Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

[unofan]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

We could get out of it just by cutting spending.

Again, only if you're willing to cut what is otherwise termed non-discretionary spending (primarily interest on the debt, social security, medicare). You could cut the entire discretionary budget, including the military, and still wind up with a deficit.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Michelle: "Kenya, Barack's home country"

I'm not one of the birthers, but this doesn't help.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Not priceless. He seems to think cutting the top marginal rate was the primary problem. If you follow the links I provided, you will note that revenue in constant dollars is higher now than when the rate was at 70% in 1980. It's higher even after you account for the population increase since then. Even without borrowing, the feds can spend over $1000 more per person now than they could 30 years ago. So the idea that a lower marginal rate destroyed everything fiscally in this country is a bogus one. It's a very simple problem of spending increasing faster than revenue did. Plus, even if we kept the higher marginal rates, who is to say the government wouldn't have increased spending even more than it did over the past 30 years? Where is the evidence to show the government has any sense of fiscal restraint whatsoever?

Cutting the top marginal rate is a problem. Excessive spending is also a problem. The people who primarily complain about the stimulus package conveniently ignore that half of that package was tax cuts and other giveaways to the top 1%. That's why it's so laughable when they post crap like "Only X% of the stimulus has been spent" and consider $800B to be the denominator. You can't spend $400B you never had...

The same people blame spending on social programs but will also argue that we've been fighting a war on poverty since the 1930's. You can't have it both ways. If we were spending money on social programs since the 1930's and the budget was less than a trillion $ in debt, but the debt has exploded in the past 30 years then something changed 30 years ago that made that possible. The cut in the top marginal rate is one of those factors. We also spent hundreds of billions on defense that we didn't have. The Wall may have come down but it came with a very heavy price.

Charts and graphs are very pretty but can be manipulated pretty easily. I bet I could produce a graph showing that the Giants won that game with Philadelphia last week, but I'm pretty sure it didn't happen.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Again, only if you're willing to cut what is otherwise termed non-discretionary spending (primarily interest on the debt, social security, medicare). You could cut the entire discretionary budget, including the military, and still wind up with a deficit.

Its not like we have to balance the budget today. If we just went back to 2008 levels of spending and capped budget growth to 2% (including SS and the rest) we'd have a balanced budget in less than 5 years and be paying it down after that.

The only real way to increase gov't revenue is to grow the economy. Not matter what you do with taxes you're still only going to collect 19% of GDP so the focus should be on growth instead of confiscation. The more gov't spends the more capital is crowded out of the economy leading to less growth.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Anyone in the middle class has been losing ground the last decade anyway whether they wanted to or not. Unless they were getting 5% a year increases a long the way, then maybe they were holding ground.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html
"Focusing on the statistical middle class — the middle 20 percent of households, as ranked by income — underlines this point. Households in this group made $35,400 to $52,100 in 2006, the last year for which the Congressional Budget Office has released data. That would describe a household with one full-time worker earning about $17 to $25 an hour. Such hourly pay is typical for firefighters, preschool teachers, computer support specialists, farmers, members of the clergy, mail carriers, secretaries and truck drivers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Taking into account both taxes and tax credits, the average household in this group paid a total income tax rate of just 3 percent."

In terms of taxes, the middle class are getting off easy, I think. Even if you account for other federal taxes (such as the employee portion of OASDI/medicare), the rate only climbs to 14.2%. Taxed into poverty indeed.

UNOfan - I wasn't making any distinction in where to cut spending - hence my mention that the budget would be roughly 60% of what it was in order to bring it into balance. Interestingly, if you dropped discretionary to zero, you'd be within a rounding error of a balanced budget, at least per wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

Of course, we're going in the opposite direction of cuts at the moment, so it's really a moot point.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

In terms of taxes, the middle class are getting off easy, I think. Even if you account for other federal taxes (such as the employee portion of OASDI/medicare), the rate only climbs to 14.2%. Taxed into poverty indeed.

Not to mention that the middle class is where the most money actually is. Everyone talked about how extending the Bush tax rates for the "rich" would cut revenue by $700B. What got skipped is that extending them for the middle class cut revenue by $1.4T.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Neither one of those ideas is true. They rely on a cleverly selective reading of the facts.

Yep.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Not to mention that the middle class is where the most money actually is. Everyone talked about how extending the Bush tax rates for the "rich" would cut revenue by $700B. What got skipped is that extending them for the middle class cut revenue by $1.4T. Take hikes always find their way to the middle-class because thats where the money really is.

Quiet you. The Bush tax cuts were "for the rich."

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

The Wall may have come down but it came with a very heavy price.

The biggest price of the Wall coming down may have been the Iraq War. You can only play that game in a unipolar world. The Soviets were useful directly to herd our allies closer to us but also indirectly as a restraint on the projection of American military power. We aren't very good at setting limits on ourselves, particularly because "exceptionalism" dictates the belief that those who die as a result of American military action are secretly smiling because they know we mean well.

Who knows? Perhaps the budget crisis will prevent us from doing something really stupid.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Not to mention that the middle class is where the most money actually is. Everyone talked about how extending the Bush tax rates for the "rich" would cut revenue by $700B. What got skipped is that extending them for the middle class cut revenue by $1.4T.

