Jump to content
Science Forums

Budget Impasse


Deepwater6

Recommended Posts

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/21/politics/super-committee/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

This is getting ridiculous. I have called and e-mailed both parties in my state several times telling them my view on this, as I'm sure many of you have. Why can't they just put it too a straight up vote? A national referendum? "Yes" tax us to cut the deficit, or "No" new spending and eliminate programs to cut the deficit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/21/politics/super-committee/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

This is getting ridiculous. I have called and e-mailed both parties in my state several times telling them my view on this, as I'm sure many of you have. Why can't they just put it too a straight up vote? A national referendum? "Yes" tax us to cut the deficit, or "No" new spending and eliminate programs to cut the deficit.

 

ridiculous is an understatement of monument. here's one reason why republicans choose to ignore polls showing a super-majority of citizens are for raising taxes, particularly on the wealthy. 60 minutes did a piece on this as well just yesterday. :read:

 

The Man Behind The GOP's No-Tax Pledge@ NPR

 

One person with outsized influence in the debate over raising the debt ceiling is not at the negotiating table. Instead, he sits in downtown Washington at the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, a group he has run for a quarter century. From there, Grover Norquist fields phone calls and emails from some of the people who are at the table, and he holds them to their pledge.

 

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist speaks on Capitol Hill in April.

"The pledge" is a promise not to raise taxes. It is considered mandatory for many Republican candidates. Most Republican members of the House and Senate have signed it, as have many Republicans in statehouses across the country. The man who created it seems to Washington insiders like a constant. Norquist has been a fixture in every major important tax debate for decades.

...

Today most of the Republican Party charts its course on taxes using Norquist as an unmoving North Star. To Democrats, he is the roadblock standing in the way of compromise on the debt ceiling negotiations.

 

President Obama could have been speaking directly to Norquist at Monday's White House news conference when he said, "If each side takes a maximalist position, if each side wants 100 percent of what its ideological predispositions are, then we can't get anything done." ...

 

me thinks we'll have to wait for the 2012 election and the rebulicans to lose the white house to obama, & the house majority (and keep the minority in the senate). otherwise better get used to gridlock.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

there are so many things wrong with this situation i don't even know where to begin.

first, let's talk about the debt itself. i would first like to point out, that both republicans and democrats are to blame for our current crisis.

republicans for going into unlimited wars, without increasing taxes; democrats for countinuing them, while also increasing the burden of the government to the people. (more medicare, more SS, etc.)

second, let's discuss some feasible solutions. i suppose increasing taxes on the rich is an option, though i tend to think it's a bad one. going from oweing 1 trillion additional dollars a year to .85 trillion additional dollars a year is not much of a boost to the economy. so we have to begin cutting programs. firstly; i'd recommend we stop most of our overseas spending. this means bring our troops home, and stop nation building.

secondly, i recommend cutting some of our departments to a more managable size. depearment of defence, department of commerce, department of education, etc, can all be reduced. finally, we have to start getting rid of social security. its a bad program, works haphazardly, and needs to be shifted to individual responcibilty. while we are at it, we can get rid of fanny may and freddy mac. not that the government will actually do any of this, but it would be a good start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/payroll-tax-credit-headed-for-stalemate/

 

ABC Article about House Republicans rejecting the payroll tax cut. Obama pointed out to the Republicans last week that refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for this and letting it expire they are in effect raising the taxes on 160 million Americans.

 

Sooner or later one side has to give.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sooner or later one side has to give.

The side that holds the knife by its handle.

 

Distressingly, when it comes to recent US Congresses, "later" can mean weeks or months.

 

As of today, it appears one side has given: the Republican House Majority. This time, they're the ones holding the nasty, sharp end of the knife, with the predictable result.

 

While many Representatives will likely maintain their vote against a 2-month extension of the payroll tax holiday, it's unlikely that, urged as they are by House Speaker Boehner, fewer than the roughly 20 needed will change their votes, allowing the bill to pass.

