The only one you need, according to Business Insider:
Zero out the defense budget and you’re still left with an $800 billion shortfall.
This year.
The rate of increase in entitlement spending gets worse next year, and the year after that.
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The sad part is we have lost the ability to coherently and calmly the problem of this aggregation of a multitude of small programs to buy votes that all add to the overall problem. Add to it that the Government has paid for so much so long, that should have been personal responsibility (such as free birth control to low income people) that no one wants their ox gored…politicians either.
Any attempt to point at real budget lines with real dollar values resulting in changes like GOP waging war on women….translated: We will not accept any reduction of funds while we go over the cliff, and you evil Republicans can’t see how badly it hurts someone’s esteem to tell them to keep their knickers on if they can’t afford to feed another innocent child they bring into the world by demanding the are allowed to experience pleasure on the taxpayer’s dime…does that make us virtual Johns? We are paying for it….just no risk of contracting those nasty diseases in this mode.
I fear the rudderless ship now doesn’t even have anyone interested in conducting emergency repairs as the storm approaches.
Xformed, the country has us.
We swore an oath, and I’m not sure it goes away after service. We inform communities with our concerns. Our social networks toss analysis around. We contact our elected officials, and put pressure on the equilibrium of power. Just think how much worse off we would be without a “tea-party” of informed, productive, strong citizens to push back.
I don’t know if it’s enough, but I will do what I can, and support others that can do more.
And I read you 5×5. Yes…I hang out on a formerly right of center, now almost full blown progressive place, just to keep sticking links in their face about our troops and the actual reports of the economy going south…and civil rights being trampled by the DoJ at the advice and consent of The WON!
I also know our salvation lies, partially, and most likely to a great extent, with the currently serving generation, who can get into civilian and political leadership roles across the land, and be able to tell them to shut up and man up and deal with the suck…and their faces and body language will say “stop your f’n whining and roll up your f’n sleeves…HERE’S YOUR SHOVEL!” Not like anyone can accuse them of grandstanding or “not letting a good crisis go to waste.”
And the entitlement programs will start growing at an even faster rate since 50,000-60,000 a DAY are moving from revenue producers to revenue consumers as they enter the Social Security net. Medicare is only 35 Trillion underfunded, and since it is not a yearly budgeted line item (merely funded by Congress on an as-needed basis) there is not way to control its growth.
But I don’t think that even if Obama got on the national news with Reid on one side and Boehner on the other side and started the “we’re sorry, but we are broke, and so I’m closing the Dept of Energy, the Dept of Education, the Dept of Homeland Security, the Dept of etc., etc., and retirement is now 70 and your social security payments are decreasing by 15%” that the American public would understand how screwed they are really are. They would sit there and think “well my government check will still come cuz I voted for him”
With apologies to Tolkien:
One Chart to rule them all, One Chart to find them,
One Trough to bring them all and in their larceny bind them.
I’m sure Tolkien would understand and approve.
The stash lady is sure she will get hers. She doesnt care how just as long as she gets her check.
The Constitution says that the Federal government MUST provide for the common defense. It does not say that the Federal government must provide a guaranteed minimum income, health care, retirement, etc. So how is it that defense is NOT an entitlement and the rest are? I’m entitled to a defense!
You, sir, are indefensible. Clearly a Raaaaacist (that’s with 5 ‘As’).
FedGov is also required to guarantee a republican goverenment to the states (it has failed, indeed been a cause of the loss of it) and is obligated to defend the states against invasion (just go to either southern or norther border to see how well it’s doing this).
In the end, FedGov is doing a lot of what it was never given the power to do, and little in those areas it was told it was to do. Both parties are guilty here as well. Dubya was one of teh biggest offenders, in fact.
Given the large and ever growing disparity between the two pie charts, it makes those untimely and continuing Bush tax cuts look ill advised, doesn’t it?
lol..you don’t get a lot of sleep , do you, Flit?
How much zackly does that Lex pay you? you ain’t from round heeyunh so must gotta be one of them thar rabal rousers paid to get folk riled up for ratings and such.
