Pelosi: Any Deal Must Increase Tax Rates; Majority of House Has Pledged Not To

reply to post by xuenchen


I agree!

I dont understand how "taking" money from the rich is gonna somehow magically cause them to create jobs. Unless you mean creating more .gov jobs, at which point I would like to remind anyone thinking this is a good idea, that these jobs arent "free". They cost money, that comes from "the people" in the form of taxes.

Also, when the .gov employees most of the people, it is communism, BTW, and has been proven many times in the past, to be the fastest way to the bottom, in ever situation, this philosophy has never even once worked out for the country trying it.

Actually, too many .gov workers now, is one of the problems, as the federal .gov employees more people than any 15 merican companies you could name(. make sure you put walmart at the top as they employ more than anyone in the world except the US federal .gov)

reply to post by xuenchen


How exactly is the government going to get companies on a 'hiring spree'? We (the government of the people) have given them tax breaks, we've given them loop holes bringing down their effective tax rate to record low levels and we still have a stagnant economy. Some companies are paying a 0% tax rate and they're still not hiring.

However, the idea that cutting spending will fix everything is flat out wrong. You cut enough spending you start to cut jobs. The government employs people. The government gives money to contractors to employ more people. There are secondary and tertiary jobs created by government spending. Do you honestly believe that $400 billion goes to poor people every year? If you do then what do you think they do with that? Do you think they just throw it all in savings accounts? No. They'd still spend it which would create demand for products and services which would create jobs.

We can't cut the government to non-existence and we can't raise taxes to 100%. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.

It's amazing to consider but even outright seizing the entire net worth of the top wealthiest people in the world would take a good % of the list to reach even a trillion dollars. Deficits right now run over a trillion and have since 2009. projections show it going lower but they also show unemployment dropping which it suddenly doesn't appear likely to be doing.

Richest in the World

It's not too many years before the Social Security Retirement (Not the assistance side) tops a trillion a year while Medicaid/Medicare top a trillion themselves. Obama care mandates a Gov't insurance program in the most simplest of terms, but it doesn't replace those two behemoths and the budget shows it out 10+ years. What Obama-care does do has already been sabotaged by a number of states and within the law anyway. The math simply doesn't work and can't sustain this. It's off by so much that all the money of all the rich can't do much more than make the interest payments which are running around a 1/4 trillion net due right now and will be 1/2 trillion or so within a few years. Thats 2.5 trillion in just this thumbnail for annual budget within a few years ...before getting to 1 dollar in things like roads, defense or welfare.

Bold and very new ideas are required or we can see what the Wiemar republic looks like in a nation many many times that size with a population far more prone to viciousness on each other than that period of time saw. Just my two cents.

(I put a lot of the figures out of the budget into charts specific to the above topics in the thread linked in my sig for anyone interested. The data is current to what is available now and just can't work long term. Taxes don't fix it... )

If each governmental department can not figure out how to trim their budgets, then perhaps we should have the
individual Secretaries to exchange budgets and go to work with a red pen for them.
Lord knows they don't do anything now but be figureheads and draw large benefits and incomes.

But, I would give the Defense Budget to the Dept of Education to redline the fat out of.
Then I'd give the Education Budget over to the Health and Human Services Secretary.
I'd hand the Treasury over to the Dept, of the Interior to take a whack at.
The Dept,of Energy Secretary would take the pen of pork death to the Homeland Securities Budget.
The Dept of Transporations Budget would get perused by the Treasury and so on...

I guarantee you with the right incentives those junkets, studies, perks, porkbarrel projects would get
axed with a vengence!

I can picture the zeal with which they would approach their task if they knew that if they didn't reduce each
budget by 20% at minimum they would lose an additional 10% off their own after they had the fat trimmed by
a fellow Department Secretary.

They've had their chance.
Then the new budgets would be submitted to Congress.

Congress would be tasked with reducing each others State and/or the House in toto would slash Senate spending by 25% and the Senate would slash House budgets by 25% at their discretion.

