11-10-2010, 11:24 AM | #1 (permalink) | |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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U.S. Debt Proposal
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Sounds like a starting point to discuss thing. Points I don't like- removes the mortgage interest tax break, think that will hurt the middle class more then anyone else. And it doesn't appear to address any military spending cuts. Points I like- increase the retirement age for SS and cuts earning on holdings. Though I think we need to start doing this way before the dates they've supplied. Thoughts?
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11-10-2010, 11:54 AM | #2 (permalink) |
warrior bodhisattva
Super Moderator
Location: East-central Canada
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The bloated military budget is the elephant in the room.
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11-10-2010, 12:11 PM | #3 (permalink) |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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I have no idea how you can have any realistic discussion regarding debt reduction without including the military budget.
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club |
11-10-2010, 12:19 PM | #5 (permalink) |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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It would look like a lot more unemployed people I fear.
I'm all for reducing the military and cutting some of these high cost projects. But people work on them and it does add to the economy, greatly. There's needs to be a shift from military spending to domestic spending- infrastructure, education etc.. Sadly the right will have none of that.
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club |
11-10-2010, 12:26 PM | #6 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: New York
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11-10-2010, 12:28 PM | #7 (permalink) |
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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One of my best friends in the world is in Afghanistan right now. I know for a fact that he would make an outstanding public school music teacher (he and I were in the drum corps together). Another friend of mine, who I think is in Germany, would be an honest and hard working foreman in construction.
If we could reallocate some of the funds from the defense budget into education or infrastructure, we could create the very jobs returning troops would need to support themselves and their families. |
11-10-2010, 12:43 PM | #8 (permalink) |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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The flat tax is nothing more then shifting even more of the tax burden to the middle class and poor. The middle class has been hit hard enough and we have plenty of poor and working poor already in my opinion.
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club |
11-10-2010, 12:59 PM | #9 (permalink) | |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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context is good:
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there is no commission, there is no report. there is a pseudo-commission. there is a rehearsal of conservative talking points. good-o.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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11-11-2010, 08:49 AM | #10 (permalink) | |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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so apparently this fake commission was funded by several of the usual suspects in rightwing circles who are actively interested in protecting military funding by pretending that the way to deal with the "problem" of "the deficit" is to "cut entitlements."
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so if you have enough money, you can buy yourself a nice little "presidential commission" and it's "report" regardless of whether it exists or not can bob to the surface for a news cycle or two and even if the "presidential commission" gets revealed as the fraud it is, the "report" still bobs around for a news cycle or two and this crackpot notion of "deficit reduction" meaning "don't cut the obscene levels of military expenditure but rather punish the poor" gets a little more traction for a few minutes. ain't american capitalism fucking grand?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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11-11-2010, 10:18 AM | #11 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: New York
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I read thru the PDF that was released http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Se...hair_Draft.pdf which quite clearly includes proposals for cutting military spending as well as discretionary spending and entitlements. Specifically pages 19 and 20 of this PDF. If we are going to fix the debt problem, everybody gets to sacrifice, including the lower income people since every group helped contribute to the problem. Specifically, lower income groups maxing out their credit cards buying junk they didn't need and signing up for mortgages they had no business signing up for in the first place. I've read some rather interesting news reports in the last few weeks about how first France and now the UK are cutting entitlement spending. Maybe Europeans are beginning to realize entitlement programs aren't really affordable after all. So what entitlement programs are you willing to cut? |
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11-11-2010, 10:25 AM | #12 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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what makes you think the debt is a problem? there's an entire school of economics that's got a far better actual track record that the monetarist nonsense that you subscribe to that doesn't see debt as a particular issue. so there's no pressing need to "address" it. so there's no rationale for cuts, particularly not in a situation of transition/crisis.
it's the same hoodoo that got us here in the first place. it didn't work, it won't work, it can't work. so why should anyone listen to what conservatives have to say about this topic?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
11-11-2010, 02:24 PM | #13 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Toronto
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I think if Obama proposed cutting the military budget, he would be pretty much writing his own death warrant. Seriously. My impression of Americans is that they are a military obsessed society. America is a right wing conservative country and they love things that go boom. I don't see this changing any time soon. Even if Obama had the balls to cut US military spending, the cuts would be token at best.
