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8/09/2011 8:25 pm
I dont really like this status update things but this one cracked me up
They sent my census form back, AGAIN!!! In response to the question, "Do you have any dependents?" I replied, "Yes, 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads; 42 million unemployable people; 2 million people in over 243 prisons; and 535 idiots in the U.S. House and Senate." Apparently, this was NOT an acceptable answer. Re-post if you can't help but agree
8/06/2011 4:26 pm
Maybe America will get the hint that the Tea Party has within it extremists who stop at nothing to see that all Americans live by their ideology.
8/06/2011 3:45 pm
Maybe Washington will get hint now that something actually needs done.
8/02/2011 4:58 pm
Go back to the Clinton era tax structure and end these stupid wars, and we are most of the way back to a healthy nation.
8/02/2011 2:36 pm
APRTW wrote:
So they passed something that doesnt do enough to slove to problem and allows Washington to borrow more money. If I am understanding it right the amount they allowed the ceiling to raise is basicly the amount they cut. It will take them 2 years to spend the extra money and 10 years to pay it back. This is a step in the right direction?
Nope. Boehner walking away from negotiations was, but he couldn't get far enough away.
8/02/2011 8:30 am
So they passed something that doesnt do enough to slove to problem and allows Washington to borrow more money. If I am understanding it right the amount they allowed the ceiling to raise is basicly the amount they cut. It will take them 2 years to spend the extra money and 10 years to pay it back. This is a step in the right direction?
7/22/2011 6:47 pm
How does Boehner walk away from debt talks with te President? That is nothing short of treason. One thing I agree with Obama on is that congress needs to do their job. Washington is worthless. I dont believe I have ever been more upset with politics then I am right now. They are fighting over what to cut when he country is 15 trillion dollar in debt. Everything needs cut. Let me guess they are talking over steak dinners paid for by us.
7/18/2011 6:44 pm
I think the GOP is unfairly using the debt issue to target programs they are against. They are here and people have the expectation of having them. IMO it isnt fair to pull the rug out from under them as some kind of debt reducing blackmail. There is no reason other then greed not to close tax loopholes. If they want to target SS and Medicare then that is fine but it is a different issue. Tighten up the loopholes and maybe the other systems can be left alone. They are just trying to snowball the issue.
It might be unfair to the use the debt issue in that way, but it is 100% intentional, at least in the eyes of some of us. This OpEd is almost a year and a half old, but is spot on:
"But there is a kind of logic to the current Republican position: in effect, the party is doubling down on starve-the-beast. Depriving the government of revenue, it turns out, wasn’t enough to push politicians into dismantling the welfare state. So now the de facto strategy is to oppose any responsible action until we are in the midst of a fiscal catastrophe. You read it here first. "
7/17/2011 7:27 pm
I think the GOP is unfairly using the debt issue to target programs they are against. They are here and people have the expectation of having them. IMO it isnt fair to pull the rug out from under them as some kind of debt reducing blackmail. There is no reason other then greed not to close tax loopholes. If they want to target SS and Medicare then that is fine but it is a different issue. Tighten up the loopholes and maybe the other systems can be left alone. They are just trying to snowball the issue.
7/17/2011 4:12 pm
Max - I don't know if either party's motives relative to SS/Medicare are purer than the other's. This (last?) year's reduction of the payroll tax struck me as a terrible idea, if one accepts the notion that SS is in danger of shortfalls.
That's not that different from what I wrote. In the Clinton Era it was about how to control spiraling health care costs and how to fund the pay-as-you-go SS as the population pyramid became top heavy. Now, as the GOP's Tea Party wing have made it clear they prefer to axe SS, Medicare/caid, and maybe other 'entitlement programs' like public education, the Dems are far less willing to discuss honestly the sacrifices we will need to make to control health care costs and fund SS, then they were back in the Clinton era, because now the debate has become existential: will the New Deal and Great Society nation persist beyond the current generation?
7/17/2011 12:05 pm
I would just go with a flat tax, do away with child income tax break and down size the military. Not paying $1,000 for every child under 18 in America would pull us out of debt pretty quick. I know that a mother of 10 doesnt get $10,000 but I think you see my point. Why does America pay us for having kids? They would come out money ahead to pay some people to stop having them.
I'm basically with you, AP. Flat or "Fair" (embedded consumption) tax merits some exploration, but just eliminating all of the loopholes and targeted breaks under the current system would be a start. The current tax rates should be adequate if everyone has to pay them, and I would be OK with mildly progressive rates and/or building in a provision that exempts a basic subsistence level of income from any tax (that's a feature of the proposed "fair" tax).
Max - I don't know if either party's motives relative to SS/Medicare are purer than the other's. This (last?) year's reduction of the payroll tax struck me as a terrible idea, if one accepts the notion that SS is in danger of shortfalls.
7/12/2011 11:06 pm
I would just go with a flat tax, do away with child income tax break and down size the military. Not paying $1,000 for every child under 18 in America would pull us out of debt pretty quick. I know that a mother of 10 doesnt get $10,000 but I think you see my point. Why does America pay us for having kids? They would come out money ahead to pay some people to stop having them.
7/12/2011 7:56 pm
One of the best ways to restore order to the budget is simply to repeal Bush tax cuts and go back to Clinto tax cuts, when we actually had a budget surplus. The GOP want us to believe that with an aging population social security and Medicare will become impossible to fund. I think that Clinton era dems believed that, too, and looked for ways to save them, not realizing that the GOP was using the debate as a means to axe them. Now that the GOP's motives are laid bare, and Bush era tax cuts and wars of choice pushed us to the brink of bankruptcy, the dems don't want to speak truthfully about the pain it will require just to deal with social security and medicare in a Clinton-like landscape.
The lines are drawn and we are battling between--and these analogies only work so well--a European social democracy and a New World laissez faire plutocracy.
7/11/2011 4:31 pm
What's amazing about the tax cut talk is that last year, Bloomberg found that 3,000 of the top publicly-traded companies were sitting on about $3 trillion in cash. They had so much money just sitting around that they paid out more in dividends to their shareholders.
Businesses have an excess of money and they have no incentive to do anything with it because nobody gives a shit about the demand side of the equation.
I think that is why Obama is so reluctant to cut SS or Medicare. No matter what side you are on I think it is clear that both sides are fighting just to fight. They are playing election games. Once that is over both sides will stop acting like they care about the budget and go back to what they do best, spending money they dont have.
7/10/2011 4:22 pm
What's amazing about the tax cut talk is that last year, Bloomberg found that 3,000 of the top publicly-traded companies were sitting on about $3 trillion in cash. They had so much money just sitting around that they paid out more in dividends to their shareholders.
Businesses have an excess of money and they have no incentive to do anything with it because nobody gives a shit about the demand side of the equation.