PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: EppyGA - White Christian Domestic Terrorist on January 06, 2016, 04:52:49 PM
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Based on Dave8or's call for civil discussion, I thought I would pose the question above. Personally, I feel we are in deep shit and need to do something to bring things back in line. Do we need a balanced budget amendment? Would that really do anything other than cause Congress to crank up revenues (taxes) to keep spending? What are your ideas? I'm a fan of the Fair Tax and at the very least feel the current system is so broken that it needs to be torn down and start over.
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Based on Dave8or's call for civil discussion, I thought I would pose the question above. Personally, I feel we are in deep shit and need to do something to bring things back in line. Do we need a balanced budget amendment? Would that really do anything other than cause Congress to crank up revenues (taxes) to keep spending? What are your ideas? I'm a fan of the Fair Tax and at the very least feel the current system is so broken that it needs to be torn down and start over.
I'm not for a balanced budget agreement. There are times when running a deficit is the right thing to do. But we do need some way to keep the deficit from perpetually growing.
And I am all for the Fair tax. It only seems logical that we tax consumption instead of production.
The only way that I see to fix our financial ills is to crank up productivity, but there is no one silver bullet for that. The closest I can see is to eliminate the tax on American Corporations that bring foreign generated revenue back into the country. Do that and Trillions will begin to swarm back into our economy.
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Based on Dave8or's call for civil discussion, I thought I would pose the question above. Personally, I feel we are in deep shit and need to do something to bring things back in line. Do we need a balanced budget amendment? Would that really do anything other than cause Congress to crank up revenues (taxes) to keep spending? What are your ideas? I'm a fan of the Fair Tax and at the very least feel the current system is so broken that it needs to be torn down and start over.
You got me, but for certain the tax code and its enforcement is tyrannical.
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Balanced budget amendment that automatically cuts discretionary and non-essential gov services first.
Flat or Fair Tax as has been proposed any of the last five or six election cycles.
End H1B visa program until such time as real unemployment drops to 5-6%.
Cut corporate tax rate to somewhere around the UK (20% vs current 35%).
End support for Congressmen and Senator offices once they leave office, including Speaker and Leader positions.
Cut pay for all elected Federal positions by 20% and end Federal Pension program for Congress and President.
Eliminate or significantly restructure/reduce the following Departments and their Secretary/Czar:
- Health and Human Services
- Labor
- Education
- Agriculture
Means test all Federal aid programs, require work for welfare for able bodied (and challenge/eliminate BS 'disability' claims).
Drug test all Federal employees (including all elected officials) as well as all people receiving Federal aid with strict 3 strikes penalties.
Eliminate organized labor unions for all essential Federal employees, and eliminate any non-essential Federal job.
Pass real tort reform to include loser pays to reduce frivolous lawsuits.
Cease all aid to nations with known terrorist training camps, shelters and radical mosques and madrasa's.
Cease providing birthright citizenship to children born to parents not here legally.
Eliminate access to all Federal aid programs to illegal immigrants.
Reduce legal immigration allocations across the board.
Cease issuing visa's or accepting refugees from nations with known terrorist training camps, shelters and radical mosques and madrasa's.
Deport illegal immigrants when captured except in cases of true refugee/sanctuary claims and raise the bar for these claims to require proof.
Cease family hardship allowances with respect to illegal immigrant family reunions - if they want to be together they can do it in their home country.
Immediately return unaccompanied minors to country of origin or in the absence of that, the country they last passed through (hello Mexico, stop allowing this dangerous trafficking to take place in your territory).
Discontinue refugee/sanctuary allowances from other continents except in truly special cases with actual proof.
Aggressively fine employers found to employ illegal immigrants.
Just a few ideas off the top of my head, not that I have thought about it all or anything.
'Gimp
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Also cease issuing H1B visa's to citizens from nations with a history of industrial and other espionage - looking at you China, Russia, even Israel (who I am tremendously sympathetic to).
Protect our damn secrets - they make the difference when it counts in a shooting war as well as economic warfare.