Flit – a trillion dollars is a stack of $100 dollar bills that is about 142 miles high. I’m thinking that a tax hike of 2% wouldn’t dent a $70 trillion dollar deficit for Medicare/Medicaid. Maybe time for some of those 49% that pay ZERO to start paying something?
Tax RATE cuts always result in increased tax revenue. Heck, even JFK knew that.
BTW, if one looks at a chart of tax revenue as a fraction of GDP for the past 60-70 years, it remains pretty constant at ~20. Lower tax RATES result in economic growth, or a larger GDP. So Uncle Sam gets 20% of a larger pie. But that doesn’t serve the purpose of punishing the rich, does it?
constant at ~20%
Hey…how about the rich Dems (jf’nk for just one, tax cheat Wrangel, Frank, Reid, Pelosi and Feinstein, and The WON! with his $.5M children’s book advance mere days away from being sworn in (improperly, I may add)) to, by leading by example, stroke a non-rubber check to the US Treasury to reduce the debt, or pay for their favorite earmarked program? Yeah, that would do a lot to change the attitudes…but no…they can only manage to dock their new yacht in a neighboring state to avoid higher taxes…oh, yeah….they give a crap aboout straightening things out – NOT!
You always manage to make it anyone’s problem, but the Left’s, where you hand out they have no responsibility passes like free ad flyers outside a store door….Guess what: It’s here, it’s now, the building is burning to the ground (metaphorically) and all you want to do is blame.
Dunno: I learned to attack a problem first, fix it, and then send in the investigators later in my time in service, and I was so naive to believe everyone else was, too. My bad.
Pffft – they don’t need to pay their share of taxes – they care more than you!
No, it doesn’t… being the only thing that is allowing any economic growth at this point.
Reminds me of someone said a long time ago is comming to your HDTV!
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
The person was Alexander Fraser Tytler, Scottish historian and professor who wrote several books in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Which is why the Founders didn’t set up a democracy. Things like property qualifications and indirect election of senators (not to mention the whole limited government thing) were designed in part to ensure the masses didn’t simply vote themselves everything they wanted. Unfortunately, starting in the late 19th century “progressives” started dismantling those controls.
They still think it’s a good thing.
Mr. Jeff,
So, are you seriously advocating the only people who should have the right to vote are property owners?
I’ll take that bait for $500, Alex. At the time of the Founders there was no income tax. Taxes were paid on property, trade, and tariffs.
So if I walked up to you and said, “Give me $500,” are you going to give me the money without question, or will you ask, “For what?” If I respond, “Booze, prostitutes, my hangers-on, cars and drivers to get us around and I’ll throw $25 to the groundskeeper” I’m thinking you’d want to keep your money.
Even if I said, “Well, $400 of it is for my sick mum, and of the rest I was thinking of spending it on booze, prostitutes, and clubbing this weekend” I’m still thinking you’d want to keep your money, or at least give only $400 to my sick mum.
When it’s not your money being spent, are you as concerned about where it goes?
Should we open the vote up to foreign nationals, since their countries get foreign aid money? Should we open the vote up to children, since so many benefit from programs to provide them school meals and insurance and after-school programs including those on television? Do they all not have as much an interest, as recipients, in how Congress spends as the person paying the tax?
In fact, if you’ve more than two children shouldn’t they be able to get together and bargain collectively as to their allowance? There are either two or one parents, three or more kids, clearly democracy will win out on allowance concessions as it should.
Now *that’s* democracy in action — three teenagers having a vote with their parents on who gets the whiskey and car keys.
And that pretty much describes democracy. Which is why we didn’t form one in the first place.
– Max
Mr. Max,
So I take it you would have no problem with only property owners having the right to vote then? Your example doesn’t directly answer the question posed.
Your post would seem to indicate you would like a – what? – authoritarian state where people who have the money and property make the rules? And everyone else is SOL correct?
Hell, there are some days I think Heinlen was right and the vote should be primarily restricted to veterans.
I do think that the vote should be restricted to those who have skin in the game. I like the idea of voters being limited to those who have paid net taxes over the year, but a property qualification, say $10,000 in net worth would be simpler.
