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Argentina, and a number of other Latin American countries, have defaulted on their debts any number of times, and they're all still breathing quite well!
And? After every default, they still find idiots to buy their bonds!
It'll be no different when (not if!) we default on our debts!!!
I've got other things to worry about, like when (not if!) we're going to be subjected to a nuclear holocaust!
Tax rates are strikingly low relative to the rates of the past century, especially for high and low income earners. One would need to go back almost 100 years to find lower statutory rates for high income earners. Conversely, nearly half the population has no skin in the game. Both are extremes.
Rates used to be increased to make a serious dent in war debt and new benefits. Now we lower taxes and blame when the deficit grows.
The biggest pieces of the spending pie are Medicare and Defense. Baby boomers began turning 65 to the tune of 10,000 a day in 2011 and this will persist for another 16 +/- years. They will come at anyone who dares to whisper cutting benefit with pitchforks. the can kept kicking to the future and here we are. It is what it is.
As for Defense, we'll be can't seem to stop putting our nose in other people's business and this spend directly and indirectly employs a heck of a lot of people. Taxes should have been increased a decade ago to offset war spending. Instead, they were reduced. Makes no sense.
Politicians want us to believe all we have to do is kick the welfare queens and their good for nothing kids to the curb and all will be well.
There is no way out without increasing taxes and no one has the wood to do it. So that can keeps on kicking no matter who sits the oval or has the majority.
1. baby boomers at turning 65 at a rate of 8000 per day....... americans are turning 18 at a rate of 13,000 per day.......so much for the boomers causing this
2. defense spending is low, compared to years ago
Quote:
the 1980 (carters last year) defense budget 240 billion ....
...would be 770 billion in todays' (constant) dollars
our current budget is smaller than carters peace time budget.. in todays' dollars
the increases have been in welfare, medicare and Medicaid:
Quote:
medicare spending has increase 29%....... 386b to 548b
medicaid spending has increased 44%..... 201b to 319b.....medicare/ciad makes up nearly 800 billion of our spending and is INCREASED big time each year
as to the tax rates of yesteryear....while the rate for the '''rich''' may have been up near 90%...they paid LESS then than now....a lot more write-offs then.....btw in the 50's, the '''rich''' (top bracket) was 380k and above or 3 million in todays dollars...not the 200-250k that todyas liberals call the rich...250k is middleclass
Tax rates are strikingly low relative to the rates of the past century, especially for high and low income earners. One would need to go back almost 100 years to find lower statutory rates for high income earners. Conversely, nearly half the population has no skin in the game. Both are extremes.
Rates used to be increased to make a serious dent in war debt and new benefits. Now we lower taxes and blame when the deficit grows.
The biggest pieces of the spending pie are Medicare and Defense. Baby boomers began turning 65 to the tune of 10,000 a day in 2011 and this will persist for another 16 +/- years. They will come at anyone who dares to whisper cutting benefit with pitchforks. the can kept kicking to the future and here we are. It is what it is.
As for Defense, we'll be can't seem to stop putting our nose in other people's business and this spend directly and indirectly employs a heck of a lot of people. Taxes should have been increased a decade ago to offset war spending. Instead, they were reduced. Makes no sense.
Politicians want us to believe all we have to do is kick the welfare queens and their good for nothing kids to the curb and all will be well.
There is no way out without increasing taxes and no one has the wood to do it. So that can keeps on kicking no matter who sits the oval or has the majority.
"There is no way out without increasing taxes" History says otherwise.
1. baby boomers at turning 65 at a rate of 8000 per day....... americans are turning 18 at a rate of 13,000 per day.......so much for the boomers causing this
2. defense spending is low, compared to years ago
the increases have been in welfare, medicare and Medicaid:
as to the tax rates of yesteryear....while the rate for the '''rich''' may have been up near 90%...they paid LESS then than now....a lot more write-offs then.....btw in the 50's, the '''rich''' (top bracket) was 380k and above or 3 million in todays dollars...not the 200-250k that todyas liberals call the rich...250k is middleclass
why do the liberals always attach the middleclass
"Quote:
the 1980 (carters last year) defense budget 240 billion ....
...would be 770 billion in todays' (constant) dollars
Tax rates are strikingly low relative to the rates of the past century, especially for high and low income earners. One would need to go back almost 100 years to find lower statutory rates for high income earners. Conversely, nearly half the population has no skin in the game. Both are extremes.
Rates used to be increased to make a serious dent in war debt and new benefits. Now we lower taxes and blame when the deficit grows.
The biggest pieces of the spending pie are Medicare and Defense. Baby boomers began turning 65 to the tune of 10,000 a day in 2011 and this will persist for another 16 +/- years. They will come at anyone who dares to whisper cutting benefit with pitchforks. the can kept kicking to the future and here we are. It is what it is.
As for Defense, we'll be can't seem to stop putting our nose in other people's business and this spend directly and indirectly employs a heck of a lot of people. Taxes should have been increased a decade ago to offset war spending. Instead, they were reduced. Makes no sense.
Politicians want us to believe all we have to do is kick the welfare queens and their good for nothing kids to the curb and all will be well.
There is no way out without increasing taxes and no one has the wood to do it. So that can keeps on kicking no matter who sits the oval or has the majority.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pghquest
none of this is true. The tax collected as a percentage of GDP is relatively about the same now as when they were far higher.
On part of it is true--where she says "nearly half the population has no skin in the game. " This is the 47% of 'non payers' who file taxes but pay zero or less than zero. That number was around 20%, give or take a few points, until around 1990 when it started climbing.
And a couple of other notes... Defense spending as a percentage of federal spending has been cut more than in half in the past 50 years. In 1965, defense was 43% of federal spending. Now it is around 20%. I am for cutting defense spending, but we must also cut social welfare spending.
I don't know how people can still insist that there is no waste, fraud and abuse when a story like this is considered so routine, so commonplace, that it barely makes a blip in national news. //www.city-data.com/forum/polit...-fmcs-buy.html
And note also that none of the fraudsters were ever held accountable.
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