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Who should pay -- the poor, the middle-class? No. The rich should pay and it doesn't hurt them ONE BIT. They'll probably find a way to escape the tax hike with tax accountants anyways. Stop cutting services and making this country even more pathetic, quality-wise, than it already is. A flight to quality will be the next revolution this country experiences, IMO, if it wants to compete as a global leader with China, GB, etc. Big-business needs to be taxed MUCH more as they are usually the ones who take advantage of the average American at the cost of either the customer or the product.
The rich already pay the majority of federal income taxes in the country. The bottom 50% of Americans pay zero, or get even more money back than they paid in, in federal income taxes. Big businesses will just pick up and relocate to tax-friendlier countries.
Taxing more doesn't not solve our spending and entitlement problems.
Or we could just frame it this simple way. In 2001 we had our last surplus. Taxes were 20% of GDP roughly. They stand at 14% now. What changed there? Bush tax cuts.
Spending today not counting costs to fight wars is roughly the same inflation adjusted.
So end war spending, repeal tax cuts, continue to keep spending about the same with inflation adjustments and you get to a deficit of roughly $100 billion or less than 1% of GDP.
How do the Democrats miss this simple argument and sell it to the people is beyond me. If you polled voters and asked what you think about this strategy framed in this manner and I'd guess you would see 65% approval.
That done, you can move onto the messy issues of future entitlements.
2001 was at the end of the tech boom and the first wave of the real estate spike. Lots of cash was being made that doesn't exist anymore.
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
5,509 posts, read 11,880,875 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfpacker
The rich already pay the majority of federal income taxes in the country. The bottom 50% of Americans pay zero, or get even more money back than they paid in, in federal income taxes. Big businesses will just pick up and relocate to tax-friendlier countries.
Taxing more doesn't not solve our spending and entitlement problems.
I just disagree, and so do you, so we can leave it at that. Cutting services is not a way to make this country prosper in the long run. The rich support that though because they can afford to pay for private services AND they don't get taxed as much. I'd rather pi$$ off 5% of society than 95% of society, especially when that 5% of society can afford the changes.
this is a huge debate that i won't go deep into because it's a waste of time. but i heard something funny from an interview about a new book by Fareed Zakaria...he pointed out that if congress does NOTHING, which it's very good at, and just let the tax cuts expire, that would erase $3.9T in debt over the next 10 years (i may not have the exact quote right, but that's about it). that would put us well on our way to closing the debt, and most people middle and upper brackets wouldn't drastically change their spending habits...as evidenced by our spending habits in the 90s before those tax cuts existed. it was a temporary policy that was supposed to expire. pile on top of that a decade of wars paid for with borrowed money, and that makes up a large sum of our deficit spending and of our national debt. cuts to spending need to be made, but simple math proves that that's not all that needs to be done.
I think it's inevitable that taxes will have to go up (or loopholes/deductions closed). However, I wanted to point out that 3.9Trillion over 10 years is not a lot of money. Last year's deficit was over 1 Trillion and this year's is supposed to be 1.6Trillion.
We're going to have to do a lot more than just raise taxes.
Now they are spending more bailing out states that can't manage their own finances, but the real reason is control. No federal money comes without a price, meet their regulations or lose it. Once the states become dependent on federal money they can't afford to give it up and lose local control.
Yep. It seems everything is about centralizing power and control in fewer and fewer hands, whether it be business or the government...the concentration of power at the top is the same.
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
5,509 posts, read 11,880,875 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainNJ
smaller government is the way to make america prosper. government gets in the way of prosperity.
That may be true...IDK...I'm not republican and I know republicans have a very laissez faires attitude about government intervention -- but that's because most of them can afford the private services most of us take for granted.
I just disagree, and so do you, so we can leave it at that. Cutting services is not a way to make this country prosper in the long run. The rich support that though because they can afford to pay for private services AND they don't get taxed as much. I'd rather pi$$ off 5% of society than 95% of society, especially when that 5% of society can afford the changes.
People, people, people you all just don't get it. You do happen to realize that that 5% of the population that you would **** off includes people ONLY making $159,619 don't you? Not exactly rich, I would say. The top tax rate for the rich during the Clinton years was 39.6 I believe. That's less than 5 more percentage points than it is now.
Take a look at these numbers and tell me that raising taxes on 1% of the population less than 5% is going to deal with a 1.65 TRILLION dollar deficit. You all are dreaming if you think the rich can fund even a single year of the federal budget. You could steal er I mean tax 100% of everything for the top 5% and still not have enough for a single year. It is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for the rich to fund the current level of spending.
That may be true...IDK...I'm not republican and I know republicans have a very laissez faires attitude about government intervention -- but that's because most of them can afford the private services most of us take for granted.
no, its because communism doesnt work and has been proven over and over to do nothing but make everyone equally poor except the political elite. you cant go after profit because you are destroying productivity. profit is good, opportunity to get wealthy is good. the government has increased spending by about 1/3 in the last few years. where is the additional benefit? big government hurts us.
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
5,509 posts, read 11,880,875 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mn311601
People, people, people you all just don't get it. You do happen to realize that that 5% of the population that you would **** off includes people ONLY making $159,619 don't you? Not exactly rich, I would say. The top tax rate for the rich during the Clinton years was 39.6 I believe. That's less than 5 more percentage points than it is now.
Take a look at these numbers and tell me that raising taxes on 1% of the population less than 5% is going to deal with a 1.65 TRILLION dollar deficit. You all are dreaming if you think the rich can fund even a single year of the federal budget. You could steal er I mean tax 100% of everything for the top 5% and still not have enough for a single year. It is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for the rich to fund the current level of spending.
Did anyone say raising taxes was the ONLY solution? I didn't see that. There needs to be compromises on both sides, obviously.
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