Originally Posted By wahooskipper So, if I do pay more taxes...who is it going to help? The poor and the powerless? No...it is going to help the rich and the powerful. Bill Gates could likely afford more taxes. But, I will bet he is doing far better for the nation, as well as the world, spending down his fortune through his foundation than the government would do if he turned his money over to them. The answer isn't to collect more money. The answer is to fix the system. And, I'm not sure the system can be fixed with our two party controlled system. In fact, I think many of the powers that be are happy to have things run as inefficiently as they do. You know why? Because, as bad as it is there is pretty much a lock on the fact that the Democrats are going to hold the power some of the time and the Republicans are going to hold the power some of the time. I think it is easier for them to go head to head and be happy with shared power than to allow the uprising of a third party (any party...I'm certainly not talking about the Tea Party here). Look how they both went after Ross Perot. Granted, he went crazy late in the race but prior to that he was being attacked on all sides. The insiders didn't like that an outsider was making headway. Seriously, I think in Washington they are...by and large...happy with the status quo.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <The Ayn Rand mindset.> Paul Ryan's hero. I love this quote: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves hobbits."
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <So, if I do pay more taxes...who is it going to help? The poor and the powerless?> Well, yes - at least to a degree. Not as efficiently as any of us would like, perhaps, but still... yes. And when taxes are cut below where they should have been, as in this past decade, it is definitely the poor and powerless who feel the brunt of that. Seriously, would you be devastated if tax rates went back to where they were in the 90's? I wouldn't be. My weekly paycheck would shrink a bit (which is why I think an argument could be made for holding off on raising them back for the middle class till the economy recovers more), but not that much. As ecdc points out, the official taxation rate and what we all end of paying after deductions are often two very different things. I suspect that if I looked at my returns from the mid 90's and my returns from the mid 2000's, my effective rate of taxation would have changed very little. But for the wealthy, it changed a lot. The numbers simply do not lie. There has been a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class TO the upper 2% in the past 10 years. And that has meant major shortfalls to our Treasury, leading to proposals to... stick it to the poor and the middle class. I'd like some of that money back, please.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper I've got no problem taxing the upper 2% back to previous rates. But, that still doesn't get us all that far in the big picture. It is a cup of water in the pool. And, I might not even mind a middle class return to 90s rates...but not until they get the rest of their house in order.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Well, starting with the upper 2% is something they could do now (or 2013, anyway). Then for the rest of us when the economy improves some more, like I said. That's more than just a drop in the bucket - it's a pretty substantial amount, actually. Couple that with bringing defense back to 90's levels, and you've got a HUGE chunk of the problem taken care of. If the economy continues to grow, receipts will grow also (as they did in the 90's... AFTER taxes were increased, in case someone's still under the illusion that sensible tax rates "kill" business). Another possibility I didn't mention that would save billions is reforming last decade's prescription drug law (part D) that, thanks to its GOP backers, actually PROHIBITED the government from negotiating with the drug companies to get bulk rates on prescription drugs. We already do so through the VA for vets and active-duty, but this prohibition for Medicare recipients was given as a valentine to the (heavy-campaign-contributing) drug company lobby. It makes no sense. And it's an easy fix. It's wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. We just need the political will to do it.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan The biggest single thing that has gotten the house so out of order is the war in Iraq. This was a war of choice, sold to the American people as vital to our national security, which as we now know, was nothing but a lie. All these years later, the meter is still running on that fiasco. And until Obama's administration, it wasn't even included in the numbers. You want to cut waste? Let's start there, not by making life predictably miserable for the next generation of senior citizens and the poor. I mean, I'm all for trimming fat. But most of the cuts in Ryan's "Party like it's 1926" plan are sawing into bone and ignoring such costly boondoggles. In fact, mention it on Capitol hill and you'll get branded as anti-American, even now.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<I've got no problem taxing the upper 2% back to previous rates. But, that still doesn't get us all that far in the big picture. It is a cup of water in the pool.>> No way. It's more like a cup of water in a kitchen sink. And if you take us back to pre-Reagan tax rates for the top 10% and the corporations while closing up their loopholes, then you can fill the whole sink to overflowing.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Doing what you are proposing skinner is going to slow down the growth of the debt...but it isn't filling a $14 trillion dollar deficit. Yes, Iraq blew up the deficit. I don't know too many people who would disagree. There are probably not a handful of Democrats, let alone Republicans, that would vote favorably to taking us back to pre-Regan tax rates.