The financial mess we're in. . next steps

[Lithium381]

I’ve been thinking recently about ways to get out of the mess we’re in. I realize that a very large portion of our problem is politics. Anything introduced by a “D” will be automatically undermined by an “R” congressman, and vice versa. That type of thinking has to stop. Part of the reason is that the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ have drastically different ideas on how to solve the problem, and in reality a different perspective on what the problem actually is. Keep in mind that I’ll mainly be talking about issues that the federal level unless otherwise specified.

The ‘right’ is of the mindset that the government is too bloated and want to reduce taxes for everyone, but especially the top dogs, be they individuals or pseudo-individuals i.e. corporations. They believe we have a spending problem. The ‘left’ is of the mindset that the government should do for the people what they aren’t doing for themselves. The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor, the gap is too large. They believe that the basis of our problem is a revenue issue.
I see it as both. Give the states their own sovereignty back and reduce the federal government. Get rid of the 15T in debt if only to reduce the interest payments.

Balance the budget every 4 years. Each president and congress must ‘clean the slate’ every four years for the next term. If there is something they’d like to implement that has a long term cost, it must be paid for by the time they leave office. By passing the bill to future administrations and generations of Americans it is a sham. These four years allows the administration to put policies in place for better or worse. I see the need for an “over-rule” somewhere here for things that would naturally take more cycles to complete, with a super-majority vote or the like. This also helps close the spending/revenue gap. As it stands now spending is completely unrelated to income and as seen in recent history, the debt has gone up considerably. This is not fair to future generations.
Tie congressional wages to economy. Reduce congressional wages and entice them to spend less and balance the budget. Current wages are $174,000 for the rank-and-file members of congress. Reduce this to maybe 3x the national poverty level. They may then earn a “bonus” for any surplus that comes out of the annual budget. If there is a 2% surplus they receive a 2% bonus. Right now I see that there is very little accountability and the same politicians get re-elected and paid for more cycles with no results and some are simply not doing their jobs. We have not passed a budget in years, for example.

Stop base-line budgeting. Stop basing future budget allocations on previous expenditures. If a department doesn’t spend all of the money from one year, they should not be penalized the following year. Budget based on need.

Increase Federal income tax for individuals to a two-tiered 10% and 15%. This helps in two ways. Number 1 is that we have 47% of the country NOT paying federal income tax, and in fact some are receiving credits. Representation without taxation. As a famous person once said, once the populace finds out it can vote itself more money the country is doomed. For individuals, remove ALL deductions, loopholes, etc and apply a flat 10% to all income under $70,000. All Americans should be contributing at the federal level. We all share in the same American dream and are given protection by the same national government and we should all pay a FAIR SHARE. Any income above $70,000 should be taxed at 15%. This is roughly double the national poverty level. Another 20% tier could be added at $1,000,000 as well. Number two this would significantly reduce the time both individuals and the IRS spent on processing individuals’ returns. Made 55,000 last year? Your payment to the IRS is 5,500. 170,000? Write a check for 21,000. With fewer deductions, total taxable income would be much higher, netting more revenue.

By looking at the table selections below, it’s easy to see that almost half of our fellow citizens are NOT contributing monetarily to our society in a fair way. Also this would increase revenue and raise rates for all but the top 10% at the federal level. (without the 20% tier)

turns out the tables aren't printing correctly. They can be found here:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html#table6 and
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html#table8

Institute federal sales tax. 1% nation-wide for any item over $20. Most things over $20 are luxury items. A gallon of milk for example is $3.49 here; socks are $6 for six pair. Designer jeans at $200? 1% tax. The majority of basic things that the impoverished need will cost less than $20. This tax would be applied to purchases in ALL states as well as interstate-commerce; this includes the Internet. This is a completely new source of revenue and is tied to consumption.

Lower corporate tax. Businesses need to be competitive in order to be successful. By having a high corporate tax rate we are handicapping our economy, both domestically and abroad. Allow companies to repatriate money earned in foreign countries at a VERY low rate. It’s better to have the money circulating here rather than stuck in another country even if we don’t derive a quick one time income from it. This is another area where simplification would help in terms of the tax code but simply lowering the rates would help. Lower from a 35% to a 20% rate would give the companies room to breathe and help stimulate the economy.

Capitol gains should be taxed as income at the federal level. States should be encouraged to place a higher rate on all types of income, including capitol gains. The more local to the problem the money is collected and spent, the more efficient and effective it can be. States that wish to offer programs can tax accordingly.