There would be a five year moratorium on ANY new legislation.
There would also be a requirement that Congress use that 5 year period to review for repeal all past legislation that is funding a current or future pork barrel project or is wasteful spending, any loopholes in taxations.
Oh they would be busy, busy or the fines would be steep.

I know this won't be popular, but I was watching Stossel this weekend, and he gave a no-nonsense look at what would happen after the fiscal cliff.

Level-headed economists agreed that it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Now I hate the idea of raising taxes, period! But if we can make huge spending cuts, then so be it.

Lets not just cut the yearly "increases" to government agencies and entitlement programs, but make real, actual cuts.

Taxes? We'll deal with (one thing at a time)
When the economy tanks further due to tax increases that'll be the mandate to lower them again.

Anyhow, just my take on it.

this two month old article outlines some basics on the "sequester" spending cuts set to happen...

The White House has released its plan explaining how the sequester’s mandatory spending cuts to defense and domestic spending will be implemented in 2013. Here’s the background on what the sequester is, how it happened and what happens from here:..................

The sequester, explained

What are we hearing from Congress now ?

reply to post by beezzer


The "fiscal cliff" is obviously a media engineered term developed to incite fear and boost ratings. Really, the repercussions aren't THAT dramatic, and the policy from it would bring us way closer to a balanced budget than anything else DC would come up with.

The problem would be that unemployment could go up a point, we could slide into recession, and we might end up seeing all gains on the deficit erased by some high spending job creation bill in the summer.

Originally posted by PatrickGarrow17
reply to post by beezzer

 

The "fiscal cliff" is obviously a media engineered term developed to incite fear and boost ratings. Really, the repercussions aren't THAT dramatic, and the policy from it would bring us way closer to a balanced budget than anything else DC would come up with.

True. Perhaps the biggest conspiracy is that people are being engineered to reject real solutions.

The problem would be that unemployment could go up a point, we could slide into recession, and we might end up seeing all gains on the deficit erased by some high spending job creation bill in the summer.

Unemployment is going up regardless. With the advent of higher taxes, ACA, people won't be hiring.

We also have to consider a QE4 scenario that'll ramp up inflation and the battle that will be coming up to raise the debt ceiling and increase spending in spite of the proposed cuts.

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17

For the defense workers who have gotten layoff notices triggered by notification laws...directly related to sequestration or "the fiscal cliff" I'd say it's downright devastating. Merry Christmas isn't something they'll be knowing this year and that doesn't take into account all the various things that benefit from all those guys working. It's going to be quite a hit literally overnight on that one factor alone. CBO reports estimate 9.1% unemployment in the near term as well out of the combined effect. Indeed....

I'd personally say Fiscal Cliff is actually fitting for terminology. This isn't the Bush Tax Cuts, altho that is coming at the same time and good for laughs to have land right on top of this. The sequestration is coming out of a bad bad budget deal which assumed that grand committee would hammer out a solution. Remember that whole farce awhile back? Well, their hammer broke and if these idiots don't work something out, it's gonna be a real real bad day for a large number of people on Jan 2. The start they're off to doesn't bode well.

I think 'ol St Nick may just skip this year for budget cuts.

Originally posted by xuenchen
Must include a tax increase on the "rich".

Include the Poor also, and Middle Class too, right?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Yeah you're right, there would be pretty devastating effects is these measures were kept in place for some time. In my comments I was really assuming a one or two month period at most after 1/1 without a deal getting done.

Still, I think "fiscal cliff" is a little dramatic. There would be some pockets that lose everything, but the economy as a whole wouldn't fall off and die I don't think.

Originally posted by beezzer
I know this won't be popular, but I was watching Stossel this weekend, and he gave a no-nonsense look at what would happen after the fiscal cliff.

Level-headed economists agreed that it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Now I hate the idea of raising taxes, period! But if we can make huge spending cuts, then so be it.

Lets not just cut the yearly "increases" to government agencies and entitlement programs, but make real, actual cuts.

Taxes? We'll deal with (one thing at a time)
When the economy tanks further due to tax increases that'll be the mandate to lower them again.

Anyhow, just my take on it.

Oh please

you guys were chortling the same line back in the 90's when Clinton did the same thing.

And what happened again?