I believe that the US spends about 700 Billion officially on its military every year. I am very sceptical of that number. I betcha it's much more than that. I remember reading somewhere the cost of operating the missile silos come out of the Department of the Interior's budget (or at least, not the Pentagon). Also, the cost of the wars is not included in the annual military budget, or the cost of Corporate Welfare that goes to Defence Contractors. Anyway, suffice it to say that it's a lot of money and a lot of powerful people don't want to give up that money (read their money) any time soon. If Obama ever proposed cutting the military say in half (which would still leave a massive military) I fear he would end up shot. As Eisenhower once said, "Beware the Industrial Military Complex" ---------- Post added at 05:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 PM ---------- Quote:
Most Americans are big believers in the Free Lunch. They want all the goodies government should provide, they want to pay no tax, and they think that it all makes perfect sense. |
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11-11-2010, 03:30 PM | #14 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: New York
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However, in reality, recent events in Greece, where out of control debt projected at 120% of GDP in 2010 resulted in fears of default by the Greek government another bailout by the EU. Regardless what these economists think, one of the major issues in this election was deficit reduction, i.e. debt reduction. The US government isn't going to be able to accomplish much at all if interest on the federal debt reaches the level of tax revenue as has been projected a few times. That issue resulted in a bunch of Democrats getting sent home. If the Democrats want to ignore the issue, then more will be going home in 2012 including Obama. If you think the public is going to stand for reducing military spending only to increase entitlements, you're dreaming. |
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11-11-2010, 03:38 PM | #15 (permalink) |
Living in a Warmer Insanity
Super Moderator
Location: Yucatan, Mexico
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Ignoring the debt and the deficits isn't a Dem only problem. If it were the Bush years would not have lead to records of both. The right wants to extend the tax cut for the top 25, but they have no plan to pay for it.
How the economy responds will dictate how the next election goes.
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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club |
11-11-2010, 03:49 PM | #16 (permalink) |
warrior bodhisattva
Super Moderator
Location: East-central Canada
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The Dems have to prove they are willing to reduce spending. I think this will be the case, considering things such as the stimulus spending was to be temporary anyway. Clinton is the only president in recent history that I can think of who has proven that budgets can be balanced and deficits can be reduced. The timing was bad for Obama with the economy, so of course you're not going to balance a budget very easily when your economy is melting down.
The Republicans are going to have to prove they are serious about reducing the deficit by focusing on reducing spending and forgetting about tax cuts. You don't cut your income when you aren't making ends meet. It doesn't make sense. If the deficit is so bad that you're saying everything except the sky is falling, then why not reduce spending and leave taxes as they are, or, better yet, increase tax revenues somehow? (Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP are relatively low.) You know, something rational as opposed to cutting taxes at a time like this.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 11-11-2010 at 03:53 PM.. |
11-12-2010, 03:27 PM | #17 (permalink) |
The sky calls to us ...
Super Moderator
Location: CT
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If this proposal goes any further and Pelosi has any sense of strategy, she'll call for a vote on this with no amendments and get the universal opposition from the 111th congress that it deserves. Then when the 112th comes in, the Democrats can fight derivative shitty proposals by attacking their opponents for supporting the proposal to raise the retirement age to 69, eliminate the Earned Income Credit, eliminate funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, increase Medicare patient costs, eliminating taxes on outsourced jobs, and all the other bullshit. But that won't happen because the past few years have shown us that the Democrats' idea of compromise is to lube themselves up before bending over and taking it from the Republicans.
That's not to say there aren't decent ideas in here. They're not proposing eliminating the mortgage interest tax break for everyone, only for second homes, home equity loans, and mortgages over $500,000. It would also be a good move to tax capital gains as income. |
11-12-2010, 11:19 PM | #18 (permalink) |
immoral minority
Location: Back in Ohio
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All I know is that this has been dealt with using political means (resisting a debt commission that could do anything, unifying behind certain things that wouldn't hurt them, and trying to push for tax cut extensions that aren't paid for until 2012.)
Europe has other problems, a big one is competing in a world with cheap labor and cheap goods. But Ireland which was lauded as having low corporate taxes in 2008 is now in fiscal trouble as well. And having low tax rates may have meant that businesses moved from other places and took away tax revenue from their former country. |
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debt reduction, medicare cuts, retiremant age increase, social security |
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