Donald Trump promises universal healthcare and zero taxes for the poor if he wins in 2016

originally posted by: Aazadan

People are calling his tax plan Reaganesque.

But don't forget it was the Democrat House that "approved" all the so-called "Reaganomics".

It's ironic that Trump's dad wasn't sympathetic to sideshows.

Private developers grabbed up the spoils of all this public blockbusting, especially Fred Trump, father of Donald, who filled in what had been the Gut with towers of his own. Trump also bought the still-profitable Steeplechase, the last of the great parks, for cheap (mostly because Marie Tilyou, granddaughter of the park’s founder, preferred to see it demolished, rather than entertain the black residents from many of Coney’s new projects). When Trump caught wind of a rumor that the grand old lady of Coney might be landmarked under the city’s new preservation laws, he moved fast. Hastily scheduling another demolition, he paused only long enough to hold a party inside the park the night before the wreckers were due. To make sure he drew some publicity, Trump invited six leggy showgirls and handed all his guests bricks—bricks they were invited to hurl through the legendary, painted glass trellis that housed most of Steeplechase.

Sauce

a reply to: olaru12

If we boot out the illegals, their children and the refugees who are openly hostile to america we can very easilly follow through on that promise.

We need to cut government waste really has midnight baskitball made a dent in the gang problem? Hint- the nswer is no so why are we still funding it? Multiple boards for the same issue (Look up how many garbage /municiple waste boards you have, or whater or air boards) that meet for 90 minutes a month and take home six figure paychecks for simply creating new ways to tax you and me.

a reply to: olaru12

One thing I find funny no one is talking about is that if you make under $25k/yr you pay no tax but if you're a fast food worker liberal demanding a living wage of $15/hr, that's $30K/yr and now you will pay taxes. It's skin in the game, but once these people find out, they wont want the $15/hr.

originally posted by: amazing
We could do it though. If we actually made the parts of government we don't need a lot smaller. Do we really need 700+ Military installations and bases out there in the world? Do we really need the NSA? We could also pay congress a bit less. We could also tweak or tax laws for corporations and stop corporate welfare. We pay hundreds of millions of dollars to oil companies every year. We could do it.

The salaries of every member of congress including their staff still comes in at the millions of dollars while budgets are in the trillions. To put this in perspective if something costs $1000, the amount that congress takes is about 5 cents. Just what sort of meaningful savings are you going to make there?

On the subject of defense budgets, as long as the US is essentially acting as the forces for the UN and Nato there's a practical limit to how far we can reduce our military. If we want to maintain the ability to invade a country on our own we can only cut our defense budget by about 25%, if we want to be able to invade a country as part of a coalition we can drop it by about 33%, any further and we will have no force projection capabilities.

Certain parts of the budget are federally mandated and we can't cut them by law. Interest on the debt, social security, medicare, and defense to name a few. 83% of the budget is mandatory spending, the remaining 17% is things like funding schools, building roads, NASA, the FDA, and others. If we were to completely cut the 17% of the budget that is discretionary and cut the defense department in half (remember what I said above about 33%?) we can only reduce the federal budget by 25%.

There is simply no fat left to cut, there used to be but after 20 years worth of budget debates by deficit hawks we've pretty much cleaned up spending money in areas that we don't need to be spending it. The only thing left is to reduce waste in individual programs but no one ever puts forth any serious ideas doing that.

Furthermore, even if we were to cut that 17% of the budget that's discretionary the states would have to pick up the tab in order to continue funding schools and having a road system, the taxes would just be coming from the state rather than the feds.

originally posted by: queenofswords
No...we don't have a revenue problem.

If we didn't have a revenue problem we wouldn't have a deficit.

Do you really think we have a spending problem?

All in USD
The US spends $11893 per citizen.
The UK spends $17160 per citizen.
Canada spends $21069 per citizen.
France spends $23697 per citizen.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: queenofswords
No...we don't have a revenue problem.

If we didn't have a revenue problem we wouldn't have a deficit.

Do you really think we have a spending problem?

All in USD
The US spends $11893 per citizen.
The UK spends $17160 per citizen.
Canada spends $21069 per citizen.
France spends $23697 per citizen.

You cannot compare the US to other smaller countries. Canada has 30 million people; the UK 65 million; France 67 million; America 380 million. We have unique problems that are exacerbated by lots of issues.