Blather all you want about right and wrong. The simple fact is universal suffrage Does. Not. Work. Look at that chart. When you pay off all of the entitlements and debt interest you’re left with about 15 billion dollars to perform the actual, legitimate tasks of government. When a congressman votes in a way that benefits him financially we call it a conflict of interest. Why is a voter any different?
Nevil Shute wrote a novel In the Wet that had multiple votes as a way to get a better class of elected official. This was a novel of a fictional future commonwealth.
Everyone got one vote, then you got more votes if you were a minister, lived overseas (or stationed overseas), stayed married until your kids were 14, made a fair amount of money, had an advanced degree, and the last one was the Queen’s to give. This is from memory since my books are still boxed from our move to Kansas. An intriguing starting point for political reform.
Vets can get one of those votes.
I wrote this in the summer of 2008: “IF BHO is elected it would be proof that our educational, governance, and informational systems are fatally flawed. His ideas have not worked, do not work, and will not work. Too bad I have only one vote.”
Nowhere, from either side of the aisle, do we see really serious proposals for adequately reducing the federal deficit. “Train wreck” is an appropriate term, given one of the items in the Administration’s budget proposal. The Administration wants to spend $56 billion, that’s billion with a “b”, on high-speed rail service. Over the next 25 years, the total cost would be $800 billion!
Makes Amtrak look like a bargain.
As some wag said: “Obama wants to spend billions on trains no one will ride and borrow millions more to hire thousands of IRS agents to police health-care that nobody wants, but refuses to fund, build and police a border fence that almost everyone wants, partly on the claim that it’s too costly..” As George Will points out in “High Speed to Insolvency: Why liberals love trains” Obama’s budget priorities are not about cost-savings (health) or programmatic efficiency (trains) but upon CONTROL! See@
http://www.newsweek.com/stories.html/
(click on title at right page edge–direct link doesn’t work )
So correct! As many have said and all should consider:
“Follow the money, FOLLOW THE POWER!”
I believe Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin would beg to differ. His problem, however, is K street is firmly entrenched on both sides of the aisle.
G-man – Included in that 49% who pay “ZERO” taxes, where you thinking of BofA, Boeing, Citigroup, Exxon-Mobil, GE, and Wells Fargo too?
Ability-to-pay be damned in a corporatocracy.
Corporations don’t pay taxes – they are a cost of doing business, passed on to customers.
And no repsonse to tax rate cuts increasing revenue: on to another talking point.
Butch – “And no repsonse to tax rate cuts increasing revenue: on to another talking point.”
Glad you asked.
Tax rate cuts increasing tax revenue? That is oxymoronic, isn’t it?
Inarguably, a tax cut reduces tax revenues immediately. The question then remains whether over time whether they do increase tax revenue. This was part of Reagan’s supply-side, trickle-down, ‘voodoo’ economics that has since been found mostly in error. Also tax cuts most always benefit the rich far more than the middle class, and develop an ever widening and dangerous gap.
George Washington never did a neater job of cherry-picking… but at least he fessed up to it.
Rather than cherry-picking quotes from an interview, how about a chart comparing tax revenue as a percent of GDP with tax rate?
Here ya go:
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2010/07/02/does-hiking-tax-rates-raise-more-revenue/
Scroll down to the graph labeled Hauser’s Law. The marginal tax rates decreased from ~90% in 1950-1965 to ~35% in 2005, but federal revenues tripled.
Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers,one of the best known and most successful venture capital firms in the country, issued a report, “USA, Inc.”, that analyzes the US Federal Government as if it were a business.
http://www.kpcb.com/usainc/
Yea, that’s an unbiased source there, Flit
Mr. Scott,
Can you link to a site that is proven to be unbiased about this issue? I’m thinking there really isn’t one. I take a look at several sites on this issue, each approaching it with a different axe to grind, then try to determine who is more correct. YMMV.