Change what welfare offers and covers: Stop rewarding people for having children that they cannot afford. At the state level each person gets a max of (1) child-credit. This will help to reduce expenses at the state level and give the child a better chance at success. An impoverished family with only one child has a much greater chance of success than a family with four children. This will have to include educating the poor on abstinence or proper use of contraceptive methods. People need to be responsible for their own actions and choices. After even one generation of reducing the number of children on welfare the savings could be spent on offering scholarships.

Welfare needs to be designed to help those who WANT to achieve a greater life. Currently a single mother on welfare likely cannot afford daycare. How can we expect that she become a functional member of society if she must stay with her child? It hampers her ability to either go to school for more education or find a job. This leads to perpetual poverty for both her and her family. Impoverished families may not be able to afford a car in order to get to and from work reliably. I suggest that they be given access to our public transit system for free.

Welfare in its current state is nothing more than enslaving the poor through dependence and does nothing to fix the root of the problem. Those who commit crime or abuse the system or make no attempt to better themselves should be cut off. We cannot afford to throw money down the hole.
This includes illegal immigrants. There should be NO help for those who knowingly break our laws. Strict checks should be performed to ensure that anchor babies are not being used to funnel funds to the parents. This may sound uncompassionate but until we fix our own problems, we cannot afford to feed and house anyone who comes here. There are waiting lists for people who are following the rules and paying all the fees to be processed that should be here. No more amnesty until we get things under control. First step to doing this is to secure the southern border.
Since we need to reduce spending, the military/defense fund would be a great place to start. We can’t currently afford to be the world police. Cut 25% over 4 years. Reduce the size of our standing army and reassign them domestically to boarder patrol. It’s a simple matter to seal the border, maintains jobs for our military personnel and provides a significant function to protect us.

Gut the “war on drugs”. It costs us a significant sum to keep these people in prison. Only jail people with hard drugs and MJ dealers with large quantities. Simply fine people who are caught with MJ. Serves as a source of revenue and keeps our prison system from overflowing.

Strict restrictions on any public health-care. No drug-use allowed. No smoking. No obese people. It’s too much of a risk to insure these people who choose not to care for themselves. Once again, people must take responsibility for their actions. No more babysitting.

Negotiations for public employees need much more oversight. I think this applies more at the state/city level but I’m sure there are agencies and departments in the Federal government that would benefit from this as well. Those doing negotiations with the unions for benefits and other contract items may be influenced by personal incentives.
Union: We don’t want to pay anything for our healthcare.
Government employee: But that’s going to cost the taxpayers millions of dollars!
Union: You’ll be happy to know we’ve got $100,000 with your name on it.
Government employee: Okay!
While this is very overly simplistic and is much more direct than what really happens, it only serves to illustrate a point. Unions asking for more from the government when our economy is in turmoil are MUCH more likely to receive increased benefits than the private sector. This is because those negotiating in the private sector are accountable and MUST be aware of the bottom line. They realize things have a real cost. I’m pro-union but absolutely abhor the negotiation process when my taxes are used for such things. If the government can’t afford it, it should not be promised. Long-term pension plans and such should be eliminated or be fully funded before being promised.

The tax code is used to influence behavior in society. We provide discounts for people who are married or who have children or who decide to install solar panels. Many of these incentives are outdated or are unneeded. Marriage no longer provides for the familial stability that it once did; children are used by parents to get more discounts. Get rid of them.

States should be encouraged to increase taxes in a progressive system. Heavy at the top and zero at the bottom. Once again, make it simple. Limit deductions for children to one per person. The states can achieve more revenue to provide for more local “entitlement” programs. This is more effective and reduces the overall burden on the country as a whole to provide these services. The needs of each state will be different

In the end we tax everyone (including the poor) to create more revenue for the fed and a higher (40%) at the state level like the ‘left’ seems to want us to do, and we cut defense spending by 25% or more to reduce the spending, like the ‘right’ seems to want us to do.

 

[momeNt]

Please go through this and add some lines to separate paragraphs, also consider screenshots of the tables or just leave the links. It's making my eyes bleed and it may deter some nice discussion from starting on this topic.

 

[werepossum]

Lot of good things in there. Some thoughts . . .

Senators Marco Rubio (R) and (IIRC) Ben Nelson introduced a compromise bill that included the parts of stimulus and debt reduction to which both parties nominally agree. It went nowhere in either the House or the Senate. I don't know how we get around that.

I don't think we can limit welfare payments to one child, but we can certainly make reducing payments to disincentivize single mothers from having babies for checks. As far as non-welfare people, we already have a problem having too low a birth rate to maintain our Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid programs. I don't think we want to push people further down that path and discourage more than one child.

