The $600B question ...

That's what I'm saying. "Affording it" means we pay for it. In other words, if we Americans want to provide tuition-free college, we can. But the money cannot be provided by "someone else" or by waving the magic wand of deficit spending. We have to be willing to pay for it (afford it). If we want government to pay for college tuition, then we, collectively, must choose to give that money to government so they can do it.

I prefer the term "realistic" rather than "flippant". IMO, too many people want this or that from government, but they are not realistic.

Well, as you probably know, for most people, the spending of money is a question of priorities. Most people have limits to what they can spend, and so they prioritize their spending by deciding what is most important to them. They use their money for their most important things, and if that uses up their available money, the lesser important things don't get bought. So on this question of free tuition, that's what it comes back to. If we as a country, (or a state) decide to provide free tuition, we are going to have to be willing to do without something else because this is going to take a priority in our spending choices. Each one of us who earns money is going to buy this free tuition for college students, leaving us with less money than if we didn't buy it. I'm not saying that's a bad thing; I'm being realistic. It's a choice. We can afford it. For most of us - whose means are limited - it would just mean that something else wouldn't get bought, and it would remain on the wish list.

So when I said that if we want it we can have it if we're willing to pay for it, and when I said that if we're not willing to pay for it, we can't have it ...... that's what I meant.

 

No, not the UN.

That is precisely the place where a UN-force (with teeth) should be established. At present, of the UN policing (for instance parts of Palestine contiguous to Israel) damn few soldiers have loaded guns.

Also, before you disarm all those countries, get China to go along as well.

Good luck with that one ...

 

We learned from WW2 its far better to stop little wars in little countries than to let the liberal disease spread until we are attacked at home. Do you understand?

 

good point, the people who want a college degree and are qualified to get one should pay for it rather than force at gun point those who don't want one and are not qualified to pay for somebody elses. It would be immoral discrimination but perfectly liberal

 

We didn't learn anything like that.

 

WE, THE SHEEPLE

Mindsets must change in America, and I am a Yank who has lived in a "better world". One where the emphasis is not necessarily on money, money, money. (Profits, profits, profits.)

But upon lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle. Europeans have not caught the American "bug" of looking at their portfolio value at the end of every day to find out "How am I doing?" Wealth is not everything. Lifestyle (quality of life) is and always will be the more important value.

It may not impress you to know that the Poverty Threshold in Europe and the US are about the same. That is, in the 14/15% for both entities. BUT, in Europe if you've got a real health-problem you go to a National Health Service and you'd get help (that is nearly free of any fee-cost). And your kids would get a post-secondary education government-paid as well to assure you that they don't have to live the indignity that has befallen their parents.

If you think HealthCare and Education are two of the most important "passive expenditures" of our government, given that the DoD is an "active expenditure" (because it faces constant external threats to the nation), then you are not like most Yanks.

We grew up thinking that our parents should shoulder the cost of a Tertiary-Level degree. Mine did. Then, when that was no longer feasible (because private schools started skyrocketing their tuitions), the responsibility was passed to the children themselves (to find a financial solution). Of course, most of them went into debt to do so.

We give our high-schoolers nowadays upon graduation the choice of either:
*nothing at all, or
*maybe a car or even a super sportscar with which to parade around the neighborhood, or
*perhaps a postsecondary degree with which to better their Income Perspectives.

Around 45% of them avail themselves of the first two options, thus incarcerating themselves in an income-level somewhere below the annual Individual Median Income of $54K!

Oh well, such is life (in America) today and tomorrow. It is also, to my mind, a great come down from where we were just 30 years ago.

And for what? Both the old- and new-rich get richer and the poor become road-kill on the highway of life.

Why? Because we, the sheeple, are too meek to vote and actually change things. So, more or less, we deserve what we get. Nada, niente, nichts, rien, zip, tipota.

 

Thomas Jefferson found out that kind of thinking just didn't work. Read about the Barbary pirates.

 

Jefferson didnt order Lt. O'Bannon to North Africa because the pirates were attacking French shipping.

 

Regardless, French shipping was protected by the actions. Like it or not, the earth is all connected, and we can't ignore things that occur outside of our borders.

 

Why not? Everything we need can be sourced here, or we can trade for it like we do now. Why do we need our military all over the globe to do that? Why do we need to send billions of dollars in taxpayer money to failed states?

 

sure we did we learned from Pearl Harbor and 9/11 that it is better to stop the liberals offshore rather than wait for them to attack the homeland.

 

I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.

 

The most dangerous thing to long term national security is the national debt.

Why specifically? Because at some point there is going to have to come massive cuts, and those will include cuts to the military budget. You can only kick the can down the road so long.
There's a lot of ignorant people who believe we can keep spending money we don't have without there ever being a reckoning. Brain dead people. Like protesters in Greece. You never saw them complaining when the Greek government was spending with reckless abandon, but as soon as massive cuts had to be imposed on social programs, they went absolutely berserk.

Well it will be the same with conservatives. Spend now, but don't be surprised when there have to be ruinous cuts at a future point in time.

 

I think base housing is about to be outsourced to Trump Troop-Tels, Inc.

More seriously, no I was kind of serious about that part, but more directly, we really should find a way to extract some domestic benefit from having a labor force this large soaking up so much of the budget. A lot of the crap that gets done is just make-work.

 

Or the price remains the same allowing greater profits due to greater consumption. It seldom, if ever, results in maker things less costly.

 

We should have ignored Iraq. But a crazed PotUS wanted to show the world who's Numero Uno. Syria is beyond repair as well but only because Putin wants to protect Russia' Mediterranean port in Latakia - hometown (btw) of the Assad Family.

