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If you raise taxes without getting a handle on spending, legislators (left and right) will simply continue to spend. The budget needs to be cut in dramatic fashion and then if we need to increase taxes, we need to increase them across the board. Everyone contributes. Will the poor contribute massive amounts to the treasury? No, of coarse not, but it is symbolic and will make them realize that the benefits they recieve cost money.
Do you think that safety net benefits should be considered Income? As pensions and 401K withdrawls are.
Do you think that safety net benefits should be considered Income? As pensions and 401K withdrawls are.
Yeah I actually do, but I think they should be taxed on a smaller scale. Much the same as capital gains are taxed for those of us that rely on capital gains for our income... Everybody needs to row this boat.
Thats the beauty of a progressive tax system. We should be able to create brackets in a tighter range to bring about everyone being in the game, both higher and lower.
Maybe the states should bring down their individual taxes, and decrease spending so the federal government could take more from their checks without any significant tax increase. I.e. hypothetically, speaking say in CA the wealthy are taxed 10%, the state could drop it to 8% and let the federal government take 2% extra in federal taxes so that person making $10 million annually wont have any more cash taken away (of course I support higher taxes on the wealthy but for temporary measures we could do that while the tax code is re-written) But with that said spending cuts will be mandatory on both the federal and state levels. Remember some States are also in trouble with debt.
I believe its 31 states with huge budget problems. The final result will wind up being that local tax rate will be going up. Without Fed. dollars or state dollars more counties will wind up unable to cover costs of mandated programs. Land owners will wind up with the highest tax rates if the eco. does not improve.
My concern is for those of us who are the working poor, who get no gov't benefits. I'm 62 and barely make it now on my low wages, no health care insurance etc. If my taxes get raise I could very well go under and what does that mean? I loose my very very modest home - an older paid for small MH, if I loose my paid for home then I have to rent and with that comes bills I don't have now. I used to make a very good living until the crash and my life changed forever.
We are still in recovery, and I think many of us had skin in the game for over 40 years, but we now are struggling still and until that changes I really think the graduated income tax would be better.
how about we do something silly, and instead of raising taxes, either on just the rich or across the board, lets actually cut spending. we dont have a revenue problem in this country, we have a spending problem. we have essentially given a compulsive spender( the federal government) an credit card and let them go. we need to reign in spending big time and now. once we have spending under control, then if we need to we can do what is needed to increase revenues.
Tax increases for middle class people and over-zealous cutting of spending will do nothing to fix the deficit. It will make it worse, in fact, because it will slow or reverse the recovery. The deficit is due (outside of the two wars) more to falling revenues and increased safety net payments from the recession. Get the economy moving and that will do more to help the deficit issue than any margin increases. If it is not enough as it will probably not be, then tax increases on middle class families should be phased in slowly as household incomes recover and working people de-leverage further. Not now!
This. Raising taxes on the middle and lower class would kill small business, because most people in those groups have to spend all or the vast majority of their income on basics. If you cut their taxes, they have less to spend on those basics. That's why the focus is on raising personal income taxes on people with upper level incomes right now--raising their taxes slightly won't impact their consumption. Taxing everyone more right now would put us right back in a recession.
I'm a business owner. If I have a lot of debt and my sales are down, I'm not going to cut my company down to the bone so that I can't function--you have to trim where it won't impact the business in a significant way, find a way to raise revenues short term (increased sales volume or a find a way to increase profit margin on exisitng sales--raising prices may hurt more than help) and invest in areas that will increase sales down the road. The government isn't all that different--make cuts that won't hurt job growth, raise revenues that won't hurt job growth, and reinvest in things like infrastructure, corporate tax cuts, research and education that will increase job growth down the road.
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