I'd have to see the chart with income as a portion of total to judge it. To be fair, it should include ALL income and also all federal taxes. (Hard to consider payroll taxes as separate individual retirement programs when government has already looted that basket.)

 

[Anarchist420]

I agree with some points the OP made, but his plan is too focused on fairness (like making the poor pay more) rather than actually reducing government revenues.

The biggest problem, though, is the fiat monetary system. It creates fake productivity and a paper money system is of no value to most people. The credit supply needs to contract and debt liquidated. I might get shot because of the shit that could happen, but then again I might not and I wouldn't have to worry ever again if I lived through it.

If the government didn't support monetary socialism, then it couldn't borrow anywhere near as much as it does. In addition to that, everyone would have to do something that would benefit society if they hoped to have any money because they wouldn't be able to profit from charging interest on credit. Most people would start producing and saving.

 

[jstern01]

Lower corporate tax. Businesses need to be competitive in order to be successful. By having a high corporate tax rate we are handicapping our economy, both domestically and abroad. Allow companies to repatriate money earned in foreign countries at a VERY low rate. It’s better to have the money circulating here rather than stuck in another country even if we don’t derive a quick one time income from it. This is another area where simplification would help in terms of the tax code but simply lowering the rates would help. Lower from a 35% to a 20% rate would give the companies room to breathe and help stimulate the economy.

While a grandiose idea, we would need to remove all forms of government largesse that these corporations receive. Why would companies like GE, FedEx and Apple want to change anything when they pay virtually no taxes or rates like 9%. To move corporations to 20% requires these companies to be taxed as a single entity regardless of where the profits are generated. No special credits for overseas earnings and such. No tax credits for equipment purchases. Real simple, like your argument for individual taxes. How much did your corporation earn, (not net). Send us 20%.

 

[CLite]

In NJ if you tally it up someone earning $40k they probably fork over at least 20% in tax (7% sales, 3.5% state bracket, 7.65% payroll tax, unemployment withholdings, NJ considers 18% of your rent to be property tax, say 30% of your earnings is in rent for low-eaners means 5% (0.18*0.30) effective tax). *This of course is ignoring federal income tax for now*

If you make those low-earners pay a federal sales tax and 10% income tax on-top of the property tax, state sales tax, state income tax, and federal payroll taxes they will simply not be able to support their families.

These people who don't pay federal taxes aren't living the life of luxury and most of their money goes to substance based purchases and/or taxes. I just don't see margin in their budget to fork over 10% nor do I see how that will magically cure the economy because these folks probably have the biggest multipliers on any money they spend.

 

[dank69]

Keep pushing failed Republican policies. Rs don't work with Ds because they don't want to admit they were wrong all along. Ds don't work with Rs because we are tired of the GOP flushing our great country down the toilet in order to pander to their mouth-breathing constituents.

Keep telling yourself that we are trillions in debt because we help feed the poor and not because corporations are systematically siphoning money out of our economy.

 

[Matt1970]

You lost all the progressives at "Balance the budget every 4 years"

It's the new policy that $15 Trillion isn't that much and is actually good for us.

 

[yllus]

Looks pretty good - with a few exceptions. I think that the balance budget every 4 years idea is a bad one - there are legitimate reasons to start projects that can take a decade or two to complete and won't pay for themselves for perhaps even longer than that. I suppose though that the creation of infrastructure banks could get around this for the majority of what a country would need to do.

I think your notions of welfare and why people get welfare are a bit naive. There are at least ten million non-criminal Americans who are beyond any help when it comes to being a productive member of society. The eugenics route of trying to limit their ability to reproduce is admittedly sort of tempting but I'm not sure you'd ever seen acceptance of that from a political standpoint.

On the positives of your post: I think we agree that a major thing that needs to change in Western democracies is the level of intricacy of our tax and legal codes. It's practically makework for lawyers and accountants at this point. Remove the loopholes and special cases completely, even if it means bumping up the overall tax brackets - the transparency inherent to simplicity is what is needed right now.

Ditto for long, expensive legal trials, though to be honest I'm probably being the one who's naive on this topic - criminal and civil law is complex because there needs to be a case and precedent for every permutation of a problem out there. Still, it'd be wonderful to take the money out of a defence so normal people can get the same kind of justice O.J. could afford.

 

[drebo]

The requirement to not have kids as a condition of receiving welfare/public assistance is not eugenics. It's a good idea and it's what this country needs.

Eugenics would be "we're going to permanently castrate you because we don't like what you bring to society."

