yes.

1) i have a perhaps irrational hatred of deficit spending. maybe i might be okay with a little of it, but a $3.7T budget when we're already in massive debt? too much for me. id prefer to scale it back to less than $1T this year, and within 5 years have it be in the positive.

2) it's not that im a jerkface who wants people to lose their jobs. i perhaps naively think that the private sector can replace those jobs, and provide similar services more efficiently than a corrupt/wasteful govt can.

Yes.

Defense spending needs to be seriously reigned in, and it's needed it for awhile. Either cut military jobs, or bring our fighting men and women back home and have them work to rebuild OUR country, not somebody elses.

I'm sure you know my thoughts on private sector vs. public sector.

im just waiting for veta to spring his trap on us with a link to wikipedia.

Yes, but first I would cut spending on benefits.

No trap I just wanted Thraxle to know why the Republicans are going to get reamed in the next election.

Also I'm pretty sure it was the conservatives who said "deficits don't matter". It probably had something to do with their fiscal strategy of "starving the beast". Which if you don't know basically they were purposefully being irresponsible with our money so that later they could justify cutting whatever they wanted under the guise of taming excessive spending. Genius really...

But yeah I agree, extending tax cuts and therefore perpetuating the deficit was a terrible idea. The last President we had that ran on a surplus was Clinton, so my guess is since you guys care so much about fiscal responsibility you're probably big Clinton fans too. If you are, then I guess we have some common ground.

Anyway, I think it was Robert Keynes that said when in recession it was the government's job to supplant the loss of private jobs and spending until the economy has recuperated. You guys know who Robert Keynes is right?

Anyway this is all besides the point because arguably motives are transparent here. It is the orthodox policy of conservatives to do whatever they can to undermine economic recovery until the next election. If you want me to back that claim up I'll pull up a lot of wikipedia articles or something, but it should be pretty obvious that the minority party always wants the majority party to fail.

The point of this tirade is so that I can segue into this question: are you going to vote for someone who has their party's self interest in mind or someone who has the nation's self interest in mind, regardless of what party benefits from this?

Skrum, do you include subsidies to corporate interests benefits? Or only entitlements that go to an individual. No troll, serious question.

I don't know a Robert Keynes but maybe he is a lost twin brother of John Maynard Keynes whose theory is taught as the standard in macroeconomics principles courses. In a recession, orthodox Keynesian fiscal policy is to increase spending or ........

cut taxes.

Sam,

At the state level, benefits usually are paid to individuals. I am specifically referring to the situation in Wisconsin where the state funds the employees' health insurance.

My bad I mixed up John Keynes with my friend's internship at Robert Keynes: http://www.rkinvf.com/

But yeah you get my point.

Um so state employees shouldn't have their employer contribute to their health coverage?

Also you aren't a fan of entitlements, I understand why and while I disagree I respect your choice to believe that.

I was simply asking if you consider corporate subsidies entitlements as well. Or you can dodge the question again.