Deficit Panel Recommends 75% Spending Cuts, 25% Tax Increases

[editec]

Eliminate the mortgage deduction. Reduce marginal tax rates. Cut entitlement programs.
Who's going to argue with this??

Eliminate the mortgage deduction. -The upper middle class is going to take it on the neck since they're the people who make enough to be able to deduct interest on their mortgage.

Reduce marginal tax rates - Marginal tax rates are ALREADY reduced taxes. They are the higher rates you pay ONLY on the incomes above a certain amount.

Cut entitlement programs -- Millions of Americans will object.

Not ONLY those who directly benefit from entitlement programs, but also those who indirectly benefit from them.

For examples: The health care providers whose customers no longer can afford them; Grocers whose customers cannot buy food from them; Real estate companies whose renters can no longer afford their rents; heating and fuel companies whose custoners no longer get heating assistance.

What you apparently are fogetting is that the money going into entitlements doesn't STAY with the poor.

It ends up going to the upper middle and upper classes which count on them (those roughly 50,000,000 people) who are their customers.

The money that goes to the poor, doesn't STAY with the poor.

It ends up in the hands of the affluent.

Really now, Rabbi, I would have thought a man with your obvious financial acumen would have thought that through just a little more deeply than you apparently have.

If we're going to back our way out of this WELFARE STATE we've got (and like you I think we ought to) then we'd best find a way to do it that doesn't disrupt the economy as badly as it would happen if we followed the advise of you people who so obviously loathe anybody who isn't rich.

Capitalist Economies can weather damned near anything if they have time to adapt to the changes.

It's massive changes that cause problems that nobody expects that generally really fuck thing up.

 

[Two Thumbs]

It all depends upon the levels of the marginal rates and if they also get rid of the inane ATM and marriage penalties.

one sales tax, 10%, this eliminates marriage penalties.

You will need a sales tax of 30% to make up for the loss in income tax revenue. That should put a damper on retail sales

Unless they did away with all other taxes.

But that's a pipe dream

 

[boedicca]

Eliminate the mortgage deduction. Reduce marginal tax rates. Cut entitlement programs.
Who's going to argue with this??

Everyone but the wealthy

No... a little more specific... The ones who love the concept of selective equal treatment and want someone else to pay their share for them and have things given to them at the expense of others

We have a WINNAH!

 

[MaggieMae]

and like all other commisions, 6 months after completion no one will be able to name them.

Probably.

Six months down the line, Congress will still be haggling over details. Hopefully, like adults. The recommendations will consist of several bills because they concern a myriad of non-intersecting issues. What they probably will come up with for starters is a binding resolution based on the final report, said resolution a promise to attack each issue with a vengeance and come up with a result by specified dates.

Hey, these guys (and Obama) said at the outset that the results of the commission were apt to be painful. It's about time that EVERYONE feel the pain.

 

[MaggieMae]

i dont dig it. i'm ok with more taxes so long as expensiblility rises. they aim to lower both like idiots. the capital gains hike is sensible, but i think deductability for investment should be thrown in as a plus-side.

The intent is to lower the base tax rates BUT eliminate the huge exemptions (and subsidies, I hope). How many billions collectively are written off every year? If that money was included included in net income, it would also be much fairer. It's the main reason why many millionnaires are able to pay little or no income tax at all by zeroing out their net income as a result of enormous tax benefits.

 

[MaggieMae]

i dont dig it. i'm ok with more taxes so long as expensiblility rises. they aim to lower both like idiots. the capital gains hike is sensible, but i think deductability for investment should be thrown in as a plus-side.

Your okay with less money, no hike is sensible, nothing is sensible except one tax in the USA.

Tax imports to cut the deficit, tax the shit out of imports.

Nice thought, but tariffs always lead to disaster.

I like the commission recommendations as a good start, killing UHC and a few other budget-busters (Bush's prescription benefit for example). I also liked Wellstone's going after off-shore tax cheats. especially Swiss bank accounts, what ever happened to Obama's effort with the Swiss accounts? I heard a few news blurbs...then nothing?!

The USB thing has been tied up in court because the bank refused to name names.

 

[antagon]

Tariffs lead to disaster, yet the third worlds largest economy, Brazil has tariffs and taxes on imports. So, if your right, sometime we will see that disaster in Brazil, not saying your wrong for I know that countries can change overnight.