As I said earlier, we brought in 3 trillion dollars in revenue. We have a fraud, corruption, waste, and bloated bureacracy problem.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: amazing
We could do it though. If we actually made the parts of government we don't need a lot smaller. Do we really need 700+ Military installations and bases out there in the world? Do we really need the NSA? We could also pay congress a bit less. We could also tweak or tax laws for corporations and stop corporate welfare. We pay hundreds of millions of dollars to oil companies every year. We could do it.

The salaries of every member of congress including their staff still comes in at the millions of dollars while budgets are in the trillions. To put this in perspective if something costs $1000, the amount that congress takes is about 5 cents. Just what sort of meaningful savings are you going to make there?

On the subject of defense budgets, as long as the US is essentially acting as the forces for the UN and Nato there's a practical limit to how far we can reduce our military. If we want to maintain the ability to invade a country on our own we can only cut our defense budget by about 25%, if we want to be able to invade a country as part of a coalition we can drop it by about 33%, any further and we will have no force projection capabilities.

Certain parts of the budget are federally mandated and we can't cut them by law. Interest on the debt, social security, medicare, and defense to name a few. 83% of the budget is mandatory spending, the remaining 17% is things like funding schools, building roads, NASA, the FDA, and others. If we were to completely cut the 17% of the budget that is discretionary and cut the defense department in half (remember what I said above about 33%?) we can only reduce the federal budget by 25%.

There is simply no fat left to cut, there used to be but after 20 years worth of budget debates by deficit hawks we've pretty much cleaned up spending money in areas that we don't need to be spending it. The only thing left is to reduce waste in individual programs but no one ever puts forth any serious ideas doing that.

Furthermore, even if we were to cut that 17% of the budget that's discretionary the states would have to pick up the tab in order to continue funding schools and having a road system, the taxes would just be coming from the state rather than the feds.

I have to disagree. There is plenty of fat. When talking about congress for just one thing, we're talking not just salary, but benefits and retirement. Talking about congress, we're also talking about staffers and other bloated things. When you add in all of that you are almost at 1 billion minimum. That's just one small part. Then you have NSA. Not needed. We already have the FBI and CIA. The NSA is just used to spy on US citizens. The combined us intelligence budget is 17-20 Billion.

We aren't the UN police and nor do we need to be. I agree we need a strong military but that does not mean 700+ military bases. Especially when we have so many allies, like Israel, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, UK just to name 6 other countries. That's a lot of land mass, and military might...then you have Nato and all of that. The only reason we have all of those military bases is for colonialism. We don't need em for self defense.

We can cut our military spending in half while raising/increasing benefits to Vets and military personel and families. That would be very easy to do.

And your telling me we can't afford healthcare for everyone? We're only talking about 48-100 Billion. That sounds like a lot, but then consider that. We probably already subsidize hospitals to the tune of $20 billion for the federal government as it is.

Don't get me started on subsidies for oil companies. You realize we pay fossil fuel companies between $30-40 billion a year.. look that up. If an oil company can't stay in business let them fail.

Man look at all that money I just found us. Then we have tax breaks for corporations..etc etc.

We have enough money for everything that's important to us.

originally posted by: Moresby

originally posted by: carewemust
Obama wanted centralized Universal Healthcare too.

Actually, as president he refused to say what he wanted regarding healthcare. It annoyed everyone.

He did once make a statement in favor of single payer long before he was in the senate.

Tax the churches. It's a small step, but long overdue.

Everyone that has been bashing trump in this thread, calling him smoke and mirrors, etc etc.. You have noticeably failed to understand what his main revenue creator was. Tax Chinese imports while reducing corporate taxes. This would create an environment that brings manufacturing back into the US. This will strengthen the US dollar. This will create jobs and wealth again.. I'm not a republican but democrats have screwed this country up far too much for me to take another chance on one.

a reply to: olaru12

Did conservatives ever support Trump? I thought the Clinton fanboy was always considered a moderate.

originally posted by: skindawg003
This is what I just don't get, I am Canadian, we have free health care, it gets paid for through taxes, if taxes were applied correctly to the right tax brackets, it would be good for your people. Why are you letting political idologies make your decision for you. This happens in every country, where people get tunnel vision because they wont allow themselves to see another side because it goes against their political beliefs. Or maybe Regan saying America will turn into a communist state with free healthcare is still fresh in everyones mind.

