How The Center Can Change Politics

[g5000]

Maybe I'm too conservative. I can resolve the debt problem in two very simple steps.

1. Ban all tax expenditures.

2. Raise the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages to 70, and index them to 9 percent of the population going forward.

Done!

We'd be rolling in cash, running a surplus, and would be able to substantially lower everyone's tax rates with just these two things.

You have to wonder why the GOP won't buy the first one, and why the Democrats won't buy the second one.

The reason is simple. They aren't really interested in balancing the budget. It is more important to hand out gifts to get re-elected than it is to do what is good for the country.

 

[Sarah G]

Aaron Schock is a deficit hawk. He also got an amendment to TARP passed that allows people to see exactly where the bailout money was spent.

He voted against the stimulus bill. He voted against ObamaCare.

He introduced legislation to create the Federal Program Sunset Commission.

He has signed Americans For Taxpayers pledge not to raise taxes.

He is considered to be more conservative than the two previous Congressmen who occupied his seat.

So...you were saying?

This response of his was a minute after I posted the thread. It was completely knee jerk.



I'm interested in seeing other points of view.

ok, I'll give you the benefit of doubt with this I guess

but this was just a few days ago

me

they are asking the individual mandate be postponed ONE YEAR

that is something FOR EVERY one of us in this country

you

We want the government open and the debt ceiling raised, no conditions. There is nothing beyond that that needs to be discussed. If you think Democrats are being bullies, so be it.

but good for you if you mean what you are now saying
__________________

Oh no. They needed to get government open or no talks could come to fruition. We can't be in this position every time Republcians want to defund something. That was totally uncalled for. Talking is good, putting us in the position where our economy is brought to question for all the world to see is bad.

 

[Vox]

Maybe I'm too conservative. I can resolve the debt problem in two very simple steps.

1. Ban all tax expenditures.

why just not do a tax overhaul? it is needed every 25-30 years as in this time too many loopholes are created.

2. Raise the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages to 70, and index them to 9 percent of the population going forward.

That is exactly Paul Ryan's plan already 3 years old - which dimocraps in hysteria and usual lies were smearing all the time before 2010 elections and all the way after that.
the famous granny off the cliff ( which is a LIE but it is a brilliant move)

We'd be rolling in cash and would be able to substantially lower everyone's tax rates with just these two things.

we won't be rolling in cash but at least we won't be falling into abyss.

You have to wonder why the GOP won't buy off on the first one, and why the Democrats won't buy off the second one.

were have you been ? in the bushes of the leftard propaganda? tax code overhaul is an essential part of the Tea party groups.

The reason is simple. They aren't really interested in balancing the budget. It is more important to hand out gifts to get re-elected than it is to do what is good for the country.

that might be true - both for RINOs and dimocraps.
But that is NOT true for the conservative TP representatives. So far they have not been corrupted by the DC "business as usual".

And that is the reason they are so extensively being smeared by LSM and by GOP establishment in the DC. Because they are the threat to business as usual.

 

[Sarah G]

Maybe I'm too conservative. I can resolve the debt problem in two very simple steps.

1. Ban all tax expenditures.

2. Raise the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages to 70, and index them to 9 percent of the population going forward.

Done!

We'd be rolling in cash, running a surplus, and would be able to substantially lower everyone's tax rates with just these two things.

You have to wonder why the GOP won't buy the first one, and why the Democrats won't buy the second one.

The reason is simple. They aren't really interested in balancing the budget. It is more important to hand out gifts to get re-elected than it is to do what is good for the country.

I think the Medicare and SS ages will be raised to 67 at least. Not sure if they'll go to 70. I like the Center Caucus, they talked about putting the budget higher on the priority list. Governors budget every year, the Federal Government needs to do that too.

 

[Stephanie]

This response of his was a minute after I posted the thread. It was completely knee jerk.



I'm interested in seeing other points of view.

ok, I'll give you the benefit of doubt with this I guess

but this was just a few days ago

me



you

We want the government open and the debt ceiling raised, no conditions. There is nothing beyond that that needs to be discussed. If you think Democrats are being bullies, so be it.

but good for you if you mean what you are now saying
__________________

Oh no. They needed to get government open or no talks could come to fruition. We can't be in this position every time Republcians want to defund something. That was totally uncalled for. Talking is good, putting us in the position where our economy is brought to question for all the world to see is bad.

please, closed down for two weeks wasn't going to kill our economy...it doesn't just run on this GOVERNMENT...what don't you understand about that?

