The Glade 4.0

For purposes of the poll, assume nothing else changes about the current system. There's just a box on your tax return next year that you can check yes or no.

No offense RD, but only an absolute moron would check "yes" to that question with the limitations you placed.

No. I realize you don't want to consider the truth of my economic outlook, RangerDave. I get that you think, because I dispute the claims of Paul Krugman, Tyler Cowen, and the rest of the group you consider "mainstream consensus" economists, that my opinion has no weight with you. So, I will simply go on record as saying ...

The current national debt cannot be repaid or even dramatically altered without two things:

1. A serious restructuring of how our government operates and spends money.
2. Abandoning heterodox mainstream economics and the Hypothesis of the Managed Economy.

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They already take enough of my money. And don't use it responsibly.

No.

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Holy shitsnacks!

With everything else remaining exactly the same? Of course not, I'm not retarded...

This would be like filling in a hole with a gardening spade while the backhoe is still digging.

Even if you found enough people with spades to fill it up and walk away, the backhoe's still digging.

It's even worse, though, because if you made an appreciable dent in the debt, our current government paradigm would simply say "oh, we're back under X% of GDP? Great, we can borrow some more and introduce new spending programs!"

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

How can we possibly eliminate the national deb, within a system which institutionalizes debt as a function of its opperation?

[youtube]_dmPchuXIXQ[/youtube]

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

This. I was momentarily inclined to say "yes" and then this occured to me when I read the conditions.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Interesting. I honestly didn't expect such universal rejection given the lack of sympathy "collective action" arguments from the left usually encounter here whenever a hypocrisy charge comes up.

Huh?

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

really? did you even think of the potential ramifications of this?

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I don't think he read his own question.

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It's like a university endowment.

Example: Here's $2,000,000 but it MUST be spent on Political Science. University Board reallocates $2,000,000 from the Political Science department to the College of Business (since it's a cash cow) and replaces the shortfall with the endowment. This meets the technicalities of the endowment but violates the spirit.

If we give the government 1% of our money to pay down the debt they will take 1% away from current debt-flagged monies and spend it elsewhere because it will "bring more value" or its for the common good, or we need a bridge to Sheepshit Island.

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Why not? If nothing else changes, implementing this would, at best, simply be a minor speed bump to the expansion of debt at cost to the individual. At worst, it would mean that spending increases by this amount.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I would vote yes with the stipulation that there would be no shift away from other attempts to repay the debt.

Otherwise, as has been said, then it's just asking for 1% of tax moneys currently being used to pay off the debt to be spent elsewhere.

I'd much prefer to give 1% of my income to local charities.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

How do you ensure that future budgets don't shift away by simply never increasing the spending levels to pay off the debt in absolute terms, as the relative amount of the debt continues to increase (via continued borrowing, or inflation, etc..)?

You can't do it.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Again, it is impossible within our economic and banking system.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Not a chance.

You can't. But I'm assuming this is a once a year thing, and can be decided based on what has been done that year to alleviate the debt in other senses.

With some minor provisions, I'd gladly try it out for the first year, and then see how things change based on that before I do it again in successive years.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I voted yes with the following assumption.

That I was satisfied with the law that the 1% would in fact only go towards paying off the debt.

The rest of the answers don't surprise me in the least.

Explain how it would work within the confines of a system which produces debt, garenteeing nothing against it but future labor?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That isn't so much the issue:

Alice has $30k in credit card debt.
Bob gives Alice $1,000 under the condition that it can only be used to pay down her CC debt.
Alice does so, and now has $29k in credit card debt.
Afterwards, she buys a new TV, on credit, for $5k, bringing her CC debt up to $34k.

Edit:

The moral of the story is that even though Alice is honest and keeps to her word, she's still a financially irresponsible credit risk to whom no one should be extending more money, under any terms.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

no way in hell.....fire......heh.

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Ron Paul 2012

That wouldn't even be enough anyway.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If there was a chance of retiring the national debt I would consider it. However, since the government has a vested interest in remainng insolvent, not a chance.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones