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Well, we should start with the fact that neither top or bottom of said 1% really gives a about the good ol' USA. That includes a good amount of politicos that "just happen" to be entrenched in that group.
being tricked into jealousy over the guy making 250,000 a year and wanting to tax the out of him isn't going to fix anything. the real problem is the guys offshoring more money than your minds can even seem to comprehend and not paying a dime on it, the multibillionaires of the world. the bottom half of the 1% doesn't come anywhere near the top echelon of the 1%.
Well, we should start with the fact that neither top or bottom of said 1% really gives a about the good ol' USA. That includes a good amount of politicos that "just happen" to be entrenched in that group.
I agree that raising the top marginal rates from 35% to 39% is not going to make a dent in our problems. However, it is important to realize that no one is voting for a tax increase in this case. The tax rates are set to go up by themselves next year. I'm just saying we should let them. Middle class tax rates should stay the same for now, because the middle class is actually struggling and every dime they have is important right now. When the economy is in stronger shape, I believe the tax rates on everyone should return to the 1990s levels.
taxes suck in general. we should cut the in half and cut govt spending to 1/3 it's current size. government spending is always inefficient spending, and i don't want to live in a nanny state. all these spy agencies and police drones and wars and bs is a waste. most of the government contracts are a waste. the .
the richest dont need to pay tax because they own this country and have overall control of the government & lawmaker. the whole tax law is supposedly written in favor of them richest bas s who're the uppermost 1% of the social classes and yet it is democracy we're all so proud of
ING BAS S:
You're being tricked into thinking that it's jealousy and not common sense to tax the rich who can most afford to pay it and who will have their life styles least affected by it.
common sense tells you that the americans making 250,000 are just a drop in the bucket. if we tax the out of upper middle class, and allow rich ass financiers making billions and billions to pay zero tax, then won't change. they'll bleed those guys try too and then what?
Why do these people think that taxing the upper crust more will give us any significant revenue increases?
I've said it umpteen million times.
We need more tax payers. Not more taxes.
Tax the out of them? Bleed them dry? You're completely brainwashed by Fox News if you think that 3% or whatever marginal tax rate increase is going to bleed the rich dry. It will provide much needed revenue, not solve our financial problems. You and WC are just beating down your own straw man because I never said it would solve our financial problems, but it will contribute to helping solve them.
So you want the poor and dissolving middle class to have even less?
You are not going to get more tax payers if the top earners continue to siphon wealth off of everyone else by taking a greater portion of the spoils for themselves. Just look at where CEO pay is now compared to 30 years ago. Now look at where middle income and minimum wage salaries are compared to 30 years ago. Top down economics does not work. Those in power have abused the capitalist system. Capitalism is not what is failing here. Greedy corporate leaders and their government cronies (supply side believers) are the problem.
Before raising any taxes, it would be a good idea to close the loopholes they're using already to largely avoid paying what they owe in the first place...
But, as I said, you need honest politicians for that. None to be found these days, seemingly.
exactlyyyy, the ultra mega rich billionaires just use the loopholes, taxing the upper middle class wont do
no. Here you are being presumptuous again.
I want congress and the president to stop policies that hamper growth. I want more people to be tax payers by having actual economic growth and more income, and not to rely on government.
What policies specifically hamper growth?
Every country in the world wants to always grow non-stop, but it just doesn't always works like that. I'm not saying you shouldn't wish that, but there's no magical wand to make that happen, especially when the world in general is in a ty economic situation.
I completely agree with closing loopholes. , I'd even be for cutting the tax rate if most loopholes were closed on marginal rates. A flat top marginal rate of about 30% would probably raise revenues, as most top earners pay far less than that now. Capital gains would have to be addressed as well, as many earn their income through this stream and it is taxed at a far lower rate of just 15%.
If you cut out the loopholes, most exemptions, most credits, etc... I think a marginal rate of no more than 22% would work. Two decades ago, such a scheme at 17% would have worked.
What are these policies that hamper growth?
Four federal spending myths that won't die
We’re at the edge of the cliff of deficit disaster! National security spending is being, or will soon be, slashed to the bone! Obamacare will sink the ship of state!
Each of these claims has grabbed national attention in a big way, sucking up years’ worth of precious airtime. That’s a serious bummer, since each of them is a spending myth of the first order. Let’s pop them, one by one, and move on to the truly urgent business of a nation that is indeed on the edge.
Spending Myth 1: Today’s deficits have taken us to a historically unprecedented, economically catastrophic place.
This myth has had the effect of binding the hands of elected officials and policymakers at every level of government. It has also emboldened those who claim that we must cut government spending as quickly, as radically, as deeply as possible.
In fact, we’ve been here before. In 2009, the federal budget deficit was a whopping 10.1% of the American economy and back in 1943, in the midst of World War II, it was three times that -- 30.3%. This fiscal year the deficit will total around 7.6%. Yes, that is big. But in the Congressional Budget Office’s grimmest projections, that figure will fall to 6.3% next year, and 5.8% in fiscal 2014. In 1983, under President Reagan, the deficit hit 6% of the economy, and by 1998, that had turned into a surplus. So, while projected deficits remain large, they’re neither historically unprecedented, nor insurmountable.
