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Almost Unnoticed, Bipartisan Budget Anxiety
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Well, El Fenix, there's one other option to recirculate the SS trust funds under a balanced budget scenario- use them to pay down other debt, force parked capital out into the open market.
As both Heritage and Brookings point out, some combination of spending cuts and tax increases will be required. Neither one will happen with Bush in the Whitehouse and the Repubs running Congress. Their record only reinforces the point. Besides that, massive deficits are required to keep running the trickle down scam, the largest transfer of wealth and income to the very top echelons ever undertaken. Chronic deficits provide an illusion of general prosperity, rather than the real thing. Add Terrar, Iraq, the Judiciary and Dominionist theory to the mix for even more obfuscation...
Blame Clinton, Genx87? Get real. Had the tax and spending policies of the last few years of that Admin been left in place, we'd be in a much better position. Pay as you go works reasonably well as a fiscal plan, definitely a helluva lot better than cut taxes for the wealthy, go to war, make more commitments, and just borrow more money. The repubs offer only a fool's paradise for 99.9% of the population- try it with your personal finances, tell me how it works out...
As both Heritage and Brookings point out, some combination of spending cuts and tax increases will be required. Neither one will happen with Bush in the Whitehouse and the Repubs running Congress. Their record only reinforces the point. Besides that, massive deficits are required to keep running the trickle down scam, the largest transfer of wealth and income to the very top echelons ever undertaken. Chronic deficits provide an illusion of general prosperity, rather than the real thing. Add Terrar, Iraq, the Judiciary and Dominionist theory to the mix for even more obfuscation...
Blame Clinton, Genx87? Get real. Had the tax and spending policies of the last few years of that Admin been left in place, we'd be in a much better position. Pay as you go works reasonably well as a fiscal plan, definitely a helluva lot better than cut taxes for the wealthy, go to war, make more commitments, and just borrow more money. The repubs offer only a fool's paradise for 99.9% of the population- try it with your personal finances, tell me how it works out...
it's like stuffing money into a mattress. instead of letting the production that money represents further build the economy, it's just sitting there idle. right now the government is transferring that money back into the economy, where it gets multiplied through the fractional reserve system. taking that money out of the economy would multiply that loss through the fractional reserve system as well. in essence, we'd be removing from the economy production in a far greater amount than what the SS admin could hold onto.
alan sloan, newsweek's wall street guy, had an interesting idea of what to do. 1st, the government doesn't pay the interest on those tbills in cash, it pays them in more tbills. while this makes administrative sense as the SS admin can only exchange cash for tbills, it allows the government to ignore the real size of the debt. right now, SS debt is sorta like enron debt. it's off the books. that is why i don't totally buy the democrats claims of $2 trillion more debt under bush's private accounts plan. if some of that debt (and i suspect most of it) is already owed but off the books, it isn't really new debt. sloan's second idea is that the trust fund administrators actually act like real trustees, investing the money in carefully controlled investments (mortgage secured vehicles and A+ rated company bonds). of course, that sounds like privatizing social securty, which is anathema to current democrats.
jhhnn - i agree completely that excess government revenues should be used for paying debt before anything else is considered. unfortunately, the law isn't structured that way, iirc. maybe SS does purchase tbills on the open market (they probably do) but that doesn't retire the debt, merely gives it a congressionally controlled owner. and of course, on the balance sheet you'd still have that SS owed to someone on retirement (could call it SS equity, for lack of a better term).
Our growing debt is very bad, I think everyone can agree on that, the articles predictions that we will follow argentina is just silly, our currency and foreign owned debt would implode our economy long before we ever reached that point. Also there isn't really any point in arguing about where the debt comes from, because it's obvious that when one party controls both congress and the whitehouse spending increases well beyond inflation. It's only when congress is hamstrung by infighting over budgets that spending is actually controlled. That hamstringing can only happen by a president of opposite standing to the party in control of congress and a willpower to stand up to congress.
We need to reduce millitary spending and refocus our foreign policy on neutrality.
We need to reduce entitlements, this includes reductions in SS and Medicare.
We need to reverse Bush's tax cuts.
We need to do away with the earned income credit.
We need to streamline many aspects of government and reduce the overhead and bueracracy.
We need to force nations like China to unlock their currency as the economic advantage it gives them should be a violation of WTO rules.
We should drastically raise the estate tax exemtion to exceed 10million.
We should greatly simplify the tax code and return it to a simple progressive tax with limited/no deductions.
We should gradually phase out the corporate tax.
We need to reduce millitary spending and refocus our foreign policy on neutrality.
We need to reduce entitlements, this includes reductions in SS and Medicare.
We need to reverse Bush's tax cuts.
We need to do away with the earned income credit.
We need to streamline many aspects of government and reduce the overhead and bueracracy.
We need to force nations like China to unlock their currency as the economic advantage it gives them should be a violation of WTO rules.
We should drastically raise the estate tax exemtion to exceed 10million.
We should greatly simplify the tax code and return it to a simple progressive tax with limited/no deductions.
We should gradually phase out the corporate tax.
Darkhawk28
Diamond Member
Exactly and if we did put it back into the economy, then how about we put the extra money to some good use. Instead of invading countries, we help the poor around the world. Just a silly thought I suppose.
most of the deductions are there to make it an income tax instead of something else. now, some of them go to far, such as accelerated depreciation. but that doesn't mean the deductions get away from defining income. in fact, much of the complexity of the income tax is because defining income for all 150 million income earners in this country is so complex.
So the deductions for electric cars, mortgage interest, children, medical expenses, charitable contributions, and all the deductions used to socially engineer society are there to make the income tax more about income? 😕 Instead of using the tax code as an attempt to socially engineer society it should be established as a straight progressive tax such that the average tax payer could file their taxes with a postcard.
The tax code is absolutely rediculous, its become so complex that not even most accountants know what it says. The individual income tax code should be reduced to less than 10 pages (by eliminating all deductions) and the corporate and business taxes should be eliminated.
What you are suggesting is a violation of WTO guidelines and it is protectionism. The best thing we could do to protect american jobs without violating WTO rules would be to establish privacy laws that prohibited the transimission of any citizens personal information outside the US. This would kill a lot of offshoring and it would protect people from identity theft and would protect our banks from fraud. The europeans have done something along these lines with their strict privacy laws. It's a win-win for the economy and privacy.
Engineer
Elite Member
Thanks. I also agree that information should stay here and confidential WITHIN our borders. Considering that the major credit reporting agencies are looking at moving to India speaks volumes of the above statement! :|
We need to turn NAFTA (and maybe other agreements) into the North American Fair Trade agreement and we really need certain Asian countries to break away from being pegged to the US dollar (not that it would help our exporting as many of those countries *cough*China*cough* almost refuse to buy US goods/services)
you point out some of the most glaring examples of social engineering, but i guarantee most of the regulations and code pages are about figuring what is income. a tax so simple as could be filled out with a postcard would be a payroll tax, not an income tax. calculating exactly what is income requires a lot of paperwork, a lot of regulations, and a lot of deductions.
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