Poll: Americans strongly oppose some deficit proposals

[Craig234]

Our leaders don't pay their fair share. When caught, they've always got an excuse. How many are not being caught?

Our dear leader claimed a slew of deduction reducing his tax bill by about $100K and yet he tells us he's not being taxed enough. He's lying.

He says he wants the wealth spread around. Why isn't he contributing more? Spreading his own wealth around? He says he doesn't want or need the tax cut but he reduces his tax bill by $100K? Why doesn't he willingly pay taxes at the rates he wants to impose on his rich brethren?

So much for leading by example. He talks out of both sides of his mouth. He's let us know that he's better than the rest of us. That the rules don't truly apply to him, but we should ignore all that and do as he says, not as he does.

You're right. His proposal to raise taxes on all the wealthy people but to exempt himself so he doesn't have to pay it is hypocritical and wrong.

Oh, wait, HE has to pay the increase he advocates, but you are posting the IDIOCY that any call for increasing taxes, EVEN ONE THE PERSON HAS TO PAY, is wrong and the only way to raise taxes is is for anyone who supports a tax to pay it personally but not require anyone else to. The principle you are arguing for is 100% voluntary taxes.

 

[Jhhnn]

You lefties do the same thing though. Our deficit won't be brought under control by our politicians, period. The ugly truth of the matter is neither party is willing to touch entitlements and both are very likely to expand them at least slightly to appease voters. We simply can not get anywhere close to a balanced budget when mandatory spending consumes all of our revenue. Remove ALL of the Bush tax cuts (not gonna happen anytime soon) and we still have over a trillion dollar deficit. Hit those rich bastards for even more and we might get down to a trillion even, cut the shit out of defense and we are at $900-$800B. IF the economy is doing better you have to factor back in a very large increase in the cost of servicing our debt so that just wiped out all of the savings from the .mil cuts.

It simply is not possible to get there without cuts to entitlements and that just isn't going to happen because the party that did it would lose way to many votes. I hate to break it to you but we can't raise revenue anywhere near closing the gap either regardless of who we tax. Math can be a cruel bitch at times but is always right at the end of the day.

I haven't argued that spending containment isn't a good idea, at all. I will argue that revenues need to be raised along with that. The notion expressed earlier that spending must be contained before taxes can be raised is merely an attempt to find no solution at all, but rather to preserve the entitlements of the wealthy- the entitlement to pay the lowest taxes in the first world on the greatest incomes of all, and to increase their grip on govt policy with ever increasing debt service requirements. They own the debt, after all, other than the portion held by the SS trust, which is the first place they're currently seeking to welch.

 

[Craig234]

You lefties do the same thing though. Our deficit won't be brought under control by our politicians, period. The ugly truth of the matter is neither party is willing to touch entitlements and both are very likely to expand them at least slightly to appease voters. We simply can not get anywhere close to a balanced budget when mandatory spending consumes all of our revenue. Remove ALL of the Bush tax cuts (not gonna happen anytime soon) and we still have over a trillion dollar deficit. Hit those rich bastards for even more and we might get down to a trillion even, cut the shit out of defense and we are at $900-$800B. IF the economy is doing better you have to factor back in a very large increase in the cost of servicing our debt so that just wiped out all of the savings from the .mil cuts.

It simply is not possible to get there without cuts to entitlements and that just isn't going to happen because the party that did it would lose way to many votes. I hate to break it to you but we can't raise revenue anywhere near closing the gap either regardless of who we tax. Math can be a cruel bitch at times but is always right at the end of the day.

We *don't need* to reduce entitlements for the most part. We can balance the budget and keep them.

You would probably have made the same wrong claims in 1993, that there was NO WAY a 'liberal democrat socialist' new president could REDUCE the deficit from the previous 12 years of 'conservative right-wing small-government fiscal responsibility' presidents, but only to greatly INCREASE them as a 'tax and spend lefty', and yet, he not only cut the deficits from the Republicans but ended them - and the Republican predictions of economic doom for a tax increase on the rich were proven wrong.

Reform for Medicare to cut costs, single payer health care eliminating the 30%+ added cost from the hundreds of private for-profit insurers, Defense cuts, tax increases on the rich to what they paid under Reagan at least, ending the Bush tax borrowing, enforcing the tax collection against hundreds of billions of tax cheats, eliminating a lot of corporate subsidies and exemptions, MODEST social security reform (one option, just remove the cap and it's paid for for a century) - add it up.

 

[xj0hnx]

We *don't need* to reduce entitlements for the most part. We can balance the budget and keep them.