I've seen the other side and its really bad because it encourages very massive immigration from countries that don't have free healthcare. I really can't blame anyone for accepting something for "free". That would be your fault for offering it. Giving away OTHER people's money against their will actually results in bad things as a result of violating basic moral values.

So to make sure I'm keeping score...

Trump is offering the same goodies that Obama did, but the libs are making fun of Trump.

Must be because Trump is white. How racist.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: olaru12

And of course, since he's the CEO (or will be), he doesn't give a thought to anyone in Congress disagreeing with him. If they do, he'll just FIRE them! He can make it happen. He'll be GREAT with Congress!

He's got a phone and a pen. Sound familiar?

originally posted by: amazing
I have to disagree. There is plenty of fat. When talking about congress for just one thing, we're talking not just salary, but benefits and retirement. Talking about congress, we're also talking about staffers and other bloated things. When you add in all of that you are almost at 1 billion minimum. That's just one small part. Then you have NSA. Not needed. We already have the FBI and CIA. The NSA is just used to spy on US citizens. The combined us intelligence budget is 17-20 Billion.

1 billion (which I still think is high) out of a 4 trillion budget is 1/4000, or to put this another way 1/4 of 1/10 of 1%. And I would argue the opposite, I've made this point several times here in the past but one of the best things we could do to improve the functioning of Congress is to pay them more. The more we pay them, the more attention people will pay to their elected rep's, additionally the more we pay them the less they need to devote time to special interests, which means better legislation for the people. You can think of their salaries as the public's lobbying money. Using your estimation of 1 billion annually that means the American people are spending $1 billion per year to lobby their government. Last year reported lobbying totaled 3.5 billion. Is it any wonder those in power are less attention to the people? We could increase the salaries of every elected official by a factor of 10 and it would come to just over $2/year in taxes, and it would buy much more attentive members of congress.

We aren't the UN police and nor do we need to be. I agree we need a strong military but that does not mean 700+ military bases. Especially when we have so many allies, like Israel, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, UK just to name 6 other countries. That's a lot of land mass, and military might...then you have Nato and all of that. The only reason we have all of those military bases is for colonialism. We don't need em for self defense.

The US acts as a balance of power for western interests. We effectively push our interests as well as those of allied nations who don't have much in the way of a military. Doing this gives us a lot of political sway. Reducing the size of our military also reduces our diplomatic leverage against other countries. For example if we reduce our military too far then we have to make a choice between countering Russian influence in Syria, Chinese influence in the South China Sea, North Korean influence on their peninsula, and Iranian influence in fighting ISIS. More force projection, which bases play a large part in means more options.

If we step back and cease to be a super power in the name of cutting spending, how much will that cost our nation over 50 years compared to the few years of savings we get in our budgets as we get worse trade deals, can't influence nations to be pro US, and so on?

We can cut our military spending in half while raising/increasing benefits to Vets and military personel and families. That would be very easy to do.

Cutting our military spending in half also means cutting our military size in half. Doing so removes a lot of jobs directly from the military and it also removes a lot from the private sector as we can't develop nearly as many toys. Economy of scale is a huge factor in billion dollar research projects like new fighters and new carriers and it is much more cost effective to produce 100 new fighters than to produce 50. In order to make weapons development make sense there are certain size requirements that must be maintained and new weapons development is a must if we're going to continue to use our military for diplomatic leverage.

And your telling me we can't afford healthcare for everyone? We're only talking about 48-100 Billion. That sounds like a lot, but then consider that. We probably already subsidize hospitals to the tune of $20 billion for the federal government as it is.

At current tax revenues, no. Then again, I support doubling our taxes with half of those additional taxes paying down the debt (1.5 trillion/year) and the other half funding social programs like eliminating homelessness, health care for all, subsidizing college, eliminating the deficit, making a real public transportation system, and long term projects like what Ben Franklin did for Philadelphia.

Don't get me started on subsidies for oil companies. You realize we pay fossil fuel companies between $30-40 billion a year.. look that up. If an oil company can't stay in business let them fail.