'Gimp
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Oh yeah, complete repeal of ObamaCare, 100%. Do not replace it - shore up means tested medicare/medicaid and improve regulation of health insurance if necessary but allow people to make their own decisions about their own health care to include whether or not to insure themselves, etc.
'Gimp
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Come on 'Gimp; surely you can come up with a few more!
Seriously though, I agree with every one of your points. As I said in my post, there is no single silver bullet. Everything you said will be necessary to get a handle on our budget. But if we only do half of them we would be well on our way to a healthy economy.
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Oh yeah, complete repeal of ObamaCare, 100%. Do not replace it - shore up means tested medicare/medicaid and improve regulation of health insurance if necessary but allow people to make their own decisions about their own health care to include whether or not to insure themselves, etc.
'Gimp
'Gimp for President!
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Also:
Require Congress to abide by any/all laws they pass themselves.
Establish term limits for elected Federal positions (I would support it at State and Local level as well) similar to President.
100% prohibition on family members of sitting Congresscritters/Senators or other elected Federal officials to have ANY involvement in public funded works (looking at you Dianne Feinstein and your husbands' $1B Moonbeam Crazy Train contract).
'Gimp
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Based on Dave8or's call for civil discussion, I thought I would pose the question above. Personally, I feel we are in deep shit and need to do something to bring things back in line. Do we need a balanced budget amendment? Would that really do anything other than cause Congress to crank up revenues (taxes) to keep spending? What are your ideas? I'm a fan of the Fair Tax and at the very least feel the current system is so broken that it needs to be torn down and start over.
I'm not for a balanced budget agreement. There are times when running a deficit is the right thing to do. But we do need some way to keep the deficit from perpetually growing.
And I am all for the Fair tax. It only seems logical that we tax consumption instead of production.
The only way that I see to fix our financial ills is to crank up productivity, but there is no one silver bullet for that. The closest I can see is to eliminate the tax on American Corporations that bring foreign generated revenue back into the country. Do that and Trillions will begin to swarm back into our economy.
Sorry, John, but I vehemently disagree. When "There are times when running a deficit is the right thing to do" becomes an every-year thing, it becomes clear that Congress has no intention, EVER, to control itself. The petulant, spoiled fucking rotten children in Congress need to be slapped, and a balanced budget amendment will do it. You can allow for contingencies such as a 3/5ths vote of both houses of congress to raise the debt ceiling, which raises the bar for bipartisan agreement to run a deficit in times of emergency.
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Oh yeah, complete repeal of ObamaCare, 100%. Do not replace it - shore up means tested medicare/medicaid and improve regulation of health insurance if necessary but allow people to make their own decisions about their own health care to include whether or not to insure themselves, etc.
'Gimp
The bill went to POTUS today. I wonder what he's going to do with it. ;)
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Also:
Require Congress to abide by any/all laws they pass themselves.
Establish term limits for elected Federal positions (I would support it at State and Local level as well) similar to President.
100% prohibition on family members of sitting Congresscritters/Senators or other elected Federal officials to have ANY involvement in public funded works (looking at you Dianne Feinstein and your husbands' $1B Moonbeam Crazy Train contract).
'Gimp
Here's a good start:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liberty_Amendments
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Let's add to the question. Assuming we did some or all of the things suggested here, do you think it is actually possible to dig out of the debt hole we are now in? Do you hold any hope that we will ever head in a direction that will get us there or are we just screwed?
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Let's add to the question. Assuming we did some or all of the things suggested here, do you think it is actually possible to dig out of the debt hole we are now in? Do you hold any hope that we will ever head in a direction that will get us there or are we just screwed?
We are screwed until such time as we the people demand that our government live within it's means. If we pass a balanced budget amendment and force the government to be fiscally sane, growth in our economy should resolve our debt problem.
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Oh yeah, complete repeal of ObamaCare, 100%. Do not replace it - shore up means tested medicare/medicaid and improve regulation of health insurance if necessary but allow people to make their own decisions about their own health care to include whether or not to insure themselves, etc.
