Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Increasing taxes on the rich will not fix the deficit problem. We all know the elephant in the room is the spending. I'm sure you've heard of the laffer curve, which basically suggests a higher tax rate will not necessarily lead to more federal revenue. Obviously the economics behind it are a bit more complicated than that. But that's not even my main point. Taxing the rich will not solve our problems. Raising taxes in this economic environment is the last thing that should be done. What needs to be addressed is the spending and all the new programs being pushed by the president (health care, cap & trade, etc.) that are contributing to the economic uncertainty.
The health care bill is not deficit neutral. It is going to cost way more than the CBO estimated. Back in 1965, they estimated that Medicare would cost approximately $25 billion by the year 2003. Turns out it cost over $250 billion. There's no doubt the current health care bill will cost far more than estimated.
listen - i know taxing is not the answer. but neither is spending reduction. the fact is, BOTH are the answer. until people want to admit that, nothing is changing. we have a lot of areas we can cut spending in without touching medicare and social security.
what people don't consider when talking about healthcare is that we americans are spending far more than other nations when you add our tax burden and healthcare costs together. the healthcare bill is part of the spending for sure, but the CBO can certainly be close to right, or they can be wrong. simply stating that "there's no doubt..." without giving any real facts is not helping the problem either.
Obama can let the Bush tax cuts expire and revert back to a rate that will still be lower than Reagan's tax policy in the 80s. so was tax policy int he 80s and 90s bad also? economy seemed to grow quite well during those times.
smoke and mirrors is all most politicians are offering. no one is really stepping up and stating the facts and coming up with real ideas. i'll continue to be entertained by all the politicians (D & R) that keep saying they give a crap about the deficit, but don't offer realistic solutions. it would be simple to let the top tax bracket raise, and let the rest extend for 5 or 10 more years. if you're making $500,000/yr, you're not changing your spending habits because you pay 3 cents more per dollar over $250,000 earned. truly, no one can believe that would really happen. combine this with honest idea on spending reductions from all areas, including the often-untouchable topic of defense spending. we spend as much as the next 13 largest defense budgets in the world, who happen to all be our allies. is that really necessary? we could easily cut by 10 or even 20% without changing much of our comfort level and defense capabilities. modify social security to raise the retirement age slightly alone would extend the life of that program. with life expectancies much longer than they used to be, this only makes sense. keep going. nothing should be off the table, but realistic steps should be discussed.
listen - i know taxing is not the answer. but neither is spending reduction. the fact is, BOTH are the answer. until people want to admit that, nothing is changing. we have a lot of areas we can cut spending in without touching medicare and social security.
A reduction in spending will hurt much less than any tax increase. There's so much waste that can be eliminated. I think we could both agree that there's more to the medicare and social security debate than simply making cuts. These programs need to be overhauled, reformed, and or scaled back in some way. The fact that it's even an issue just shows the problems there are with government programs.
Quote:
what people don't consider when talking about healthcare is that we americans are spending far more than other nations when you add our tax burden and healthcare costs together. the healthcare bill is part of the spending for sure, but the CBO can certainly be close to right, or they can be wrong. simply stating that "there's no doubt..." without giving any real facts is not helping the problem either.
Part of the reason health costs are so high are because of the government's involvement in the first place. Medicare and medicaid underpays doctors and hospitals, passing the rest of the cost on to private insurance companies and the rest of us (this extra cost is in addition to the taxes we pay for programs like medicare). Now I think Medicare doesn't underpay by much (although I've heard percentages from as little as 3% to as much as 20%). Medicaid on the other hand is grossly underpaying doctors and hospitals. I'm sure there are some reforms in the health care bill, but they're probably no more than putting a band aid on a cancer patient.
Quote:
Obama can let the Bush tax cuts expire and revert back to a rate that will still be lower than Reagan's tax policy in the 80s. so was tax policy int he 80s and 90s bad also? economy seemed to grow quite well during those times.
Those were different times. Following the recessions of the 80s and 90s, we saw robust growth. Now we're stagnated and a lot of jobs aren't coming back. My view is, extend the tax cuts until the economy is on two steady feet.
Quote:
smoke and mirrors is all most politicians are offering. no one is really stepping up and stating the facts and coming up with real ideas. i'll continue to be entertained by all the politicians (D & R) that keep saying they give a crap about the deficit, but don't offer realistic solutions. it would be simple to let the top tax bracket raise, and let the rest extend for 5 or 10 more years. if you're making $500,000/yr, you're not changing your spending habits because you pay 3 cents more per dollar over $250,000 earned. truly, no one can believe that would really happen. combine this with honest idea on spending reductions from all areas, including the often-untouchable topic of defense spending. we spend as much as the next 13 largest defense budgets in the world, who happen to all be our allies. is that really necessary? we could easily cut by 10 or even 20% without changing much of our comfort level and defense capabilities. modify social security to raise the retirement age slightly alone would extend the life of that program. with life expectancies much longer than they used to be, this only makes sense. keep going. nothing should be off the table, but realistic steps should be discussed.
