Quote:
Originally Posted by dippin
Have you actually looked at the budget?
You don't seem to understand that even before any of these programs you decry are taken into account, the US is running deficits.
Can you understand that?
Whatever your outrage may be, it is a simple fact that even if you cut every single dime in foreign aid, kill off every illegal alien, let every single bank fail, cut every single pork project, and cut every single welfare program, the US will STILL run a deficit if it doesnt cut either military spending, healthcare, or social security pensions. And I am talking about cutting them without cutting the taxes related to them.
Do you get that? You can quote whatever John Lennon song you want, but it is a simple fact.
If you don't want to go look at the figures, here you go:
Projected federal tax revenue for 2009: 2186 US$ billion
Projected federal spending on healthcare for 2009: 724US$ Billion (425 of which go to medicare)
Projected federal spending on pensions: 712 US$ Billion (708 of which are old age pensions)
Projected federal spending on defense, excluding foreign military aid: 811 US$ Billion
Spending on healthcare+pensions+defense= 2247 $ US$ Billion
In other words, even if the US government doesnt spend a dime on education, infrastructure, runs every branch of government for free, cut everything you said, and basically defaults on interest payments for its existing debt, the US will still run a deficit. And this is for this year. While social security spending won't increase much more, medicare costs are expected to rise very fast, even without adding any new programs or coverage. And this is all with the projected defense budget, which in all likelihood severely underestimates actual spending.
Do you get that? Sing the entire John Lennon discography for all I care, but the fact is that either social security, medicare, or defense will be have to be cut if anyone is serious about cutting taxes.
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The US runs a deficit because there is NO FUCKING TAX BASE. You cannot tax the middle class more and they are losing wealth anyway. You cannot tax the rich much more, they have the means to leave the country.
You have no manufacturing, you have no textile industry, you have outsourced just about every job you can.... THERE IS NO ONE LEFT WHO CAN PAY TAXES. You have destroyed the tax base.
You tariff imports for 5-10 years, rebuild your industries, make sure they put money into R&D so that they'll be able to compete when those tariffs run out, and you start rebuilding the tax bases, you bring back jobs, jobs people work and pay taxes and within that time you will have increased tax revenue without increasing taxes and a made a solid tax base again, while the workers have some disposable income to work with.
If you continue to do what we are..... we'll just keep increasing cigarette taxes, then alcohol/sugar/ whatever the government deems is unhealthy to try to make up revenue. But when you do that you'll actually lose revenue because people will just create black markets for those goods and we'll continue to run deficits until every single penny of every single tax dollar goes to pay the interest.
The moral, time is short.... rebuild a tax base or we're a third world country and the game is over. Or we hold a revolution and we rebuild government and start a new.
The French revolution started not because Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake but because the government over taxed the citizenry and still went bankrupt. The people who got guillotined were not the bourgeois but the aristocrats who got greedy and stolle the money from the people.
The American Revolution started on a 10% tax of tea. King George had to pay for the French and Indian War that was also a part of the British and French 7 Years War in Europe.
The Russian Revolution started when the middle class were taxed beyond their means. Hitler rose to power when Germany's middle class could no longer afford to pay taxes for the repair of their country after WW1.... What rich there was in Germany had fled the country.
The point is throughout history, when government taxes the "middle class" too much and gives the money to the wealthy for whatever reason.... violence and overthrow happens. And for the exception of our country and our founding fathers wanting freedom not just autonomy.... EVERY revolution at first ends in Totalitarianistic regimes that kill off what wealthy are left in the country and find leaders who grasp extreme power and start wars with neighboring countries.
Scoff all you want but if we continue the way we are and the way Obama is taking us.... revolution is going to be the outcome. That or a fascist extreme government that is every bit as bad or worse than Hitler's and Stalin's regimes.