Political commissions, the politicians have never spent less, never, they will never reduce spending. Its political double speak.

One tax, 10%, spend a buck, get taxed on a buck

brazil's and china's economies are different than the US and other developed nations. with respect to trade and commerce they are based in converse functions to our own. it has been decades since the US has been deeply merchantilist. while production of goods in the US eclipses that of brazil, it is not the basis of our economy and should not be treated as such but to the detriment of our economy as a whole. that's the detriment you propose with your tariffs idea.

Nice post, sounds smart, except the basis of our economy is manufacturing. Our years as the worlds leader in manufacturing and heavy industry is what built up such great wealth its still being spent today.

Now without that base in our economy we are collapsing.

Some people only aspire to a simple manufacturing job, without those jobs these people will always be unemployed.

As far as Brazil goes they strive to be like the USA.

China, I will work with the Chinese in two weeks. Its fun to pick their brains but they live in a vacuum, they really dont know much about whats happening in their own country.

you could be forgiven for believing that tariffs could be beneficial if your claim that our economy's basis is in manufacturing were true. it's not true, however. when i refer to 'basis', i mean sectors in the economy which are accountable for the most economic activity. the production of goods is not the basis of our economy granted that perspective.

services like construction, which i'm involved in, comprise the basis of the US economy. manufacturing has not gone away. instead we lead the world in that sector. what has happened is that services and other sectors have grown up around it and now supersede it in the share of total economic activity.

directing policy to favor manufacturing as if our economy is centered on that sector is a mistake. using tariffs to support manufacturing is a mistake, even for the mercantile economies like china which think they've got a good thing going.

 

[MaggieMae]

Cut SS and medicare? I have a hard time seeing Congress do that...they'll lose the vote of the elderly which is well on its way to be the largest voting block in the country.

The reason it will be a major problem is that they simply can't pull the rug out from under people who have come to rely on Medicare and now the drug benefit. If those are cut in any substantial way, there would be hundreds of elderly people who would then turn to other options, increasing general welfare rolls of the states and ultimately bankrupting the states. There simply are not enough private retirement or nursing homes that are affordable, and the elderly relying on meager pensions or Social Security can't afford the medication to keep them alive. In effect, we would be killing people.

It's definitely a slippery slope, that one.

 

[MaggieMae]

Cut SS and medicare? I have a hard time seeing Congress do that...they'll lose the vote of the elderly which is well on its way to be the largest voting block in the country.

We need to tell our old timers to rest easy....

We need SS and Medicare to be solvent. We need long term solutions not band-aids.

Raise the retirement age to 70 over the next 50 years, raise the cap on contributions, include medicare in long term healthcare overhauls.

Congress needs to show some balls

The commission proposed means testing for Social Security, which I've advocated for years, but they should also include means testing for Medicare. If a person can afford to pay his/her own medical bills, either out of pocket or private insurance, they should be refused Medicare benefits (perhaps after they've reached the amount already paid in). I'm pretty sure it's already supposed to work that way, with a private insurer being billed before Medicare, but doesn't.

 

[MaggieMae]

Cut SS and medicare? I have a hard time seeing Congress do that...they'll lose the vote of the elderly which is well on its way to be the largest voting block in the country.

We need to tell our old timers to rest easy....

We need SS and Medicare to be solvent. We need long term solutions not band-aids.

Raise the retirement age to 70 over the next 50 years, raise the cap on contributions, include medicare in long term healthcare overhauls.

Congress needs to show some balls

Unfortunately they have to surrender their balls to win elections

Exactly. And guess what...campaigning for 2012 has already begun. Will even a "new" Congress take any of this seriously when they have to go out and listen to all the bitching and moaning about belt tightening and sacrifice?

 

[antagon]

i dont dig it. i'm ok with more taxes so long as expensiblility rises. they aim to lower both like idiots. the capital gains hike is sensible, but i think deductability for investment should be thrown in as a plus-side.