I agree with you on the bloated defense budget. Cut wasteful, pointless programs, close bases, etc.
Get rid of those stupid concrete barriers and put in center/left turn lanes. The traffic isn't that heavy. It's far heavier in many areas of South Florida, yet they have center/left turn lanes and it's no problem, despite the fact that half of the people driving are 105, can barely see over the steering wheel and never turn off their right-hand blinker, and half of the other half are in their teens or twenties and trying to race around the old folks.
A reduction in spending will hurt much less than any tax increase. There's so much waste that can be eliminated. I think we could both agree that there's more to the medicare and social security debate than simply making cuts. These programs need to be overhauled, reformed, and or scaled back in some way. The fact that it's even an issue just shows the problems there are with government programs.
Part of the reason health costs are so high are because of the government's involvement in the first place. Medicare and medicaid underpays doctors and hospitals, passing the rest of the cost on to private insurance companies and the rest of us (this extra cost is in addition to the taxes we pay for programs like medicare). Now I think Medicare doesn't underpay by much (although I've heard percentages from as little as 3% to as much as 20%). Medicaid on the other hand is grossly underpaying doctors and hospitals. I'm sure there are some reforms in the health care bill, but they're probably no more than putting a band aid on a cancer patient.
Those were different times. Following the recessions of the 80s and 90s, we saw robust growth. Now we're stagnated and a lot of jobs aren't coming back. My view is, extend the tax cuts until the economy is on two steady feet.
I agree with you on the bloated defense budget. Cut wasteful, pointless programs, close bases, etc.
"part of the reason costs are high is because of gov't involvement"? this doesn't really make sense. my point was that our costs are significantly higher than other countries', which all have much more government involvement than we do. doctors don't have to accept medicare - they agreed to those payments as well. it's no different than private insurance companies that underpay doctors because they've got them by the crotch.
you know what's fundamentally flawed about the cut spending but don't raise taxes because it will hurt jobs and growth idea? cutting spending means reducing jobs. this is just a simple truth. if the defense cuts their budget, then they'll be buying less equipment. companies won't have to make that equipment. if we pull out of afghanistan, troops will come home and we'll need less new recruits.
extending all tax cuts vs letting the highest bracket expire is not going to greatly impact spending. it's just not. Bill Gates isn't going to go out to dinner one less time per week cause his taxes went from 36% to 39%. Neither is the CEO or Sr Management at my company. i'm not trying to sound like i want to tax the heck out of the "rich" - but for now, letting some of the tax cuts expire will assist in raising revenues.
concessions need to be made from both directions. we can't possibly cut enough spending in the near term to do enough for the deficit.
Legalize marijuana and tax it. Channel part of those funds into targeting drugs that are a serious threat, such as heroin and crack. Release those who are in prison for possession of marijuana, which will help reduce the strain on our prison system and our wallets.
>I agree with this... but on a National level.
>Practically a no brainer at this point. (and I do not smoke weed)
Yes, and more evidence that politicians are lacking in brains. Actually, I would legalize ALL drugs, including the supposedly dangerous ones like heroin. Nearly all the harm blamed on drugs results from the fact that they are illegal.
It's not that drugs are not potentially dangerous, but making them illegal doesn't solve the problem; it just makes it worse. Contaminants and uncertainties in dose in street drugs are what cause most of the "overdose" deaths. Addicts steal to obtain the inflated prices of drugs, which would be as cheap as aspirin if legal. Hell, even the conservative Swiss have decriminalized and regulated "hard" drugs.
"part of the reason costs are high is because of gov't involvement"? this doesn't really make sense. my point was that our costs are significantly higher than other countries', which all have much more government involvement than we do. doctors don't have to accept medicare - they agreed to those payments as well.
The reason health care in the US is very expensive is that no-one is in much of a position to be able to say "no" to a treatment option. See the recent outcry over the so-called "death panels" as a shining example of this.
The primary effect of government involvement the industry in the US is to make all participants cost insensitive. If there were no government involvement, one of the first things that would happen is that most people would become considerably more price sensitive (basically, everyone would spend more carefully because one way or another, they would be spending their own money)
It's possible in theory for government involvement to do things which would reduce costs -- for example, increase price transparency, address adverse selection (e.g. gaming the system by purchasing insurance as soon as you get sick), move the burden of providing insurance from employers, limit the right to sue. Government involvement in most other countries involves one or more of these things but the US does none of them.
