Jim C

The graph that Lex links to is debt as a percentage of GDP. Do you think that GDP during those years could have had anything to do with what’s charted on that graph? For instance, the plateau during the clinton years… do you think that could have had anything to do with the dotcom boom or the tech bubble during that time?

Also, it’s worth it to recognise that we have had a war on the last six years. It seems to me that that will play a rather large part in the national debt.

I also will mention that those social programs that you are so fond of won’t make a bit of difference to anyone if we are attacked by a foreign power.

Jim C

Overall, this sounds like the hardware equivalent of the old saw comparing the prices of training and ignorance. Either way, we’ll deserve what we get in the end. It’d be nice though if the Government gets out of the poverty-purchasing market and starts investing in defending its citizens.

It’s almost midnight in my fair city of Rochester, and it has been rather a full day culminating with an evening at the Philormonic Pops concert – Irish tenor night, and some step dancing. The old rum sodden mind just cannot handle a discourse on conundrums, enigmas, or dilemma after an evening of visual and auditory delights. I will settle on real problems.

First, I will like to present you with a simple graph compiled by Paul Krugman, who admittedly is a highly suspect center left Economist.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/drunken-sailor-watch/
He links to the source of his data, so we can take a look at where his claim that “what has actually happened under Bush is a surge in military spending, an increase in Medicare costs, and not much else”. Thus, all this hype about “earmarks” is nothing but a shell game, distract watchers with the left hand, while the right is in the till…

Turns out he, and many others have pointed out that Social Security is not a brake the bank issue. That was settled during 2006 election, unfortunately, a bi-partisan attempt to ameliorate the lingering problem has proven impossible.

Back to the National debt. You either say it ain’t no problem, or you recognize that we are slowly crawling our way to “Don’t Cry for me Argentina”. The falling dollar has already impacted our trade relations with Canada:
http://www.badcyclopedia.com/high-canadian-dollar-hurts-sales-of-premium-bc-pot-in-us/
It is clear from your post that raising taxes is not an option. Take a look at your graph one last time, the red line of National Debt that is going straight up started with the Reagan Tax cuts, briefly plateau and dip down during the Clinton years, and resumed its inexorable climb with the Bush Tax cuts. We either start paying now, or we hand it over to our children…

Hate to bring up my pappy, but he used to say: “You get what you pay for”. Guess what, you do not pay by stealing from the social programs that help glue our society together.

Also go look at the shipbuilding with DDG-1000 and the LCS and the next gen cruiser taking forever to develop and field. In contrast the PRAN has developed the Luyang II class destroyer with the equilivant of an early aegis radar in less then 2 years ! We need to pull our head out of our butt and keep pushing ahead or else were going to get a black eye in the future.

I think there is nothing wrong with advanced technology since “quality has a quantity all its own.” However we must have the numbers available to be able to cover a larger area and be able to absorb losses…. The old adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket!”