Fiscal Cliff: Avoid? Drive Right Over?

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:
Understanding the fiscal cliff.

http://therealnews.com/t2/component/hwdvideoshare/?task=viewvideo&video_id=75144

We can have democracy in this country," Louis Brandeis accurately said, “or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”[/quote]

Robert Reich is about as close to a straight-up socialist as you can get and still be labeled mainstream.

If you think socialism is the answer, he’s the right guy to look to, because he is pretty sharp.

22

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
I think we should jump, IMO we should raise taxes on the top 2% and reduce the deductions from the top down. Both The Dems and the Reps want to keep the bush cuts , so the Reps fail on 2% they win on 98% :)[/quote]

Yeah, 'cause it’s unfair that the top 2% of income producers only pay 40% of the total income tax. They should pay 100%

Anyone who doesn’t says this is just based on envy and greed is a liar.

EVERYONE needs skin in the game.

23

my take on it is the republicans want every one to benefit from the Bush Tax Cut, The Democrats want the bottom 98% to benefit from the BTC so the Republicans would rather see everybody’s tax go up to protect 2%. Negotiation means not getting everything you want and the Republicans get 98%

24

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

Robert Reich is about as close to a straight-up socialist [/quote]

I am assuming you do not agree with him , can you figure

25

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
my take on it is the republicans want every one to benefit from the Bush Tax Cut, The Democrats want the bottom 98% to benefit from the BTC so the Republicans would rather see everybody’s tax go up to protect 2%. Negotiation means not getting everything you want and the Republicans get 98%[/quote]

You put the emphasis on the wrong party Pitt. The republicans don’t want anyone’s taxes to go up. But the democrats want taxes to go up for the job creators ONLY. How does that help the economy? And furthermore (since the democrats love this word…) how is it fair? Especially in light of the fact that the top 10% those making over 150-k per year already pay 70% of all income tax.

Now if you were to say that the republicans want taxes to go up on those making under 250-k, yet want keep the Bush tax cuts for those making more than 250-k you could say that they are for the rich. But that is not the case is it? They want everyone’s taxes to stay where they are.

Once again which party is for ALL Of the people?

26

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
Cut the size of government. Let nothing be off the table in regards to that. Not the fucking military, not the fucking department of education, not social security, not any little pet thing someone loves while despising another. Raising taxes is a bad idea, but it’s going to happen whether I like it or not. I just hope it can come at a time when the government starts to reduce it’s size at all levels as well.

It should all be on the table in regards to spending, but each side has certain untouchable loves. We can’t touch entitlements says the left. We can’t touch defense says the right. We can’t touch big ag or big labor or big banks or big this if I like it. Cut that, not this we can’t cut that any!

Personally I’d like to drive right over the fucker. Let some automatic cuts happen. I don’t give a shit how “painful” it is. Long overdue. We can either keep searching for more and more small bandaids in the hopes of slowing the bleeding or we can perform painful surgery and attempt to fix the problem. Of course it’s going to hurt like hell. We love our huge military and our huge entitlements and our huge farm bills and our stimulus checks and our Medicare Part D and our Patriot Act and everything else we “need” from the government. Left and right have grown accustomed to giving us our big government just in different doses. And it’s been fun to take that red and blue medicine.

Of course we won’t do anything painful we will continue to kick the can down the road (because of course THIS isn’t the time to deal with it) as we always do. And if the economy starts to pick up and turn around and revenues are coming in we will have more new problems that require the government to fix them and more wars to fight and more stuff that keeps us from getting to it then. [/quote]

All government programs are not created equal. How much money does the U.S. spend in comparison to other industrialized countries with regards to it’s governmental components of health care? The U.S. spends more than the other top 13 military spenders combined. So it can make perfect sense to cut 1 program and not another.[/quote]

As one of the biggest pieces of the pie, I’d START the slicing by looking at military waste. Now look out because all the righties heads are about to explode and the terrorists are taking over the US because of this. God knows if we spent just 1 dollar less on defense every hour would be 9/11 right?

My point was that we can’t have all this stuff we absolutely won’t touch in a negotiation. I don’t mind my taxes going up if we cut spending at the same time to attempt to solve the problem. I would rather my taxes didn’t go up, but I know that’s a pipe dream. And we are partially in this mess because some people believe cutting taxes while vastly increasing the spending of the government is a terrific idea.

27

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
my take on it is the republicans want every one to benefit from the Bush Tax Cut, The Democrats want the bottom 98% to benefit from the BTC so the Republicans would rather see everybody’s tax go up to protect 2%. Negotiation means not getting everything you want and the Republicans get 98%[/quote]

I’d personnally prefer everyone’s tax to go up.