'Gimp
The bill went to POTUS today. I wonder what he's going to do with it. ;)
I've a suggestion for him..... it involves Valerie-the-puppeteer-Jarrett and unnatural acts.
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Just a few ideas off the top of my head, not that I have thought about it all or anything.
'Gimp
You must have a head like this:
(http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsF/6183-19402.jpg)
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Based on Dave8or's call for civil discussion, I thought I would pose the question above. Personally, I feel we are in deep shit and need to do something to bring things back in line. Do we need a balanced budget amendment? Would that really do anything other than cause Congress to crank up revenues (taxes) to keep spending? What are your ideas? I'm a fan of the Fair Tax and at the very least feel the current system is so broken that it needs to be torn down and start over.
No, we don't need a balanced budget amendment. But we do need Congresscritters to fulfill their responsibilties of the office.
And, yes, a BBA would likely cause Congress et al to raise tax rates (btw, that won't necessarily increase revenues).
We need leadership at the Federal level to convince our nation that the current approach of tax, spend, free stuff, OPM, etc will inevitably lead to disaster and that there are better ways to improve (or at least maintain) our standard of living.
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Based on Dave8or's call for civil discussion, I thought I would pose the question above. Personally, I feel we are in deep shit and need to do something to bring things back in line. Do we need a balanced budget amendment? Would that really do anything other than cause Congress to crank up revenues (taxes) to keep spending? What are your ideas? I'm a fan of the Fair Tax and at the very least feel the current system is so broken that it needs to be torn down and start over.
No, we don't need a balanced budget amendment. But we do need Congresscritters to fulfill their responsibilties of the office.
And, yes, a BBA would likely cause Congress et al to raise tax rates (btw, that won't necessarily increase revenues).
We need leadership at the Federal level to convince our nation that the current approach of tax, spend, free stuff, OPM, etc will inevitably lead to disaster and that there are better ways to improve (or at least maintain) our standard of living.
This is why you can't have a BBA without strict spending and taxation limits. Mark Levin proposes this in his Liberty Amendments book:
"Limiting Taxation and Spending: Levin proposes a balanced budget amendment, limiting spending to 17.5% of GDP and requiring a three-fifths vote to raise the debt ceiling. He also proposes limiting the power to tax to 15% of an individual’s income, prohibiting other forms of taxation, and placing the deadline to file one’s taxes one day before the next federal election."
http://www.redstate.com/2013/08/13/mark-levins-liberty-amendments/
SSSD - Same Shit, Different Day cannot continue. Congress is unable to act responsibly, so THE PEOPLE need to bypass Congress and take back our country and our Constitution.
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One other thing about the BBA. I believe 49 states have some sort of constitutional balanced budget requirement. If we can't figure this out, with 49 models to work from, we are truly screwed.
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Let's add to the question. Assuming we did some or all of the things suggested here, do you think it is actually possible to dig out of the debt hole we are now in? Do you hold any hope that we will ever head in a direction that will get us there or are we just screwed?
I think that if we did even half the things listed here, we would eventually right this ship.
But even though I think it is possible, I have little hope that the people will vote for the politicians that are willing to do them.
@Stan; as for the balanced budget agreement, I will agree that it is necessary, IF we agree that we will remain to ignorant and weak to begin to elect honest and competent politicians. So in effect, I guess I grudgingly agree with you. But I wish it were different.
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Let's add to the question. Assuming we did some or all of the things suggested here, do you think it is actually possible to dig out of the debt hole we are now in? Do you hold any hope that we will ever head in a direction that will get us there or are we just screwed?
I think that if we did even half the things listed here, we would eventually right this ship.
But even though I think it is possible, I have little hope that the people will vote for the politicians that are willing to do them.
@Stan; as for the balanced budget agreement, I will agree that it is necessary, IF we agree that we will remain to ignorant and weak to begin to elect honest and competent politicians. So in effect, I guess I grudgingly agree with you. But I wish it were different.