 

[g5000]

Maybe I'm too conservative. I can resolve the debt problem in two very simple steps.

1. Ban all tax expenditures.

why just not do a tax overhaul? it is needed every 25-30 years as in this time too many loopholes are created.

A ban on all tax expenditures would prevent all loopholes, deductions, credits, subsidies, whatever you want to call them, from creeping back in.

I'm not talking about selective closing of some here and some there, while protecting sacred cows. I am talking about getting rid of all of them.

Not only that, if you take away the ability of a Congressman to place a tax expenditure (loophole, deductions, credits, etc.) in the tax code, you remove all incentive to give that Congressman money for his campaign for doing so.

Instant campaign finance reform serendipity bonus!

2. Raise the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages to 70, and index them to 9 percent of the population going forward.

That is exactly Paul Ryan's plan already 3 years old - which dimocraps in hysteria and usual lies were smearing all the time before 2010 elections and all the way after that.
the famous granny off the cliff ( which is a LIE but it is a brilliant move)

The granny off the cliff ad was about the Republican plan to privatize Medicare.

we won't be rolling in cash but at least we won't be falling into abyss.

$1.4 trillion is spent on tax expenditures each year. What's our current deficit? Do the math.

Instant surplus, which could be spent paying down the debt and lowering everyone's tax rates.

And that is not even adding in the savings of increasing the retirement age to 70.

You have to wonder why the GOP won't buy off on the first one, and why the Democrats won't buy off the second one.

were have you been ? in the bushes of the leftard propaganda? tax code overhaul is an essential part of the Tea party groups.

I have not heard the Tea Party call for the ban of all tax expenditures. Can you provide a link?

I bet a Tea Partier would scream like a welfare queen if you threatened the mortgage interest deduction which adds $120 billion a year to the deficit.

 

[Harry Dresden]

The center can change politics. The center is just really really small right now and getting smaller all the time.

can you prove that?....more and more people are getting sick of these two parties and are leaving them......and the ones leaving are not the Far Right and Left....

which does not matter at all as in the voting booth they will have to choose between just those two parties.
as we all will.

not me...but "Party" people like you will,and then be back here bitching about the same old shit and telling people like me how I am wasting my vote......but yet your "not" wasted vote did a lot of good didn't it?...

 

[Sarah G]

ok, I'll give you the benefit of doubt with this I guess

but this was just a few days ago

me



you


but good for you if you mean what you are now saying
__________________

Oh no. They needed to get government open or no talks could come to fruition. We can't be in this position every time Republcians want to defund something. That was totally uncalled for. Talking is good, putting us in the position where our economy is brought to question for all the world to see is bad.

please, closed down for two weeks wasn't going to kill our economy...it doesn't just run on this GOVERNMENT...what don't you understand about that?

They were also threatening to default. Our credit rating was at risk. The entire world was looking at what would happen if we defaulted. What don't you understand about that?

 

[g5000]

I wonder if those who were A-okay with the shutdown and a default are aware that the entire Defense budget is discretionary spending.

 

[Mac1958]

Oh no. They needed to get government open or no talks could come to fruition. We can't be in this position every time Republcians want to defund something. That was totally uncalled for. Talking is good, putting us in the position where our economy is brought to question for all the world to see is bad.

please, closed down for two weeks wasn't going to kill our economy...it doesn't just run on this GOVERNMENT...what don't you understand about that?

They were also threatening to default. Our credit rating was at risk. The entire world was looking at what would happen if we defaulted. What don't you understand about that?

Fortunately, the Republicans were not so deluded that they didn't realize what passing today without giving in would have done to various domestic and international markets, especially bond, credit and currency. China is already licking its chops re: the reserve currency situation.

They knew all along they had to give in, they just tried to save face the best they could.

Bizarre, inexplicable.

.

 

[g5000]

please, closed down for two weeks wasn't going to kill our economy...it doesn't just run on this GOVERNMENT...what don't you understand about that?

They were also threatening to default. Our credit rating was at risk. The entire world was looking at what would happen if we defaulted. What don't you understand about that?