Let everyone feel the pain of the bloated mess Obama and Bush have created.

28

[quote]ZEB wrote:

Once again which party is for ALL Of the people?[/quote]

High income people should be taken down a notch for getting above their stations.

Those doctors and lawyers make enough money and the next thing you know, Jews, blacks, and Mexicans will be able to afford a country club membership.

The real elite: Rockerfeller, Kerry, Pelosi, etc., don’t want those swarthy fuckers at the country club. Bad enough they have to deal with them in business.

29

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:
Understanding the fiscal cliff.

http://therealnews.com/t2/component/hwdvideoshare/?task=viewvideo&video_id=75144

We can have democracy in this country," Louis Brandeis accurately said, “or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”[/quote]

Robert Reich is about as close to a straight-up socialist as you can get and still be labeled mainstream.

If you think socialism is the answer, he’s the right guy to look to, because he is pretty sharp. [/quote]

Call him what you want, but those are the facts. During the Eisenhower (A socialist?) administration nominal tax rate was 91% and the economy grew much better than today. So this non-sense of cutting taxes on the rich spurs economic growth is one of the biggest lies propagated on the U.S. public. We’ve had 12 years of Bush tax cuts for the rich. Where are all the jobs it was supposed to create? Letting them expire just puts the tax rates back to where they were under the Clinton administration and we had a much better economy then than we do now.

30

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
Cut the size of government. Let nothing be off the table in regards to that. Not the fucking military, not the fucking department of education, not social security, not any little pet thing someone loves while despising another. Raising taxes is a bad idea, but it’s going to happen whether I like it or not. I just hope it can come at a time when the government starts to reduce it’s size at all levels as well.

It should all be on the table in regards to spending, but each side has certain untouchable loves. We can’t touch entitlements says the left. We can’t touch defense says the right. We can’t touch big ag or big labor or big banks or big this if I like it. Cut that, not this we can’t cut that any!

Personally I’d like to drive right over the fucker. Let some automatic cuts happen. I don’t give a shit how “painful” it is. Long overdue. We can either keep searching for more and more small bandaids in the hopes of slowing the bleeding or we can perform painful surgery and attempt to fix the problem. Of course it’s going to hurt like hell. We love our huge military and our huge entitlements and our huge farm bills and our stimulus checks and our Medicare Part D and our Patriot Act and everything else we “need” from the government. Left and right have grown accustomed to giving us our big government just in different doses. And it’s been fun to take that red and blue medicine.

Of course we won’t do anything painful we will continue to kick the can down the road (because of course THIS isn’t the time to deal with it) as we always do. And if the economy starts to pick up and turn around and revenues are coming in we will have more new problems that require the government to fix them and more wars to fight and more stuff that keeps us from getting to it then. [/quote]

All government programs are not created equal. How much money does the U.S. spend in comparison to other industrialized countries with regards to it’s governmental components of health care? The U.S. spends more than the other top 13 military spenders combined. So it can make perfect sense to cut 1 program and not another.[/quote]

As one of the biggest pieces of the pie, I’d START the slicing by looking at military waste. Now look out because all the righties heads are about to explode and the terrorists are taking over the US because of this. God knows if we spent just 1 dollar less on defense every hour would be 9/11 right?

My point was that we can’t have all this stuff we absolutely won’t touch in a negotiation. I don’t mind my taxes going up if we cut spending at the same time to attempt to solve the problem. I would rather my taxes didn’t go up, but I know that’s a pipe dream. And we are partially in this mess because some people believe cutting taxes while vastly increasing the spending of the government is a terrific idea. [/quote]

I understand your position but you have to differentiate between programs. Medicare and things of that nature are not causing the problems. But the military budget - which includes the wars - are a major contributor. Other programs can be kept without any fiscal issues. But the military, corporate welfare and taxing the rich more will cure the problem.

31

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
my take on it is the republicans want every one to benefit from the Bush Tax Cut, The Democrats want the bottom 98% to benefit from the BTC so the Republicans would rather see everybody’s tax go up to protect 2%. Negotiation means not getting everything you want and the Republicans get 98%[/quote]

I’d personnally prefer everyone’s tax to go up.

Let everyone feel the pain of the bloated mess Obama and Bush have created.[/quote]

They are going to have to, if they want this paid off. Which begs the question, does anyone (in government) want this debt paid for ?

The top 20% of Americans pay 70% of the taxes, and with government costs being 42% and tax revenues being 24%, you are going to have to make massive cuts, tax everyone, or both.