John, you and I can only count on you and I doing the right thing. The rest of the American people have continued to disappoint me, especially over the last 8 years.
But they sure know all about Bruce Jenner. :mad: :mad2:
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Let's add to the question. Assuming we did some or all of the things suggested here, do you think it is actually possible to dig out of the debt hole we are now in? Do you hold any hope that we will ever head in a direction that will get us there or are we just screwed?
We are screwed until such time as we the people demand that our government live within it's means. If we pass a balanced budget amendment and force the government to be fiscally sane, growth in our economy should resolve our debt problem.
We don't necessarily have to dig ourselves out of the hole, but we do need to stop digging the hole deeper. If we stop government from growing then the tax base will eventually catch up and pass it. Then we will have more than enough money to pay off the debt.
Bu there is an ugly truth of our finances - mandated spending is out of control. A balanced budget amendment will actually become a mandated tax raise amendment because the mandated money MUST be allocated for an amount determined by a previous congress. The primary elements of mandated spending are social welfare and medical care. Together, they exceed the amount of taxes we take in and we're borrowing money to run everything else in the government. Put that in the context of your life - you give away every penny that you earn, borrow some money and give it away, then borrow more to actually live on. If you would quit giving it all away, you'd have money to burn. So what is the solution?
The question really boils down to - will we ever have leaders willing to fix social welfare and medical care? Without controlling those, then there is absolutely zero chance of changing the finances of the country.
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We don't necessarily have to dig ourselves out of the hole,
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The question really boils down to - will we ever have leaders willing to fix social welfare and medical care? Without controlling those, then there is absolutely zero chance of changing the finances of the country.
I do think we need to begin digging ourselves out of the hole. Right now our debt service is based on incredibly low interest rates. If/When that rate goes up, our debt service goes up with it.
But that last part is definitely true. We do need leaders that are willing and able to fix the social payments. I'm not saying we need to eliminate them, but we need to get them under control and back to legitimate levels.
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the whole "discretionary"/"Non-discretionary" thing is complete male cow feces.
Where in the Constitution is the distinction between discretionary and non-discretionary? The spineless cowards in congress are just hiding behind something they could change by simple majority.
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Let's add to the question. Assuming we did some or all of the things suggested here, do you think it is actually possible to dig out of the debt hole we are now in? Do you hold any hope that we will ever head in a direction that will get us there or are we just screwed?
Is it possible? Absolutely. Retiring debt is simply a matter of spending less and paying off the debt more.
Do I hold any hope that we will ever head in that direction? No, not really. The #1 issue that got us in this mess is giving money away without regards to our ability to do so, the mandated spending. And the #1 area where this is a problem is social welfare programs. If we did not just give away money under the guise of compassion to individuals whose only claim on the money is not having "enough" then not only would we be able to pay off the debt in a very short time, we would not even have to cut any other spending to do it.
The reason I don't hold out hope is because mandated spending is encoded in law, which means it requires a concerted effort to change and I don't believe we will ever get the number of people into Congress to change the laws. America is therefore doomed to spend without regards to ability and without regards to it being good or bad for the country. We could be bankrupt and the law would demand that we continue to spend. We could be taxing everyone at 100% and the law would still demand that we spend the money.
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I came across this little interesting tid bit looking for something else. It's the Grace Report of 1984
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grace_Commission
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I came across this little interesting tid bit looking for something else. It's the Grace Report of 1984
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grace_Commission
Cool link - thanks!
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I came across this little interesting tid bit looking for something else. It's the Grace Report of 1984
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grace_Commission
Thanks for posting. I have a vague recollection of that. Too bad Reagan had a Tip O'Neil's democratic House to deal with.
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All of the posturing about the debt ignores the obvious.
Spend LESS than you take in.
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Personally I think we should reign defense spending way, way, way back. Broke people shouldn't have the world's best military. Broke people can't afford national security, or any security for that matter. we're broke, but we don't seem to understand how to act like it.
