger man to step up and do his part to make his own personal reparations for the sins of the entire nation, however, I believe it would be wholly appropriate — especially for someone with your deep insight into the evils perpetrated by the American government for your indirect, albeit unintentional, benefit.
By the way, I do not expect any renumeration for granting you my attention, concern, thought, effort, and time. I consider your pompousness to be well worth the effort. No thanks is necessary. My great, great grandmother was Cherokee. You can deed the property to me should you be serious.
Preachermike,
Is ythe church that meets at your building debt free?
Sorry I was waiting for Matt at the airport all day yesterday.
Jeff W,
I think I speak for scarecrows everywhere. Stop using their rae as an intellectual slur. It’s not nice.
I never want to be said that I am on the opposite side of an argument than Larry James and Mike Cope so let me clarify my “position” here.
When I was 8, my family and I were followed through a market place in Juarez, Mexico for an hour by a women trying to sell us her baby girl. Towards the end of the hour, she even offered to give us the baby. She was eventually chased away by the merchants who told us she was just a beggar. I will never forget her face or her pleas for us to take her baby to America. No matter what your feelings are about the US government, if you live in America, you are blessed. (And no God does not JUST bless America, or bless us more than others, but he has blessed this nation.)
The US has made many mistakes through out history. I have no doubt that some in the government knew exactly what they were doing at the time of these mistakes. I in no way want to imply that the government is beyond reproach or that those who voice their opinions against the government are wrong. However, I do love this country and feel blessed, yes BLESSED, to have been born a US citizen. As bad as some people think the United Stares is, it has been, and still is a safe haven for many in this world. Living here gives many a chance at a better life while here on Earth.
Of course our eternal citizenship trumps any earthly one, but it does not mean we can not love and appreciate what we have. The US is a very wealthy country in many ways. For those which much is given, much is expected. The US has a great responsibility to the world. I just do not feel Christians should always look to the government to solve problems or to help the people we should be helping. I also think many in these comments use the government as a scapegoat. That is just my opinion.
I apologize for voicing my frustrations with the anti-US mindset that frequents these comments, especially on this post. My feeling really had nothing to do with the federal deficit or Rick Reily leaving SI. Sorry if I riled anyone un-necessarily. Just write me off as a venting housewife and carry on with your lives…
I meant RACE.
“I think I speak for scarecrows everywhere… Stop using their race as an intellectual slur. It’s not nice.”
SG, nice post. However, there are those rare times when you do need to be on the opposite side of an argument from Mike Cope and/or Larry James. No need to worry about that.
Jeff w
It doesn’t surprise me that this is how our discussion ends. I have found it to be typical of the blame America crowd. 1. Spit out a bunch of talking points as fact. 2. Attack the messenger not the message of disagreement. 3. Refuse to actually have a discussion by, claiming the intellectual high ground, with a “you just don’t know”, “if you were more learned”, “better read”, “knew how to discuss while on the internet” etc. 4. End with I ‘m not going to waste my time anymore.
I thank SG for her much more eloquent way of getting to the point than I was able to do. I love my Country, I know it has faults but it is one of the few in existence that allows citizens an oppurtunity to air grievances and actually bring about change. I do get offended when people bash the US without any acknowledgement of the good it has done.
I’m sorry that my typing and internet debate skills are not up to your level but it still doesn’t mean the points I raise or the questions I ask are not valid. Signing off now.
This may be way off the subject discussed in the comments so far, but it was interesting to me the two topics of the original post were the national debt and SI.
Perhaps the answer lies within the two. If we could find a way to channel some of the exhorbitant amount of money invested in our athletic endeavors we could have our national debt under control in no time.
Oh, and Larry:
Actually read the search responses you will get from Google, to find out how the budget “surplus” was fake (as I described above). Budgeting for a surplus and having a surplus are two totally different things. I can project that next year, I will take in $100,000.00, and only spend $90,000.00. If, in actuality, I take in that $100,000.00 and, in a fit of money-drunken madness, spend the $10,000.00 surplus and then some, then I never had a surplus. A surplus is something that stays there. If we truly had a surplus, the debt would have been reduced, and it wasn’t. The government was still borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars a year during the Clinton administration, even up until the end.