A contract that states that your government assistance is contingent on you not making your situation worse (by quitting your job or having another kid you can't afford) is entirely different, and is absolutely necessary if we want to save our country financially.

 

[Svnla]

Like I said before, we need to do both, raise revenues (taxes) and reduce spending or no way we are going to reduce the huge debt/deficit we are in now.

 

[werepossum]

Keep pushing failed Republican policies. Rs don't work with Ds because they don't want to admit they were wrong all along. Ds don't work with Rs because we are tired of the GOP flushing our great country down the toilet in order to pander to their mouth-breathing constituents.

Keep telling yourself that we are trillions in debt because we help feed the poor and not because corporations are systematically siphoning money out of our economy.

Translation: Ideology beats thinking because it doesn't hurt my head.

You lost all the progressives at "Balance the budget every 4 years"

It's the new policy that $15 Trillion isn't that much and is actually good for us.

True, although much as I'd like to do it, I can't imagine how we're going to balance the budget either. Government is so big, and such a big part of our economy - I think more than half of all households now get some kind of government check - that anything likely to raise that much revenue or cut that much spending is likely to send us reeling into a depression. (And not that good Irish fiddle kind of reeling either.)

Looks pretty good - with a few exceptions. I think that the balance budget every 4 years idea is a bad one - there are legitimate reasons to start projects that can take a decade or two to complete and won't pay for themselves for perhaps even longer than that. I suppose though that the creation of infrastructure banks could get around this for the majority of what a country would need to do.

I think your notions of welfare and why people get welfare are a bit naive. There are at least ten million non-criminal Americans who are beyond any help when it comes to being a productive member of society. The eugenics route of trying to limit their ability to reproduce is admittedly sort of tempting but I'm not sure you'd ever seen acceptance of that from a political standpoint.

On the positives of your post: I think we agree that a major thing that needs to change in Western democracies is the level of intricacy of our tax and legal codes. It's practically makework for lawyers and accountants at this point. Remove the loopholes and special cases completely, even if it means bumping up the overall tax brackets - the transparency inherent to simplicity is what is needed right now.

Ditto for long, expensive legal trials, though to be honest I'm probably being the one who's naive on this topic - criminal and civil law is complex because there needs to be a case and precedent for every permutation of a problem out there. Still, it'd be wonderful to take the money out of a defence so normal people can get the same kind of justice O.J. could afford.

I'd agree with you if it were the occasional mega-project that promised to advance the nation or vastly increase our national productivity, but we're the college student buying pizza and Taco bell on plastic writ on a superpower scale.

 

[Lithium381]

Like I said before, we need to do both, raise revenues (taxes) and reduce spending or no way we are going to reduce the huge debt/deficit we are in now.

Yep, make everyone pay federal income tax, plus a national 1% sales tax would do the first, and we also need to cut the military and bring spending down federally and up at the state level(also raising taxes at the state level).

as for eugenics I didn't mention that anywhere although i think it would help us. I'm talking about simply limiting the benefit one derives from the government when having children.

I think your notions of welfare and why people get welfare are a bit naive. There are at least ten million non-criminal Americans who are beyond any help when it comes to being a productive member of society. The eugenics route of trying to limit their ability to reproduce is admittedly sort of tempting but I'm not sure you'd ever seen acceptance of that from a political standpoint.

How did it get this way? Maybe I am naive, but if there is no hope of someone becoming a productive member of our society, they are and always will be an unproductive member, meaning a drain. I used to be on welfare as a child, so I have firsthand knowledge of at least part of the system. It helped my family get out of the dumps, and now I pay lots of taxes and am overall a net positive to the economy. . .


as for balancing the budget, it'd be nice to even HAVE a budget once every four years, woudln't you think?? I'm just thinking about one administration making promises to do things and then force future generations/administrations to cope with their promises. I agree somethings may take longer and there should be a provision for that, but a balanced budget NEEDS to happen if we're not going to double our debt in the next term . . .

 

[werepossum]

Yep, make everyone pay federal income tax, plus a national 1% sales tax would do the first, and we also need to cut the military and bring spending down federally and up at the state level(also raising taxes at the state level).

as for eugenics I didn't mention that anywhere although i think it would help us. I'm talking about simply limiting the benefit one derives from the government when having children.

How did it get this way? Maybe I am naive, but if there is no hope of someone becoming a productive member of our society, they are and always will be an unproductive member, meaning a drain. I used to be on welfare as a child, so I have firsthand knowledge of at least part of the system. It helped my family get out of the dumps, and now I pay lots of taxes and am overall a net positive to the economy. . .


as for balancing the budget, it'd be nice to even HAVE a budget once every four years, woudln't you think?? I'm just thinking about one administration making promises to do things and then force future generations/administrations to cope with their promises. I agree somethings may take longer and there should be a provision for that, but a balanced budget NEEDS to happen if we're not going to double our debt in the next term . . .