 

US politics followers pro and amateur alike are wondering now why Boehner encouraged his party members to vote as they did on Tuesday, only to reverse himself two days later. My guess is that he's simply not very good at predicting the results of such things, and is mostly a consensus-forming leader, who it this case allowed himself to be swayed by a few even less adept fellow Republicans to commit a political blunder.

 

Pundits are saying that, because of his mistake, Boehner will be replaced as Speaker in the next session of Congress, and that 11 months hence, the Republican numeric advantage over the Democrats in the House will be reduced, or even reversed.

 

Personally, I don't care if Boehner retains the Speaker post, but hope that the Democratic party regains a majority in the House, and increases its Senate majority to a filibuster-proof 60 vs 40.

 

If this happens, I expect that US tax code will be changed to increase the rate of people with high enough incomes that such an increase won't result in a reduction in their material quality of life, a permanent reduction in the lower tax rates corresponding to current payroll tax break and an increase in government services and job creation so that the quality of life of poor people is improved.

 

I'm really tired and disgusted by the continued assertion, mostly by Republicans, that the well being of the Americans can only be improved by making the rich richer, so that they will in turn improve the lives of poor. I don't believe it, and hope it's soundly rejected.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There seems to be a consensus among independent Economists that the only solution to our economic condition is a mix of revenue increases and spending decreases. The fundamental issue in that solution is where to increase revenue and where to decrease spending.

 

My opinion on revenue enhancement would include eliminating the tax reductions on the extremely wealthy to pre-Bush levels. Those reductions, on people earning more than a million dollars a year would only tax amounts OVER $1million in income.

 

Second, certain classes of protected income should be eliminated. Capital gains low rates should be adjusted to match tax rates for those who labor. The notion that people who can earn income from investment would stop investing if they were taxed like people who earn by sweat is absurd.

 

Third, a number of special deductions could be eliminated, though the home mortgage deduction should be retained.

 

On the expense side, there are obvious places to cut. I certainly would support reduction of foreign deployments of troops in many areas of the world. Some deployments make good sense but the majority are unnecessary.

 

Next, a single payer health system similar to those in most industrialized nations would save a great deal of money and work towards controlling over-all health costs.

 

I wouldn't reduce Social Security. I disagree with the person above who sees it as a failure. In fact, it has been one of the most successful programs in the history of the nation. It is neither a Ponzi scheme nor a scam. It is an insurance program. It provides a safety net for older workers and for the disabled. Another fact: a substantial number of young workers will be disabled before they reach retirement age. It also provides support for spouses and children in case the primary income provider dies before retirement age.

 

The current budget impasse is a function of competing ideologies, not competing "facts". It has been caused by an influx of poorly informed Republican "idealists" in the House who have little or no knowledge of basic economics and a rigid set of opinions unsupported by any historical evidence. They approach disastrous possibilities with the courage of their ignorance, much like teenagers riding on the roofs of speeding cars.

 

Hopefully, the irrational Tea Partiers will be replaced in 2012 and some sense of rationality will prevail in D.C.

 

Do you feel better now? :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dug out this Op-Ed article I wrote in 2005 about Social Security. Consider it a response to the comments by someone here about SS being some kind of failure. :rolleyes:

 

Social Security: Facts to know going into privatization debate

 

I wrote this originally for a guest column on the Op-Ed page of The Lima News, a regional newspaper in NW Ohio. It appeared on Sunday, February 6, 2005.

 

This country faces important decisions about Social Security. It’s crucial that those decisions be based on good information and not be made on the basis of ideology or spin. What we need is a common sense conversation about what Social Security is and some discussion of common misperceptions.

 

• The real name is FICA, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. It provides insurance against poverty for workers, their spouses and the disabled.

 

• It’s a pension plan. Not really. It’s an insurance plan that provides a number of benefits, including financial support for disabled workers and dependents (16 percent of all beneficiaries), retirement benefits to workers and their dependents (70 percent) and the families of deceased workers (14 percent).