Yes, we do, and no, we can't.

 

[xj0hnx]

You're right. His proposal to raise taxes on all the wealthy people but to exempt himself so he doesn't have to pay it is hypocritical and wrong.

Oh, wait, HE has to pay the increase he advocates, but you are posting the IDIOCY that any call for increasing taxes, EVEN ONE THE PERSON HAS TO PAY, is wrong and the only way to raise taxes is is for anyone who supports a tax to pay it personally but not require anyone else to. The principle you are arguing for is 100% voluntary taxes.

Funny how you completely danced around Boomerangs entire post.

 

[xj0hnx]

Eat The Rich

Even better in print ...

Feed Your Family on $10 Billion a Day

Seems like these days I hear a lot of whiney whiners whining about "out of control government spending" and "insane deficits" and such, trying to make hay out of a bunch of pointy-head boring finance hooey. Sure, $3.7 trillion of spending sounds like a big number. "Oh, boo-hoo, how are we going to get $3.7 trillion dollars? We're broke, boo-hoo-hoo," whine the whiners. What these skinflint crybabies fail to realize is that $3.7 trillion is for an entire year - which translates into only a measly $10 billion per day!

Mister, I call that a bargain. Especially since it pays for all of us - you and me, the whole American family. Like all families, we Americas have to pay for things - health, food, safety, uncle Dave America with his drinking problem. And when little Billy America wants that new quad runner they promised, do Mom and Dad America deny him? No, they get a second job at Circle K, because they know little Billy might have one of his episodes and burn down the house.

So let's all sit down together as an American family with a calendar and make a yearly budget. First, let's lock in the $3.7 trillion of critical family spending priorities; now let's get to work on collecting the pay-as-we-go $10 billion daily cash flow we need.

12:01 AM, January 1
Let's start the year out right by going after some evil corporations and their obscene profits. And who is more evil than those twin spawns of Lucifer himself, Exxon Mobil and Walmart? Together these two largest American industrial behemoths raked in, between them, $34 billion in 2010 global profits. Let's teach 'em both a lesson and confiscate it for the public good. This will get us through...

9:52 AM January 4
Okay, maybe I underestimated our take. But we shouldn't let Exxon and Walmart distract us from all those other corporate profiteers out there worth shaking down. In fact, why don't we grab every cent of 2010 profit made by the other 498 members of the Fortune 500? That will net us another, let's see, $357 billion! Enough to get us to...

2:00 AM February 9
So we're running out of corporate cash, but look - it's Super Bowl time! As we all know, the game has become a crass disgusting festival of commercialism. So let's take all the TV ad money spent on stupid Super Bowl ads, and apply that to government needs. That would be $250 million, enough to fund us for, let's see... 36 minutes. The half time show, at least. But why stop there? Let's take every cent of ad money spent on all 45 Super Bowls, a cool $5 billion, which would cover us until...

2:00 PM February 9
Speaking of sports, why should the players be immune to our pressing public needs? Lord knows professional athletes make obscene salaries for playing a dumb game. So let's take the combined salaries of all players in the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the NHL. Hey, they've got endorsement deals, they'll hardly miss it. Throw in the total winnings of everybody on the PGA tour and NASCAR, and we get $9.4 billion, enough to get us through until...

1:00 PM February 10
Okay, it's time to stop messing around. Athletes aren't the only ones greedily raking it in. What about America's rich - those fancy pants fat cats living the high life in the above-$250,000 income bracket? According to IRS statistics, these 1.93% of US households are hogging 25% of US income. And why do they need it? For crying out loud, they probably stole it anyway. I say let's take 100% of every penny they make above $250,000. They can use the rest to pay their state and local taxes. Now we're talking big bucks, brother. How much? Let's see...


A: Number of US households: 116,000,000
B: Average US household income: $68,000 (median = $52,000)
C: Total US household income (A * B): $7.89 trillion
D: Percent of households above $250k income: 1.93%
E: Number of households above $250k income (A*D): 2,238,800
F: Percent of national income earned by households making $250k or more = 25%
G: Total income of households making $250k or more (C*F): $1.97 trillion
H: Total income of households in excess of $250k (G - E*$250,000) = $1.412 trillion


Alright! Take that, fat cats! Our $1.412 trillion windfall has us covered for the next 141 days, or until...

6:00 PM July 2
Well, I guess maybe there are a few items we can cut from the budget. Those quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example. Why don't we end all funding for those wars, and bring our troops home to march in the Fourth of July parade? That would save us $105 billion Afghanistan and $159 billion in Iraq, a total of $264 billion - enough savings to cover us until...

