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Here's hoping we can discuss the Obama budget

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by printdust, Feb 15, 2011.

  1. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member



    http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/2009FairTaxPrebateSchedule.pdf

    Edit: I was wrong on this. It would provide rebates based on family size (not salary) that would allow for tax-free through the poverty level. After that everyone would pay the flat rate. But a flat tax, even with a low-level protection, still sucks for the middle class.
     
  2. Brooklyn Bridge

    Brooklyn Bridge Well-Known Member

    Until we can do something about defense, Soc Security and Medicare, we are screwed. Does anyone on here think they are going to see any SS? I certainly don't
     
  3. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    I see something like what was pictured in "Earth 2100" by the time I'm 67. Either a radical breakdown of civilization or a unified government across the globe.
     
  4. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    We have two different debt problems right now.

    The entitlement spending tsunami is coming, and we'll have to deal with that. It's not even a question, we literally won't have access to enough money to pay everything that was promised.

    But that's not even part of the issue right now. We *also* have an immediate debt problem where the interest on the national debt is choking the economic recovery, but we don't want to stop borrowing because it's all that is propping up the economy right now.
     
  5. bydesign77

    bydesign77 Active Member

    Cran, thank you for doing my work for me. Did you even read that document?

    That shows that the prebate is based on the number of people in the household based on spending at the poverty level. There is NOTHING income based in the FairTax. Nothing.
     
  6. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    To me this says it all -- from Alan Simpson going to the great Bob Prince to spice up quote:


    "We're going to get rid of all earmarks, all waste, fraud and abuse, all foreign aid, Air Force One, all congressional pensions . . . . That's just sparrow belch in the midst of the typhoon. That's about six, eight, ten percent of where we are. So, I'm waiting for the politician to get up and say, there's only one way to do this: you dig into the big four, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense. And anybody giving you anything different than that, you want to walk out the door, stick your finger down your throat, and give them the green weenie."
     
  7. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    1. Rick, there is no evidence interest payments on the national debt are "choking recovery." Interest payments were pretty much the same percentage of the budget back when PRIVATE debt fueled the economy during the housing bubble.
    2. A two percent decline in the unemployment rate would reduce the budget deficit more effectively than any spending cut proposal on the table right now.
    3. Eliminating the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts would reduce the defict to 3 percent of GDP, or less than what Germany, that spendthift nation, has had for the past decade.
    4. "Entitlements" = health care. Either we figure out a way to control those costs, or we will have rationing the good old-fashioned U.S. way. Rich people will get medical care and live longer. Less rich folks will get less care and be sicker more and die sooner
    4. Deep down, the "budget deficit" debate is a fraud. As soon as the Republicans take power, they will cut spending, but cut taxes more, making the deficit bigger. Mike Pence and Jim DeMint proposed just that yesterday $4 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in spending cuts. The American people want low taxes, high levels of social services (and a big military) and a balanced budget. Until we have leaders with enough guts to call people out for that absurd and irresponsible mindset, the "budget" is an illusory circle jerk.
    5. Alan Simpson is a despicable old shithead with money who wants to see old people without money make do with even less. That Obama put that guy anywhere near authority speaks very poorly of his political abilities.
     
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Nuh uh. Forbes advocated a flat tax, not a national sales tax. He's always been critical of national sales tax ideas for being regressive. In his book, the Flat Tax Revolution he took swipes at the "fair tax," because his plan when he ran for president was to exempt the first $40K of income for a family of four to try to make taxation progressive. I'm not wishing to debate whether his plan made sense. Just pointing out what he advocated.

    By the way, the characterization "fair tax," is so stupid. Always be weary of people who won't call what they are proposing what it is. It's a national sales tax. Not a fair tax.

    Just my 2 cents. But it doesn't matter how you tax people. If you are going to run huge amounts of debt, you have to raise revenue somehow unless you want to end up defaulting on your debt. And as long as there is any kind of tax system run by the Federal government, it is going to be full of loopholes, take teams of bullshit artists to parse, and be overly complicated in practice.

    Also, politicians play rhetoric games about taxes. We had incredibly high marginal tax rates, for example, under the Carter administration. And a zillion loopholes. Ronald Reagan cut the top marginal tax rate. And dramatically cracked down on the loopholes. And the amount of tax revenue didn't differ dramatically under either. The state of the economy has always had more impact on total revenues than the scheme in place. Because they only have a small margin to play around with taxes -- what people really feel in their pocketbooks -- before there is a revolt and they get voted out.

    I don't expect anyone to agree with what I'd like to see. But Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security are crippling this country. It has been a slow creep, but there was a day of reckoning coming the day they were first enacted, and everyone has intentionally walked around with blinders on. It's amazing people still are. We can cut discretionary spending -- and we should, but never will b/c politicians have relevance and power as long as they can hand out favors and parse out large amounts of money -- but it's a pittance compared to the hole the entitlement programs are causing. Ideally -- and again, it will never happen -- we'd swallow a big dose of reality, tax people to the hilt right now to reduce some of the national debt, which really is out of control now, and when there is a semblance of control, take away the power to run multi-trillion dollar budgets from the Federal Government. At the same time, we'd kill off the Federal Reserve, which exists only to inflate away the debt for the politicians. Then we can reduce, or *gasp* abolish taxes, the way everyone seems to want, and people can run their own lives rather than having a Federal government that screws up everything (most often for corrupt reasons) keep screwing everything up.
     
  9. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member

    By no means am I considered rich. However, if you put the “FairTax” into play, the federal government would see almost slim to none of my money. I’d buy international, at a lower price. I am already overseas about once a year as it is. I can easily add a day and go shopping.

    The problem that a lot of the (un)FairTax proponents have is that they have no concept that there are people which go out of their way to avoid taxes and higher costs. A black market would blossom and I’d be your dealer.
     
  10. bydesign77

    bydesign77 Active Member

    I don't think that would be the case, but neither one of us has any proof. So there's no sense in arguing that.
     
  11. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Fair point, I probably overstated that.

    The interest payments haven't begun to rise yet. But pretty much everyone agrees that they will soon, and when they do, they will be a significant drag on the economy. The CBO has done a ton of good work on this.

    Agreed. But few people seem to think that's going to happen anytime soon. I definitely don't.

    I definitely think we need to raise taxes.

    Yes. That's what we are facing.

    Also, Entitlement is simply the technical term for government spending promised to a certain class of people, where anyone who fits the class description is eligible for payment. I know conservatives like to use it with perjorative connotations, but that really is just the term for it.

    Agreed. There's plenty of evidence of that. We wouldn't be in this mess if even half the people who have come to Jesus about deficits had been there all along.

    No opinion.
     
  12. spnited

    spnited Active Member


    I intend to see every freaking nickel of the more than $200,000 I and my employers have contributed to MY Social Secuirty retirement account over the past 45+ years.
    Social Security is not an entitlement. It is MY FUCKING MONEY.
     
    BitterYoungMatador2 likes this.
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