no shit. is it really hello is anybody upstairs? i had his old nick on ignore. decisions, decisions, what do i do now.
Those numbers are very different than the CBO report. I trust the CBO over a political organization because the argument you're making is an extremely narrow slice of the pie that assumes that the funds would have been applied against the debt. If we use history as a guide, that's a faulty assumption. Increased available funds (or a large chunk of them) almost always get spent by the party in power to buy votes in the next election. That's why I limited my analysis to the numbers that actually existed at the time without making any additional assumptions. That said, let's look at your numbers. Lowering debt as a percentage of GDP from 70% to 50% just makes it less of a disaster. Even if it's true, it's by no means a solution to the problem. We're screwed either way. Or rather I should say that future generations are screwed either way. This disaster (using either set of numbers) is actually a symptom of a much larger problem. For the last 30 years, our politicians (Democrats and Republicans alike) have been profligate spenders with virtually no measure of accountability. In the 1990s, our economy had the benefit of a once-in-a-century "industrial revolution" in the form of a confluence technologies (computers, software, cell phones, Internet, etc.). Those days are over, yet politicians have continued to spend like the gravy train would go on forever. I don't like the idea of paying higher taxes, but I would support it IF (a big IF) I thought the politicians of either party could be trusted to behave responsibly. Tragically, we can't even get them to tell us the truth. The Republicans say we can balance the budget without raising taxes. And the Democrats say we can balance the budget without making significant cuts in social spending. If you believe either the Democrats or the Republicans, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. I have two kids, and the way things are going their future will be to end up as debt slaves to China... or whoever's dumb enough to be holding US debts.
If all of this were actually true, then how is it that General Electric skates completely on income tax in the US, where the corporate tax rate theoretically is the highest in the industrialized world ? And Jeffery Immelt chairs President Obama's business roundtable ? And GE got yet another big tax break courtesy of Mr. Charles Rangel (tax cheat and Democrat) last year ? Democrats can raise the top tax tier back up to 75% like it was 50 years ago, and just like 50 years ago nobody would actually pay that rate. How many accountants and tax lawyers do you suppose Warren Buffett and George Soros and Barbara Streisand employ ? The simple fact of the matter is that this farce will not get straightened out and become "fair" until there are no deductions or loopholes. Both parties are very good at paying the deep pockets off with special tax favors. Please, this sanctimonious crap about Democrats wanting 'fair tax rates' is garbage. When Buffet and Soros and Hollywood and GE come out and tell us that they paid taxes with ordinary treatment on their gross income and did not take all the deductions, then they and Free Thinker and AK47 have earned the moral high ground on the issue. Until then, this is still another example of "do as I say, and not as I do".
i agree with this. but. we know that the tax cuts and the war accelerated this mess. if we are to reverse the situation we need to start by reversing the two biggest things that got us here. then lets talk cuts in social programs. the reality is that social security and medicare are easy to fix. the republicans have not even hinted that they want to fix them. they just want to destroy the two most popular government programs. that is an non starter.
I had his old nick on ignore as well so I didn't know he was banned .Not knowing he was banned I didn't think of him while trying to figure out who maxipad was
Addressing the tax issue without fixing the spending problem will not work. For political reasons they have to resolved at the same time. If one side gets what they want first, they will then dig in, doing nothing to solve the other problem (and then have the nerve to call it a "victory"). Neither side trusts the other and for good reason... neither side can be trusted. We need a comprehensive plan to fix both revenue and spending concurrently, and all sides need to agree to it at the same time.
Democrats are pissed that the rich have so much of the wealth yet they favor mass immigration and illegal immigration which have pushed down wages for the working and middle class and weakened the power of labor relative to capital.
Liberal logic is truly tortured. If tax cuts don't help the economy, then why didn't democrats raise taxes? They controlled the show, and rammed through the largest health care clusterf*** in history but somehow could not find the time to reverse the Bush tax cuts? Any negative side effects of the Bush tax policy from 2008 on, which is when things got out of control, are completely owned by the democrats because by not changing it they effectively approved it. However the liberals still have a Bush hard-on so bad that they won't let that inconvienent fact keep them from their little boogeyman under the bed fantasy. Obama himself said that raising taxes would hurt a recovery, so why pick on Bush? Want a lower debt?... then all one has to do is stop the wasteful stimulus: Bush deficit when he left ~$750B, Obama deficit a few months later ~$1.4T. All the Bush blaming is pure bullshit, look at your own damned charts.
A good read that puts to rest all the liberal idiot theories in play here. Does hiking tax rates raise more revenue? As you can see from these charts, soaking the rich by raising tax rates generally does not work. And, there can be collateral damage in that high tax rates almost always reduce economic activity which hurts everyone. If the goal is to maximize economic growth and generate adequate tax revenues, we know what makes sense. http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2010/07/02/does-hiking-tax-rates-raise-more-revenue/
Poor poor republicans. You guys love to cry. If you agree or disagree, love or hate Obama is one thing. President Bush was captain and the republicans in the senate and congress were his officers when the ship America hit the Iceburg. That fact is clear. For all your complaints about Obama, Bush and the republicans were worse. Obama may not be the answer but the republicans aren't either. I don't see anything changing much regardless of who is in control. Depends if you like getting stabbed in the arm or the leg. But I admit after the 8 year cluster fuck that was the republican party I am biased against them.