4:00 AM July 29
Summer blockbuster season! And of course the biggest blockbuster of all time was Star Wars. To punish George Lucas for those stupid sequels, let's confiscate every penny of revenue generated by the Star Wars franchise since 1977 - movies, TV rights, books, toys, action figures, everything - which nets us $25 billion. Enough to keep the lights on until...

4:00 PM August 1
Well, there's plenty more money in Hollywood to go after. So, for the national good, let's evict everyone in Beverly Hills and sell their homes at current market value. 15,000 homes at $2 million per gets us another $30 billion, paying the bills through...

4:00 PM August 4
The kids will be going back to school soon, so we're gonna have to bring out the big guns and really go after those moneybag plutocrats like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Between 'em, those two bastards have amassed a combined fortune of $100 billion. What kind of jerk needs that kind of money? The worst thing is they're shielding it from the public treasury using the oldest trick in the billionaire playbook - by continuing to live. Once they kick the bucket, and after we close the estate tax loopholes, the American public will get the 50% of their ill-gotten loot we so richly deserve. So let's say we arrange a couple of unfortunate "accidents" for Mssrs. Gates and Buffett. Now we've got another $50 billion for the US coffers, enough to get us to...

4:00 PM August 9
Aw, screw it. There are plenty more American billionaires to go after - 398 more to be precise, according to the latest Forbes 400, with a combined total net worth of $1.29 trillion. 398 more "accidents," 398 more estates taxed at 50%, and we've got another $650 billion to tide us through...

4:00 PM October 13
Crap. Okay, let's just kill all the billionaires and take all their money. Add in another 100 or so of the almost-billionaires, and that buys us an additional 73 days until...

4:00 PM December 25
Merry Christmas! Just one more week to go. In the spirit of the season, let's give the surviving conservative wingnuts a few of the budget cuts they've been bitching for, like getting rid of foreign aid. This saves $50 billion - getting us to...

4:00 PM December 30
Only 32 hours to go! To cover the remaining $12.5 billion vital federal program tab, let's pass the cash bucket and demand every surviving American man, woman and child to kick in another another $40 bucks. I'm pretty sure they will, after all those previous "accidents."

12:00 AM January 1
Happy New Year!

See? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Time to do it all again, except this time we'll need to come up with $11 billion per day. I'm sure we'll figure it out somehow.
Do you know where we can get some more plutocrats?

 

[HomerJS]

Republicans are against cutting the deficit and job creation. That's why they have blocked ending subsidies for oil companies (5B/yr) and blocked ending tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas.

 

[HomerJS]

Our leaders don't pay their fair share. When caught, they've always got an excuse. How many are not being caught?

Our dear leader claimed a slew of deduction reducing his tax bill by about $100K and yet he tells us he's not being taxed enough. He's lying.

He says he wants the wealth spread around. Why isn't he contributing more? Spreading his own wealth around? He says he doesn't want or need the tax cut but he reduces his tax bill by $100K? Why doesn't he willingly pay taxes at the rates he wants to impose on his rich brethren?

So much for leading by example. He talks out of both sides of his mouth. He's let us know that he's better than the rest of us. That the rules don't truly apply to him, but we should ignore all that and do as he says, not as he does.

That's a no win because if he didn't contibute to charity you'd call him a cheap ass.

 

[xj0hnx]

Some republicans are against cutting the deficit and job creation. That's why they have blocked ending subsidies for oil companies (5B/yr) and blocked ending tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas.

ftfy

 

[Slew Foot]

Most Americans are too stupid to do basic math. Thats why they took out all those sub prime loans in the first place.

 

[Howard]

Most voters are too stupid to responsibly vote and shouldn't.

Agree. It's pretty annoying how much pressure there is to vote, when half the people voting don't know shit about the party they're voting for except for what was on the last radio snippet.

 

[Darwin333]

We *don't need* to reduce entitlements for the most part. We can balance the budget and keep them.

We must reduce entitlement spending, there is simply no other way.

You would probably have made the same wrong claims in 1993, that there was NO WAY a 'liberal democrat socialist' new president could REDUCE the deficit from the previous 12 years of 'conservative right-wing small-government fiscal responsibility' presidents, but only to greatly INCREASE them as a 'tax and spend lefty', and yet, he not only cut the deficits from the Republicans but ended them - and the Republican predictions of economic doom for a tax increase on the rich were proven wrong.

