Where is all our money?????

[truthreality]

Well, I guess technically no. I suppose I should have been saying "fiscal decisions." So, bad fiscal policy is the cause of debt. Not solely spending decisions.

This is not the only issue. We have accumulated debt over 50 years. On top of changing fiscal policy we have to solve the Debt crisis we are currently in.

[Yarn]

Debt interest payments are a significant portion of federal expenditure, but they leave the bulk of the question unanswered.

At the federal level most of the money goes towards health care and housing for the poor and old, pensions for the old, and the military. These are all incredibly huge endeavors, hence even with the enormous amounts of money the government collects, it still doesn't have enough. People hate taxes and people love services. So instead of just raising taxes or doing less, the government does more and borrows more. This is true pretty much everywhere, rich democracies almost never spend within their means. Efficiency is another matter, and has practical limits, but US politics resolves around size of government. Nuts and bolts are an after thought, and so are generally mismanaged.

[Zeebadee]

Debt interest payments are a significant portion of federal expenditure, but they leave the bulk of the question unanswered.

At the federal level most of the money goes towards health care and housing for the poor and old, pensions for the old, and the military. These are all incredibly huge endeavors, hence even with the enormous amounts of money the government collects, it still doesn't have enough. People hate taxes and people love services. So instead of just raising taxes or doing less, the government does more and borrows more. This is true pretty much everywhere, rich democracies almost never spend within their means. Efficiency is another matter, and has practical limits, but US politics resolves around size of government. Nuts and bolts are an after thought, and so are generally mismanaged.

By "pensions for the old", I assume you mean Social Security. Seems to me that if the politicians hadn't replaced all the SS contributions with treasury notes, we would be making those payments from accounts with positive balances in them. That would decrease the federal budget by about 20%.

[Yarn]

By "pensions for the old", I assume you mean Social Security. Seems to me that if the politicians hadn't replaced all the SS contributions with treasury notes, we would be making those payments from accounts with positive balances in them. That would decrease the federal budget by about 20%.

Very true. The politicians realized they could get more votes by tapping into those funds rather than raising taxes or reducing services. And apparently it worked for them elsewise people who were for doing the right thing would've been elected.

[NoJingoLingo]

No you wouldn't. Either prices skyrocket or wages tank.



Yes, what's your point?

Yes you would and the history of our country proves that. Now the cons have busted unions and outsourced the rest of the of middle class jobs and look at the poverty level and income disparity.

My point is that there are a lot more Americans working for minimum wage and that wage puts them BELOW the poverty line.

[grandpa]

Yes you would and the history of our country proves that. Now the cons have busted unions and outsourced the rest of the of middle class jobs and look at the poverty level and income disparity.

My point is that there are a lot more Americans working for minimum wage and that wage puts them BELOW the poverty line.

Some people are trying to change all that:
"While it has been widely written and discussed that Occupy Wall Street and the broader Occupy movement are at their core, fundamentally anarchist projects, very little has been written from the inside about the experiences of activists and organizers working under the Occupy banner who identify as such. While Occupy tends to operate on core anarchist structures and principles, and many of the initial organizers of OWS were indeed self-identified anarchists, the movement is losing its most experienced and radical elements at a rapid pace and many Occupy encampments and assemblies never had an experienced anarchist core to begin with."
Anarchists and the Occupy Movement | Seeds of Resistance

[NoJingoLingo]

Unfortunately, Anarchists will never gain support from the general populace because the general populace is too dumb to understand what anarchy means in a political sense. They only think it means chaos, confusion and disorder.