Fortunately, the Republicans were not so deluded that they didn't realize what passing today without giving in would have done to various domestic and international markets, especially bond, credit and currency. China is already licking its chops re: the reserve currency situation.

They knew all along they had to give in, they just tried to save face the best they could.

Bizarre, inexplicable.

.

I suspect they caved not out of some sense of concern about these realities, but more because they saw the recent polls showing they were taking the biggest share of the blame.

I have no confidence that anyone in Congress gives a flying **** about our country.

 

[Vox]

Maybe I'm too conservative. I can resolve the debt problem in two very simple steps.

1. Ban all tax expenditures.

2. Raise the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages to 70, and index them to 9 percent of the population going forward.

Done!

We'd be rolling in cash, running a surplus, and would be able to substantially lower everyone's tax rates with just these two things.

You have to wonder why the GOP won't buy the first one, and why the Democrats won't buy the second one.

The reason is simple. They aren't really interested in balancing the budget. It is more important to hand out gifts to get re-elected than it is to do what is good for the country.

I think the Medicare and SS ages will be raised to 67 at least. Not sure if they'll go to 70. I like the Center Caucus, they talked about putting the budget higher on the priority list. Governors budget every year, the Federal Government needs to do that too.

you leftards are so ignorant it is amazing. both are raised long time ago. for anybody born in 1960 and up they start at 67+

 

[Mac1958]

They were also threatening to default. Our credit rating was at risk. The entire world was looking at what would happen if we defaulted. What don't you understand about that?

Fortunately, the Republicans were not so deluded that they didn't realize what passing today without giving in would have done to various domestic and international markets, especially bond, credit and currency. China is already licking its chops re: the reserve currency situation.

They knew all along they had to give in, they just tried to save face the best they could.

Bizarre, inexplicable.

.

I suspect they caved not out of some sense of concern about these realities, but more because they saw the recent polls showing they were taking the biggest share of the blame.

I have no confidence that anyone in Congress gives a flying **** about our country.

Yup.

Y'know, the thing is, they deserved no confidence even before this embarassing, humiliating circus.

.

 

[Trajan]

There are a group of 13 Congresspeople willing to work in a bipartisan way to get our country moving forward again. The Congressional Future Caucus.



Gives me hope ...

Moving forward on what? Spending another trillion $$ we don't have?

What passes for progress in leftyworld is mind boggling.

The president wants to move forward on immigration reform. I think we should as well.

right, lets do more to flood the marketplace with job seekers in brackets that are overflowing now.......

have you read up on the senate immigration plan btw?

 

[Vox]

Maybe I'm too conservative. I can resolve the debt problem in two very simple steps.

1. Ban all tax expenditures.

why just not do a tax overhaul? it is needed every 25-30 years as in this time too many loopholes are created.

A ban on all tax expenditures would prevent all loopholes, deductions, credits, subsidies, whatever you want to call them, from creeping back in.

I'm not talking about selective closing of some here and some there, while protecting sacred cows. I am talking about getting rid of all of them.

Not only that, if you take away the ability of a Congressman to place a tax expenditure (loophole, deductions, credits, etc.) in the tax code, you remove all incentive to give that Congressman money for his campaign for doing so.

And I am talking about tax overhaul.
existing tax law allows to bypass all your bans so it is not going to be efficient.

a new law can have specifically designated limitations on all the possibilities of pork created - there is much more needed to be done with tax laws and simple ban on one of the possibilities won't help.

 

[Vox]

The granny off the cliff ad was about the Republican plan to privatize Medicare.

No, it was about the plan to REFORM medicare.

with raising the age eligibility and eventual privatizations as options ( which are inevitable, anyway)

 

[Vox]

can you prove that?....more and more people are getting sick of these two parties and are leaving them......and the ones leaving are not the Far Right and Left....

which does not matter at all as in the voting booth they will have to choose between just those two parties.
as we all will.

not me...but "Party" people like you will,and then be back here bitching about the same old shit and telling people like me how I am wasting my vote......but yet your "not" wasted vote did a lot of good didn't it?...

oh you will be the first - if you think your riding the "high horse" of not choosing is not actual VOTING in affirmation of whoever wins - you are just being fed the shit

 

[Sarah G]

Maybe I'm too conservative. I can resolve the debt problem in two very simple steps.