Oh, and do you really want to discuss the “unified” budget that showed a surplus? Showing Social Security receipts as income, while completely ignoring that they must be paid back (and then some) at some point in the future. Talk about a financial lie that would land any private businessman in jail for the rest of his life…
Those of you who are so concerned with our massive federal debt should also be against our massive federal social spending, because it is, after defense, the single largest part of our massive federal budget. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
But, like so many things I’ve read on this blog (at least in the comments) before: anything Clinton did was good, and Bush is evil. Don’t let the facts get in the way of your ideology.
And before you start slamming me as a Bushie, I think he’s a terrible president, too.
By the way, I know the playbook by heart. You folks are about to trash me, pretend I’m stupid and ignorant, and then claim that I have been harsh. Sorry, but I’m not one of the groupies…
mike: economics isn’t your strong point I see. as a percentage of our total economy (all the stuff that’s made, consumed, services yada yada…) it’s smaller than when Mr. Bush took office — quite remarkable given we are at war. the highest national debt as a percentage of our total economy has always been experienced in times of war. the highest national debts we have experienced was at our country’s origin, the next was the Civil War and then World Wars I and II.
I have googled,researched and read. Why it is so hard to find out about the current budget/surplus/deficit status of the US? I have read several completely conflicting articles, and none of them were presented as editorials. Would some economics prof. please weigh in here? What is the deal? Are we in the red as much as the article Mike linked to suggests? Was there a true surplus under Clinton or just a projected one? Anyone?
notmike,
I’m not an economics professor, but I do understand the whole “clinton surplus” thing. It was a surplus, depending on how deceptive you want to be with the income and the outgo. A little procedure called “unified budgeting”. Here’s the deal:
Suppose you have a job that pays $60,000.00 per year. Suppose that you have a debt of $200,000.00 that MUST be repaid in ten years. Because of that debt, you work a second job and collect an additional $10,000.00 this year, presumably to have additional funds to put towards retiring that debt when the note is called.
Now, let’s say your standard of living requires $65,000.00 per year. You know, only making $60,000.00, that you won’t be able to do everything you need to do. In fact, your inability to live within your means is the reason you have the $200,000.00 debt. Anyway, you know you’re going to show a deficit on paper, and in reality, and you don’t want your wife to know this. You pull a little maneuver called “unified budgeting”, where you show the income from your second job ($10,000.00) as regular income, while not showing the obligation to repay the $200,000.00 debt as a liability, or a debit. Suddenly, on paper, you have a $5000.00 “surplus”. Of course, as you and I both know, you are just deferring the deficit until the ten year period is up, when you will be flat broke. In business accounting, you aren’t allowed to do this. Heck, even the IRS doesn’t let you do this. You can be “cash method”, or “accrual”, but not BOTH. The government is breaking a fundamental rule of accounting, one that you or I could pay fines and do time for breaking. If you are going to show the income towards debt service as true income, then you MUST show the debt also, not pretend it doesn’t exist.
This is what the whole “Lockbox” thing was about back in 2000. There was a movement to take this fake surplus (FICA receipts), and put it where the President and Congress couldn’t get their boogery fingers on it. Unfortunately, that has not happened.
Anyway, in our analogy, the $60,000.00 is basic income tax and other general monies the government will collect. The $10,000.00 part time job is Social Security (FICA) monies that the government extorts from all of us who work. The $200,000.00 debt is the looming obligation of paying Social Security back to all those who it was taken from in the first place. The scary part is that there isn’t anything there. AT ALL…
As far as the amount of the surplus that Clinton bragged about when he left office, it was PROJECTED. In fact, it was projected on a model of growth that was even faster than during the dot-com boom, which, as we now know (and many of us did, even then), cannot be sustained, and wasn’t even real to begin with. (I’m pretty sure that last sentence is the most grammatically incorrect thing I’ve ever typed…). Anyway, to put it plain and simple:
THE BOOKS WERE COOKED. COOKED IN A WAY THAT MAKES ENRON LOOK LIKE LITTLE BO PEEP IN COMPARISON.
