The facts are what they are. These aren't talking points. Seriously!

The national debt was never a huge problem until the "Voodoo Economics" took hold.

A very high top end tax rate serves a purpose more than just generating revenue or taking away from the rich.

It first of all would allow corporations to run businesses with a long-term view instead of panicked drives to ensure quarterly numbers look good. Investors looked to put their money in places for the long haul when tax rates were sky high as taking profits and running with them would be self defeating. With low high end taxes, it encourages investors to take profits leading to a volatile stock market. I am not saying raise the taxes on people making 50k a year. I am talking about raising the tax rates on income that is way out of proportion with the average earner.

It would be a good thing for workers as corporations would be reinvesting their profits expanding the business as profits again would be less attractive.

The government would increase their take on a fuller employment situation and reap the benefits of someone cashing out.

Commodity prices like oil would drop as speculators wouldn't have the incentive either. Also things like requiring those buying oil futures to accept a percentage of their purchases and having the means to accept them would be good as well.

People hear lower taxes and think they are going to save money. The reality is about half of everyone pays no taxes (Federal Income Tax) and Federal Income Taxes are they lowest they have been in 50 years. Seems like low taxes are working out really well for our economy.

I certainly don't want Socialism or Communism but strong regulation can be a great thing in Capitalism with good oversight. When regulators go away, the foxes raid the hen house.

Some things are just good investments. Good educations, good health, good transportation systems, solid utilities, etc are backbones of our country. Without them, no one benefits. People can't just build their own road. Individuals can't just create their own school system effectively. I know there are many that think that government is only their to protect our borders but it isn't realistic.

Even the states don't have the funds or capability to manage all of that. The Civil War was a battle about state's rights and Abe Lincoln (Republican) fought for a stronger Federal Government over state's rights.

You aren't going to find people that are genuinely concerned with bettering our country. The personal/emotional/financial cost of getting into power is too great. Who wants everything they have done forever scrutinized in public? There has to be a benefit to doing it and no one is that self hating to put themselves through it without gaining for themselves.

 

im confused lol. im for medicare. just giving 15,000 dollars for people to find insurance is going to leave people uninsured.

 

Yes, the facts are what they are. What you are repeating is revisionist history.

You may accept the one dimensional view that progressive talking heads feed you disguised as facts. I don't.

I was a kid during the Reagan years. A teenager at the end. I didn't pay much attention politics. I wasn't so fond of Reagan at the time, because I fed into the same propaganda against republicans that is fed to young people today.

I wasn't a fan but I could do the one dimensional thing too. Just the facts:

Reagan’s economic policies stimulated the economy, creating 17 million new jobs. One-fourth of the new jobs were created in 68 consecutive months. Black unemployment was cut in half.

The inflation rate decreased to less than 4.4%. Family income rose 12%.

Under Reagan the U.S. military was refurbished and strengthened.



Have you ever thought of going into politics? You already seem to know how to talk out of both sides of your mouth.

You are obviously convinced that big government is the answer. It is not. It was never intended to be what you are advocating for. With an increasing government, so has increased the number of people dependant on it. This is what you are advocating for. More people dependant on government. What you are advocating for goes far beyond infrastructure. What you are advocating for is central planning. You are obviously a person of faith. Faith in the federal government. Blind faith.

 

2012 will be a magical election year. Democrats will be disappearing from their offices all across the land!!!

 

obama could **** the bed even more than he already has and I still dont think the majority younger crowd will see ron paul or some other older white republican as anything more than they saw john mccain as.

 

The reality is that we have a big bill that needs paid down. You can shutter the door of the Federal Government today and get absolutely zero services and with the tax revenue collected daily we wouldn't pay the debt off in almost 10 years.

You have to collect more than you spend to accomplish this feat.

I was a child of the 1980's as well. I was 6 years old when Reagan came into office and actually thought he was right on and that my parents were nuts. I have always followed politics from a youth. Reagan's greatest skill was that he could sell Americans on American exceptionalism. He made Americans feel proud to be Americans as he was a good orator and could say the right things.

The reality is that he really acted against most of his own things. With the exception of his first huge tax cut, he raised taxes every year thereafter. He spent a quite a bit on things like the Earned Income Tax Credit. Credit became easier as computers took hold and we advanced as a society. Remember the days of mom using a credit card at K-Mart and having to wait while they called in the transaction for approval...come a long way from then.

We did spend a lot on military...but it was a lot of money we didn't have. It led us to becoming the world's police department. Why doesn't China share in this duty? They have a larger economy (I know the numbers say different but they devalue their currency) than we do and can actually afford to bankroll some of the stuff in the world.

If you step outside of the US you will get a better understanding of the real America. I love my country but we aren't as perfect as we like to think we are. Sometimes you can't see the trees for the forest.