The intent is to lower the base tax rates BUT eliminate the huge exemptions (and subsidies, I hope). How many billions collectively are written off every year? If that money was included included in net income, it would also be much fairer. It's the main reason why many millionnaires are able to pay little or no income tax at all by zeroing out their net income as a result of enormous tax benefits.

the vast majority of expensible or deductible expenditures are inputs into the economy. through offering these deductions, the government endorses activity which builds the economy and employment situation itself. i think the idea that many (if that means a significant amount) millionaires pay little or no income tax is delusional in light of most of the country's trillion dollar tax revenue coming from high earners. i believe you are referring in fact to corporation tax.

 

[MaggieMae]

Your okay with less money, no hike is sensible, nothing is sensible except one tax in the USA.

Tax imports to cut the deficit, tax the shit out of imports.

Nice thought, but tariffs always lead to disaster.

I like the commission recommendations as a good start, killing UHC and a few other budget-busters (Bush's prescription benefit for example). I also liked Wellstone's going after off-shore tax cheats. especially Swiss bank accounts, what ever happened to Obama's effort with the Swiss accounts? I heard a few news blurbs...then nothing?!

Tariffs lead to disaster, yet the third worlds largest economy, Brazil has tariffs and taxes on imports. So, if your right, sometime we will see that disaster in Brazil, not saying your wrong for I know that countries can change overnight.

Political commissions, the politicians have never spent less, never, they will never reduce spending. Its political double speak.

One tax, 10%, spend a buck, get taxed on a buck

The problem with the simplicity of that is that how many times does that buck get passed through different hands, and should it be taxed each time? It's the same dollar, after all, and somebody's profit every step of the way. That's what a value added tax is all about. (A totally unworkable system, loaded with the potential for fraud.)

 

[MaggieMae]

Cutting spending and modifying the tax codes seems reasonable to me.

Of course the devil is in the details.

Cut what?

Change the tax codes how?

Funding for PBS.

One tax, 10%, spend a buck, taxed on a buck.

And we're off and running with petty gripes over what should/should not be cut FROM THE BUDGET, and pet projects that should be left alone. This should be fun.

 

[MaggieMae]

I am sure you can get all the tax increases you need by actually taxing the ~50% who currently pay no income tax... put every last citizen on the top rate equally on every dollar earned, and I bet you will get a hell of a push from the populace for tax cuts and reduced government spending

Why don't you try to find a link that would support your supposition? I'd be curious to know if requiring low-income people who currently pay no taxes to pay their share would actually garner more revenue than eliminating the enormous tax writeoffs that the wealthy can claim and thereby reduce their tax obligations to pocket change.

 

[MaggieMae]

Tariffs lead to disaster, yet the third worlds largest economy, Brazil has tariffs and taxes on imports. So, if your right, sometime we will see that disaster in Brazil, not saying your wrong for I know that countries can change overnight.

Political commissions, the politicians have never spent less, never, they will never reduce spending. Its political double speak.

One tax, 10%, spend a buck, get taxed on a buck

brazil's and china's economies are different than the US and other developed nations. with respect to trade and commerce they are based in converse functions to our own. it has been decades since the US has been deeply merchantilist. while production of goods in the US eclipses that of brazil, it is not the basis of our economy and should not be treated as such but to the detriment of our economy as a whole. that's the detriment you propose with your tariffs idea.

Nice post, sounds smart, except the basis of our economy is manufacturing. Our years as the worlds leader in manufacturing and heavy industry is what built up such great wealth its still being spent today.

Now without that base in our economy we are collapsing.

Some people only aspire to a simple manufacturing job, without those jobs these people will always be unemployed.

As far as Brazil goes they strive to be like the USA.

China, I will work with the Chinese in two weeks. Its fun to pick their brains but they live in a vacuum, they really dont know much about whats happening in their own country.

So why is it that certain political factions will fight tooth and nail any attempt at advancing the one manufacturing discipline where we already KNOW we can excel at if only the startup funding was made available? Energy alternatives. The popup private sector businesses that would be derived from an all-out effort to L.E.A.D would be as huge as the Apollo Project of the 60's and continuing to this day. But noooooooo, drill baby drill.

 

[MaggieMae]

Tariffs lead to disaster, yet the third worlds largest economy, Brazil has tariffs and taxes on imports. So, if your right, sometime we will see that disaster in Brazil, not saying your wrong for I know that countries can change overnight.

Political commissions, the politicians have never spent less, never, they will never reduce spending. Its political double speak.

