Newsflash: FCC Shows Interest In....Factual Broadband Data → Re: If the facts dont fit...

According to figures I've seen, only about 19% of US govt spending is both discretionary and unrelated to defense/'war on terror'/etc.

And non-discretionary things like Medicare and Social Security are growing at rates that are multiples of everything else.

This being the case, you could cut ALL of the discretionary spending not related to defense and security -- all transportation spending, all non-legal and non-defense regulatory spending on things like FDA, OSHA, FTC, FCC, EPA, welfare, etc. -- and we'd still be in a huge hole, budget-wise.

Make no mistake, drastic debts require drastic measures to pay for them. There's a lot of fat wrapped up in various pieces of government. Tightening the belt isn't palatable for some, but there are a lot of programs that can be downsized or cut altogether. Federal jobs would most likely need to be cut along with several social and other government programs. None of which will be tolerated by special interests in Washington, so I predict continued growth in our debt.

Yes, but even if all the discretionary parts of the budget were comprised of 50% waste, you'd only be able to shave about 10% of the bottom line. That might get us just about to the black now, or slightly above the line, but at the rate entitlements are growing we'd be in the same position in a few years.

I'm talking more than just shaving discretionary spending That's also why I said it won't be tolerated by special interests groups.

You are right. The obvious places where there is money to be shaved from the federal budget -- social security, Medicare, and defense -- are the ones with the widest, best organized lobbies, and the ones for whom people who'd go after them would be most susceptible to demagoguery by their defenders.

I really don't see a solution. I think the entire country is going to have to go through a California-style fiscal meltdown before anything is done to get the budget in order. Cutting spending is politically untenable, as is raising taxes, the baby boomer retirement wave is just at its beginning, so things are just going to keep getting worse until the dollar and the market for US securities collapse, and we wake up one day in late-80's Argentina with hyperinflation and a government whose finances have completely collapsed.

I personally am glad that my family still has a large tract of rural land, and I still remember how to farm from my boyhood days. I think they are going to come in handy some day pretty soon.

I could cite data demonstrating the absolute idiocy of your doom and gloom predictions but I really feel like I'd be wasting my time talking into a wall.

As for openbox, I'm sure you'd love to cut socialistic programs. That would help the rich a great deal wouldn't it?

I'm not rich by any stretch, nor am I benefiting from any social programs, so it's not just the rich that benefit. While there are no doubt beneficial social programs funded by our fed government, more often than not the programs appear abused and wasteful.

Given that we have had no interaction whatsoever of which I am aware, I don't believe you have a basis upon which to assess my willingness to listen to any data you might cite.

Further, based on this, your first and only message to me of which I am aware, you seem to me to be a person prone to making snap judgments and forming unwarranted opinions based on insufficient data.

This in turn causes me to have some doubt as to whether any data you might cite might actually demonstrate what you believe it does.

But please feel free. I am always willing to learn, even from people as uncivil as you seem to be from your first message to me.