Not necessarily. In transactions where demand is relatively inelastic, things like food and fuel, what you say is correct. When demand is very elastic tax increase usually come out of corporate profits. That’s why luxury taxes are never taxes on the rich, the company providing the luxury cannot raise prices too much or people will just stop buying. The company eats most of the tax.
Or the company goes out of business. That was the effect of an increased federal tax on luxury yachts a number of years ago.
All legal. Flit, my company pays taxes. but not really. yes, I sign the check to the IRS. Yes, the accountant firm assures me I can’t take any more deductions. And then I promptly pass on those costs to my customers. THEY pay my federal taxes. I fail to see why simple economic theory is so hard to understand. Along with the “rich don’t pay taxes” the looney libs scream “raise the minimum wage”. Both mantras lead to higher costs passed on to you – the consumer. But after all these years.. Sigh.
I have a friend who is wealthy. Like a net worth somewhere around $175-200 million. Pays ZERO federal tax. Pays zero state tax. Makes about 5% + per year on tax free bonds. Not a bad living – 8-10 mil ain’t what it used to be but it pays the bills, he says.
Now there is a freeloader, enjoying all the benefits of this country without supporting it. Of course it is legal, and I would do the same. The problem is that it is not right. The rich have lobbied for so many tax loopholes, that they get a free ride. The little guy gets stuck. We desperately need to change the tax laws.
Also, you can’t have your company pass any taxes on to me if I don’t want to. I have the option of not buying. So you are stuck with your fair share.
Low, flat tax corp and personal, and everybody subject to term limits might get some votes.
oy. /facepalm
a) freeloader?
Funding .gov by buying bonds?
How people living off him and his spending on goods and services?
Wanna bet he’s a more efficient (re)distributor of wealth than the .gov?
How much sales tax that guy pay? How much property and vehicle tax?
b) “I have the option of not buying. So you are stuck with your fair share.”
…and his fair share to pay in tax of a transaction that never happened? /double face palm
OK. If you ban tax-exempt bonds, what happens?
The investors demand higher interest rates!
Which get paid by the taxes from the interest on the bonds. You don’t come out ahead.
Flit is the perfect argument against publik skools. Typical economic illiteracy. Knows all, see all. But, what he knows just ain’t so.
Given his density, arguing with the man is like arguing with a troll.
“Flit is the perfect argument against publik skools.”
You must forgive him, I suppose; all he sees about economics is filtered through his union lens.
The guy making money off the tax free municipal bonds is hardly a freeloader, and is indeed doing a great deal to fund the governments.
He is accepting a lower rate of return but with the advantage of being non-taxable. Thus the government entity is getting money [to squander at will] at below market rates, albeit not collecting any taxes on the investor’s interest payments. Usually this involves a different tax collecting entity than the bond issuing entity, but the investor is hardly shirking their fair share of paying for the bloated largesse strewn about by the politicians.
If they don’t want to allow tax free instruments, fine, then just borrow the money from whoever is willing to loan it at market rates. (Better learn to speak Chinese…)
Hey;
I have an idea: Let’s tax corporations so they’ll have less money to hire private sector employees, so the Guv’ment can keep confiscating money, laundering it via congress and civil servants, to hand a pittance back, to a city to fix a bridge…WOW! brilliant! That will surely solve all the problems of the economy!
And: The corporations can just pass the cost down to the end user. But….The WON! could pass an EPA or OSHA or Banking regulation prohibiting that…and make corporations take their operations overseas even moreso.
Lose/lose: The liberal answer for the people. And it’s a loser for them in the long run, but a puffed up bank account today looms larger in their self-esteem equation.
“Ability-to-pay be damned…”
Look at the bytes you could have saved, and been even more correct.
Ability to pay has nothing to do with fair taxation – - because the COST of service provided to an individual (or a corporation) has nothing to do with ability to pay, either.
Tax corporations more & watch how employment plummets, because unlike the government, they can’t just shove their hands in our pockets to get more money.
Better a corporatocracy then the kleptocracy residing in DC, for that matter.
Alas, a coporatocracy yields crony capitalism and a kleptocracy. The “ruling class” is nothing but a kleptocracy. The very people Flit supports are kleptocrats.