More important still, the size of the deficit is no sign that lawmakers should make immediate deep cuts in spending. In fact, history tells us that such reductions are guaranteed to harm, if not cripple, an economy still teetering at the edge of recession.
A number of leading economists are now busy explaining why the deficit this year actually ought to be a lot larger, not smaller; why there should be more government spending, including aid to state and local governments, which would create new jobs and prevent layoffs in areas like education and law enforcement. Such efforts, working in tandem with slow but positive job growth in the private sector, might indeed mean genuine recovery. Government budget cuts, on the other hand, offset private-sector gains with the huge and depressing effect of public-sector layoffs, and have damaging ripple effects on the rest of the economy as well.
When the economy is healthier, a host of promising options are at hand for lawmakers who want to narrow the gap between spending and tax revenue. For example, loopholes and deductions in the tax code that hand enormous subsidies to wealthy Americans and corporations will cost the Treasury around $1.3 trillion in lost revenue this year alone -- more, that is, than the entire budget deficit. Closing some of them would make great strides toward significant deficit reductions.
Alarmingly, the deficit-reduction fever that’s resulted from this first spending myth has led many Americans to throw their support behind de-investment in domestic priorities like education, research, and infrastructure -- cuts that threaten to undo generations of progress. This is in part the result of myth number two.
Spending Myth 2: Military and other national security spending have already taken their lumps and future budget-cutting efforts will have to take aim at domestic programs instead .
The very idea that military spending has already been deeply cut in service to deficit reduction is not only false, but in the realm of fantasy. The real story: despite headlines about “slashed” Pentagon spending and “doomsday” plans for more, no actual cuts to the defense budget have yet taken place. In fact, since 2001, to quote former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, defense spending has grown like a “gusher.” The Department of Defense base budget nearly doubled in the space of a decade. Now, the Pentagon is likely to face an exceedingly modest 2.5% budget cut in fiscal 2013, “paring” its budget down to a mere $525 billion -- with possible additional cuts shaving off another $55 billion next year if Congress allows the Budget Control Act, a.k.a. “sequestration,” to take effect.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. It’s likely that lawmakers will, at the last moment, come to an agreement to cancel those extra cuts. In other words, the notion that our military, which has been experiencing financial boom times even in tough times, has felt significant deficit-slashing pain -- or has even been cut at all -- is the Pentagon equivalent of a unicorn.
What this does mean, however, is that lawmakers heading down the budget-cutting path can find plenty of savings in the enormous defense and national security budgets. Moreover, cuts there would be less harmful to the economy than reductions in domestic spending.
A group of military budget experts, for example, found that cutting many costly and obsolete weapons programs could save billions of dollars each year, and investing that money in domestic priorities like education and health care would spur the economy. That’s because those sectors create more jobs per dollar than military programs do. And that leads us to myth three.
Spending Myth 3: Government health-insurance programs are more costly than private insurance.
False claims about the higher cost of government health programs have led many people to demand that health-care solutions come from the private sector. Advocates of this have been much aided by the complexity of sorting out health costs, which has provided the necessary smoke and mirrors to camouflage this whopping lie.
Health spending is indeed growing faster than any other part of the federal budget. It’s gone from a measly 7% in 1976 to nearly a quarter today -- and that’s truly a cause for concern. But health care costs, public and private, have been on the rise across the developed world for decades. And cost growth in government programs like Medicare has actually been slower than in private health insurance. That’s because the federal government has important advantages over private insurance companies when it comes to health care. For example, as a huge player in the health-care market, the federal government has been successful at negotiating lower prices than small private insurers can. And that helps us de-bunk myth number four.
Spending Myth 4: The Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- will bankrupt the federal government while levying the biggest tax in U.S. history.
Wrong again. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this health-reform legislation will reduce budget deficits by $119 billion between now and 2019. And only around 1% of American households will end up paying a penalty for lacking health insurance.
While the Affordable Care Act is hardly a panacea for the many problems in U.S. health care, it does at least start to address the pressing issue of rising costs -- and it incorporates some of the best wisdom on how to do so. Health-policy experts have explored phasing out the fee-for-service payment system -- in which doctors are paid for each test and procedure they perform -- in favor of something akin to pay-for-performance. This transition would reward medical professionals for delivering more effective, coordinated, and efficient care -- and save a lot of money by reducing waste.
The Affordable Care Act begins implementing such changes in the Medicare program, and it explores other important cost-containment measures. In other words, it lays the groundwork for potentially far deeper budgetary savingsdown the road.
Having cleared the landscape of four stubborn spending myths, it should be easier to see straight to the stuff that really matters. Financial hardship facing millions of Americans ought to be our top concern. Between 2007 and 2010, the median family lost nearly 40% of its net worth. Neither steep deficits, nor disagreement over military spending and health reform should eclipse this as our most pressing challenge.
If lawmakers skipped the myth-making and began putting America’s resources into a series of domestic investments that would spur the economy now, their acts would yield dividends for years to come. That means pushing education and job training, plus a host of job-creation measures, to the top of the priority list, and setting aside initiatives based on fear and fantasy.
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index....ckgroundid=647
Last edited by boutons_deux; 07-18-2012 at 04:55 PM.
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