Middleoftheroad
Active Member
I agree with you that moderates do have conviction in this country. Our country has going steadily for the last 100 years towards left wing totalitarianism, clearly the "moderate" is left. They want the same things the left want, they just want to slow it down. Even right of center Republicans support preserving and expanding welfare programs like Social Security. The moderates just say slow down a bit to the left and then think to themselves how they're "reasonable." But when you're on a railroad track only changing your speed, you will at some point arrive in the same station.
simply put, wrong.
Speaking as a moderate, my personal beliefs is that the government should keep spending at around 18-20%. This is not a temporary view, it is a long term view that I have always had. This basically means that the government can't get any bigger then it already is.
Right now we're at 25% on a cash basis. With unfunded liabilities it's far higher then that and has been for a long time and we're printing money like crazy which isn't counted either and should be. Unfunded liabilities and printing money are the primary ways the left has continually moved us to the left with socialist dependency programs like Social Security and Medicare. They commit us to socialism and the moderates are silent because cash expenditures don't sound as high as what we've committed ourselves to. Then one day the actual bills come...and it's too late...
A moderate who practiced what you preach would be hysterical right now and think the tea party's not going far enough because we are way, way past 18-20% in real spending and it's going up not down.
I dunno if I would say "hysterical". Does it need to be cut down? Obviously. And I think they made a lot of progress towards during the debt ceiling debate, I think the final numbers were 2.4T over ten years or on average of 240B a year.
But the main problem I see with the deficit is the economy. That is what they should be focusing on, creating jobs. I think I read that the 99 week unemployment was costing the government roughly 160B dollars a year, if you put people back to work that number will go down, thats the best way of cutting a deficit, because it increases revenues (without increasing taxes) and it decreases spending (without cutting benefits). And once unemployment numbers start going down significantly the dems wont be able to keep that 99 weeks going, and it will have to go back to 26 weeks.