He hasn’t made the intellectual jump yet, but that makes him a kleptocrat.
Yeah, I misspelled “Corporatocrtacy.” Sue me.
Mr. Sarge,
corporatocracy then the kleptocracy
Um, I’d be very careful wishing for that. This country already has a mix of both these “ocracies” as corporations have far too much influence in how laws are written, especially tax laws.
Back in the early 60′s we had 90% tax rates on top earners and corporations provided nearly 66% of federal revenue. Now they provide a pittance for the amount of money made. I think that needs to be looked at and rebalanced. Like another poster noted above, a flat tax on any and all profits, capital gains, etc, might be a good approach. I highly doubt the big corps would go with that approach.
I’d also have a tariff on imported manufactured goods from low-wage countries. And, the loopholes that allow corps to establish their HQ’s in places like the Bahamas but are really nothing more than a mail box need to be eliminated.
And, I do think each corp needs to go before Congress every ten years to justify the continuation of the corporate charter. That was what originally was supposed to happen and of course it was removed during the Robber Baron era, if I recall correctly.
And the net effect of all of these things that you so earnestly want is what? More competitive, or LESS competitive US corporations? We don’t live in the same world as the Sixties, so comparisons are specious.
Here’s a quick quiz – effective US corporate tax rates rank where compared to our economic peers? Compared to the OECD average are we above or below the average?
Mr. Scott,
The rate of corporate tax is only one part of the equation. However, the big corps are very skilled at using legal loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Thus, we’d be better off with the flat tax approach and smashing the loopholes. And again, the big corps won’t like that.
Ireland has low corporate tax rates. Worked out well for them didn’t it? Just simply saying “hey big corps no taxes or regulation” will NOT result in unicorns and rainbows for people here in America.
It’s funny how the German’s have figured out to keep their jobs and companies in Germany, even with the regulation and taxes. What can we learn from that?
Germany’s corporate tax rate is lower than ours. In fact, since the Jaoanese lowered their rate in December, we now have the HIGHEST rate in the world. And you think it is too low? And you want MORE regulations?
And since you made the comparison, please explain how a low corporate tax rate led to Ireland’s problems. Correlation isn’t causation.
You might re-read my comments again, Mr. Phalanx… I wasn’t ‘wishing’ for either. I was simply suggesting that even the hypothetical frying pan is better than continuing to stand in the fire.
I own stock in at least one of those companies and I paid taxes on the dividends that I receive, which is a distribution of profits. So, the income earned by BofA was taxed at least once.
yup. That’s the obvious fix right there. Easy math. 3.5 out, only 2.2 in. Must raise revenues by 1.3.
Simple. Increase corporate taxes for the bulk of it, and bump up the personal income taxes for the rest.
Sure, we can cut defense by 50% for .3T, meaning we’d only have to increase revenue by 1.0.
Unfortunately I believe our system is so broken there may be no way to fix the one we have. Significant reform is not possible, kicking the can is not an option, so what’s left, band-aiding a hemorrhage?
A more positive view of America’s future from Shikha Dalmia, who puts our own problems in context vis-a-vis those facing India and China.
Have you seen the “Shift Happens” productions? While the economic averages may still be in our favor the vast superiority in the younger demographic section may tip the scale in their favor.
Thanks David, interesting read; I appreciate that context matters. That said, we well and truly have reached a point in our nation’s young history where true, real change is necessary. Crushing debt, out of control spending, seriously flawed revenue models and lack of national will to plan and acheive significant reform all bode poorly for the days ahead. Doom and gloom, as Dalmia puts it? Yeah, maybe. It’s here, it’s real, and “America the Beautiful will figure out” sounds good, but I believe it will only be possible with pain, borne by many.
I believe our great experiment is tentative, and fragile. I pray we survive as a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere, and that we are not doomed to what history proves by example is the alternative outcome.
Sorry, forgot to render quotation marks in paragraph two “as…everywhere”.