We do, but much like welfare programs like SNAP those payments are budget neutral. The money we give the oil companies instead gets spent in the economy on new drilling, new refineries (some day), employees, and so on which is then collected in payroll taxes and sales taxes as the extra spending ripples through the various stores around the nation. This is true of all subsidies of successful businesses.

originally posted by: queenofswords
You cannot compare the US to other smaller countries. Canada has 30 million people; the UK 65 million; France 67 million; America 380 million. We have unique problems that are exacerbated by lots of issues.

As I said earlier, we brought in 3 trillion dollars in revenue. We have a fraud, corruption, waste, and bloated bureacracy problem.

Most of our problems are due to how rural the US is, we have a very low population density that however would imply that things are more expensive for us, yet we're spending much less per capita than other nations.

Trumps Tax plan does NOTHING about the FED and the IRS

There for it will be the same old BS, create a bubble that will burst again........


Rand Pauls plan was much much better, much more in depth , dealt with the IRS and the FED and was released at least 3 months before Trumps "plan" that he very obviously pilfered ideas from Paul.......

Yet no one said a damn thing about Pauls plan that will actually take care of those two bodies, and reduce the size of government

We dont need Trumps plan, because it keeps big government in place.......which is exactly why I keep saying this guy is a Progressive and not conservative....

but "conservatives" keep lauding him......

This plan does NOTHING to change the issues that need to be fixed

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: amazing
I have to disagree. There is plenty of fat. When talking about congress for just one thing, we're talking not just salary, but benefits and retirement. Talking about congress, we're also talking about staffers and other bloated things. When you add in all of that you are almost at 1 billion minimum. That's just one small part. Then you have NSA. Not needed. We already have the FBI and CIA. The NSA is just used to spy on US citizens. The combined us intelligence budget is 17-20 Billion.

1 billion (which I still think is high) out of a 4 trillion budget is 1/4000, or to put this another way 1/4 of 1/10 of 1%. And I would argue the opposite, I've made this point several times here in the past but one of the best things we could do to improve the functioning of Congress is to pay them more. The more we pay them, the more attention people will pay to their elected rep's, additionally the more we pay them the less they need to devote time to special interests, which means better legislation for the people. You can think of their salaries as the public's lobbying money. Using your estimation of 1 billion annually that means the American people are spending $1 billion per year to lobby their government. Last year reported lobbying totaled 3.5 billion. Is it any wonder those in power are less attention to the people? We could increase the salaries of every elected official by a factor of 10 and it would come to just over $2/year in taxes, and it would buy much more attentive members of congress.

We aren't the UN police and nor do we need to be. I agree we need a strong military but that does not mean 700+ military bases. Especially when we have so many allies, like Israel, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, UK just to name 6 other countries. That's a lot of land mass, and military might...then you have Nato and all of that. The only reason we have all of those military bases is for colonialism. We don't need em for self defense.

The US acts as a balance of power for western interests. We effectively push our interests as well as those of allied nations who don't have much in the way of a military. Doing this gives us a lot of political sway. Reducing the size of our military also reduces our diplomatic leverage against other countries. For example if we reduce our military too far then we have to make a choice between countering Russian influence in Syria, Chinese influence in the South China Sea, North Korean influence on their peninsula, and Iranian influence in fighting ISIS. More force projection, which bases play a large part in means more options.

If we step back and cease to be a super power in the name of cutting spending, how much will that cost our nation over 50 years compared to the few years of savings we get in our budgets as we get worse trade deals, can't influence nations to be pro US, and so on?

We can cut our military spending in half while raising/increasing benefits to Vets and military personel and families. That would be very easy to do.

Cutting our military spending in half also means cutting our military size in half. Doing so removes a lot of jobs directly from the military and it also removes a lot from the private sector as we can't develop nearly as many toys. Economy of scale is a huge factor in billion dollar research projects like new fighters and new carriers and it is much more cost effective to produce 100 new fighters than to produce 50. In order to make weapons development make sense there are certain size requirements that must be maintained and new weapons development is a must if we're going to continue to use our military for diplomatic leverage.

And your telling me we can't afford healthcare for everyone? We're only talking about 48-100 Billion. That sounds like a lot, but then consider that. We probably already subsidize hospitals to the tune of $20 billion for the federal government as it is.

At current tax revenues, no. Then again, I support doubling our taxes with half of those additional taxes paying down the debt (1.5 trillion/year) and the other half funding social programs like eliminating homelessness, health care for all, subsidizing college, eliminating the deficit, making a real public transportation system, and long term projects like what Ben Franklin did for Philadelphia.