 

DING-DING-DING!!!!!!!

How about this, whatever the percentage over the budget is spent by our politicians- we deduct that same percentage from their election war chests and pension. Private business has to make a profit to stay in business, so government needs an incentive too. Then if they over spend 2 years in a row jail them like the criminals they are.

 

This is true. You are advocating government to take more from The People to pay down this big bill, while people like me are advocating government put it's spending in check. No one is saying that the government has to certail all spending. That is a myth propagated by progressives using Alinsky tactics. The realisty is, if people can keep more of their own money, they will revive the economy for themselves. It's the responsibility of our gate keepers in our government to put thier spending of our tax dollars in check.


This is true. You want the government to collect more. People like me want it to spend less. Not take programs that make a difference away, but put spending in check with efficiencies. Only the government can demand more money from it's employers to spend out of control. Demanding more form your employer to spend more defies logic. The role of the federal government is well defined. It has exceeded its boundreis and needs to be put back.


I love my country and know that it isn't and never has been perfect. Our countries history is riddled with failure. There are some very deep wounds that still fester today. For each failure though, there is ten times the sucess. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. I don't feel the need to apologise for our countries failures. We pay the price for them every day. I believe in American exceptionalism, not because it was sold to me, but because of what I know of our history, of our founding, of the things that we have overcome, and because of what I have had the opportunity to experience in my lifetime.

I'm not seeing our country through rose colored glasses as some might suggest. I believe in the people of our country. We are decendants of the people who formed this great nation. We will overcome the challanges we face today, just as we have done in the past, even though this time there are people trying to destroy us from within.

 

The idea of cutting spending sounds great but where do you cut it? How much do you cut? Those are the questions. We have many sacred cows that we say can't be touched. Those often are our most expensive things. Without gutting these things, the rest are just little slivers of the pie and won't have any meaningful changes.

It is like someone saying I have a mortgage of $3k a month, a truck note of $1500, credit card bills of $1000 a month, etc. Problem is they only make $2k a month but they say they can't touch the house, truck, etc.

Yeah they need a place to live but is the 4 bedroom house necessary? Is the new 4x4 Super Cab truck needed? Saying...well the truck note will be retired in 6 more years so then I'll be ok. Where the reality is this guy needs to downsize everything or eliminate the stuff.

He don't need the big house. He don't need the new truck. He probably needs a big yard sale to rid himself of stuff.

What happens if he can't sell the stuff or get out from under the crushing debt? Maybe working more hours to bring more money in would help.

Few advocate cutting or eliminating Social Security. That makes up about 20% of our expenditures. There are those that argue they paid in and now are due their share. Many people have this as their only income in their golden years. Not everyone has the ability to put away the whatever it is 1 or 2 million they say you need to retire today.

Medicare is another big budget item. The idea that we will keep it as is for those retiring in 10 years but others are on their own is just pandering to older voters. The problem is that 10% of the clients spend 85% of the benefits of it. Insurers aren't going to want to cover the gap for the elderly. Someone has to pay.

Defense is another 20% of our spending. That one is hands off even though we spend more than anyone else or the combination of countries 2-10 on defense. We are the world police, like it or not.

Unemployment is about 15% of our budget. If you don't have a job and are out on your ear it is kind of nice to have this in the time of need.

I see the Republicans say they want to make cuts but they say that in a very generic form or they set a time table that is so far away that by the time we get there, the debt will be bigger yet.

Remember the Bush tax cuts were supposed to be for a short period of time? They got extended a couple years and many want to make them permanent. What benefit have we seen from those cuts except a larger debt? We have been through the greatest recession since the Great Depression with those cuts....hmmmm...

I agree that the Democrats say they want to raise taxes on the rich and you can only tax someone to a limit. If you tax someone 90% of their income over $50k of course you will stifle growth and productivity. If you have a 75% tax on income over $5 million, you will encourage reinvestment as it would be crushing otherwise.

That said, I don't see how you make significant dent in the debt without bringing in more tax money. Whether we bring more in by having a full employment situation (best situation) or raising taxes, it has to be done.

 

your the man! clinton era

 

I'll vote for ol RP....

 

The first paragraph is right-on.

The second paragraph is also true. However, it's not a good analogy -- the government raising taxes is not the same as "working more hours to bring in more money." It's more like deciding to break into the neighbor's house and take their money. The reason is that the government doesn't "earn" anything; it can only take from some in order to give to others.

Back when the marginal tax rate for the highest incomes was 70%, barely anyone actually paid those rates, as it presented a huge incentive to find ways around it. Tax shelter schemes were everywhere. It's a similar situation with corporate tax rates now -- the US rates are among the highest in the world, and corporations work very hard to maximize the amount of money they make outside of the US and minimize the amount they make in the US. That is the so-called "tax break for offshoring US jobs" that people complain about.