So, thousands of American military personnel died uselessly. Iraq is a mess and will remain a mess for many years to come. Ditto Syria.

We should get the hell out of the Middle-east until the Chiites and the Sunnites can settle their differences that began in a schism between the two religions 13 centuries ago ... !

PS: The Protestant and Catholic wars in France lasted most of the 17th century, which was already a good lesson to any of jerk-PotUS who wanted get involved in such a war. Also England, where both religious "tribes" massacred one another in the name of "God"!
PPS: And when we finally get rid of the petrol-engine as a major means of transportation, the entire Middle-eat can rot in its religious fratricide.

 

Don't understand what you're saying.

It's an historical reference of no relevance today in any case. We've been in and out of both continents - Europe and Asia - over the past century to fight wars. Some were necessary (Hitler, Hirohito) others most certainly not.

And anyone who thinks we are "keeping the peace in the world" at a cost of 54% of our Discretionary Budget, then I ask them to "think of the alternative usage of the money in educating our youth so that they pursue a fulfilling career" rather than turning to crime.

Here is the murder rate* per country list (rating highest to lowest crime rates) - so why is the US the highest developed, supposedly "mature" country on that list. The US is 14th on the list, whilst comparably the UK is 71st, Germany 73rd and France 75th ...

*Intentional homicide, number and rate per 100,000 population

 

I'm saying we didn't attack the pirates because they were attacking others, we hit them because they were attacking our shipping and holding our sailors for ransom.

Agreed

We already spend more per capita for k-12 education than countries that are far superior to us in education. The problem is the quality of the teachers, students, and system, not funding.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

People turn to crime for a lot of reasons, mostly cultural. The number of dollars in the discretionary budget has no real effect on it, and never will.

Again, this has nothing to do with the discretionary budget.

 

And so? Those were the rules of play at that time.

The rules have changed. We are in NATO nowadays ...

 

HOW THE COOKIE CRUMBLES

Well, it's not enough on a national level.

The cities and states are incapable of achieving a satisfactory level of education at the secondary-school level. So, what's a country do? Throw up its hands, walk away saying, "Well, that's how the cookie crumbles"?

Where there's a will there's a way. In the minds of most developed people on earth, Education and Health Care are prime responsibilities assured by the national government.

And so?

So, the US federal government should interfere by setting up standards of Secondary Educational Quality and measure each state against those standards - as a counterpart to federal assistance in either building schools or salaries or whatever is deemed necessary. And, not at just any cost.

We perhaps do not want a National Secondary School System, but we need further funding to support state-administered quality secondary education; and at present it aint nearly enough when one considers total expenditure as a part of the National Budget Pie. (The question of National Secondary Education is answered in this long but interesting resumé document here: REVIEW OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 2005 - which is far too hairy to explain/discuss in this forum.)

Some people do not understand the correlation between Educational Attainment and Well-being. Because of (1) Long-term incarceration below the Poverty Threshold, (2) Unable to attain a postsecondary degree because Private Institutes of higher learning have increased costs wildly, and (3) the sad fact that fully 45% of our kids will never obtain a post-secondary education necessary for a decent life style in this new Information Age of ours.

In a nation as rich as ours there is simple NO EXCUSE for such inadequate performance. Far poorer nations in Europe are providing Primary through Tertiary Education free-of-charge or almost free-of-charge ...

PS: This present excuse of a Secretary of Education* has her roots as an entrepreneur in private secondary schooling. Just what the hell can we expect from a billionaire except favoritism to fee-paid private schooling? Which means one and only one thing: "If you can afford it, ya got it. Otherwise, go to hell!"

*See here.

 

This is true the United States spends far more on education and healthcare than the rest of the world and gets much worse results but because the Liberal government is so heavily involved we get the worst results in these two industries where government involvement is the greatest . Capitalism and charter schools and vouchers would make these two industries as successful as all of our other world leading industries. This is so painfully obvious that all can understand it but liberals Who will remain the sole source of evil in the world.

 

You can rent and rave all you want. It still doesn't change the fact that education is a problem because of poor quality parents, poor quality teachers, and a bloated and terribly run bureaucracy behind it.

If you want to get into specifics we can, but I doubt you do. The specifics all point to 1 thing, 1 bad management of public money.

 

exactly, and, the liberal war on our families sends kids to school from broken or never formed homes wholly unprepared to learn. ON top of that, many blacks for example consider it "white" to learn and to be good students.

 

And its' still all fact. Obama helped create ISIS by arming Syrian Islamic state members that want to overthrow the Syrian govt. Why do we want to do this? Ask McCain

 

That's an extravagance we can no longer afford.

Perhaps one day the Left will finally awaken the American middle-class to the tremendous rip-off that upper-income taxation provides for the simply- and super-rich thereby depriving them (of a National HealthCare System) and their children (of a free Tertiary Education).

But, as long as we remain befuddled and away from the polls on election day*, forget it. We're in for the more-of-the-same as we are getting now from Donald Dork.

I frankly could care less - I live in France and intend to remain here. (French TV did a report interviewing Americans living in Paris because Donald Trump was invited to the July 14 French Independence Day parade down the Champs Elysees. Four against and 1 four - the "one for" being the head of the French "Republican Club!")

*For all the pissing-'n-moaning in this forum about politics, we are amongst the worst voters on this planet (and certainly the worst of any developed nation). See here: OECD Voter Turnout Rates by Country. Look down at the bottom for the US.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps one day the able will actually work to help those that can't. We will start there.