That's certainly a big part of our problems, we do a budget every year (well, until Reid, now we just spend) but we studiously ignore the failed projections from the last few budgets. We desperately need to cut our spending, raise our revenue, and balance our budget, but with the federal government borrowing about 40% of what it spends, I can't see a way to do it.

There are certainly a lot of useless people on welfare or living off of women on welfare, who are often in turn living off of their children. But again, how do you turn these people into productive members of society? We can't just discard them, they are humans and Americans.

 

[drebo]

There are certainly a lot of useless people on welfare or living off of women on welfare, who are often in turn living off of their children. But again, how do you turn these people into productive members of society? We can't just discard them, they are humans and Americans.

We have two options, really. We can require welfare recipients to be members of work programs (picking up trash on the road, building a wall across the southern border, etc.) and we can require welfare recipients to sign a contract which makes their welfare contingent upon them not worsening their situation.

Part of the problem is that the welfare system encourages people to fail. It rewards people for having kids they can't support and rewards them for not working. Hell, you can get more on welfare in California if you're a single parent of one than you can if you work a $9/hr job for 40hrs per week. Adding a second kid just increases it more. It's ridiculous.

The only way to stop the cycle is to prevent people who are on welfare from having more children. A person on welfare with 8 kids...how many of those kids are likely to also end up on welfare?

 

[yllus]

As for eugenics I didn't mention that anywhere although i think it would help us. I'm talking about simply limiting the benefit one derives from the government when having children.

How did it get this way? Maybe I am naive, but if there is no hope of someone becoming a productive member of our society, they are and always will be an unproductive member, meaning a drain. I used to be on welfare as a child, so I have firsthand knowledge of at least part of the system. It helped my family get out of the dumps, and now I pay lots of taxes and am overall a net positive to the economy. . .

as for balancing the budget, it'd be nice to even HAVE a budget once every four years, woudln't you think?? I'm just thinking about one administration making promises to do things and then force future generations/administrations to cope with their promises. I agree somethings may take longer and there should be a provision for that, but a balanced budget NEEDS to happen if we're not going to double our debt in the next term . . .

With a liberal interpretation of eugenics (social engineering to weed out undesirable traits in humanity) that's what would take place - or at least that's what opponents of the plan would claim. On the face of it though there is nothing wrong with what you described.

The process of receiving welfare is pretty brutal on a person's sense of dignity. If that very basic incentive to get off of it isn't enough I really doubt there's much else that can be done. I'd love to see poorly educated welfare recipients and incarcerated criminals be forced to take classes in one thing or another, but that's unrealistic too. No real solution here I can think of.

Balancing the budget - the major case I forgot to mention is projects or grants that won't ever make money in a direct way. Grants in the energy field or medical research mostly go to projects that never pan out, or when they do have indirect benefits that don't flow directly back into government coffers.

Up here in Canada for a long time we had government own a major nuclear reactor engineering company for mostly the wrong reasons, but a side effect was a high concentration of secondary suppliers well versed in nuclear that spun off new research and ideas. Canada is very strong in the nuclear energy field as a result - nothing measurable, but a definite gain. That in my books was (mostly) worth it.

As for actually getting a budget: I think this is better served by another one of your suggestions, metrics for government officials. How about: If you can't pull together to pass a budget in eighteen months, everyone in Congress is fired. (The president can propose but not pass, so unless it's not passing because of a veto this can't really be laid at their feet.) That's probably a bit radical but something along those lines should work.

 

[Jaskalas]

The financial mess we're in. . next steps

Logically, we keep doing what we've been doing. The elite ruling class in DC doesn't care.

In a vacuum the two parties might do things differently, but together they fight and prevent each other from doing anything. Except what the 1% tells both of them to do.

 

[Lithium381]

With a liberal interpretation of eugenics (social engineering to weed out undesirable traits in humanity) that's what would take place - or at least that's what opponents of the plan would claim. On the face of it though there is nothing wrong with what you described.

The process of receiving welfare is pretty brutal on a person's sense of dignity. If that very basic incentive to get off of it isn't enough I really doubt there's much else that can be done. I'd love to see poorly educated welfare recipients and incarcerated criminals be forced to take classes in one thing or another, but that's unrealistic too. No real solution here I can think of.