No I wouldn't have. My argument has absolutely nothing to do with party nor rich or poor. My argument is simply based on math and reality. Period.

Reform for Medicare to cut costs, single payer health care eliminating the 30%+ added cost from the hundreds of private for-profit insurers,

See, even you are talking about cutting costs in entitlements. First of all, single payer just isn't politically feasible so we can discuss it but it is rather futile to do so. Medicare, as I understand, costs us to insure a relatively small part of our society what other countries that have .gov single payer to insure their entire population. That means they should be able to pay for the entire nations healthcare with what they already spend if we use what other nations pay per capita as a guide. I am not really sure what the answer is or why it costs us so much even though they are the most expensive to cover but if they could cover us all for the same amount of money we already spend I doubt you would have many people against it.

Defense cuts,

How much? 1/3? 1/2?

tax increases on the rich to what they paid under Reagan at least, ending the Bush tax borrowing,

So you are saying ending all Bush tax cuts and then increasing taxes on the rich some more? Its gotta be done I am just making sure I understand you correctly.

enforcing the tax collection against hundreds of billions of tax cheats,

Hundreds of billions a year? Got any backup on that because that is an awful lot of money and the IRS has been ramping up enforcement lately. From what I have read, which is admittedly little on the subject, the vast majority of tax cheats are relatively small potatoes but I could be wrong. Rich folk are generally scared of the IRS and try not to fuck with them too much.

eliminating a lot of corporate subsidies and exemptions

Which ones? All of them?

MODEST social security reform (one option, just remove the cap and it's paid for for a century)

20% of GDP is the historical max (with a few very short blips above, never sustained) that the Feds can extract from the economy regardless of what the tax rates where and on who. Lets pretend that we can magically jump taxes up that high (and this includes all of them on the fed level), it would put revenue at 2.8ishB (approx +$750B) we would currently have a $750B budget deficit and every swinging dick in the country would be paying substantially more taxes. The rich do not have $750B a year extra so again, we are talking about a substantial increase on everyone.

Lets also assume that the economy is thriving so people can afford to pay the higher taxes and don't bitch much about it. That means the cost of servicing our existing debt will shoot the moon because no one is going to loan the .gov money for free, or even at a loss, as they currently are in a thriving economy. So now you need a few hundred more billion just to service existing debt.

Bottom line, sustaining taxes at their historic highs still leaves roughly a trillion (give or take a hundred billion or so) to cut in the best case scenario.

- add it up.

I have and it doesn't get us close to a balanced budget using real math. Perhaps you have some specific numbers on medicare reform/cuts and the like but I still don't see how it will add. I have yet to see a single proposal that gets us anywhere close either and that includes the bullshit the Republicans have been putting out.

 

[Macamus Prime]

This is interesting if true. Most people want the wealthy to pay for it.

In o'pigs eye!

Most people DO want the wealthy to pay for it - but, that is not going to happen. The wealthy have power and will stop this. If they fail, they would easily move to Belize in order to avoid paying more of anything.

Profits have to be made mother fucker! Just pass the tax onto the middle class and poor,... oh, I fired them all when I moved my money making operations to Asia, and now they no longer have ANY money?!

Well, they were too expensive! I can't afford $7.25 an hour!! I mean, I can't make a shit load of money by paying someone $7.25 an hour!!

That's why I found out how to make my crap at $1 a day!! I won't lower the prices or pay more taxes for the additional money I am making - that's communism!!

 

[Svnla]

We as a nation are getting fatter and fatter, nope, obese and weak yet we want to eat all the junkie and fat foods we want, never exercise, and want to look like supermodels. Ain't gonna to happen without the hard work (spending cuts and raising taxes/reduce loopholes).

We will see if our nation will become Greece/Spain/Ireland or not.

 

[Anarchist420]

I don't get why they can't limit SS payments to a maximum of 1.5k/mo/person and why they can't adjust cost living increases to CPI rather than wages. That alone indicates that Obama stands only for the rich and powerful. What's the point of giving some millionaire $2.5k/mo? What's the point of giving seniors more money than they could ever reasonably want?

I also don't see what's wrong with cutting the military budget to $75B.

Tax increases will NOT cover out of control spending and anyone who thinks they could is a fucking idiot.

 

[piasabird]

Maybe if I was getting a handout, I would want to keep getting it also. Put your money where your mouth is. When welfare people get more money than people who are working for a living, then we need to pay them less to encourage them to go get a job.