I’m not sure there is anything wrong with the very rich avoiding taxes by buying tax free municipal bonds. The federal government put these rules in place so that cities and towns could float bonds for civic infrastructure improvement at a low interest rate. If it is a bad thing, we could change the law, but I’ll bet the bond issuer would have to pay a much greater interest rate. I wouldn’t buy a muni at any rate right now, with all the probable defaults on the horizon. They are only backed by the taxing authority of the issuing agency, and most taxpayers aren’t interested in higher taxes.
While it comes as no surprise to me, it seems it is not possible to get consistent data from various g’ment agencies. Factcheck.org recently reviewed the deficit that Social Security has gone into, and they concluded that FY2010 has Social Security $37B in the red.
The above implies that Social Security generated a “net income” of $158B.
Well I’m failing civics class….
Can anyone explain why 16% of the federal expenditures are unemployment insurance? I thought that was a state (of Texas, for instance) function? Where does the federal government get off paying ANYTHING for unemployment insurance? Not their job description atall.
Let the States decide when it gets paid and who gets paid.
That would be a grand start to cutting spending right htere. Then moveondotorg to the rest of the pie chart.
Subsunk
The feds have augmented state unemploynet insurance several times in the last few years… the states only have to pay the first xx weeks of it (varies by state), then the Fed steps in and pays for nearly two years more (99 weeks)… but only for states that are “particularly hard hit”.
Details: http://jobsearch.about.com/od/unemployment/a/unempextension.htm
Like everything else done by the Department of Labor (DOL… just missing the E at the end) it is needlessly complicated, designed to consume the maximum amount of federal dollars within the bureaucracy (creating federal jobs, you know), and specifically focused to give the federal government an additional layer of control over states they wish to reward or punish in the name of social engineering.
I think the solution lies in both charts. On the tax side, don’t focus on the tax rate. That’s the easiest part and perhaps the bit that might stand to be a bit more complex as I think we could manage a bit more progressivity. If you subscribe to the tax fairness principle that like should get like treatment, and different things should be treated in an appropriately different fashion, that is. If not, we can’t have that discussion – and we can’t have the larger discussion: that tax entitlements both cut revenue and create fundamental inefficiencies in the economy. I know some commenters here think it’s pink to say that what you must pay should be based on what you can pay, but that’s the fundamental premise of progressive taxation (small p-progressive, the philosophy that worked pretty well here for most of the American Century). Certainly, it’s more fair than that which rules our present, tax entitled system: what you must pay depends on how much you paid your lobbyist.
In the rev chart, many easy whipping boys. Think through, though, what you would cut. Axing the Department of Education, DoE, HUD, etc. all sounds appealing, but it’s deck chairs on the Titanic. Perhaps they are luxuries that we can no longer afford. On entitlements, a great idea, and perhaps an even selfless one on your part. Certainly, most of you have close friends and relatives who rely on Social Security and Medicare to supply a great deal of their needs. I sure don’t. If you, or your children, are younger than the Baby Boom and – statistically speaking – unlikely to have the ability to earn a defined benefit pension and retirement health plan unless favored with the privilege of government or military service, where are those necessaries going to come from on the other side of seventy? Further, if you or your children are of that age, I do hope that – if you have the to-be-expected multiple careers and even more numerous jobs, that each will follow the other in a continuous succession, over the decades from graduation to retirement. Because I don’t think most single people can make ends meet even temporarily on that UE check, to say nothing of heads of households. That’s the thing about all of these entitlements: costly as they are for the country, none yields more than a base existence for the recipients.
And, that’s fine. It should always be better to work and earn, to live within means and save. But, what do we do for those that can’t find work, or don’t save, and find themselves too old or too sick to work – and without pension or health insurance? Maybe a low-tax, entrepreneurship society will be so prosperous that each family will handle its own business, and flush charities will take care of the exceptions to that happy ending. But, I think the question demands a more serious answer. If yours answer to these problems is: “tough shit, I did my work and I’ve got mine,” I don’t much think I’d like your company, and I’m certain you wouldn’t like mine. The whole low-tax, libertarian thing was appealing to me when I was twenty; at this point I sleep better knowing my taxes buy some base social net – and I’m all in for making it more affordable.