This is so hilarious it's making my stomach hurt. The concentration of wealth in this country is at an all time high and it's towards the top.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

This is so hilarious it's making my stomach hurt. The concentration of wealth in this country is at an all time high and it's towards the top.

Even if that's 100% true, does it really matter? How does what Person X makes effect what I have the potential to make?

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

I guess I'm just tired of people who pay practically no federal income taxes b*tching constantly about the rich not paying enough of them.

When the typical middle class wage earner (a group scooby loves to defend on here) is paying a whopping 3% in federal income taxes (and this is per the New York Times, so don't any of you lefties start yapping about how articles or graphs or statistics can be shaped to say anything ), something is seriously screwed up with our tax burden. No wonder it's easy to plunge ourselves into these ridiculous deficits; few people are actually expected to pay for all these programs.

But really, you guys with a 3% income tax burden have my utmost sympathy.

And scooby, nobody is stopping you from applying yourself, getting an advanced degree, and making more money.

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Its not like we have to balance the budget today. If we just went back to 2008 levels of spending and capped budget growth to 2% (including SS and the rest) we'd have a balanced budget in less than 5 years and be paying it down after that.

Of course, since the baby boomers are hitting retirement age, simple demographics say social security and medicare spending will increase by well over 2% even if benefit levels stay unchanged, and the collection ratio (workers/per retiree) will fall on top of that. So to keep to your 2% spending cap, everything else will still be cut further.

Not to mention you can't just roll back the interest payments to 2008 levels on a whim. Those are kinda locked into whatever the market will bear.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Of course, since the baby boomers are hitting retirement age, simple demographics say social security and medicare spending will increase by well over 2% even if benefit levels stay unchanged, and the collection ratio (workers/per retiree) will fall on top of that. So to keep to your 2% spending cap, everything else will still be cut further.

Not to mention you can't just roll back the interest payments to 2008 levels on a whim. Those are kinda locked into whatever the market will bear.

You make vailid point and I don't disagree that it'll be tough. However, I do think there is enough fat to cut to take care of those gaps for the near term. What it really shows is that we need to make some serious changes to entitlement programs and fast to get them more in line with a level of sustainable growth.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Of course, since the baby boomers are hitting retirement age, simple demographics say social security and medicare spending will increase by well over 2% even if benefit levels stay unchanged, and the collection ratio (workers/per retiree) will fall on top of that. So to keep to your 2% spending cap, everything else will still be cut further.

Benefits will have to be cut. Either that or we'll need a massive influx of young immigrant workers to support the retirees by expanding the payroll tax base.

Is it too late to support death panels for retirees?

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

I guess I'm just tired of people who pay practically no federal income taxes b*tching constantly about the rich not paying enough of them.

When the typical middle class wage earner (a group scooby loves to defend on here) is paying a whopping 3% in federal income taxes (and this is per the New York Times, so don't any of you lefties start yapping about how articles or graphs or statistics can be shaped to say anything ), something is seriously screwed up with our tax burden. No wonder it's easy to plunge ourselves into these ridiculous deficits; few people are actually expected to pay for all these programs.

I love this canard. Bob Hastert said on the floor of the House that the income tax in 2001 or 2002 shouldn't cover those making less than $20,000 because they "didn't make enough to pay taxes." I was making about $19K and had just shelled out a whopping 22% in taxes, so this was a great boon. I wrote to Rep. Hastert, the IRS and my own Congressman to get my money back. I never heard back from Hastert or the IRS, but my Congressman's office checked my math and concluded that I had indeed paid the correct amount in taxes. Somehow I had missed all the big ticket deductions (like investing in a Roth IRA) because I foolishly squandered my income on items such as food and rent.

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Benefits will have to be cut. Either that or we'll need a massive influx of young immigrant workers to support the retirees by expanding the payroll tax base.

Is it too late to support death panels for retirees?

Thankfully the boomers are as fiscally responsible personally as they are as a voting bloc...many are collecting SSI benefits as soon as they're eligible (62), which means their monthly payments are greatly reduced from what they would otherwise be if they waited til they were 66 or 70 to start collecting.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

I guess I'm just tired of people who pay practically no federal income taxes b*tching constantly about the rich not paying enough of them.

When the typical middle class wage earner (a group scooby loves to defend on here) is paying a whopping 3% in federal income taxes (and this is per the New York Times, so don't any of you lefties start yapping about how articles or graphs or statistics can be shaped to say anything ), something is seriously screwed up with our tax burden. No wonder it's easy to plunge ourselves into these ridiculous deficits; few people are actually expected to pay for all these programs.

But really, you guys with a 3% income tax burden have my utmost sympathy.

And scooby, nobody is stopping you from applying yourself, getting an advanced degree, and making more money.

3% that's ****ing hilarious.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

Can they raise my taxes another 10%? Sure. But in the grand scheme of things another 10% is not going to affect my standard of living in either direction.

I'll tell you what, they jack up my taxes by 10% and it would definitely affect my standard of living. That's a few thousand bucks more a year. That's not chump change.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama XVIII : Now with 100% more Gov't sponsored starvation

3% that's ****ing hilarious.

Net of refunds and credits, that sounds plausible. 43% pay no net taxes at all.