What would happen to the economy?

[Vintij]

We need to cut taxes and spending. We should be free to decide what we do with our money. I for one am sick and tired of giving out billions in foreign aid to countries that hate America.

I agree, though I think it would be better to cut military spending for operations going on that relate to the most unpopular and expensive war in history. That would be a good starting point.

 

[SwingVoter]

So you are correlating high taxes with inflation? The inflation during the 70's was primarily due to oil shocks to the economy. Inflation subsided as oil prices declined due to a reduction in consumption. You are crediting Reagan with something he had absolutely nothing to do with.

not correlating or crediting, just saying inflation and unemployment fell during Reagan's 1st term

"better off than 4 years ago" worked for him both in '80 and '84, and he won 93 of 100 states across 2 elections, so either he was the luckiest candidate in world history, or maybe just a little more effective at leading the country than his predecessor

 

[SwingVoter]

I for one am sick and tired of giving out billions in foreign aid to countries that hate America.

Foreign aid is less than 1% of the budget. If you really want to cut and balance the budget, you have to pick from social security, medicare, medicaid, and defense, which are 80% of the budget excluding interest. I'd cut all 4, but McCain and Bush won't cut any one of those programs.

 

[Diuretic]

How is that YOUR or the Governments business?

It's an economic question.

 

[Skull Pilot]

It depends on what you do with your extra money. Will you save it or spend it?

It won't matter, if I spend it the economy benefits, if I save it or invest it, the economy benefits from the capital.

The point is that when you give the government money in return for services, you always always always get the shit end of the stick paying $10 for $1 worth of services is not a good deal.

 

[Diuretic]

It won't matter, if I spend it the economy benefits, if I save it or invest it, the economy benefits from the capital.

The point is that when you give the government money in return for services, you always always always get the shit end of the stick paying $10 for $1 worth of services is not a good deal.

If you spend it then as an individual you can only spend it once and yes, the activity benefits the economy. I think that might be Keynesian but since I'm not educated in economics that's a wild guess. If you save it then I don't see how it can benefit the economy. Although I suppose if everyone saves it and allows banks to lend it out to entrepreneurs that's a good thing. If you invest then then yes, it joins other money as a source for capital and provided it's invested wisely and not in a business that fails, you'll get a return and a business grows.

But if that money is not given to government in taxes then government would find itself short on money so things like infrastructure might suffer.

Decisions, decisions.

 

[PeterS]

It won't matter, if I spend it the economy benefits, if I save it or invest it, the economy benefits from the capital.

The point is that when you give the government money in return for services, you always always always get the shit end of the stick paying $10 for $1 worth of services is not a good deal.

I went to school on Pell grants, federal and state scholarships, and student loans. My entire teaching assistantship was funded by the federal government even though I went to a private school. My first business loan was courtesy of the SBA. I didn't die from some childhood disease because government initially funded the R&D that led to immunization. The satilite I am using to talk to you would have never been there without government initially footing the bill. There is nary a component in the computer I am using that can't be traced back to government funded R&D. I could go on but I think it is fairly clear that your 10 to 1 ratio is flipped...

 

[Vintij]

I went to school on Pell grants, federal and state scholarships, and student loans. My entire teaching assistantship was funded by the federal government even though I went to a private school. My first business loan was courtesy of the SBA. I didn't die from some childhood disease because government initially funded the R&D that led to immunization. The satilite I am using to talk to you would have never been there without government initially footing the bill. There is nary a component in the computer I am using that can't be traced back to government funded R&D. I could go on but I think it is fairly clear that your 10 to 1 ratio is flipped...

You know what? I used to get pell grants, now apparently my mother (who I havent seen in 5 years) and I make combined too much money. What the government does not realize is that different people are in different situations in which funding for school is absolutely a must, yet lately I see them as greedily trying to make it more and more difficult for the people to recieve aid that have the most difficult time paying for school in the first place. Why is it that every year, there is left over pell grant money? Why? Nobody needs it? Every single penny should be distributed to every single student who qualifies, and also.....qualification standards need to be looked at when a student is one their own. The government is wrong to assume that my mother or anyone else for that matter, will contribute any amount of money to my education

 

[Care4all]

What would happen if the government CUT spending and let us keep more of our own money?????

Just say no to 17 Billion dollars of PORK

It will help to cut this amount but not by much...the Bush Administration's Budgets have gone over budget by 600 BILLION a
year for every year he has been in office IF YOU COUNT what is being borrowed form Social Security tax funds too....

17 billion in a year is less than 3% of Congress's over spending....how can the other 600 billion a year be brought in to line is the question imho....

Now on top of all of this, today it was announced that the government was going to take over Fannie Mae and freddie mac banks...guess what this MEANS? We, the usa tax payer takes on their DEBT and guess what their debt is? 5 trillion, YES 5 TRILLION added to our national dept of 9.0 trillion...that puts us 14 trillion in debt....$14 TRILLION...on an average of 8 trillian we are paying OVER 300 BILLION a YEAR on just the interest payment of this debt, and if it goes to the 14 trillion in debt after the freddie mac/fannie mae we could be paying $600 BILLION A YEAR in just interest payments...not for any bnenfits to the tax payer, not for healthcare help, not to pay down the debt, but just to give Saudi Arabia, Japan and China their interest payment....

