big *promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, April 24th, 2010 2:34pm PDT - promote requested by dystopianfuturetoday.

Good point on military spending;

"I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.." -Mark Twain

I like how he said defense in quotations. I've often heard seemingly intelligent Americans speaking of the troops in Iraq/Afghanistan say that they're "fighting for our freedom."

It's clearly not the military's job to keep American citizens safe today. The best defense against terrorist attacks at the moment seems to be the airport security. The military is just an alternative to diplomacy in foreign affairs.

Bangarang, Bill Maher!

Dwight Eisenhower warned of the military/industrial complex nearly 50 years ago, but nobody in government is going to cut spending and force thousands of workers out of their jobs to save the rest of us. It'll look bad when old people and teabaggers go to vote.

Enjoy your fireworks show when another country has something we want.

To lower the deficit really falls in to one of three choices. None of them are good or easy; or otherwise, that choice would have been enacted long ago and the issue of a deficit wouldn't have come up.

A) Cut spending of the federal budget.

To really cut the deficit down, one has to state how fast it has to be cut down. That will largely dictate how much spending has to decrease. Tea Baggers/Republicans want it immediately, and Democrats would like it down quickly. Neither side will come to a resolution on this issue, unless they make cuts higher in the stuff they want to keep 'as is'. For the moment, Republicans have to come forward first, and they have real guts to cut their spending. Everyone knows this will not happen, whether they control goverment or not. And hence, this concept will NEVER see the light of day, let alone, a fighting chance to work.

B) Print more money by the Federal Reserve.

Yes, we print boat loads of money. This would pay of the debt REALLY fast, but the strength of the dollar to ALL world currencies would be laughable. Our economy would be literally in shambles. We would not suffer from just inflation for decades (yes, DECADES), but would suffer moments of hyper-inflation. This has also been suggested by Republicans, and I think even you can figure out this process doesnt work.

C) Raise Taxes

That's right, political suicide for any law-maker. Raising taxes, to be directly applied to the deficit, for the purpose of paying it down over a decade or so, will NEVER work. Republicans are not known for their long term financial planning (i.e. see Health Care Reform). Republican's concept of 'long term' is 3-4 years. Democrats, its about 15-30 years.

Tea baggers, want revenue to go down, which would cause spending to go down, and because of this, would cause the deficit to go down. This is 1st grader mathematics. Instead of $4 to pay a bill over, 12 years, on something that costs, $48; Tea Baggers want to pay $1 over 5 years, to pay $48. Why do you think liberals are just amazed at the lack of education displayed in Tea Baggers, and Republicans at large these days?

Even working in the defense industry like I do, I still agree to cut the defense budget in half.

But if you cut defense spending how will our airforce get awesome stealth jets that can fly at mach 3 and fire a $500k guided missile from 50k KMs up in the stratosphere with enough precision to hit the milking goat tied up to a post outside a suspected terrorist's stone and dung hut? Answer that one Mr. Maher!

bill makes some good points here. now if only he were funny.

As a Marine of 5+ years of service I can readily agree that spending in the military is INSANE - and that's just from what I see on my level.

THANK YOU BILL! I wholeheartedly agree with this bit.

"The tea bags hanging from his hat were a nice touch."

Actually no, Google images "teabaggers". It's a standard attachment.

Beautifully done. Cut spending, just not on me.