 

[Darwin333]

Maybe if I was getting a handout, I would want to keep getting it also. Put your money where your mouth is. When welfare people get more money than people who are working for a living, then we need to pay them less to encourage them to go get a job.

Welfare is a gnat on the deficit elephants ass.

Raise revenue
spending cuts in the "big 3" (social security/medicare/medicaid)
Defense cuts


The rest is rather trivial and completely symbolic if the above aren't done. Of course they won't do it because they will get voted out which is why I am of the opinion that we be fucked. Americans just say they want a balanced budget, anyone that actually tried would be voted out faster than shit through a goose.

It would be nice if we could restructure our debt right now too but we wouldn't if we could (and I am not sure that we can).

 

[piasabird]

The entire world buys its large purchases with US $$$$. The US could just shut down its banks for a while and the entire world would collapse.

 

[hal2kilo]

Yeah, it should be changed to cover those under 30, now.

no, it isn't

Yeap, let's go for the Medicare E plan!

 

[hal2kilo]

Sounds like it's describing the typical ancient teabagger on social security and medicare that screams about reducing the deficit at the same time. Talk about your low information voters.

 

[woolfe9999]

See, even you are talking about cutting costs in entitlements. First of all, single payer just isn't politically feasible so we can discuss it but it is rather futile to do so. Medicare, as I understand, costs us to insure a relatively small part of our society what other countries that have .gov single payer to insure their entire population. That means they should be able to pay for the entire nations healthcare with what they already spend if we use what other nations pay per capita as a guide. I am not really sure what the answer is or why it costs us so much even though they are the most expensive to cover but if they could cover us all for the same amount of money we already spend I doubt you would have many people against it.

I think you're pretty sober and largely correct in your observations about the deficit. I will explain the theory of savings in single payor since you raise the issue here.

You can't take the current cost of Medicare and extend that on a population wide basis and get an accurate picture. Some democrats have clouded the issue by referring to single payor as "Medicare for all." The problem is that currently Medicare exists as part of a multi-payor system, wherein any of a number of private insurers or government agencies might be paying the medical providor for services to the patient. In that system, it is necessary to generate itemized bills to track everything down to the last aspirin dispensed to the patient. That is enormous bureaucracy. The typical hospital employs 50-100 people in its billing department. Then the payor - be it a private company or government agency - must employ a lot of people to go over and line item every single bill sent by the medical provider. Again enormous bureaucracy. IIRC most estimates put the administrative cost of billing at or a little over 20% of our healthcare costs.

Now in a single payor system, by definition there is only one payor. Hence there is no need to generate any bills. The medical providers are compensated based on their cost accountings, which have to be done anyway. In other words, the payor simply pays all of the provider's expenses and salaries. This should eliminate about 15-20% of our healthcare costs without doing anything to compromize quality. If you want more savings than that, then doctor salaries have to be lowered, etc. and then quality can be affected.

You're right that single payor is a no-go in our current political climate anyway, so this discussion is more or less in the abstract.

- wolf

 

[Mursilis]

I don't get why they can't limit SS payments to a maximum of 1.5k/mo/person and why they can't adjust cost living increases to CPI rather than wages. That alone indicates that Obama stands only for the rich and powerful. What's the point of giving some millionaire $2.5k/mo? What's the point of giving seniors more money than they could ever reasonably want?

I'm no fan of SS, but I'm going to be pissed if my SS benefits are reduced/cut just because I'm living frugally now and I expect to have a nice nest egg when I retire. Why punish savers (again)?

Tax increases will NOT cover out of control spending and anyone who thinks they could is a fucking idiot.

No shortage of those here. Plenty of people thing that's true.

 

[Mursilis]

Welfare is a gnat on the deficit elephants ass.

Raise revenue
spending cuts in the "big 3" (social security/medicare/medicaid)
Defense cuts


The rest is rather trivial and completely symbolic if the above aren't done. Of course they won't do it because they will get voted out which is why I am of the opinion that we be fucked. Americans just say they want a balanced budget, anyone that actually tried would be voted out faster than shit through a goose.

You would be correct, sir.

 

[Icepick]

Not surprising, people want to have their cake and eat it too.
Unfortunately it doesn't matter what people want if its impossible, the wealthy can not "pay for it", because they don't have that much wealth to pay for it all.

Well, it's a good place to start. I'd rather see tax increases on the wealthy than on the poor.

 

[xj0hnx]

Well, it's a good place to start. I'd rather see tax increases on the wealthy than on the poor.

That's just your progressive jealousy poking through.