Its more of a game now to see who can scam the system. . . i agree some are shamed by it, but those are the ones who will try and escape the situation they've found themselves in. The other type will play the system because for them it's "easy" and a path of little resistance.

Balancing the budget - the major case I forgot to mention is projects or grants that won't ever make money in a direct way. Grants in the energy field or medical research mostly go to projects that never pan out, or when they do have indirect benefits that don't flow directly back into government coffers.

Up here in Canada for a long time we had government own a major nuclear reactor engineering company for mostly the wrong reasons, but a side effect was a high concentration of secondary suppliers well versed in nuclear that spun off new research and ideas. Canada is very strong in the nuclear energy field as a result - nothing measurable, but a definite gain. That in my books was (mostly) worth it.

As for actually getting a budget: I think this is better served by another one of your suggestions, metrics for government officials. How about: If you can't pull together to pass a budget in eighteen months, everyone in Congress is fired. (The president can propose but not pass, so unless it's not passing because of a veto this can't really be laid at their feet.) That's probably a bit radical but something along those lines should work.

I like your general idea. But the current metric is simply getting voted back in. most people vote for a candidate based either on a (R)/(D) or simple name recognition. Many people simply don't pay enough attention. I monitor what my reps vote for and send them letters.

Firing them may be a bit extreme, and even a 50% reduction in salary might not be enough. Most of our congressmen/women are fairly well off outside of the almost $200,000 + expenses we pay them a year.


In response to another poster - asking that the poor pay 10% is too much? I realize they don't have as much disposable income but should they also not be responsible to fund our country? I also proposed they pay nothing at the state level and actually receive MORE useful benefits to help them in their endeavors. They need to have "skin in the game". Asking me If i think we should tax another 10% to anyone who plays football would get a YES! because I don't play football so it doesn't adversely affect me, it actually benefits me. Draw the analogy there.

 

[dank69]

Translation: Ideology beats thinking because it doesn't hurt my head.
...

My post doesn't need translation because I said exactly what I meant. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean you need to put your spin on it.

 

[IGBT]

liberal failure will take on a life of it's own. The trajectory and velocity of liberal failure will be unstoppable. The country will break up. Fighting in the streets will occur. Liberal fear/envy/class warfare is just beginning.

 

[LegendKiller]

liberal failure will take on a life of it's own. The trajectory and velocity of liberal failure will be unstoppable. The country will break up. Fighting in the streets will occur. Liberal fear/envy/class warfare is just beginning.

We have oscillated back and forth our entire history. William Jennings Bryan? TRR was far more liberal than even his party liked and he stoked the fire of "class warfare" his entire career.

 

[Craig234]

I’ve been thinking recently about ways to get out of the mess we’re in. I realize that a very large portion of our problem is politics. Anything introduced by a “D” will be automatically undermined by an “R” congressman, and vice versa. That type of thinking has to stop. Part of the reason is that the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ have drastically different ideas on how to solve the problem, and in reality a different perspective on what the problem actually is. Keep in mind that I’ll mainly be talking about issues that the federal level unless otherwise specified.

Understand that the 'left' and 'right' are largely divided by who they represent/serve; and that it's not easy to change the partisanship, that helps win elections.

And you need to understand the difference between 'actual agendas' and what they say to you to get your vote.

What you say below is a lot of the propaganda they say to get your vote.

The ‘right’ is of the mindset that the government is too bloated and want to reduce taxes for everyone, but especially the top dogs, be they individuals or pseudo-individuals i.e. corporations. They believe we have a spending problem.

That's a good example. But it's wrong about what their agenda is.

They tell voters all day 'hate that big government and big spending'. But they not only don't tell you how that's selective and a cover for simply taking from the people to keep more wealth in the hands of the very rich, they're the ones who invented the massive peacetimes deficits starting with Reagan - big spending for THEIR interests.

You are wrong to present that as the agenda of the right.

The ‘left’ is of the mindset that the government should do for the people what they aren’t doing for themselves. The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor, the gap is too large. They believe that the basis of our problem is a revenue issue.

Again that sounds like the version you hear from the Republicans why to vote against Democrats.

Little of it is how Democrats would state their position, other than 'the poor are too poor, the gap is too large', and if you disagree with that you have a moral problem.

I see it as both.

Funny enough, so do I, so do progressives generally. Most Republicans don't - note the 'no tax' pledges most Republicans in the House or the state of California (all?) took.

Give the states their own sovereignty back and reduce the federal government. Get rid of the 15T in debt if only to reduce the interest payments.

