The Glade 4.0

Have the Dem's in the senate submitted a budget in the last two years as they are required? The senate smacked down something of obama's 97-0? Which was that.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Mainly because right now, there is no way to be able to make enough cuts to stay below it without sending the country into a tailspin.

As for the tax issue. I believe there are far more challenges with the rich not paying their fair share than the Wage Class. That said, I really would like to see the whole tax code overhauled, made much more simple, with fewer (none if possible) loop holes.

Again, how much is the rich's fair share? They pay 90% of the income taxes. They pay a significant portion of payroll taxes. Quite a few of them get penalized in taxes for being self-employeed.

So, what's this fair share for the rich? Because "they can afford it" is somehow synonymous with "they have more than me" in your opinion? I'm serious here ...

What's the rich's fair share? You think Warren Buffet pays too little? He doesn't actually capitalize any money. What about Bill Gates? Or, you know, the Vice President who got back 2.25 million last year ...

Let's hammer down what's equitable, because I know how much I pay ...

I know how much the law requires me to pay and how it calculates my income ...

So how much more of my money, because I'll be honest, that's what this is about ...

How much more of my money do you want?

We need to fix this delusion that the American "rich" aren't paying their taxes. If they weren't, this ship would have sank half a century ago.

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Khross already asked, but I love it when some lib makes that statement.

What exactly is the rich's fair share?

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I've been pointing that out for some time now; this "fair share" keeps coming up, but it mysteriously never actually gets defined. For that matter, "the rich" never seems to get defined either.

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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."

Liberal wealth distribution at it's finest. "They have more so more should be taken from them!" "It's only fair!!" "WHAAAAAA!!!"

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

More

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Sadly, that is the exact truth.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I agree, but for the purposes of this conversation, it's really irrelevant.

Our economy has been in the process of sinking for nearly 100 years, and now that the waters have begun to crest the bow, we've finally decided it's time to bail.

The issue is that the problem is multi-faceted.

- We have a debt issue which is insurmountable under our current monetary system, because no matter how much we cut in order to pay off our debts, we have to borrow 100% of our currency in order to pay it, meaning that we will incur new debt and new interest payment on those debts.

- Our only alternative to borrowing money is taxation, but we all know that raising taxes stifles growth. And lets be honest here... we really can't afford to further emburden the job creators, as that will lead to an even worse and extended downturn.

- The third issue is, that even if conservatives make the concessions and we agree to raise taxes to plug the deficit now, that only pushes off and deepens the problem for next year when revenues are down even further because of a worsening economy leaving an even larger hole to patch.

These are real problems, and they can't be politicked or spun away. If we don't take on immediate measures that will slash federal spending, and end the Federal Reserve system we can kiss our asses goodbye.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

For clarity sake, my reference to taxes was in reference to income taxes only.

I believe in a progressive tax, as the wealthy reap a significantly larger reward for societies blessings.

I suspect that if loopholes and deductions were stripped away, that the overall tax rates for everyone would come down.

Not having done a lot of specific number crunching, I don't have any percentages. However, there are many examples of the wealthy using all sorts of loopholes to artificially shed their tax burden, which is my primary frustration. Certainly those in the Wage Class do that as well, and are similarly reprehensible.

At what point do we run into the Laugher (sp) curve? Hope I am thinking of the right part.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

The Laffer Curve is bunk.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

If you were king for a day and had a magic wand where you could empty a percentage out of peoples bank accounts unerringly, how much would be fair.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

If Medicare was eliminated the government would have no debt. When Social Security runs a deficit, the government doesn't need to borrow money, it just comes out of the trust fund. If the trust fund dries up, then they just pay out less. The Social Security Administration flat-out admits this, and says it's going to happen, so there are no surprises here. With the stimulus package done the annual deficit is about equal to Medicare payments so if we got rid of that there would be no debt. The debt problem might be impossible to solve politically, but practically it's not.

Also, the Federal Reserve is not the problem. Sure, the Fed can mess with the currency, but there is no currency system where the government or an appointed body can't do that. A gold standard would just make the manipulation marginally more transparent, it would not prevent it.

As for the rich paying their "fair share," the statistic I have seen is that those making over $250k a year pay 60% of all the taxes. I've never heard of anything close to 90%. I'm sure 90% is a theoretical number which would be the case if every "rich" person was 100% honest and paid all taxes they're legally obligated to and every "poor" person took every deduction and loophole available, but we all know that's not the case.

But then again, I'm all for a flat income tax. I personally believe that a flat income tax without loopholes will result in the rich paying more, but even if I'm wrong about that I would still be for it. You can't claim that such a tax wouldn't be fair. What really bothers me is when people resist a flat tax by saying it's unfair because it would cause the rich to pay more, even though they would be paying the same rate as everyone else.

The Social Security Trust Fund contains nothing but 2.6 Trillion dollars of IOUs. There is no bin of rainy day money. It has all been borrowed against.



I'm not going to rehash this. You apparantly have had no interest in reading the many posts to this board addressing this issue in the past, so I'm not going to waste my time on you now.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I'm not trying to dodge this, but I really don't know the answer to that.

In the end, the taxes that we take in have to pay for the services that we expect out of the government. I'd like to see break points at rational spots that are keyed off of major indicies vs. hard dollar amounts so they expand or contract with the economy. But without a ton of number crunching with data I'm not sure I have access too, I can't really be more specific.

You just know it should be more than it currently is for the "rich" or "wealthy"? Who's "rich" or "wealthy"?



So those who expect (use) the services should pay for them?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Reread what I said. This was not it.

We could tax the rich at 100% of their income. We would still not make up our yearly deficit spending.

Next idea?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

In a sense this is true, but the SSA is a bondholder and gets paid first. It's extraordinarily unlikely that SS won't have that trust fund. Of course inflation might significantly devalue the $2.6 trillion, but that's a seperate issue. Also, claiming the the trust fund contains nothing but IOUs is fairly dishonest - the money is supposed to be invested. If Social Security were private it would be nothing but IOUs as well.



You know I just did a search for all my posts on the gold standard and no-one has yet to give me a straight answer when I bring this up, the only claimed advantage anyone has put forward is greater transparency. The fact is that when the government controls the gold that backs the currency, they can manipulate that currency's value whenever they want.

Which is too bad, cause I'm pretty sure they are partially responsible for our problems. Just let the seniors die and let me keep my SS dollars.

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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

We are borrowing 40% of what we spend. How anyone can support these actions stuns me. Balance the budget. Now. Not later- stop kicking the can like Obama promised. Paying social security is a law I believe so the threat of granny not getting her check is BS. Default? More BS. Moody's is playing politics in order to help their investments. Hence the consistant statements about "you gotta raise the limit or...". I hope the Republicans call Obama's bluff. Piss off the welfare demographic? Why should the Republicans care? Not like that demo ever votes conservative.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Law or no law you can't pay it if there isn't any money. They would have to stop all military spending completely (as well as all other discretionary spending) in order to fully pay SS if the debt limit isn't raised.

Warren Buffet has an idea...

Large corporations could 'bail out' the US Government by pre-paying some of their taxes..

Oh the irony....

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... iling.aspx

Its just kicking the can down the road. The hole is deep enough and the president is advocating breaking out the dynamite and going deeper. The US can not pay its current debt. Giving the most fiscally irresponsible president in history more to spend is absolutely ludicrous. The US needs to get its house in order and stop lying. Its obvious its been a ponzi scheme, now even the people with their head in the sand can see it. SS will be exposed for the lie it is.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill