Lyn, I just know what years my bank account was flush and what years it was not. I'm sure your facts and figures are correct and for the average Joe, my "opinions" are just that.
As far as defense spending, we used to be the worlds only super power and the rest of the world did not need to spend as much because we where the worlds police man. Comparing us to other countries is pointless. It would be like if we went to dinner and you picked up the check I could say I have a better spending habit than you.
In this scenario, it would be more like if one of us forced another person to pick up the check. Since that's what the reference was- spending other people's money. We have budgets where $600 billion+ is given to the military and then Congress wants to put more in. Reduce costs elsewhere, but spend more on war.
If we're going to be the world's police man, there's a cost associated with that. Combining that with low tax rates is a recipe for financial problems.
I have always said that we need to get the Republicans to vote to increase taxes to pay for a war they want or we sit on the side line. They should put up or shut up. Either way we will fight less wars or at least pay for them.
I want you to understand that I love to flex our military muscle and intimidate tyrants. I don't mind kicking some butt from time to time. What I do mind is occupying a country for ten years. It is a waste of time, lives and money.
I do support war taxes. Even more than that, I support staying out of war whenever possible, because I don't view humans as chess pieces and don't particularly have much interest in deciding who gets to go die for a cause, unless the facts are overwhelmingly on one side, or if it's a surgical enough strike that risk of volunteer soldier causalities is low. If you served in Vietnam, I'm sure you would be inclined for people to want to be very cautious with how they use troops, how they use other peoples' lives.
But if we're going to enter a war, let's pay for it.
I know that oppinions are like buttholes and we all have one. But the oppinion of some folks carries more weight than others. Having made millions in my life time and saved and invested wisely, when I speak from experience, you cannot dismis it as "just my opinion" like that of a 20 year old student.
You have grown up with the internet and have access to facts and figures and frankly are much smarter than me. I don't spew google with every post I make or fact check every thing I say. I remember that day 25 years ago when this President did this or that. I actually was in the stock market before it hit 2000 not just googled it and looked at some chart. I served in Vietnam, not just read a book or watched a movie about it. I actually have an MBA and speak from my own personal experience about owing businesses and how sucessful they where during certain years. In other words, I don't have to see how the others did during a certain time, I just know what Presidencies where good to me and what ones hung me out to dry.
You can call B.S. on me all you like or dismiss me with a stroke of a keyboard. You can find charts that shows my milage has varied from the average Joe. I realise I may be the exception and not the rule and your facts glare in the face of my real experience.
The thing is, I'm not just blowing smoke out my butt, I'm speaking from real life experiences.
I have a feeling that you are going to be super successful in your life time. In later years people will confront you and say, you never should have made it, it sucked way back then. You will be speaking from experience while they will be pulling out their 3d pie charts.
Suppose I can't pay my rent in a given month, with earned income. But I say, don't worry, I got this, and pay for it with a credit card. Problem solved, right? Then someone later says that was a pretty bad month, and I say, I'm not sure what you're talking about- it was great! I lived through it, and we got everything paid.
But of course, it wasn't great. Anecdotal experiences don't change the facts. I'm not surprised that in certain periods in the past, people were pretty satisfied with the economy. But if those were during periods when national debt was increasing substantially, like during Reagan's presidency which many current Republicans look favorably towards, then they basically match this example; they benefited in the present at the cost of the future.
This is why I ask things like what period Republicans look back on as having been an ideal one, because for the most part, they seem to choose Reagan and his period of large debt increase. I'm sure it must have felt great for some people, but experiences of living through it don't account for the quantitative assessment of what it did to our debt, that it's not a sustainable solution even if there were advantages to portions of it, etc.
I'm certainly interested in experiences of older generations, like my elderly father who is old enough that he voted for Eisenhower during his second term, and is a life long Republican that talks all the time today about how disappointed he is with the current direction of the Republican party, and how he's having to vote Democrat recently because politics have shifted so far to the right, and that the current Democrats are like the old-school Eisenhower-type Republicans that he actually supports. But for him, the long term quantitative facts I can find do indeed support his observations.
I'm not interested in calling B.S. on you or dismiss you, as you say, but rather, interested in contesting needlessly aggressive
posts that go after the character of other members rather than their arguments, and that dismiss
them.
If rational political solutions are going to be reached, sticking strictly to party lines, being uncompromising, ignoring the downsides and costs associated with previous partial successes, and assuming without facts that political opponents are mainly just broke unsuccessful people, are things that should likely be avoided.
Analyzing previous political implementations with a critical and as objective an eye as is possible, is important, and so is assessing an argument rather than creating a false caricature of a debate opponent to go after.