Not a good solution, exactly. Be specific. Of course getting rid of a lot of that debt in the long term is a very good idea. Not the short term for economic recovery.

Balance the budget every 4 years. Each president and congress must ‘clean the slate’ every four years for the next term. If there is something they’d like to implement that has a long term cost, it must be paid for by the time they leave office. By passing the bill to future administrations and generations of Americans it is a sham. These four years allows the administration to put policies in place for better or worse. I see the need for an “over-rule” somewhere here for things that would naturally take more cycles to complete, with a super-majority vote or the like. This also helps close the spending/revenue gap. As it stands now spending is completely unrelated to income and as seen in recent history, the debt has gone up considerably. This is not fair to future generations.

The last part is agreed; the plan isn't. It's the 'balanced budget' issue. Democrats support 'pay as you go' if you want to spend, Republicans oppose them. Republicans want a 'balanced budget amendment', Democrats oppose them. (The politics of that are a bit tricky to determine). Republicans found the magic formula - talk the loudest against debt, and spend the most for the political benefit. Killer combo!

It's like the guy who cheats on his wife constantly, but won't shut up about accusing her of cheating. Nice cover.

But just criticing Republicans for that doesn't address your point. In short, we need some mechanism for debt reduction in the longer term - what's wrong with Paygo?

Tie congressional wages to economy. Reduce congressional wages and entice them to spend less and balance the budget. Current wages are $174,000 for the rank-and-file members of congress. Reduce this to maybe 3x the national poverty level. They may then earn a “bonus” for any surplus that comes out of the annual budget. If there is a 2% surplus they receive a 2% bonus. Right now I see that there is very little accountability and the same politicians get re-elected and paid for more cycles with no results and some are simply not doing their jobs. We have not passed a budget in years, for example.

As I've said many times, it's a mistake to make a big issue of the pay for Congress members. These people have very large responsibilities, we want good people, they have to keep two households, and they do not make much relative to others with their comparable function. The most expensive money you'll save is getting people who are compensated in other ways in conflict with the public interest - pay them well and have them serve the public. Put tight rules in place about the revolving door.

As for your plan it's just misguided, but for a start, it incents them to not spend money they SHOULD spend in the public interest, to pocket more for themselves.

Stop base-line budgeting. Stop basing future budget allocations on previous expenditures. If a department doesn’t spend all of the money from one year, they should not be penalized the following year. Budget based on need.

That's just not praiitcal as the way to address it. It happens in private companies as well.

There is no way 'not to penalize' them. If they have a $100 million budget and spend $60, how do you justify giving them $100 million or more again the next year?

But it's always worth looking at how to improve these things. Why don't you review the Al Gore commission on government efficiency as vice president for some ideas?

Increase Federal income tax for individuals to a two-tiered 10% and 15%. This helps in two ways. Number 1 is that we have 47% of the country NOT paying federal income tax, and in fact some are receiving credits. Representation without taxation. As a famous person once said, once the populace finds out it can vote itself more money the country is doomed.

Where to start.

First, you would slash the revenue, skyrocketing the debt you say you want to fix. Or, forcing absurd and massive cuts to spending we should have.

Second, you'd slash the taxes on the wrong people at the top most of all.

Third, as for the cliche you paraphrase, funny thing - it's not happening. The government overspends - but it's not on the mythical 'mob who votes itself money'. Those peope have less and less, in fact. The spending keeps going to the powerful interests, a small number of people taking more than ever before. So your cliche is wrong, it does not descrbe the problem and it suggests doing the wrong things - taking evern more from the people.

The 47% is gargabe as has been explained many, many times. People working for low wages are already making a 'contribution' and 'sacrifice' far more than the top. And they do pay a variety of taxes. And most importantly, the reason fewer are paying more in income tax is because they keep shifting more income to themselves as a share of income.

If 1% of the population makes 15% of the income, and then they shift that to 20% and more of the income, what do you expect to happen to their taxes? Why isn't that fair?

I'll make you a deal, cut the taxes of the rich - by having income better distributed.

Institute federal sales tax. 1% nation-wide for any item over $20. Most things over $20 are luxury items. A gallon of milk for example is $3.49 here; socks are $6 for six pair. Designer jeans at $200? 1% tax. The majority of basic things that the impoverished need will cost less than $20. This tax would be applied to purchases in ALL states as well as interstate-commerce; this includes the Internet. This is a completely new source of revenue and is tied to consumption.

Seems like a bad idea - it's a regressive tax.

But Europe likes the VAT, so I'm open to hearing arguments for it.