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>The biggest single thing that has gotten the house so out of order is the war in Iraq. This was a war of choice, sold to the American people as vital to our national security, which as we now know, was nothing but a lie.<< This is the part that pushes my Pissed Off-ometer to the red. The conversations we're having now with people like wahoo are valuable. It's important to see both sides. But for Republicans to act like we're suddenly all out of control and we've got to reign in spending ASAP...where was this attitude for the past 10 years? They act as if they aren't complicit in this disaster at all. "Hey, we can't afford to help the poor, some jerk ran up the debt!" We'd all love to forget the Bush presidency, but these guys literally act as if it never existed...we somehow went from Clinton to Obama and that's that.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Knowing that Ayn Rand is Paul Ryan's hero, and makes her books required reading for his staff, is chilling. Ayn Rand was the poster child for Social Darwinism. And Social Darwinism was anathema to the New Dealers like FDR and the social safety net programs they helped to create. If Paul Ryan is a believer in Ayn Rand's immoral philosophies and beliefs, then his contributions to fixing our problems should be taken with a huge grain of salt, if not tossed out altogether. Gore got it right. Social Security and Medicare should have been placed in a lock box. And Paul Ryan should hang his head in hypocritical shame for wanting to dismantle them. He never would have gone to college if it weren't for Social Security survivor benefits paid to him when his father passed away while Ryan was a teenager. He squirreled the money away for college, because his grades weren't good enough to get him a scholarship. Social Security gave him his college degree, and a leg up to a better life. Now, he wants to take those opportunities away from those of us under 55 years. Selfish, self-serving hypocrite.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<Doing what you are proposing skinner is going to slow down the growth of the debt...but it isn't filling a $14 trillion dollar deficit.>> Raise taxes on the rich, give tax breaks for keeping and growing jobs in this country (which the House Republicans voted down recently, btw), and the deficit will take care of itself in due course. It's not going to go away tomorrow, but once revenue starts flowing again as Americans start working for decent wages again, it will go down. Yes, the military spending needs to be cut back dramatically. But if we don't reverse the greed of the top 2% soon, there won't be a country left for the military to, uh, "protect."
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<But for Republicans to act like we're suddenly all out of control and we've got to reign in spending ASAP...where was this attitude for the past 10 years? They act as if they aren't complicit in this disaster at all. "Hey, we can't afford to help the poor, some jerk ran up the debt!">> ^^ THIS. IN BIG BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS, TOO!!
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Well, I've said time and again that I have altered my view on Iraq as the facts came out. Frankly, I'm still not convinced it was the wrong thing to do but I certainly am convinced that the rationale for doing it was wrong. And, other than the war I've been pretty consistent on entitlements, boondoggle pork barrel spending, and my general distrust of Washington. And, since about 2007 I've been consistent in saying that the Republican party left me behind. Unfortunatley, nobody else has picked me back up yet and given the state of politics I'm not expecting a ride to come around anytime soon.
Originally Posted By Tony C <<Seriously, I think in Washington they are...by and large...happy with the status quo.>> One does wonder if they're sitting back laughing at all of us.
Originally Posted By EdisYoda As much as it pains me to say it, we need to vote out the status quo. I'm not saying vote out the Democrats and replace with Republicans and vice versa... I am saying vote out the Democrats AND Republicans and vote in independents. MAYBE they'll get the message then.
Originally Posted By calgrl2490 Kevin Flynn that was brillantly said. I agree that the rich need to contribute but its not the sole solution to our debt. The worst thing would be that we take a country who was able to build itself up from nothing and stand against everyone that would stop us from creating a new democratic nation and we turn it into a nanny state full of people that think they "deserve" the life that others have even if they don't think they need to work as hard to get it. And our definition of "rich" is a bit skewed. I can tell you $250000 a year may buy you a lot in some states but in the Bay Area you would be lucky to find a shack to live in at that amount.
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 I'll say this if any of us suddenly became part of the rich(via lottery or some unknown inheritance)I imagine our tune would change.
Originally Posted By calgrl2490 DDMAN26: That's true. There is a saying that when your a young person in their 20s your a democrat but if you make it big later in life you suddenly become a republican. I think that holds true. Of course there are many rich democrats so there are always the exceptions. But there's definitely a parallel between your lot in life and your political views no doubt about it.
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 I think it's quite rare that people make a complete switch from one side to the other. Most of us are smack dab in the middle.
Originally Posted By calgrl2490 I guess its just my experience. I know a lot of older people who talk about switching to the republican side later in life. And I live in California! So it's weird. But I agree that people are mostly in the middle. Its just the media and other public figures who seem so far on either side.