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Personally I think we should reign defense spending way, way, way back. Broke people shouldn't have the world's best military. Broke people can't afford national security, or any security for that matter. we're broke, but we don't seem to understand how to act like it.
but this nation can piss away billions giving away free stuff....
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but this nation can piss away billions trillions giving away free stuff....
FTFY
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Personally I think we should reign defense spending way, way, way back. Broke people shouldn't have the world's best military. Broke people can't afford national security, or any security for that matter. we're broke, but we don't seem to understand how to act like it.
And yet socialist "programs", which do not have a constitutional mandate as national defense has, continue to dig us deeper into a financial hole. You have a jackass running on giving away "free"college educations to anyone with a pulse. Trump will turn a profit on the defense costs by sending a bill to countries that we defend by our presence.
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I guess 67% of the budget going towards social programs is just not enough. Unfucking believable.
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I guess 67% of the budget going towards social programs is just not enough. Unfucking believable.
maths is hard for some.
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I guess 67% of the budget going towards social programs is just not enough. Unfucking believable.
Problem is a boatload of that is paid for by the folks getting the cash. A bit disingenuous. I suspect most of the "free stuff" is medical care for the elderly, which nobody wants to pay for. Thats a really sticky subject, since we spend more on most people in the last year of their life than we do for the rest of their life combined. Then again, no one seems to want to just let old people die, except of course yours truly, though that was a truly different situation.
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Problem is a boatload of that is paid for by the folks getting the cash. A bit disingenuous. I suspect most of the "free stuff" is medical care for the elderly, which nobody wants to pay for. Thats a really sticky subject, since we spend more on most people in the last year of their life than we do for the rest of their life combined. Then again, no one seems to want to just let old people die, except of course yours truly, though that was a truly different situation.
talk about disingenuous.
Gee, medical costs are incurred in the last year of someone's life? maybe because they have an ailment/condition/disease that is life-threatening. DUH!
How do you figure hospice and/or palliative care in your calculation?
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Ask any credible economist on how to fix the debt and the answer is clear. Cut spending way back and raise taxes. Since neither side wants to do both and compromise is out of the question, we limp on to destruction. There are ways to do both without disrupting the economy, but people want what they want. Just like Walmart or something. They want more stuff and pay less for it and that's what sounds good at election time.
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Ask any credible economist on how to fix the debt and the answer is clear. Cut spending way back and raise taxes. Since neither side wants to do both and compromise is out of the question, we limp on to destruction. There are ways to do both without disrupting the economy, but people want what they want. Just like Walmart or something. They want more stuff and pay less for it and that's what sounds good at election time.
"raise taxes" - is that raise tax rates or increase tax revenue?
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talk about disingenuous.
Gee, medical costs are incurred in the last year of someone's life? maybe because they have an ailment/condition/disease that is life-threatening. DUH!
How do you figure hospice and/or palliative care in your calculation?
You do realize that at some point in the future the Democrats will tell us that they should have the power to declare that a life has been lived and it is time to terminate that life. They already allow women to do so with babies, it is not a stretch that they will want that power for aging adults.
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talk about disingenuous.
Gee, medical costs are incurred in the last year of someone's life? maybe because they have an ailment/condition/disease that is life-threatening. DUH!
How do you figure hospice and/or palliative care in your calculation?
Its all pretty expensive. Problem is most folks will combat said life threatening illness until either it wins or is cured until the next life threatening illness. Can't say I blame them, not everyone is in a big hurry to die.
However it works, we spend a buttload of money on this. Medicare expenditures are a huge part of the Federal budget.
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"raise taxes" - is that raise tax rates or increase tax revenue?
Libs confuse those all the time.
Bring up Mr. Laffer and his curve, and they tend toward ridicule.
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Libs confuse those all the time.
Bring up Mr. Laffer and his curve, and they tend toward ridicule.
And outright hostility.