32

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:
Understanding the fiscal cliff.

http://therealnews.com/t2/component/hwdvideoshare/?task=viewvideo&video_id=75144

We can have democracy in this country," Louis Brandeis accurately said, “or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”[/quote]

Robert Reich is about as close to a straight-up socialist as you can get and still be labeled mainstream.

If you think socialism is the answer, he’s the right guy to look to, because he is pretty sharp. [/quote]

Call him what you want, but those are the facts. During the Eisenhower (A socialist?) administration nominal tax rate was 91% and the economy grew much better than today. So this non-sense of cutting taxes on the rich spurs economic growth is one of the biggest lies propagated on the U.S. public. We’ve had 12 years of Bush tax cuts for the rich. Where are all the jobs it was supposed to create? Letting them expire just puts the tax rates back to where they were under the Clinton administration and we had a much better economy then than we do now.
[/quote]

During the Eisenhower years there were an abundance of loopholes and not just for the super rich, but for upper income as well. This allowed people more money than the average Joe to sometimes skate without paying a dime. I would return to those rates in a heart beat as long as all the exemptions and loopholes went with it.

By the way that is one very ugly ass that you have as our avatar…but then you know that.

33

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:
Taxing the rich more will cure the problem.[/quote]

It never has in the past.

However, lowering taxes in the past has created a booming economy. The top 1% on income earners are already pay 37% of all taxes. The top 10% pay 70% of all taxes. And most of those people are small business people who run S and LLC corps. How much do you think you can tax this group before they decide to…

  1. Raise prices on their customers.

  2. Pay their employees less.

Who suffers in the end?

I promise you this, if Obama gets his way and raises taxes there will be another recession. And the very people that he claims to want to help will be hurting far more than any of the rich people he relentlessly pursues.

34

Stephen Baldwin arrested for tax evasion…

Where for art though Hollywood Left ?

35

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:

I understand your position but you have to differentiate between programs. Medicare and things of that nature are not causing the problems. But the military budget - which includes the wars - are a major contributor. Other programs can be kept without any fiscal issues. But the military, corporate welfare and taxing the rich more will cure the problem.[/quote]

The US federal government was never able to tax at a level higher than about 18-20% for a sustained period of time, no matter what the nominal tax rate was.

So, no, “taxing” the rich wont solve anything, they simply will not get more money out of it.

37

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Stephen Baldwin arrested for tax evasion…

Where for art though Hollywood Left ?[/quote]

Also Warren my Secretary pays more than me Buffett is avoiding paying taxes

38

I don’t always agree with the Paul’s but you have to admit the guy has a point

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/12/06/sen_rand_paul_we_should_let_dems_raise_taxes_and_then_let_them_own_it.html

39

[quote]kevinm1 wrote:
I don’t always agree with the Paul’s but you have to admit the guy has a point

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/12/06/sen_rand_paul_we_should_let_dems_raise_taxes_and_then_let_them_own_it.html[/quote]

I’m coming around to that way of thinking. But allowing the dems to raise taxes will send us into another recession and there is a lot of pain involved when the economy slows to that point. But then again if the pea brains who voted for Obama, Pelosi, Reid and company get a really good taste of what it’s like when the left gets their way perhaps they will vote for more conservative candidates next time. Rand Paul is making sense…unfortunately.

On the other hand if they hold out and allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for everyone that will send us down even faster. And I think in the end Obama will still get the blame as he is the President.

40

[quote]kevinm1 wrote:
I don’t always agree with the Paul’s but you have to admit the guy has a point

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/12/06/sen_rand_paul_we_should_let_dems_raise_taxes_and_then_let_them_own_it.html[/quote]

This isn’t an awful idea, but the Republicans have to turn into the party of low taxes and low spending. They can’t be the party of low taxes and big spending. They did that for 8 years. “We are going to massively increase spending, but don’t worry, we are going to lower your taxes so be happy that we are giving you what you want at a discount.”

They want to have all the cake and don’t want to pay for it. Democrats want you to have the cake, but make you pay double to afford the cake. I would prefer Paul mentions the low spending part along with the low taxes part. Because recent history says otherwise.

Neither of these ideas are good, and not fighting for something just so Democrats would “own” their bad idea seems selfish to me. It might be good politics, but this reeks of hoping for American failure for political gain. Which just further shows the problems with our own two party system. I can find you countless examples of Republicans in the past four years cheering bad economic news. I mean being legitimately happy that things aren’t going well because they know it will end up with them in power. The left did this under Bush especially. Cheering for things to go wrong. Being sad when anything went right. It just shows the state of a polarized electorate.