"part of the reason costs are high is because of gov't involvement"? this doesn't really make sense. my point was that our costs are significantly higher than other countries', which all have much more government involvement than we do. doctors don't have to accept medicare - they agreed to those payments as well. it's no different than private insurance companies that underpay doctors because they've got them by the crotch.
You're right, they don't have to accept Medicare. However many of them do simply because they don't want to deny their patients care. Doctors and hospitals usually don't make money off Medicare and Medicaid (though they're more likely to make a return on Medicare than they are on Medicaid...it obviously depends on individual cases). Private insurance pays far more than the government programs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
you know what's fundamentally flawed about the cut spending but don't raise taxes because it will hurt jobs and growth idea? cutting spending means reducing jobs. this is just a simple truth. if the defense cuts their budget, then they'll be buying less equipment. companies won't have to make that equipment. if we pull out of afghanistan, troops will come home and we'll need less new recruits.
Well in an earlier post you suggested that the defense budget be cut, and I agreed. But the above seems to imply you'd be against the cuts. If the budget is cut, then there will be job losses which will hurt in the short term. But it'll be better in the long run because there will be less of an increase in the deficit. If the military has no vital need for a base, building, or program then it should be shut down/ended.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
extending all tax cuts vs letting the highest bracket expire is not going to greatly impact spending. it's just not. Bill Gates isn't going to go out to dinner one less time per week cause his taxes went from 36% to 39%. Neither is the CEO or Sr Management at my company. i'm not trying to sound like i want to tax the heck out of the "rich" - but for now, letting some of the tax cuts expire will assist in raising revenues.
concessions need to be made from both directions. we can't possibly cut enough spending in the near term to do enough for the deficit.
We're certainly not going to be out of the hole for years to come, but why dig ourselves deeper? Unfortunately that's exactly what President Obama and congress are doing. They obviously aren't concerned about the deficit and will continue to spend like drunken sailors.
As for the tax cuts, it is the rich who often finance and invest in business start-ups and other ventures that will be vital in the economic recovery. These investments will hopefully spur economic activity, which, in the long run will actually increase federal tax revenue. It goes far beyond Bill Gates eating dinner at Olive Garden (or a five star version of Olive Garden, Lol).
With that said, it seems we're both concerned about the deficit and the short term and long term health of the economy...we just have different priorities.
The reason health care in the US is very expensive is that no-one is in much of a position to be able to say "no" to a treatment option. See the recent outcry over the so-called "death panels" as a shining example of this.
The primary effect of government involvement the industry in the US is to make all participants cost insensitive. If there were no government involvement, one of the first things that would happen is that most people would become considerably more price sensitive (basically, everyone would spend more carefully because one way or another, they would be spending their own money)
It's possible in theory for government involvement to do things which would reduce costs -- for example, increase price transparency, address adverse selection (e.g. gaming the system by purchasing insurance as soon as you get sick), move the burden of providing insurance from employers, limit the right to sue. Government involvement in most other countries involves one or more of these things but the US does none of them.
death panels were basically a completely fictitious idea, pushed by some politicians at town hall meetings to get people mad about something that doesn't exist.
so - if no government involvement, most people would be considerably more price sensitive? so, like, if our country had a system, where people were buying insurance through say, they're employer or through private insurance companies, they'd be more price sensitive? damn - why does that type of system sound familiar?
the US plan isn't nearly what it should have been or could have been because people fought the idea of having healthcare like what exists in other countries. we ended up with a diluted mess that appeased some members of both parties, but in the end, probably doesn't help us very much.
yet again, we let our representatives get away with serving their own damn interests instead of ours.
You're right, they don't have to accept Medicare. However many of them do simply because they don't want to deny their patients care. Doctors and hospitals usually don't make money off Medicare and Medicaid (though they're more likely to make a return on Medicare than they are on Medicaid...it obviously depends on individual cases). Private insurance pays far more than the government programs.
Well in an earlier post you suggested that the defense budget be cut, and I agreed. But the above seems to imply you'd be against the cuts. If the budget is cut, then there will be job losses which will hurt in the short term. But it'll be better in the long run because there will be less of an increase in the deficit. If the military has no vital need for a base, building, or program then it should be shut down/ended.
We're certainly not going to be out of the hole for years to come, but why dig ourselves deeper? Unfortunately that's exactly what President Obama and congress are doing. They obviously aren't concerned about the deficit and will continue to spend like drunken sailors.
As for the tax cuts, it is the rich who often finance and invest in business start-ups and other ventures that will be vital in the economic recovery. These investments will hopefully spur economic activity, which, in the long run will actually increase federal tax revenue. It goes far beyond Bill Gates eating dinner at Olive Garden (or a five star version of Olive Garden, Lol).