 

Yes, it's painfully obvious that you don't see, or is it won't see.



It's odd that you don't see how to make a significant dent in the debt without raising taxes, yet you use this anology.

That mortgage? Let's call it Social Security. That truck note? Let's call it Medicare. That credit card bill? Let's call it Defense. So the three combined are a monthly bill of fifty five hundred dollars. He makes two thousand a month.

First of all, how irresponsible can this person be to rack up this kind of debt at this income level? Was he assuming that he'd make more in the future? Did he even think about how he was going to pay more than twice what he makes each month? Did he lose his job? If he did, he's got to make some tough decisions about what he's going to live without in order to survive.

Ok, so this person is in way over their head. What to do? Well, according to what you are advocting for, he should demand that his employer pay him more. He could get some loans to help pay some of the bills for a while, but who is going to lend him money? His employer should give him more pay for the same job, out of compassion, right?

OR, that mortgage, well he could continue to fall behind in payments and eventually loose the house. He could talk to a real estate agent about selling the house so that he could get into something that he could afford, like maybe an apartment untill he could save enough to resposibly own his own home again. That truck note, we all know that these F150's are great trucks. They are expensive though. Maybe he could go to the dealership and see if he could trade down to an affordable, used, four banger Ranger to drive untill he can afford another F150. That credit card bill, it's too big. These days having a credit card is almost a necessity. He's going to have to budget enough to pay down the charges that he's racked up, and then is going to have to make sure that anything he charges is an absolute necessity.

You don't see how you make significant dent in the debt without bringing in more tax money because you want to keep the house, the truck and want to continue to charge stuff on the credit card. You can't even fathom that you might move into an apartment, or arrange Social security so that more people would manage more of their own money for their own retirement. You can't even imagine trading in that fifteen hundred dollar a month F50 for a used Ranger, or giving people an incentive to manage their own health care decision making. You can understand cutting up the credit card which could put you in a vulnerable position, but you can't understand retaing a strong defense, all be it a financially efficient one.

Yes, it's clear that you don't see that what you are advocating is the eventual bankruptcy of this guy, and of our country. There is no reasonable argument to justify doing so.

 

I agree. Americans have a way of believing anything a smooth-talker says. Obama will win in 2012, even though housing is flat and Wal-Mart has stated, "Americans are running out of money."

Having said that, I like Herman Cain also. Anyone who knows how to successfully manage a business will do his best to trim the fat in D.C. And there's a boatload of it.

 

The government can't go out and turn in more hours and shouldn't gamble our tax dollars. I guess each congressman can go into a casino in Vegas and double down on black to make more money and see what happens.

The problem is that even if we spend NOTHING on ANYTHING except interest on the debt, assuming tax intake at current rates, it would leave us whittling down the bill for the better part of a decade.

The little things Republicans talk about cutting are almost meaningless.

So what you cut out funding for Public Broadcasting?

What kind of joke is it to say we'll let people 55 and over destroy us with Medicare costs for the next 30+ years but then we will give the next generation a little helping hand to find a private insurer that wants to step up and insure a sick elderly person (remember they want to do away with everything in the healthcare bill including provisions that insurers can't turn people away).

What else...cut funding for the arts, cut WIC, cut LIHEAP...these things at the end of the day amount to pennies.

We are really quick to cut items that have no meaning to us. Most people in this country aren't poor so it doesn't affect them. Since Medicare affects everyone, they are putting a clause in to cover the largest voting block in the country but who cares about the next generation.

This is like calling the mortgage company up and saying...yeah I know my mortgage is 3k a month but I'll send you $50!!!

If we are going to make cuts, they need to be serious. Just peeling away every little social safety net and slashing taxes for the wealthiest makes no sense. When someone comes out with a serious plan that includes big time cuts immediately to defense, Social Security, Medicare, other entitlement, etc then and only then would I believe they are serious and they would get my vote. Slashing taxes is the stupidest idea on how a government can lower their debt.

George W. Bush and the Republican Congress was the first in history to have massive tax cuts at the same time we were at war for God sakes. No one cared or complained about the deficit for 8 years but once Obama took office...oh my God we are up to our eyeballs in debt. Please...we were so far broke by then that it isn't funny.

I realize taxes are like robbing people of what they earn. If you aren't happy with that then I suggest moving someplace without such luxuries like we do. Afghanistan, Somalia, etc I am sure have low taxes. Call me crazy but it costs money to live as part of a society. One has to choose what type of a society they want to belong to. If you want to keep every penny for yourself and cover every cost that is out there (your security detail, your fire protection, your food inspector...etc) then go to those places and be happy. The rest of us figure it is better to pool our efforts for the greater good. I may not need all of these services but it is nice to know they are there.