Why not cut spending instead of raising taxes?

But then what would all the loafers,losers and leeches living off the taxpayer do?

RWE

Oh, gee, nobody ever thought of that before. The problem is that it sounds easy to cut spending but when it comes time to decide on what to cut the simplicity vanishes and the hard choices can't be agreed on. Waste is an obvious area but finding that won't balance the budget.

For instance, when Clinton presided over a balanced budget he was lambasted by the conservatives for his relatively modest cuts in military spending. Every known negative epithet was thrown out there against him. When Republicans were in charge they found it extremely difficult to cut social programs without doing some very real damage to real people. Instead, they cut taxes and increased social program spending as long as it benefited some of their favored businesses. The dire results are what we are dealing with now.

Talk is cheap. Concrete proposals are rare because neither major party likes the criticism that goes along with effective spending cuts. Therefore taxes have to be raised to cover the expenditures.

Because it is VERY difficult to cut spending...

It means, alienating those, who are already receiving monies from the government. It means, cutting budgets of agencies and laying off the federal employees -- further increasing the unemployment.

And so on... We have to make raising taxes more difficult... And then we have to make borrowing from the future more difficult still.

as someone who lives on disability and barely gets by every month, i have a suggestion where they could begin to make cuts. congress in their infinite wisdom, froze the cost of living increase for this yr. and next yr. yet they got their automatic raise. if my costs didn't rise why did theirs? when i did get an increase in 09 it was $18 per month, their increase was $3000/month. the one reason unemployment isn't higher is they've grown govt. where we that short handed before stimulus was passed? why do govt. agencies get budget increases every yr. if costs aren't rising? i heard marco rubio on tv the other day say that one way to cut costs or spending is that for every 2 govt. employees that retire, only 1 is replaced. there is nothing that is going to solve the problem overnight but we have to start somewhere.

That's what intelligent Conservatives have been saying for years. Unfortunately, Liberals like Nasty Peelousy keep saying we can't afford to pay for the spending cuts......WHAT???

Something else to remember: Everytime the Republicans have tried to cut the rate of GROWTH of any given federal program, the Libs claim they are trying to cut the program in its entirety. Just think about the last time it was tried with the school lunch program, they equated limiting the growth of the money laid out, to a cut in the money laid out.

Go ahead and now try doing the hard part friend. Any one can say "oh we should cut spending and waste! That will take care of it!" and then pat themselves on the back for their genius.

But how about instead of saying "lets cut spending!!! Yeah!!!" you actually list some things that you think we should cut?

Politicians love to talk about cutting spending, but when it comes time to actually choose things to cut it turns out that there are PEOPLE USING THOSE PROGRAMS and they don't want them to be cut.

Why do you think republicans say "cut spending, cut spending" and then don't list anything that they are going to cut? Simple, because they don't want to alienate the people that need those programs.

Why don't you man up and give us your ideas of precisely what needs to be cut, and how you would go about getting people to agree with you, or is that too much thought?

It would certainly be better than your pointless "hey lets cut spending guys! Who agrees with me the most!?"

conservatives just like that there still be spending to answer the deficit problem you need to cut spending and raise taxes on the 2% of american like bill gates and oprah that will make deficit go a lot faster

You can't buy political capital if you are not spending the tax payers money.

I wish they would cut spending. I don't see either party doing it.

Define the waste... Teacher pay, healthcare for the poor and elderly, unemployment beneifts, building roads? Healthcare assistance for the unemployed?

That's like 90% of the stimulus right there. I guess start cutting.

Because the the dems will loose influence over those dependent upon the government.