“I know some commenters here think it’s pink to say that what you must pay should be based on what you can pay, but that’s the fundamental premise of progressive taxation (small p-progressive, the philosophy that worked pretty well here for most of the American Century).”
Most think it “pink” because it is – progressive taxation is straight from Marx.
And it clearly hasn’t worked all that well, considering the situation we are in now.
“That’s the thing about all of these entitlements: costly as they are for the country, none yields more than a base existence for the recipients.”
And are bankrupting the productive sector of the country in the bargain.
What happens when everyone ends up on the dole, Diplopius?
Sarge:
I don’t think we should be buying or burying ideas based on parentage. If that kind of thinking is appealing to you, though, consider that Adam Smith was a proponent of progressive taxation before Marx was born. Consider that President Reagan signed into law the last major revision of our progressive Internal Revenue Code. I don’t think either of those men are the least bit pink. I also don’t think most of my countrymen are pink when they overwhelmingly favor taxing hedge fund managers and entertainment moguls at a higher marginal rate than, say, sergeants.
I’ll answer your question, even though it’s not a serious one. If we’re all on the dole, we recalibrate. Just like we’re doing now. You could say that nearly all of us *are* on the dole, if you consider that nearly none of us pay our share of government’s cost in cash.
Now, can you answer mine? Say some here get their way and kill off or cut back 50% social security and medicare. Know any social security dependent seniors who can take that kind of hit and not eat Alpo? What do you say to them? Back to work old man? What do you say to their children? Make room on the sofa cause Gramps is a-coming in? What if they have no children, or their children cannot or will not take on an unexpected dependent?
Perhaps your vision of social rebalancing involves the early die-off of a large segment of the no-longer-productive age groups. If so, own it. If not, tell me what’s going to happen to these people.
“Now, can you answer mine? Say some here get their way and kill off or cut back 50% social security and medicare. Know any social security dependent seniors who can take that kind of hit and not eat Alpo? What do you say to them? Back to work old man? What do you say to their children? Make room on the sofa cause Gramps is a-coming in? What if they have no children, or their children cannot or will not take on an unexpected dependent?”
That’s more than one question, isn’t it?
Seems to me like you are trying to blame the people of today for the failure of the promises of the progressives of the past.
First: Clean up the nearly trillion-a-year of waste, fraud, and abuse that’s already been identified by the GAO. Then we’ll talk.
I knew you couldn’t answer the question. Adios, Sargento.
Cutting defense spending is no secret to the rest of the world: it ALWAYS leads to challenges from some upstart who assumes it means the world’s policeman is no longer looking. Hence necessitating greater spending down the road; which our leftist friends have done their best to ensure we won’t have money or access to money to be able to afford.
I wish people realized that all the turmoil in the middle east is ALL US-friendly regimes being toppled on their way to becoming Islamic fundamentalist just like Iran did. That will then be described as “the will of the people”… From the absolutely one-sided coverage on tv (people’s revolt against dictatorial tyrants!) it’s clear that the metamessage is made to cover this up-
OT if it comes to providing your own means of preventing piracy:
http://www.edisposals.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Disposals-Public-Site/en_US/-/GBP/ViewProductDetail-Start;pgid=MieqQ4wkQg8000ArvQ_8K1sp0000h-5FxN_y;sid=9F5c56OHoFm2su7QOA5M9QtHIZOfeXZKN8A=?ProductUUID=1nXAqBIQc2AAAAEt_7zjB9i_&CatalogCategoryID=VaLAqBELPagAAAED8GeasfoP&JumpTo=OfferList
‘Nuf to make you SICK-
Contributing to our unsustainability problems are the myriad “refundable tax credits” where people who do not pay taxes get checks back for filing a return and claiming whatever freebies some vote-starved congresscritter got passed.
End them all, or at least cut the payments by 50%.
Social security payments to be cut by 50% and retirement age to 70, effective next week.
Congressional pensions cut by 75%.
And lots of other cuts, too.
There is no more money.