With that said, it seems we're both concerned about the deficit and the short term and long term health of the economy...we just have different priorities.
i see what my insurance pays doctors and hospitals. i have a family member who's profession is to act as the in-between for cases where a person cannot pay their bill and the hospital wants to collect something rather than nothing. i know plenty about medicare and medicaid payments being in a family with a physician's assistant, a pharmacist, and a doctor. i've audited enough healthcare companies to see how their businesses work as well.
if you honestly believe doctors are getting gamed by medicare and medicaid, and that private insurance is all rosy and paying them nicely, you're lost. the insurance companies helped create this factory-like doctor service that exists now by squeezing doctors on rates so low, that doctors had to take on more patients and spend less time with patients than they used to just to be able to make money.
my earlier post on cutting the defense budget was true to what i feel. i'm just pointing out to the tax-increase-opposers that spending reductions in government also result in stifling jobs. i'm not saying keep spending for no reason - just saying, it's not as simple as "cut spending". that guy making $50,000/yr and paying 28% taxes - he's no longer going to have a job, and is gonna need to tap some of the social services that are out there (unemployment, welfare, etc) until he finds one to replace it.
banks finance and invest in startups. the super-rich venture capitalists do as well. do you really want me to believe that because the tax rate on dollars earned past $250,000 goes from 36 cents to 39 cents per dollar that we're going to have a huge dent in our investments?
i'm sorry, but it's not going to be any larger a dent than cutting the program where the guy makes $50,000/yr and now no longer has a job and is no longer paying his 28% taxes. and that guy also is no longer paying his mortgage, utilities, going out to eat, etc. but the rich investor that has 3 less cents to invest - he's still using his first $250,000 in salary to go out and spend money in our economy, and now he's investing 61 cents in start up capital instead of 64 cents.
bottom line is - it has to come from both sides of the equal sign. you can't just cut spending to balance the budget, and you certainly can't just raise taxes to do it either.
the money has been spent. now, we must start paying for it. that's how it goes.
with SS, we allowed our government to spend the trust fund down to dangerously low levels. now, the solution from the people who blanketly oppose taxes is not to replace that money that was spent (which would require raising taxes), but to reduce the benefits that were promised to the recipients. that's not fair. we all allowed it to happen, we all have to bite the bullet. it should be fixed by some mixture of raising the revenues to fix the mistakes, and cutting benefits because of the mistakes.
you cannot fix the deficit by only working on one side of the equation. that's just a reality that we all have to swallow.
death panels were basically a completely fictitious idea, pushed by some politicians at town hall meetings to get people mad about something that doesn't exist.
I don't want to have some back and forth about whether the Democrats or Republicans have the better "talking points". I'm simply pointing out that while there are several examples of government interventions that reduce costs, the US do not make use of any of them. Moreover, most ideas that would reduce costs are not gaining much traction in proposed federal legislation. I explain further down why I believe it's difficult to control costs.
Quote:
so - if no government involvement, most people would be considerably more price sensitive?
correct.
Quote:
so, like, if our country had a system, where people were buying insurance through say, they're employer or through private insurance companies, they'd be more price sensitive?
The link between your employer and your insurance is a peculiarity of the US system. It exists primarily because of tax incentives. When I say "no government involvement", I don't have in mind a collection of incentives designed to make the costs completely opaque to consumers of health care services.
If people purchased care on the open market, and were therefore directly exposed to their health insurance costs (as opposed to employer based systems where the employer typically pays most of the bill cost), they would be more willing to buy higher deductible plans and accept higher out of pocket costs, at least for routine non-emergency treatment in exchange for lower "insurance" premiums. And since they were paying out of pocket, they would want more price transparency. (one way the government could help here is to requirepricetransparency, not opacity, from health care providers)
To put it another way, you buy "insurance" to manage risk, not known expenses. You don't buy "insurance" to pay for groceries, nor would you purchase a groceries "insurance" plan -- such a plan would be prohibitively expensive, because it would encourage over-consumption. But that's what we have with health "insurance".
Quote:
the US plan isn't nearly what it should have been or could have been because people fought the idea of having healthcare like what exists in other countries.
You can't have what people have in other countries without someone giving up something. The US has higher per capita government spending than the UK and they still don't cover everyone. It's very expensive to cover everyone without getting spending under control, but it's very hard to get spending under control.
As a general principle, loss aversion plays an enormous role in status-quo bias in public policy. To put it another way, if I have a proposition that has disutility X to you, and utility X to me, you will be more upset than I will be happy. The responses to gain and loss are asymmetric. Even if we change the policy so that the disutility to you is X/2, which makes it a net win for society, it might still be politically difficult to implement.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