When the Bush administration began their term, the national debt for our country's 200 plus years, accumilated to 5.6 trillion, when the Bush administration is done, it will be at least 14 trillion IN JUST 8 YEARS TIME.....

That is pretty frightening and expect the DOLLAR to DEVALUE GREATLY after this fannnie mae thing...which MEANS oil will SKYROCKET again, which means we could go much deeper in to a recession because ALL will be affected by this imo....


so, it would be nice to reduce spending by the 17 billion, but it won't even COME CLOSE to address the EXTREMELY DISMAL position we are really in, and on the door steps of the baby boomers retiring, which means the SS that the Feds BORROWED will have to be paid back as well.....

Please don't take this as beating up on you somehow, because i didn't mean such....i just found out about the freddie mac, fannie mae thing and had to mouth off!

care

 

[Skull Pilot]

It will help to cut this amount but not by much...the Bush Administration's Budgets have gone over budget by 600 BILLION a
year for every year he has been in office IF YOU COUNT what is being borrowed form Social Security tax funds too....

17 billion in a year is less than 3% of Congress's over spending....how can the other 600 billion a year be brought in to line is the question imho....

Now on top of all of this, today it was announced that the government was going to take over Fannie Mae and freddie mac banks...guess what this MEANS? We, the usa tax payer takes on their DEBT and guess what their debt is? 5 trillion, YES 5 TRILLION added to our national dept of 9.0 trillion...that puts us 14 trillion in debt....$14 TRILLION...on an average of 8 trillian we are paying OVER 300 BILLION a YEAR on just the interest payment of this debt, and if it goes to the 14 trillion in debt after the freddie mac/fannie mae we could be paying $600 BILLION A YEAR in just interest payments...not for any bnenfits to the tax payer, not for healthcare help, not to pay down the debt, but just to give Saudi Arabia, Japan and China their interest payment....

When the Bush administration began their term, the national debt for our country's 200 plus years, accumilated to 5.6 trillion, when the Bush administration is done, it will be at least 14 trillion IN JUST 8 YEARS TIME.....

That is pretty frightening and expect the DOLLAR to DEVALUE GREATLY after this fannnie mae thing...which MEANS oil will SKYROCKET again, which means we could go much deeper in to a recession because ALL will be affected by this imo....


so, it would be nice to reduce spending by the 17 billion, but it won't even COME CLOSE to address the EXTREMELY DISMAL position we are really in, and on the door steps of the baby boomers retiring, which means the SS that the Feds BORROWED will have to be paid back as well.....

Please don't take this as beating up on you somehow, because i didn't mean such....i just found out about the freddie mac, fannie mae thing and had to mouth off!

care

Don't ignore the good while waiting for perfection. You have to start somewhere and cutting pork is easy.

look it's just like your personal finances. make your coffee at home and save $25 a week. Lets say you put that in an IRA at 10% for 20 years and you have over 70K. But will you ignore that end because its only coffee and 5 bucks a day?

 

[Skull Pilot]

I went to school on Pell grants, federal and state scholarships, and student loans. My entire teaching assistantship was funded by the federal government even though I went to a private school. My first business loan was courtesy of the SBA. I didn't die from some childhood disease because government initially funded the R&D that led to immunization. The satilite I am using to talk to you would have never been there without government initially footing the bill. There is nary a component in the computer I am using that can't be traced back to government funded R&D. I could go on but I think it is fairly clear that your 10 to 1 ratio is flipped...

I paid for school by working my ass off and finding an employer who would reimburse me for tuition. I am sure I'm not seeing a return for footing the bill for your education. So i would say that tax payer money spent on you had pretty much a zero return.

The satellite you are using is probably privately owned and the company who owns it paid huge money to get it flying.

here's just one example of privately owned satellites

http://http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/factsheets/376/sbs_6/sbs_6.html

SBS was formed in late 1975 by Communications Satellite Corp., IBM, and Aetna Life and Casualty to provide private business communications to corporate customers.

I don't see where the government had anything to do with it do you?

And let's look at vaccines

polio. Jonas Salk's work was funded by the Sarah Mellon Scientific Foundation
not the government.

Polio History Timeline

Diphtheria: Vaccine found by the German physician Emil von Behring developed an antitoxin . no US government there.

So you see many of the things you give government credit for were actually done by someone else. Just because government supports vaccinations doe not mean they are responsible for the research.

I hold to the 10:1 ratio.

 

[glockmail]

if you :

-raised the top tax rate to 39.6%
-increased Medicare taxes
-added 4 cents to the gas tax


what do you think would be the likely effects?

Slow down or go into recession.