The Glade 4.0

Just wanted to quote this again so it doesn't get missed.

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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

Hm, fair enough, though to clarify, the abridged quote of your post, above, is what I meant by "lower taxes" - i.e. that the government takes a smaller chunk of money out of the hands of private actors/markets.

Sure it does - it tells us what percentage of the economy is being allocated to government revenue, which is very relevant to determining the likely impact on growth. And that, in turn, has a huge bearing on identifying what is and is not a sustainable level of government spending.

The problem is that spending exceeds revenue to an unsustainable degree. Saying that's not a "revenue problem" makes no more sense than saying it's not a "spending problem". Pick your poison, I guess, but they both sound like simplistic spin to me.

I would support an increase of my tax rate if we balanced the budget permanently with a robust amendment and cut the size and scope of government. Ultimately I believe the second makes the first unnecessary, but theoretically yeah. If a flat tax rated my effective tax rate, I'd be down with that too. I don't want my (or anyone else's) taxes raised so congress can play business as usual. Does that answer your question?

Furthermore, our current tax code is more about social engineering (raising taxes to curtail certain activities or lowering them to attempt to promote others) than it is about revenue.

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

Like Fiscal conversatives voting for the largest increase in the debt ceiling?

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

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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

There's actually kind of a sweet spot for taxes and revenue generation. At some point higher taxes produce less revenue. I'd go look it up, but I need to stop surfing the Internet and go study for a test... Maybe I'll remember later.

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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

RD lets take a look at two extremes and see if its a spending or revenue problem:


What would be the impact and what standard of living would the average American expect if:


it were 0% of GDP?
it were 100% of GDP?

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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

It's a fine poll question.

I answered "balance the budget". I would gladly pay more in taxes if it balanced the budget. No, I would not be happy to have it balanced on only revenue increases, but if it got the job balanced, I'd contribute more.

Here's the problem. I believe I would contribute more, the budget would not get balanced or it would only be balanced a short time, and then I'd just end up paying more for nothing.

So... F that.

Please stop regurgitating this lie.

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If you're going to call that a lie, you're going to need to do better than that, as CNN ran that assertion in multiple articles.

Oh and if you think CNN is too biased, here's one from Time magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 43,00.html

Overall may Xeq, but why will no one address the concept that "fair share" means some people pay 50% of their revenue and some pay 0%. Full disclosure: working part time for minium wage right now i'm probably closer to the 0 than the 50. I'd support an increase in my tax rate to fix the disparity if it meant we took a serious look at how the government collects and spends money.

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

Government revenues as a factor of GDP have been relatively flat since the 1940s.

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It does make sense in the context that the Federal Government is spending money on stuff it has no business spending money on. So the money brought in by taxes is more than enough to cover the Federal Goverments obligations. The rest of the stuff are things that should be cut since we obviously cant afford them.

Just like a normal household- when everyone in the household is working, you can afford to go out to eat, cable TV, new clothing, vacations, etc. Then one person is unemployed- ok, now you prioritize your spending, and cut what isn't vital. To somehow suggest that the Federal Goverment is above, beyond or immune to these economic realities is folly.

We are to the point where we need to do this, yet the can keeps getting kicked down the road. The United States must face this debt crisis- either today, tomorrow or very soon. The can is too full of BS to keep going down the road. It's too heavy to kick anymore. So do we want to deal with it on our terms, or Chinas?

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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

I voted for "slip the guy a couple of roofies and leave him on the roof of Caesar's Palace."

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

Does that mean it doesn't matter what the tax rate is?

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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

Not too simplistic.

You collected over $11000 in tax revenue per citizen over 18 in 2010.
You spent over $18000 in tax revenue per citizen over 18 in 2010 (and that's accepting official figures which tend to ignore large portions of spending.)
The median income for citizens over 18 in the USA is $25,149 in 2010.

The US Government is spending over 70% of what its citizens are making. Ultimately, this is the tax rate. Any amount of tax lower than that is just being deferred, not eliminated. Nevertheless, you're currently collecting federal taxes amounting to 44% of personal income.

Can the USA afford to spend 70% of its citizen's income? Can the citizens afford this?

Cutting spending is the only option.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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Not only is it deferred... it's deferred at compounding interest.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

And the Chinese just cut our credit rating which means any further money we borrow from them will be at higher interest.

Bring our troops home and cut foreign aid to anyone that doesn't like us.

Since we'll have a lot of troops handy, ask permission of the Mexican Government to take out their troublesome cartels. Allow ride-alongs from Mexican troops and let them help, put them in the front lines so they can be big damned heroes.

Once the cartels are gone, come home. Tell what's the Mexican Government to whistle whenever they want us back to help.

Leave the troops on the border to deal with immigration issues until we can finish discharging the ones who have been in past their enlistment dates and thanking them for their service.

Tell the UN they're evicted, find somewhere else to hate America.

Withdraw from "alliances" that have us footing the bills for everything.

Tell the corporations that if they want the tax breaks they're enjoying, they have to employ citizens of the United States, in the United States to keep receiving them.

Expand Leavenworth and all Federal prisons. Keep those only guilty of being illegal aliens there if they want them kept anywhere. Stop expecting the States to house prisoners only guilty of breaking federal laws.

Legalize marijuana. Tax it. We'll make money off the drug war instead of losing it hand over fist. Those that want to toke will always find a way.

Go to a flat tax and eliminate all loopholes that do not directly benefit the country in ways that lawyers don't have to explain.

yadda yadda yadda, stop wasting money making politicians richer.

Pay off our freaking national debt with the money we save before spending it three times over elsewhere.

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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

A private Chinese rating firm cut the US rating. They'll still buy treasuries anyway.

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In time, this too shall pass.

It's a Chinese ratings agency. How "private" do you honestly believe they are?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Thanks Barack. Guess the other 3 increases didn't let you spend us entirely to death so you made sure that we are *****ed squarely in the ***.

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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

You know, there's a glade feature that puts those ***s in for us if we don't want to see the nasty evil words.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █