If we default-poll

chickaree wrote: I really enjoy the intelligent, insightful discourse. It's refreshing how everyone weighs what the other side has to say. :/. Just like in D.C.

Well to be honest with you Chickaree, read this entire thread from the beginning and decide who was having real discussions and who jumped in with a one sentence "add nothing to the discussion insult" first. You decide.

PrintSmith wrote: Did we really take care of the Greatest Generation jmc? Did we bring them into our homes when they got old or move into theirs to take care of them as did generations past? Did we tend to their needs personally - or did we simply decide to pay some more in taxes and expect someone else to assume that duty with the money we provided and expect that others would do the same for us when our time came. Let's be honest jmc. The Boomers are perhaps the most selfish generation to exist thus far, and we've raised our offspring to be more selfish still. We decided that we couldn't be bothered to meet our obligations ourselves, so we borrowed a bunch of money so that we could pay someone else to meet them for us. We didn't want to bother donating time to charity, we asked the government, via our elected representatives, to borrow the money necessary to provide the charity and then oversee its dispersal. Harry Truman, a regressive's regressive fully committed to the folly of FDR's New Deal, vetoed an appropriations bill slated to give the Red Cross money from the federal coffers saying that private charities should rely on private donations. Now the federal government is handing out money to private charities like candy on Halloween. The private charities have become dependent upon the benevolence of the federal government because we have copped the attitude that government is responsible for doling out our charity. That is an abdication of our obligations, not a shouldering of them. The result of that abdication, and many, many more, is a federal deficit of over $14 Trillion and future unfunded liabilities that are nearly 8x that amount. All in 50 short years, not quite the span of my lifetime. There is nothing to be proud of here jmc, but plenty to be ashamed of.

That was worth quoting, very well said P.S.

I'm in awe of the fantasy world he lives in... And I'm forever glad that he hasn't got a chance of a snowball-in-hell of institutionalizing his selfish views into reality... I feel sorry for the sociopathic world he lives in.

PrintSmith wrote: Did we really take care of the Greatest Generation jmc? Did we bring them into our homes when they got old or move into theirs to take care of them as did generations past? Did we tend to their needs personally - or did we simply decide to pay some more in taxes and expect someone else to assume that duty with the money we provided and expect that others would do the same for us when our time came. Let's be honest jmc. The Boomers are perhaps the most selfish generation to exist thus far, and we've raised our offspring to be more selfish still. We decided that we couldn't be bothered to meet our obligations ourselves, so we borrowed a bunch of money so that we could pay someone else to meet them for us. We didn't want to bother donating time to charity, we asked the government, via our elected representatives, to borrow the money necessary to provide the charity and then oversee its dispersal. Harry Truman, a regressive's regressive fully committed to the folly of FDR's New Deal, vetoed an appropriations bill slated to give the Red Cross money from the federal coffers saying that private charities should rely on private donations. Now the federal government is handing out money to private charities like candy on Halloween. The private charities have become dependent upon the benevolence of the federal government because we have copped the attitude that government is responsible for doling out our charity. That is an abdication of our obligations, not a shouldering of them. The result of that abdication, and many, many more, is a federal deficit of over $14 Trillion and future unfunded liabilities that are nearly 8x that amount. All in 50 short years, not quite the span of my lifetime. There is nothing to be proud of here jmc, but plenty to be ashamed of.

I did take very good care of my father ,who worked 30 years in a steel factory, and got less than a $200 a month pension. I also contributed disproportionally to SS . No complaints just the dues we pay. I also paid for the education of other peoples children ( i have none) no complaints . It is part of living in a civalized society reather the tribal jungle you prefer. You should have been born 150 years ago, then you might be considered a civilized man. You are an anachronism that can't understand the modern world. I too sometimes wish for a simpler time but we can't turn the clock back. I feel sorry that you will always be bitter and out of sync with the world you live in. I am not ashamed of anything, I earned everything I have and have lived a pretty damn good life. Wear your shame all you want but I am leaving my world better than I entered it. Can you say the same?
Done for tonight I have modern things to do.

I am a little surprised at all the attacks on Printsmith. His ideas lean toward charity and personal responsiblity, not selfishness and sociopaths. If we stay on the path we are on, we are doomed. Don't you see that? The money is simply not there to pay for all the promises. I don't believe I will get the promised SS and Medicare because it was a bogus underfunded promise to begin with. You can demand it all you want as "fair", good luck!

Yeah, we shouldn't have passed the "G.I. Bill of Rights" that guaranteed all those guys in the "Greatest Generation" the chance to go to college; and the "VA Loan" programs that helped most of them buy their houses and start their families....(which included us selfish Baby Boomers)... Humbug... Those bastards should have done it all themselves, and it wasn't a government function to take those tax-dollars from us to pay for it....

I feel sorry for him too... He'll go to his grave feeling like he was "cheated"....

Like I said before, sometimes I think anthrax is a higher life-form on the evolutionary scale.

PrintSmith wrote:

Something the Dog Said wrote: But what of the 14th Amendment, Section 4? If Congress defaults on debts by not raising the debt ceiling, will they not be in violation of the Constitution?

As noted many times previously, the government can service its debt without defaulting and without raising the debt ceiling. It can't keep all of its social promises under such a scenario, but it can service the debt on the notes it has issued and still have lots of money left over, just not as much as it wants to have.

Please go back and read the title of this thread. I am responding to the premise of this thread.

I have to vehemently disagree with PS....I do NOT want to be taken care of by my children....I do not want to live with them or have them live with me....I value my independence and enjoy being able to take care of myself....my 93 yr old mother feels the same. SS and Medicare help us do that. I will fight anyone who tries to take away my way of life and my dignity that I worked so many years for. Its easy for some of you to wish you could foist all the seniors off onto their children so you can save a few bucks..fortunately our country recognized the contributions of seniors and rewards their years with dignity. It does not punish them with poverty and force them to live off their children or beg from strangers. Your world PrintSmith would not be a retirement I would relish.

I read the military and government workers to be one in the same. Military personnel are government workers...they just don't get paid overtime and don't have a union.

Why not cut out aid to foreign countries? I make sure I've paid what I have to pay (mortgage, utilities, food, and fuel) before I give my money away to friends & family.

Good... That's approximately a little less than one-percent of the budget... That will really help....

And to equate "military personnel" with "government workers as one and the same" for the purpose of calculating budget is laughable... Please tell me you didn't really mean that? The support required for military personnel in terms of bases, equipment, weapons arsenals, supplies, ad nausuem, .... You really think the TRILLIONS necessary for military has anything to do with "government workers", other than their paychecks come from the same treasury?

rofllol