All My so-called "friends" are GOP/Tea baggers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:where has your head been buried? all the tea party folks talk about is the deficit and the federal budget, and the defense spending is a huge part of the budget.

That's a dodge. The question was why don't they mention defense in particular, instead of much smaller programs, or deficit-friendly Obamacare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes, obviously we need to raise taxes. but we also need to cut $750B from the federal budget, so cannot afford the above. do you realize our balance sheet is worse than Spain and almost as bad as Greece? it could be lights out for our kids if we don't cut spending and raise taxes asap.

This is silly. You're obviously far outside of mainstream tea party - or libertarian, for that matter - ideology now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I asked my friends to balance the budget using the NYTimes Budget Puzzle, none of them would do it.

Hadn't seen that before - cool, if limited. It was also shockingly easy, for me. I created a significant surplus, then went back to undo changes and found that I still liked all my selections. It's amazing what you can do if you tax insanely rich people a little bit. (Though 25% of my gains came from cuts, for the record.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes, obviously we need to raise taxes. but we also need to cut $750B from the federal budget, so cannot afford the above. do you realize our balance sheet is worse than Spain and almost as bad as Greece? it could be lights out for our kids if we don't cut spending and raise taxes asap.

This is silly. You're obviously far outside of mainstream tea party - or libertarian, for that matter - ideology now.

no, tea party ideology is to get rid of the deficit, and they are on record saying defense has to be part of the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes, obviously we need to raise taxes. but we also need to cut $750B from the federal budget, so cannot afford the above. do you realize our balance sheet is worse than Spain and almost as bad as Greece? it could be lights out for our kids if we don't cut spending and raise taxes asap.

This is silly. You're obviously far outside of mainstream tea party - or libertarian, for that matter - ideology now.

no, tea party ideology is to get rid of the deficit, and they are on record saying defense has to be part of the process.

No - the taxes. You're going to tell us that tea partiers support raising taxes?

And BTW, I'll believe the part about cutting the military significantly when I see it. You still haven't answered the question asked about why they don't talk about that much, given how big a part of the budget it is, and how much easier it would be to save money there than, say, in repealing the health insurance law.

[Anonymous]

lots of fat in defense, certainly. but we are fighting two wars and need to maintain security given the islamic threat. so not a whole lot we can do until those wars are over and the terrorism threat has been diminished. a lot easier to cut medicare/SS and not implement obamacare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:please give me a few good reasons as to why we need a federal department of education? where are these federal elementary schools or federal universities?

Hope you don't have any special needs children! Pretty much all the SPED money comes from the feds. SPED and Title I funding (for poor kids) is really the bulk of federal education spending. The last couple years, there has been more competitive grants, but that is still a tiny percentage.

I have a good friend who is super conservative whose daughter is SPED. She is always going on about too much government spending and people who depend on the government. Meanwhile, her family uses more federal dollars than anyone I know. I wish all the best for her daughter, so I don't care, but it's just ironic.

Actual federal funding (again mostly for SPED though IDEA, and Title I) only makes up something like 7% of a school's budget.

But, of course, most tea baggers could care less about people who are in any different than them, so I doubt this will change your mind.

sorry, cannot afford that any longer. $14T in debt.

This is the thing that tea baggers that makes me sick to my stomach--education for special ed kids is somehow considered "optional." I wonder how you would feel if someone proposed eliminating your child's education.

[Anonymous]

there are going to be LOTS of painful cuts. get used to it. charities will have to step it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:there are going to be LOTS of painful cuts. get used to it. charities will have to step it up.

Let's just have private charities educate all children. Public schools are an unnecessary luxury.

[Anonymous]

The tea partier in this thread - who is now haunting other threads, I'm sorry to say - is just doing what they all do. They rant and complain about these political issues that drive them nuts (<cough>the president's black<cough> but never lay out a plan of action based on real numbers.

BTW, the one in this thread is a religious homophobe and a global warming denier. You know - because the Tea Party is a grass roots uprising with a brand new perspective.