What will you sacrifice to save America?

[kenmaynard]

The United States faces huge deficits and staggering dept, but no one seems willing to give up any of the benefits they get.

The vast majority of spending goes to social security, Medicare, war, and paying interest on the money we have already borrowed.

Seniors scream no cuts to their health care or welfare. Vets are a powerful lobby and expect free health care for life for doing their civic duty for four years. We can't stop paying the interest.

On top of that no one wants to pay taxes for the benefits we get for living here.

The gimmy gimmy I want my free ride attitude will be what does us in.

[GlennO]

IMO means testing must be included....redistributing OPM should only be for purposes of a safety net for the elderly poor and for those who are incapable of working.

I hope "they" do this soon...

[kenmaynard]

Means testing, end wars cut military and higher taxes.

[GlennO]

Kenmaynard said:

end wars cut military and higher taxes

Ken, are you planning to learn Mandarin?


1. 50% of the citizens are of the "receipent class" who pay no income tax- only "payroll taxes".

2. Those 50% who pay no taxes will vote for more benefits, despite the fact that they do not pay for those benefits.

3. Taxing the rich at 100% (slavery) does absolutely nothing in the absence of spending cuts. That did not work from 1950 to 1962 when the top marginal tax rate was 91% except for 1952 to 1953 when it was 92% but that tax rate applied to people earning over $400,000 per year.

4. As liberals derive all thier political power by showering free benefits and entitlements to thier dependent class, the concept of cutting entitlements to them is like slitting their own throat. No democrat will ever vote to cut entitlements, even if it means the death of the nation.

5. We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. The feds have NEVER PAID DOWN THE DEBT, EVER with any increase in revenues. They will simply spend more, as they have before. Witness "Obamacare".

[kenmaynard]

No I don't plan to learn mandarin that is why I advocate spending cuts in social security, Medicare, and the military as those are the places we spend the money.

We will also have to raise taxes to pay down the debt. Spending cuts will likely only take care of the deficit.

[GlennO]

Raising taxes on the rich lowers the government's revenues


By: Thomas Sowell | 05/17/11 8:05 PM

We could definitely use another Abraham Lincoln to emancipate us all from being slaves to words.In the midst of a historic financial crisis of unprecedented government spending, and a national debt that outstrips even the debt accumulated by the reckless government spending of previous administrations, we are still enthralled by words and ignoring realities.
President Obama's constant talk about "millionaires and billionaires" needing to pay higher taxes would be a bad joke, if the consequences were not so serious.
Even if the income tax rate were raised to 100 percent on millionaires and billionaires, it would still not cover the trillions of dollars the government is spending.
More fundamentally, tax rates -- whatever they are -- are just words on paper. Only the hard cash that comes in can cover government spending. History has shown repeatedly, under administrations of both political parties, that there is no automatic correlation between tax rates and tax revenues.
When the tax rate on the highest incomes was 73 percent in 1921, that brought in less tax revenue than after the tax rate was cut to 24 percent in 1925.
Why? Because high tax rates that people don't actually pay do not bring in as much hard cash as lower tax rates that they do pay. That's not rocket science.
Then and now, people with the highest incomes have had the greatest flexibility as to where they will put their money. Buying tax-exempt bonds is just one of the many ways that "millionaires and billionaires" avoid paying hard cash to the government, no matter how high the tax rates go. Most working people don't have the same options. Their taxes have been taken out of their paychecks before they get them.
Even more so today than in the 1920s, billions of dollars can be sent overseas electronically, almost instantaneously, to be invested in other countries -- creating jobs there, while millions of American are unemployed. That is a very high price to pay for class warfare rhetoric about taxing "millionaires and billionaires."
Make no mistake about it, that kind of rhetoric wins votes for political demagogues -- and votes are their bottom line. But that is totally different from saying that it will bring in more tax revenue to the government.
Time and again, at both state and federal levels, in the country and in other countries, tax rates and tax revenue have moved in opposite directions many times.
After Maryland raised its tax rates on people making a million dollars a year, there were fewer such people living in Maryland -- and less tax revenue was collected from them.
In 2009, many people specializing in high finance in Britain relocated to Switzerland after the British government announced plans to take 51 percent of high incomes in taxes.
Conversely, reductions in tax rates can lead to more tax revenue being collected. After the capital gains tax rate was cut in the United States in 1997, the government collected nearly twice as much revenue from capital gains taxes in the next four years as in the previous four years. Similar things have happened in India and in Iceland.
There is no automatic correlation between the direction in which tax rates move and the direction in which tax revenues move. Nor is this a new discovery.
Back in the 1920s, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon pointed out that people with high incomes were simply not paying the high tax rates that existed on paper, because they were putting their money into tax shelters.
After the tax rates were cut, as Mellon advocated, investments flowed back into the private economy, producing higher output, rising incomes, more tax revenue and more jobs. The annual unemployment rate in the next four years never exceeded 4.2 percent, and in one year was as low as 1.8 percent.
Despite political demagoguery about "tax cuts for the rich," in human terms the rich have less at stake than working people. Precisely because the rich have so many ways of avoiding taxes, a high tax rate is likely to do them far less harm than it does to the economy, on which millions of people depend for jobs.
Examiner Columnist Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate.