One tax, 10%, spend a buck, get taxed on a buck

brazil's and china's economies are different than the US and other developed nations. with respect to trade and commerce they are based in converse functions to our own. it has been decades since the US has been deeply merchantilist. while production of goods in the US eclipses that of brazil, it is not the basis of our economy and should not be treated as such but to the detriment of our economy as a whole. that's the detriment you propose with your tariffs idea.

Nice post, sounds smart, except the basis of our economy is manufacturing. Our years as the worlds leader in manufacturing and heavy industry is what built up such great wealth its still being spent today.

Now without that base in our economy we are collapsing.

Some people only aspire to a simple manufacturing job, without those jobs these people will always be unemployed.

As far as Brazil goes they strive to be like the USA.

China, I will work with the Chinese in two weeks. Its fun to pick their brains but they live in a vacuum, they really dont know much about whats happening in their own country.

Well they're about to find out what a rise in their inflation rate to 4.4% means, that's for sure.

 

[MaggieMae]

Cut Federal government workers salaries by 20%. and then freeze it at that level for 50 years. Start with Congress. And cut their benefits to the same benefits they vote in for everyone else.

And guess who would have to vote on those. Congress. I seriously doubt even the new Tea Partiers in the House would want to be there for a lower salary and no guaranteed benefits for life. It's part of (nay, probably ALL of) the attraction for running in the first place for the majority of them.

 

[MaggieMae]

Eliminate the mortgage deduction. Reduce marginal tax rates. Cut entitlement programs.
Who's going to argue with this??

Eliminate the mortgage deduction. -The upper middle class is going to take it on the neck since they're the people who make enough to be able to deduct interest on their mortgage.

Reduce marginal tax rates - Marginal tax rates are ALREADY reduced taxes. They are the higher rates you pay ONLY on the incomes above a certain amount.

Cut entitlement programs -- Millions of Americans will object.

Not ONLY those who directly benefit from entitlement programs, but also those who indirectly benefit from them.

For examples: The health care providers whose customers no longer can afford them; Grocers whose customers cannot buy food from them; Real estate companies whose renters can no longer afford their rents; heating and fuel companies whose custoners no longer get heating assistance.

What you apparently are fogetting is that the money going into entitlements doesn't STAY with the poor.

It ends up going to the upper middle and upper classes which count on them (those roughly 50,000,000 people) who are their customers.

The money that goes to the poor, doesn't STAY with the poor.

It ends up in the hands of the affluent.

Really now, Rabbi, I would have thought a man with your obvious financial acumen would have thought that through just a little more deeply than you apparently have.

If we're going to back our way out of this WELFARE STATE we've got (and like you I think we ought to) then we'd best find a way to do it that doesn't disrupt the economy as badly as it would happen if we followed the advise of you people who so obviously loathe anybody who isn't rich.

Capitalist Economies can weather damned near anything if they have time to adapt to the changes.

It's massive changes that cause problems that nobody expects that generally really fuck thing up.

You've nailed the problem. Too many people simply don't think through their grand proclamations (and that would include Rush Limbaugh).

 

[MaggieMae]

Everyone but the wealthy

No... a little more specific... The ones who love the concept of selective equal treatment and want someone else to pay their share for them and have things given to them at the expense of others

We have a WINNAH!

I would suggest those kinds of people aren't found in huge numbers, although I know it makes you feel all smug to think so.

 

[DiamondDave]

I am sure you can get all the tax increases you need by actually taxing the ~50% who currently pay no income tax... put every last citizen on the top rate equally on every dollar earned, and I bet you will get a hell of a push from the populace for tax cuts and reduced government spending

Why don't you try to find a link that would support your supposition? I'd be curious to know if requiring low-income people who currently pay no taxes to pay their share would actually garner more revenue than eliminating the enormous tax writeoffs that the wealthy can claim and thereby reduce their tax obligations to pocket change.

Taxation revenues from those not paying tax any more would garner LESS or the SAME revenue then?? And notice I did not say that it would garner more revenue than another tax scheme... I simply said it would be more revenue and that people who have a stake in the game at the same % as everyone else would more likely then be calling for the lower tax rates... real easy to call for higher tax rates when it is being forced on someone else


You can get more revenue by taxing those 'evil rich' more... but that is completely in support of the selective equal treatment I have been talking about, now wouldn't it??