1. Ban all tax expenditures.

2. Raise the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages to 70, and index them to 9 percent of the population going forward.

Done!

We'd be rolling in cash, running a surplus, and would be able to substantially lower everyone's tax rates with just these two things.

You have to wonder why the GOP won't buy the first one, and why the Democrats won't buy the second one.

The reason is simple. They aren't really interested in balancing the budget. It is more important to hand out gifts to get re-elected than it is to do what is good for the country.

I think the Medicare and SS ages will be raised to 67 at least. Not sure if they'll go to 70. I like the Center Caucus, they talked about putting the budget higher on the priority list. Governors budget every year, the Federal Government needs to do that too.

you leftards are so ignorant it is amazing. both are raised long time ago. for anybody born in 1960 and up they start at 67+

You got me there, you must be the ss/medicare expert. I'll come to you next time with any questions.

 

[Vox]

$1.4 trillion is spent on tax expenditures each year. What's our current deficit? Do the math.

Instant surplus, which could be spent paying down the debt and lowering everyone's tax rates.

And that is not even adding in the savings of increasing the retirement age to 70.

Much more is being simply WASTED.
No, I am not willing just to do one measure which can be easily bypassed by big pockets and be all on the shoulders of middle class which has only one tax break - their mortgages.
So - NO, unless it is a tax overhaul - NO.

Increasing the eligibility age to 70 is a long-known Paul Ryan's proposal which was all hysterically smeared as "killing the granny"

 

[Vox]

I have not heard the Tea Party call for the ban of all tax expenditures. Can you provide a link?

I bet a Tea Partier would scream like a welfare queen if you threatened the mortgage interest deduction which adds $120 billion a year to the deficit.

You have not heard anything about TP except what you have been fed by LSM. And they have lied and lied and lied. And you are parroting those lies again and again and again.
stop clinging to the minor single measure of tax expenditures. It is not going to solve anything.
In order to change the way the revenue is collected - we need a tax overhaul.

this is just one of the many I can provide the links to:
Simple, Low, Fair, and Honest: a Tea Party Tax Code | TheBlaze.com

Simple, Low, Fair, and Honest: a Tea Party Tax Code
Apr. 20, 2012 3:24pm


Step 1: Scrap the code. Entirely. It’s not as impossible as it might sound. Even Obama’s own Bipartisan Deficit Commission, the so-called Simpson-Bowles Commission, called for tax reform that would lower rates and do away with many of the deductions and loopholes currently infecting the code. Not surprisingly, Obama ignored it.

Step 2: Establish a single, flat rate on personal and business income. Again, this isn’t as fantastic as it might sound. The key is in the process. You’ve probably heard that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Let’s just assume this is true. Billionaires like Buffett, and even millionaires like Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney, can afford an army of tax lawyers to comb every word in the 3.6-million-word tax code looking for their deductions and loopholes. Can you afford such an army?

By eliminating every single deduction, credit, penalty, and loophole, we can erase the tax code’s inherent unfairness, which only benefits the Buffetts, Pelosis, and Romneys. Not only will this raise revenues, it will ensnare the tax cheats, expanding the nation’s taxable base. Next, you lower the rates considerably, doing away with brackets, until we have a single flat tax rate. In one popular flat tax proposal, a family of four would have the first $33,800 of its income tax free; any amount above this would be taxed at 17 percent – for everyone. No deductions, no loopholes.

Step 3: Do the same thing with corporate taxes. Right now, the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. Even Obama has suggested it needs to go down. Like the individual flat tax, with the business flat tax income would be taxed once and only once. Businesses would calculate total revenue, subtract total expenses, and pay a flat tax on that amount.

Step 4: File your taxes on a postcard.

Step 5: Use all the time and money you’ve saved in the full pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

That’s what a simple, low, fair, and honest tax code would look like. Many accuse the Tea Party of simply wanting lower taxes. We do, but lower rates are just part of fundamental tax reform. Many accuse the Tea Party of favoring the wealthy. These people have obviously never been to a Tea Party rally before. In fact, what the Tea Party wants is fairness – and not the faux class warfare “fairness” espoused by the Occupy Wall Street crowd.
Tax Reform - The Villages Tea Party
http://www.kingwoodteaparty.com/opportunity-conservatism/pos1-tax-reform/