Read more at the Washington Examiner: Raising taxes on the rich lowers the government's revenues | Thomas Sowell | Columnists | Washington Examiner

[kenmaynard]

Nice copy paste. Why don't you think rich people should pay taxes? I think we all should. Are you for any spending cuts for ss medicare and defense?

[livin_in_the_Son]

Nice copy paste. Why don't you think rich people should pay taxes? I think we all should. Are you for any spending cuts for ss medicare and defense?

Why are you so against people copy/paste articles that speak to the topic at hand?

As for your question, no I don't think that ss, medicare, and the military should be cut. The cuts should be made to the people who DON'T need them. Such as lifetime secret service protection for people no longer in the White House, free lifetime medical for members of congress, welfare for people who refuse to work, and for those who live together without getting married so they can reap the benefits of food stamps, etc., while enjoying a two-income home. I think that only mothers of a non-married couple should be able to claim child tax credits, and deductions, so that non-married parents who co-habitate can't each claim a child on separate tax returns. I think that mandatory drug tests be implemented for all people aplying for, and while on welfare, to keep druggies and dealers from getting free money. I think that the gov't should NOT be paying for college tuition for the children of victims of 9/11. Mostly, I think that everyone should pay taxes on a sliding scale according to income, and abolish all tax-shelters, exemptions, deductions, etc. The Lord requires our first 10%, and there was no stipulation according to income. If we as citizens of this country have to live within our means, then so should our leaders. Cutting spending at home usually starts with the extras...that means unnecessary items. The military is hardly unnecessary. But tax payers paying for the remodling of the office of incoming gov't officials...not that isn't necessary.

[kenmaynard]

Why are you so against people copy/paste articles that speak to the topic at hand?

As for your question, no I don't think that ss, medicare, and the military should be cut. The cuts should be made to the people who DON'T need them. Such as lifetime secret service protection for people no longer in the White House, free lifetime medical for members of congress, welfare for people who refuse to work, and for those who live together without getting married so they can reap the benefits of food stamps, etc., while enjoying a two-income home. I think that only mothers of a non-married couple should be able to claim child tax credits, and deductions, so that non-married parents who co-habitate can't each claim a child on separate tax returns. I think that mandatory drug tests be implemented for all people aplying for, and while on welfare, to keep druggies and dealers from getting free money. I think that the gov't should NOT be paying for college tuition for the children of victims of 9/11. Mostly, I think that everyone should pay taxes on a sliding scale according to income, and abolish all tax-shelters, exemptions, deductions, etc. The Lord requires our first 10%, and there was no stipulation according to income. If we as citizens of this country have to live within our means, then so should our leaders. Cutting spending at home usually starts with the extras...that means unnecessary items. The military is hardly unnecessary. But tax payers paying for the remodling of the office of incoming gov't officials...not that isn't necessary.