This is not just Klintoon’s fault, though. Congress is guilty, Bush is guilty, everyone in Washington is guilty. Heck, WE ARE GUILTY for letting them get away with it.
Sorry for the length of the reply…i’m out…
Kerry wins.
It’s expensive to maintain military forces strung out across the globe and intervene in other people’s strife. The government prints and borrows money faster than we can say 9/11. Why is that legal? Do they really know better than the rest of us how to spend the money they’re putting on credit? Normally when two or three or more people have a conflict we help them work it out, demanding that they each contribute something to the peace. If they aren’t willing, then you can’t force peace.
It struck me the other day how all this is debt and taxes seems related to the Stamp Tax in our nation’s history. Great Britain was struggling to pay for their military occupation in the colonies where they were trying to “protect” the colonies. In order to pay the price, they taxed the colonists. The colonists reviled the supporters of the Stamp Tax and refused to pay it. They wanted to defend themselves, which is much more affordable and fair. It would be better for the British soldiers’ families and more affordable for their citizens to limit their relationship with the colonists to free trade without restrictions.
Well, posted on this elsewhere also:
It’s funny, I was talking to an old friend of mine from college, he’s a computer whiz guy and also a young man who rediscovered his Christian faith (originally from the Bay Area in California), and he now lives in Italy. (He’s Italian-American so I guess that helped things out.)
The subject of the $9 trillion plus US National Debt came up, and he pointed out to me that the consequences of the Debt are going to be extremely ugly– our Treasury Bills “horizon” in about 10-15 years which means that, by around 2020, the “bill” on the debt comes due. Which means that all of us are going to have to pay it, and if you’re still in the USA at that time, it means that the average US household, by a *conservative* estimate, is going to owe close to $250,000 to pay off the debt!! Not even including personal debt such as college tuition!
That’s in fact one of the reasons my friend Mike has effectively emigrated to Italy, married there and is raising his kids there. If you’re stuck in the States when the National Debt Bill comes due, *you* will be paying for it! Apparently Europe, at least Continental Europe is finding its Christian heart again, much more than I thought, so Mike was perfectly comfortable there. Also, he’s earning a salary in Euros, much more valuable than dollars and a massive help financially for anyone in a technical and/or professional field! The only hassle he said was learning Italian in his case (as well as some German which seems to be a kind of Euro common language these days), which apparently wasn’t that hard after he moved. (Apparently, Britain or Australia is not an option– their debt is even worse than USA, and the UK especially is overcrowded.)
I wonder if I could do the same, I’m mostly Scotch-Irish though I guess there’s a German or Dutch great-grandfather in there somewhere, maybe could give me a pass to work in Germany if I could actually learn German. Which I’ve never been very good at doing.
Maybe I’m missing something, but just because debt comes due at a time certain doesn’t mean it cannot be refinanced. I would think, but maybe I am wrong, that the federal government refinances debt all the time — especially when interest rates are favorable. In reality, the national debt as a percent of gross domestic product is comparable to where it was at about the midpoint of the Clinton presidency. http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
The fact that the debt grew from $5.7 trillion to $10 trillion doesn’t mean anything unless it is placed in context of the size of the economy. Think of it this way, if my mortgage increases from $75,000 to $200,000, on the face of it, that sounds sort of bad. However, if my annual income increased from $50,000 to $150,000 over that time period, I have not necessarily been foolish with my money.
That’s the reason we have a housing crisis right now. People increased their debt as their home values increased. Then when home values decreased, they still owed the same amount of money, and could not refinance. If our economy slows down (and it is poised to do so, thanks to the constant bubbles that the Fed causes) then we may be in some major trouble. The only option is to drastically cut services at a federal level. People don’t want that. I guess the adage about democracy only working til people realize they can vote themselves the treasury, holds true.
From today’s NYT…
“Sports Reporters”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/business/media/24sportswriters.html?th&emc=th