Oh thats right, not what you guys kept fear mongering about.

Originally posted by sonnny1

Originally posted by xuenchen
Must include a tax increase on the "rich".

Include the Poor also, and Middle Class too, right?

Poor rich people

So sad for them getting 10 years of benefit

What will the world do now

Originally posted by Thepump


Poor rich people

So sad for them getting 10 years of benefit

What will the world do now

I think not reenacting Bushes Tax cuts, would destroy the economy.

You can even make the argument that the earned income tax credit subsidizes industries that pay low wages. A recent report from the National Employment Law Project (link opens PDF file) named the 50 largest low-wage employers, and among the top five were retailers Wal-Mart (NYS: WMT) , Target (NYS: TGT) , and Sears Holdings (NAS: SHLD) . Restaurant stocks also made a big showing, with Yum! Brands (NYS: YUM) coming in at No. 2 and McDonald's (NYS: MCD) close on its heels at No. 3. Without the earned income tax credit, low-wage earners might not be able to make a living in these jobs, leaving employers either without an adequate supply of labor or having to increase compensation.

Earned Income Tax Credit: The Battleground of Class Warfare


The poor benefit from this.

reply to post by Thepump


Really?

Why is Obama,Pelosi, and the rest of the democrats fighting to keep the Bush tax cuts on the middle class in place eh?

Tax cuts only benefited the rich, and all that garbage.

Quite the lies and the hypocrisy

Originally posted by neo96
reply to post by Thepump

 

Really?

Why is Obama,Pelosi, and the rest of the democrats fighting to keep the Bush tax cuts on the middle class in place eh?

Tax cuts only benefited the rich, and all that garbage.

Quite the lies and the hypocrisy

Because rich people don't starve

Thanks

reply to post by Thepump


Neither are those 47 million on welfare nor that 50 million on SS or that same 50 million on medicare, or that 50 million on medicare.

So have a point?

Last time I heard Americans are "thin challenged" according to Mrs. O and Bloomberg.

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17

I think that being based on a fiat currency and hence, a fiat economy, it's all about perceptions. Nothing more really. There is nothing of physical value in the world than can stand for even a fraction of the "money" that's in circulation. People talk about the 16 trillion in nation debt like it's not a big deal, but it's perceptions. It doesn't occur to the average American that privately held debt on that isn't bankers fuzzy math. It's bonds. T-bills and other notes sitting in safe deposit boxes and pension fund packages.

Some people think there is actually enough money to stand good for all that, if called at once. Real people hold all that in small bits here and there. Should perceptions of stability really get shaken? People might actually start calling things like that and the collapse is quick. Hyperinflation. Revaluation. It's happened before and it's a clear line to what causes it. It's stunning to watch our leaders go right into it as it's happened before, as if the outcome is a mystery. This is where knowing history should pay huge. Our leaders apparently failed those classes.....

Perhaps that's why so many powerful people in Congress retired before this election. The game has been just about played out...and I think we're a lot closer to seeing things fall apart for at least a short period than Gov't would want to let on. We'll see what the new year brings. The fiscal cliff would be bad in good times.....it could be the final straw in the current times.

Originally posted by neo96
reply to post by Thepump

 

Neither are those 47 million on welfare nor that 50 million on SS or that same 50 million on medicare, or that 50 million on medicare.

So have a point?

Last time I heard Americans are "thin challenged" according to Mrs. O and Bloomberg.

WOW, is it ANY WONDER as to WHY all of the Conservatives are all fighting amongst themselves at this very moment and at each others throats while half of them are leaving that DISGRACEFUL sinking ship?? I cant IMAGINE WHY!!

Its the party of nonsense. And like mentioned earlier, we keep hearing a lot of the SAME NONSENSE FROM THE RIGHT IN THE 90's, and even before that. We have all HEARD this SAME NONSENSE BEFORE, and history PROVES you Conservatives to be WRONG on an EPIC SCALE.

Do the Conservatives EVER LEARN???

AH, who cares actually?!! STICK A FORK IN 'EM, CAUSE THE CONSERVATIVES ARE DONE!!!!!!!!