Don't get me started on subsidies for oil companies. You realize we pay fossil fuel companies between $30-40 billion a year.. look that up. If an oil company can't stay in business let them fail.

We do, but much like welfare programs like SNAP those payments are budget neutral. The money we give the oil companies instead gets spent in the economy on new drilling, new refineries (some day), employees, and so on which is then collected in payroll taxes and sales taxes as the extra spending ripples through the various stores around the nation. This is true of all subsidies of successful businesses.

Not putting words in your mouth and I do appreciate your response.

It sounds like you are pro colonialism and are fine with the US promoting it's policies on the rest of the world with force? That's not the kind of country I want to be associated with.

Then it sounds like you would rather pay for a large military then help people who don't have insurance or who need healthcare?

Then it sounds like you don't mind rich people in congress making our decisions for us.

Then it sounds like you like corporate welfare. You must have been in favor of the bailouts.

Wouldn't you rather bring our troops home and stop sending them to die in other countries? Why should the government hire and employ everyone in the country? That's not in the constitution and not what our federal government is for. A good solid economy will do that. Some of us bluster on here but do you really want to let people die due to lack of being able to afford healthcare? What if that was someone in your family that lost a job, thus health insurance and then got cancer. Would you just let them die because they couldn't afford the best medical treatment? Would you want any citizen of the United States of America to suffer like that? I wouldn't. I hate large corporations that are above the law, make billions of dollars in profit, pollute the environment because there is no regulation and then get billions of dollars from the government? Where's the sense in that?

I'm a firm believer in smaller government, reigning in our military spending and our secret alphabet agency spending, making sure everyone in American can get the healthcare they need, taking care of our vets, and not subsidizing big money making corporations.

a reply to: amazing

I'm not pro colonialism, I don't want to go around invading other countries and turning them into our property but a military is for more than that and self defense. If a nation has the ability to invade one country without compromising their self defense, that means that using that ability effectively reduces that nations diplomatic power if they project force. This is part of why Iraq was such a disaster for the US, a military is best used as a threat that never gets put into action. For example lets say NK decides they can't abide by the cease fire any longer and we have to step in and help South Korea, tying our troops up in that war reduces our ability to threaten force against Russia, Iran, China, or others. If you can't threaten force with a military then you might as well not have one. Reducing our defense budget too far effectively destroys our ability to threaten force which is a major diplomatic loss.

When it comes to people in Congress making decisions for us, I expect them to. That's why they were elected, and is largely the point of government. I have no problem with large government provided the people in power are working in the interests of the people, and that no individual has too broad an area of influence. At best I am an expert in one field and even that is debatable, that is true for most other people as well. That means that on most matters I am not qualified to give an informed vote, and with over 300 million people there is no way for each of us to have 1 on 1 discussions with those who are experts prior to each vote. By electing a small number of people to vote, it's possible for them to make informed decisions which results in much better outcomes than a population that is 99.99% low information voters on any given issue.

I actually was in favor of the bailouts, this is something I think about occasionally. What would have happened had we not done them? The outcome would have been far worse than what we experienced. The failure wasn't in the bailouts but in the fact we allowed the banks and even the automotive industry to get to the point where needing to bail them out was even an option. With the banks particularly it was a two fold failure as we not only let them merge and consolidate into larger entities but we also failed in regulating their financial products to keep them from making overly risky investments and leveraging at too high a rate.

When it comes to health care I did say I was in favor of providing it. To be honest I'm not sure what the best system would be though. Obamacare for all of it's faults is better than what we had because the poor now have greater access to health care (atleast in the states that expanded medicaid) but it clearly has some problems as well. Single payer seems to work well in other countries and could be worth a try, but if we move to single payer there's no moving away from it to try something else since the insurance industry will cease to exist.

One of the big hurdles we need to overcome in any health care plan is in treatment costs. I've touched on this in other threads and maybe even in this one but one of our problems is that it costs 5 billion dollars to make each drug, but other nations simply copy the medicine and produce it for themselves for a fraction of the cost. If we could get some other high population nations like China, India, or the entire EU on board with respecting our patents we could bring our drug costs way down but doing so presents a real diplomatic challenge.