US Taxes Must Rise Drastically

asterism wrote:

You can proclaim that all you want, but it doesn't make it any less false.

FairTax at 23% is a rate cut but a revenue increase.

Americans For Fair Taxation: Americans For Fair Taxation

We can argue over the correct numbers, asterism. IMO, a flat tax rate at about 14% generates revenues similar to the current income tax, but redistributes that burden. The Fair Tax proposal is appealing for many of the same reasons as a Flat Tax but will never become law. There are far too many obstacles to ever seriously hope we will abandon progressive taxation on income in the US.
 
asterism wrote:

You can proclaim that all you want, but it doesn't make it any less false.

FairTax at 23% is a rate cut but a revenue increase.

Americans For Fair Taxation: Americans For Fair Taxation

We can argue over the correct numbers, asterism. IMO, a flat tax rate at about 14% generates revenues similar to the current income tax, but redistributes that burden. The Fair Tax proposal is appealing for many of the same reasons as a Flat Tax but will never become law. There are far too many obstacles to ever seriously hope we will abandon progressive taxation on income in the US.

The FairTax is more progressive than our current scheme of progressive income tax on earned income as reported on the 1040 combined with regressive income tax for Social Security.
 
We need to cut spending, no sacred cows, and raise taxes.

The Bush tax cuts did not work to generally revive the economy and put us on a sustained solid path. Low tax rates by Greenspan, and overly rapid expansion of the money supply fueled growth, along with policies stimulating the housing market.

I am not in favor of across the board cuts, but targeted cuts. Defense is over bloated, needs to be cut big time. We don't need troops in Germany or Japan, bring them home. Let those countries decide how much defense they need, and bleed their own budgets instead of ours, for those unproductive expenses.

We need to go after fraud in medicare and medicaid, and foodstamp programs.
Those troops in Germany and Japan are examples of Military Welfare. The money that we pour into those two countries keeps them afloat, making them dependent on us. It's the same way we use debt to keep countries like China from misbehaving.

Example: due to Bush's folly, our military is stretched thin and worn out. Now would be the time for China to once again be sabre-rattling against Taiwan, as they do every 10 years or so. But the fact that we owe them so much money keeps them from doing anything rash.
 
asterism wrote:

You can proclaim that all you want, but it doesn't make it any less false.

FairTax at 23% is a rate cut but a revenue increase.

Americans For Fair Taxation: Americans For Fair Taxation

We can argue over the correct numbers, asterism. IMO, a flat tax rate at about 14% generates revenues similar to the current income tax, but redistributes that burden. The Fair Tax proposal is appealing for many of the same reasons as a Flat Tax but will never become law. There are far too many obstacles to ever seriously hope we will abandon progressive taxation on income in the US.

The FairTax is more progressive than our current scheme of progressive income tax on earned income as reported on the 1040 combined with regressive income tax for Social Security.

The Social Security tax is not, strictly speaking, regressive. For one thing, it is not applied on all income. After the first $100,000 or so per year, additional income is tax exempt. A tax is "regressive" when a poor person pays a higher percent of his income as tax than a rich person does....sales taxes and sin taxes are forms of regressive taxation. At best, you could claim the Social Security tax is proportionate, but as I have said, this is not really accurate either. It's progressive, just not as progressive as the income tax.

A tax cannot be "more progressive"; all schemes that call for different rates on different income levels are progressive. One scheme can call for more steeply progressive rates (more brackets, higher rates) but you can play with the numbers endlessly. As I understand it, the FAIR Tax proposal also calls for a national sales tax or VAT, and a flattening of the income tax, elimination of most deductions, etc. It can certainly be discussed as an interesting problem in government, but we will never -- not ever -- give up our income tax system, asterism. T'aint happening. And interesting as the discussion would be, it gets us no closer to discussing the OP....do you agree taxes must be raised?
 

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