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	Name:	MartiniMan -
	Subject:	I don't think so....
	Date:	8/8/2011 12:14:48 PM

Not sure where you read this but facts are stubborn things and here are the facts. Democrats originally proposed $0 in spending reductions in their original proposal. S&P and other rating agencies stated before the downgrade that "spending needed to be cut by $4 trillion" in order to provide a credible first step in maintaining our AAA rating. Democrats fought spending reductions every step of the way and in fact, had it not been for "Tea Party" freshmen in the House we would have had zero in cuts and the credit rating drop would have been a fait accompli and likely much worse. Here is the rationale provided by S&P to refute your cherry picking of a single point. By the way, cherry picking doesn't work on this forum....too many educated people.

"We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade."

Now let's see, they mention reduction in spending first and for good reason and mention the revenue side more as an afterthought. In 1902 revenue to the Federal government was at ~3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Today it is running at over 30% of GDP. So under our current tax laws revenues are not the problem, spending is the problem and the GOP did what they could, given only controlling the House to reduce spending. The government takes in way more of our hard earned dollars than they should but they piss it all away like drunken sailors (my apologies to drunken sailors everywhere). The fact is we could greatly improve our debt situation simply by returning to the spending levels of 2006. AS best I can recall, things were pretty good back then and the roof didn't fall in.