[liberallarry]

Then I don't understand why you raise the issue about governments falling when people face hard times.

To underline the difficulties a government faces when it imposes hard times.

The quickest and surest way to solve our current financial problems is to shut down govnerment until the debt is paid. Taxes coming in + Nothing going out = No debt in record time.

Try it.

[Dimples]

The quickest and surest way to solve our current financial problems is to shut down govnerment until the debt is paid. Taxes coming in + Nothing going out = No debt in record time.

Another red herring...and a rather stupid one at that. The discussion is about DEFICIT not DEBT. And shutting down the government even long enough to eliminate the deficit doesn't fix the problem. Unless significant "structural" changes are made to the way government collects and spends our money, the problem will immediately recur.

Aren't you the one who called for moderating the rhetoric?

[Dimples]

To underline the difficulties a government faces when it imposes hard times.

The government isn't imposing hard times ... unless you count artifically depressing healthcare prices, confiscatory tax policies, overbearing regulation, and unwarranted and unwanted intrusion into personal lives. Hard times are imposed by the cycle of business boom and bust; and hard is relative.

The government created this problem by growing beyond resonable bounds. I argue that government created the problem by ignoring the inevitability of the bust part of the cycle and building in spending that was guaranteed to outstrip revenue.