You seriously don't understand where we spend our money. 80% or more of all federal spending is for social security, Medicare, military and interest on the debt. If we don't cut those only massive tax increases will be in the future.

It's time to stop complaining about things that don't matter and get serious if we don't want to end up like Greece.

[livin_in_the_Son]

Where's your proof of the claims you make? Because 95% of all statistics are made up with no factual basis whatsoever.

[GlennO]

Kenmaynard said:

Why don't you think rich people should pay taxes? I think we all should. Are you for any spending cuts for ss medicare and defense

1) I abhor the Liberal/Progressive manufactured Class Warfare gambit. Wealthy people DO pay taxes. Multi-national corporations are a different matter.

2) We have a SPENDING problem. The "Entitlements" foisted upon us principally by FDR, LBJ, Bush 43 and Obamacare - will put us in the category of Greece much sooner than later.

3) As a nation we are in treacherous waters. The planned cuts to our have already been telegraphed. This is not the time to further emasculate our military posture!

[kenmaynard]

Kenmaynard said:

1) I abhor the Liberal/Progressive manufactured Class Warfare gambit. Wealthy people DO pay taxes. Multi-national corporations are a different matter.

2) We have a SPENDING problem. The "Entitlements" foisted upon us principally by FDR, LBJ, Bush 43 and Obamacare - will put us in the category of Greece much sooner than later.

3) As a nation we are in treacherous waters. The planned cuts to our have already been telegraphed. This is not the time to further emasculate our military posture!

So cut other peoples programs not the ones you like? That is the problem with the U.S. these days. Let someone else bear the burden.

[kenmaynard]

Where's your proof of the claims you make? Because 95% of all statistics are made up with no factual basis whatsoever.

How a citizen doesn't know how to to find out where their money is spent is beyond me.

http://www.federalbudget.com/

[Carl]

Hey Ken!
In every thread that you post all you do is criticize what other posters have researched. They supply reasons for their positions while you supply one liners. You are not God, and even God supplies the reasoning for a legitimate question.

Try this: 1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
Prov 15:1 (KJV)

Whoops! you don't like cutting and pasting.

Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.

[GlennO]

Ken - perhaps you missed the the most recent policy regarding a change in the culture of the RF community!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL MEMBERS!

[arapahoepark]

There should firstly be a balanced budget amendment, a very conservative idea.

A liberal idea, raise taxes on wealthy and those who send jobs overseas(I don't have a million bucks so why do I care, as far as I am concerned people don't even need that much money. Bill gates and warren buffet don't need that kind of money, they just sit on it, give 3 billion to charity and have 40 billion left? Give me a break).

Another conservative idea: cut down bureaucracy. If people are spoon fed every dang thing, where's the freedom? Plus a lot of the spending goes toward stupid things.

Liberal idea: cut the payroll tax

See it's a win win for both sides and it makes sense, we can't get out this crisis with just one ideology. Somehow those we need our currency to get back up as well...I am not sure how that will happen either, what I know is that the monetary theory of economics has seemed to work, just that certain people haven't been doing their job

[kenmaynard]

Ken - perhaps you missed the the most recent policy regarding a change in the culture of the RF community!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL MEMBERS!

I did miss it. I am sorry if I am sometimes abrasive

[Carl]

Actually the US government has been spending more than it has collected basically since 1900. That is a decision made by both Republicans and Democrats.

Just read an article by Warren Buffet that said not to worry about the debt. Right after WWII the debt was 1.25 times the GDP and we are not even at 1 times now.

[Carl]

I think they can put the extra 16000 obmacare IRS workers to work figuring out who pays income tax on a portion of their SS and give recipients the opportunity to decrease their SS by that much. I would go for that. Another thing would be to stop paying the medical care for illegal aliens.

[kenmaynard]

I think they can put the extra 16000 obmacare IRS workers to work figuring out who pays income tax on a portion of their SS and give recipients the opportunity to decrease their SS by that much. I would go for that. Another thing would be to stop paying the medical care for illegal aliens.

We don't pay for medical care for illegals now. Also, when just interest on the debt takes up more than 20 cents on the dollar we spend debt does matter.