Can't remember who it was, maybe Obama, who wanted to raise capital gains tax rates. When it was pointed out that would decrease government revenue he said he didn't care, it would be more "fair."
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"raise taxes" - is that raise tax rates or increase tax revenue?
Thanks, you saved me the trouble of stating that obvious factoid.
Do liberals think that if they double the tax rate that they will double the Revenue?
If not, then they have to acknowledge the elasticity of the tax effect. And if they acknowledge that, then they have to acknowledge that raising taxes isn't always the answer.
No matter what you do to businesses, (eg: raising taxes, raising labor rates, raising other expenses, adding additional regulations and restrictions) businesses will always adjust in ways that were not intended, and the public is usually the loser.
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Medicare expenditures are a huge part of the Federal budget.
I guess you think ~13% is "huge"
::)
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"raise taxes" - is that raise tax rates or increase tax revenue?
Well, I was talking about the deficit, sorry... US budget deficit, so I thought it kind of obvious that it would be about raising tax revenue. There are differing ways to raise tax revenue and among them is raising tax rates. It is likely that any real solution would incorporate raising tax rates as well as a host of other schemes. We have a lot of debt to pay down.
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Well, I was talking about the deficit, sorry... US budget deficit, so I thought it kind of obvious that it would be about raising tax revenue. There are differing ways to raise tax revenue and among them is raising tax rates. It is likely that any real solution would incorporate raising tax rates as well as a host of other schemes. We have a lot of debt to pay down.
There are a lot schemes we can use to cut the deficit. But first among them is to reduce deficit spending.
As they say, "When you are trying to get yourself out of a hole, the first thing you have to do is stop digging".
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Well, I was talking about the deficit, sorry... US budget deficit, so I thought it kind of obvious that it would be about raising tax revenue. There are differing ways to raise tax revenue and among them is raising tax rates. It is likely that any real solution would incorporate raising tax rates as well as a host of other schemes. We have a lot of debt to pay down.
well, since so many people don't understand the difference between tax rates and tax revenues, it was foolish to assume poeple would read your mind.
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Well, I was talking about the deficit, sorry... US budget deficit, so I thought it kind of obvious that it would be about raising tax revenue. There are differing ways to raise tax revenue and among them is raising tax rates. It is likely that any real solution would incorporate raising tax rates as well as a host of other schemes. We have a lot of debt to pay down.
Raising tax rates does not raise tax revenues. It slows the economy so overall taxable income is REDUCED. If you grow the economy, and grow overall taxable income, and reduce spending then you will pay down debt.
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Raising tax rates does not raise tax revenues. It slows the economy so overall taxable income is REDUCED.
Bear in mind that one can find oneself on either side of the curve.
You're making the same mistake that the libs make in condemning the Laffer curve.
If you're on the "left" side of the curve (Point A), raising tax rates WILL increase tax revenues, for example.
(https://finxknowledgeatcbsdu.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/lc-21.gif)
The difficulty is determine where on the curve the rate currently is. There are so many variables, determining that can be as much art as science.
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Annual zero sum budgeting
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Annual zero sum budgeting
Along with a balanced budget amendment.
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Bear in mind that one can find oneself on either side of the curve.
You're making the same mistake that the libs make in condemning the Laffer curve.
If you're on the "left" side of the curve (Point A), raising tax rates WILL increase tax revenues, for example.
(https://finxknowledgeatcbsdu.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/lc-21.gif)
The difficulty is determine where on the curve the rate currently is. There are so many variables, determining that can be as much art as science.
Also assumes the Laffer curve is a smooth parabola as pictured. That has not been proved. There have been many, many studies that try to predict the effect of a tax cut/increase on the economy. Every one has failed in one way or another. As you mentioned, so many variables.
Gary
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Also assumes the Laffer curve is a smooth parabola as pictured. That has not been proved.
Of course.
That is meant as an idealized representation. Like the old "Guns vs. Butter" from ECON101.
The actual curve could lean this way or that, and with so many variables it's hard (impossible?) to nail down exactly.
But the general principle holds.