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Actually, I called my house rep and two senators TODAY. And I call probably every other week to remind them that I care about the budget, deficit, and out-of-control spending, and a lot of other issues. It just stinks that I'm basically wasting my time by doing this because it's like talking to a brick wall.
(All of my reps are Democrats who act like there is no problem)
ok...but you do understand the point i was making right? you're in the minority of people, with me, who actually engage in government and hold our elected officials accountable. look at the percentage of people that vote in the U.S...it's pretty weak. now, assuming that the people who don't vote also don't continously engage in government, and assume that some portion of those that do vote, don't continously engage in government...to me, that's the plain vanilla explanation as to why elected officials pander to lobbyists and collective voting blocs.
it may make some sense to increase the debt ceiling if there were real cuts in the budget. this spending reduction should be planned out and done right. you cant really cut the military 50% overnight, but you should develop a plan to. but no politician will plan to make cuts, so you have to take away their power to spend.
also, as much as i want to cut the military (among other things), one has to recognize the fact that cutting something by 50% doesn't mean that every dollar cut is a dollar saved from the net budget. part of that 50% cut to the military will include people's salaries, which, presumably, the government collects income taxes on. part of it will be goods that would have been produced for the military, etc.
so it's not as black and white as people think. you can't just cut $100B from spending and assume that the net benefit is $100B to the balance sheet. it's more complex than that.
tell ireland, greece, and portugal its just economic theory. following them will be spain, italy, england, then the euro will collapse.
there will be an impact but it will be better to do it now than allow the debt to grow. the good news is that i think this will all be coming to fruition much sooner than the general public expects, so the debt wont really be able to grow more than a couple trillion anyway.
That's not comparing apples to apples. The economic situation in those countries is starkly different compared to ours.
So far neither parties have been willing to commit to any cuts other than merely symbolic ones that clearly resonate mostly along ideological lines. The math isn't adding up at all. I fail to see much of any progress on either side. Thus it's pretty unrealistic to expect that there will be enough cuts to come close to avoiding any sort of supposed negative economic scenario. Letting the debt ceiling not rise would almost assuredly help rush to such a negative financial outcome.
That's not comparing apples to apples. The economic situation in those countries is starkly different compared to ours.
So far neither parties have been willing to commit to any cuts other than merely symbolic ones that clearly resonate mostly along ideological lines. The math isn't adding up at all. I fail to see much of any progress on either side. Thus it's pretty unrealistic to expect that there will be enough cuts to come close to avoiding any sort of supposed negative economic scenario. Letting the debt ceiling not rise would almost assuredly help rush to such a negative financial outcome.
yeah, thats what people want to keep believing. i dont think thats really the case.
as i said, the negative scenario is coming. might as well deal with it.
I'm still for fair tax for all. 10% for everyone. No loopholes, exemptions, or exceptions. Everyone pays. And it's easy to know where you stand and there are no surprises on tax day. And no one needs to hire an accountant.
Next, they need to stop spending. There's still a heaping load of pork all over the place.
"the government" is us, the people. yes, there is waste, but this is primarily a talking point. everyone campaigns on "spend less" and "reduce waste", but once you start discussing what to cut, people go nuts. the same people that vote for those folks, go nuts. the facts are, government has been spending for decades on programs that at least some level of majority of americans have demanded. at the same time, those americans also demanded low taxes. i like to call those americans baby boomers, for the most part.
my generation is in trouble now, because even though boomers enjoy low taxes and high levels of service, they are unwilling to give up any services (social security, medicare, etc) to help balance the budget. so....while the government needs to reduce spending, it also has to pay it's bills.
the older generation's goal is to keep kicking the can down the road until they kick the can.
We are now seeing a future coming that if something isn't cut, debt service and entitlements will consume the whole value of the economy.
Unfortunately people are going to have to understand that they can't have everything they want, especially expecting someone else to pay, as those people have their own things to pay for.