 

In other words, Social Security is fundamentally about family values. It wasn’t created for personal gain. It provides a safety net for families. For example, according to the Social Security Administration, almost three in 10 of today’s 20-year-olds will become disabled before reaching age 67. What happens to them (30 percent of today’s 20-year-olds) if they haven’t accumulated enough resources in private accounts to pay the bills? What happens to spouses and children if the breadwinner dies or is disabled before sufficient funds are accumulated to support them?

 

• It’s your money. Of course it is. It’s just like your money you spend on home insurance or car insurance. It’s your money buying you protection against economic catastrophe.

 

• It’s a ponzi scheme because current worker’s contributions pay for current benefits. Just like any insurance program, benefits are paid by current premiums. And, that will always be the case. There is no “day of reckoning” unless the world ends — in which case it really won’t matter if you don’t receive your benefit.

 

• We’re only talking about diverting 2 percent out of the 6.2 percent contribution to private accounts. Fun with numbers. That’s one-third of the contribution or one-sixth the total employer-plus-employee contribution (12.4 percent). That 2 percent is actually a 15-percent reduction in total contributions and that reduction will bring a crisis.

 

• Privatization works in Chile. Except workers in Chile are required to pay 10 percent of wages towards retirement and 3.3 percent for survivor and disability protection. In other words, their payroll tax is higher than ours and all of it is paid by the worker, not shared 50-50 between worker and employer.

 

• There is a Social Security crisis. In 40 years, if nothing is adjusted, the contributions will pay for only 75 percent of the benefits, but that’s not a good reason to undercut the insurance program now. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, just raising the income cap on contributions from the current level (which would only affect the top 5 percent of wage-earners) could reduce the anticipated shortfall by 50 percent or more.

 

• It’s a bad investment because it only returns about 2 percent. Typically, higher returns are paid when the risk is higher. Social Security funds are invested in the safest investments on the planet — U.S. Treasury notes.

 

Who would benefit from privatization? The biggest beneficiaries would be stock brokers and fund managers. They get paid whether your investment increases or decreases in value. Those charges have been estimated to be more than 10 times the administrative costs of the current system. Last year, University of Chicago economist Austan D. Goolsbee concluded that private accounts could earn as much as $940 billion in fees for Wall Street. The Securities Investment Association then released its own report, as a rebuttal, estimating the amount at $39 billion to $279 billion over 75 years. Either way, that’s your money being siphoned off — money that will never contribute to your retirement.

 

And we should remember there are experienced, full-time portfolio managers on Wall Street (with degrees in higher math or in finance) who lose millions of dollars every day on huge investment accounts. Fortunately, those accounts are so huge they continue in spite of those losses. If full-time portfolio managers can lose money in the market, then it is not demeaning to suggest workers with little time to properly oversee their own investments could also lose money.

 

It is sometimes argued that the stock market is a no-brainer, that no 20-year period of the market has lost money. On the other hand, as an example, from 1966 to 1982, the market showed no return. That’s a 16-year period with no investment growth.

 

Currently, more than 53 percent of the work force has no private pension coverage and Social Security is the only source of income for approximately 22 percent of the elderly. If private investment is so good, why don’t more people have the discipline or ability to invest in their own, and their family’s, future? And remember, there’s more to Social Security than just a pension.

 

• And then there’s the ownership myth. All of the privatization plans would limit investments to government-selected funds. A bureaucrat would decide where you can invest.

 

Privatization of this insurance program will produce an immediate shortfall in money available for current beneficiaries, as well as reduce the funds available to the government for defense, highways, education and health. It will deplete the funds available for benefits in the future, or it will shift some of the transition costs to future generations.

 

This well-intentioned concept will undermine family security and pits potential personal gain against such important moral values as care and concern for all. Surely there are better ways to safeguard this insurance program. Private investing opportunities could be increased simply by liberalizing the rules governing 401(k)s and IRAs.

 

Get the facts for yourself at http://www.ssa.gov/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...