"Retirement" is a new concept in human society. Up until the 20th century, there was no retirement. People worked mostly until they died and most didn't live that long. In Roman times, not many people made it past 40.
Retirement to me is fine as a concept, as long as people pay for their own retirements. But as a society we cannot afford to have people work for 25 years and then get paid half wages and health care for the next 40-50 years. The numbers don't add up. As a society we cannot bear a huge number of people in society being unproductive by not working and asking for handouts.
People talk about us having a fiat currency as not worth anything, but it actually is, it's based on the perceived value of a countries goods and services. If we are not productive or produce anything of value, our currency loses value and it will also lose value if we head towards defaulting on our debt.
If we punish success, successful people and business will go elsewhere. There are too many examples of businesses and people heading to less taxation and regulated states and countries. If we go down the high tax path, we'll just reduce productivity and send the productive people elsewhere.
Between 1951 and 1963 the top marginal tax rate was 91% on income above 400K. No rich person then either starved nor decided that poverty was a more economically viable "incentive" for his troubles than toiling to have 90% of his earnings over 400K taken. The same would be true today.
All rich people did was use horribly inefficient tax shelters and other loopholes to reduce their tax burden among other tax avoidance and evasion schemes.
I know some people that make six figures and if tax rates are ever passed that high, they'll just cut their productivity back and reduce their income cause there is no point working past a certain point and giving it to the wasteful government.
I really don't know why people have it in their brain that we work for the government or owe the government the fruits of our labors. The government works for us. I think to leftists, government is their god and that they are mere peons that cannot function or exist without it and of course that other taxpayers pay for all they want.
It is called "feeling it more"... the poor "feel taxes more" than the rich.
Really? That's a bunch of gobblygook. You have no idea what it feels like to write a 5 figure quarterly estimated tax check. We will see how you feel then after you have busted your butt to earn and the government scalps a whole month or more of your earnings for a quarter.
I reckon we should abolish income tax withholding and "take home pay" and go to everyone writing out a check every quarter for your quarterly taxes as us self employed people have to do. There would be a hell of a lot more angry people out there.
At the moment, a family of 4 earning $44,000 a year, pays almost no federal income taxes after deductions.
The "poor" don't pay any federal taxes at all or get it refunded, especially if they have kids. And they also get an earned income tax credit, which gives them money back they didn't even pay.
So let's get past this thing of the "poor" feel taxes more, when they don't even pay taxes to begin with. And you can reference the IRS stats if you need to.
The poor in this country don't even feel sales taxes at the supermarket, cause they got their handy dandy food stamp card!
Really? That's a bunch of gobblygook. You have no idea what it feels like to write a 5 figure quarterly estimated tax check. We will see how you feel then after you have busted your butt to earn and the government scalps a whole month or more of your earnings for a quarter.
I reckon we should abolish income tax withholding and "take home pay" and go to everyone writing out a check every quarter for your quarterly taxes as us self employed people have to do. There would be a hell of a lot more angry people out there.
At the moment, a family of 4 earning $44,000 a year, pays almost no federal income taxes after deductions.
The "poor" don't pay any federal taxes at all or get it refunded, especially if they have kids. And they also get an earned income tax credit, which gives them money back they didn't even pay.
So let's get past this thing of the "poor" feel taxes more, when they don't even pay taxes to begin with. And you can reference the IRS stats if you need to.
The poor in this country don't even feel sales taxes at the supermarket, cause they got their handy dandy food stamp card!
Yeah I wish I was self employed so I could use all the deductions the self employed get...
And I paid over $40,000 in income tax to the government last year-- literally no deductions =(
But I do understand how taxes are felt by those making 20 - 80,000 a year is felt more than taxes for those making 5 million a year.
I also think how the highest tax bracket of 35% for those making over 373,651 is the same as those making 50 million is kind of stupid... but you have to draw the tax line somewhere I guess.
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