Lower corporate tax. Businesses need to be competitive in order to be successful. By having a high corporate tax rate we are handicapping our economy, both domestically and abroad. Allow companies to repatriate money earned in foreign countries at a VERY low rate. It’s better to have the money circulating here rather than stuck in another country even if we don’t derive a quick one time income from it. This is another area where simplification would help in terms of the tax code but simply lowering the rates would help. Lower from a 35% to a 20% rate would give the companies room to breathe and help stimulate the economy.

No, to the repatriation issue. We need to address it, but not the way you suggest - remember these companies can already re-invest that money in the business for free.

We're only talking about profits here, and those are not the people who need a tax cut and to shift taxes onto you.

The corporate tax rates, though, I lean towards raising more than lowering them, that's worked well and we need to shift wealth to the people, but with globalization going on and some arguments there are for lowering the rate, I don't have a firm position and will listen to both sides.

Capitol gains should be taxed as income at the federal level. States should be encouraged to place a higher rate on all types of income, including capitol gains. The more local to the problem the money is collected and spent, the more efficient and effective it can be. States that wish to offer programs can tax accordingly.

You're just parroting right-wing ideology there, baseless. You assume the states do some things better, that it would 'increase efficiency'.

Funny, why don't more multimational corporations get rid of the mega corporation and break into a bunch of local companies with just a small central company?

Don't they understand how efficient that is?

You need to discuss the issue without just parroting dogma.

I think programs like Social Security, the FBI, the universal healthcare I'd like to get, and many other things are more efficience done by the federal government than 50 states.

Suggest something specific if you want.

Change what welfare offers and covers: Stop rewarding people for having children that they cannot afford.

Stop parroting more ideology.

It's not "rewarding". People are going to have children - the poorest nations with the least help for families have the highest numbers of children.

There are moral and practical reasons to take care of our nation's children, and you are just spouting right-wing ideology that is nothing but a disaster.

You have some mythical idea that if you 'take away the "reward"', then suddenly the social needs will plummet, everyone will start being in great marriages not breeding outside.

Funny, isn't it - the people who scream the loudest about 'single teen mothers' are the far right who have the highest rates of single teen mothers.

Even if they didn't it wouldn't change the issue, but it adds irony and hypocrisy.

You have a lot to learn about social policies, and what's practical, not just parrot simple propaganda given to you to pander to you and get you to vote for Republicans.

At the state level each person gets a max of (1) child-credit. This will help to reduce expenses at the state level and give the child a better chance at success. An impoverished family with only one child has a much greater chance of success than a family with four children. This will have to include educating the poor on abstinence or proper use of contraceptive methods. People need to be responsible for their own actions and choices. After even one generation of reducing the number of children on welfare the savings could be spent on offering scholarships.

Creating new government policies aimed at pressuring people not to have children we have never had before must be the 'small government' you say you support.

Why not just do what you are close to suggesting, but won't say, adopt the China policy?

Your suggestion has issues with the pressuring of people on families, the practical problems when they have the children anyway and they're raised in even worse poverty (just as 99% of the next billion people on the plan will be born to the poorest people). The Democrat have this crazy idea: why not reduce how many people are poor? Grow the economy and have all American benefit - this is the war Republicans are fighting against.

Since we need to reduce spending, the military/defense fund would be a great place to start. We can’t currently afford to be the world police. Cut 25% over 4 years. Reduce the size of our standing army and reassign them domestically to boarder patrol. It’s a simple matter to seal the border, maintains jobs for our military personnel and provides a significant function to protect us.

We should not have the military patroling the border - there's a reason we try to avoid having the US military deployed in the US - but ya, cut a corrupt defense industry 50%.

Gut the “war on drugs”. It costs us a significant sum to keep these people in prison. Only jail people with hard drugs and MJ dealers with large quantities. Simply fine people who are caught with MJ. Serves as a source of revenue and keeps our prison system from overflowing.

We should look at that, with increasing spending on education not to use drugs and rehabilitation programs.

Strict restrictions on any public health-care. No drug-use allowed. No smoking. No obese people. It’s too much of a risk to insure these people who choose not to care for themselves. Once again, people must take responsibility for their actions. No more babysitting.

Sorry that one is idiotic, no offense intended. Again you are morally challenged and cluless about the issues you want to kill people over.

Negotiations for public employees need much more oversight. I think this applies more at the state/city level but I’m sure there are agencies and departments in the Federal government that would benefit from this as well. Those doing negotiations with the unions for benefits and other contract items may be influenced by personal incentives.
Union: We don’t want to pay anything for our healthcare.
Government employee: But that’s going to cost the taxpayers millions of dollars!
Union: You’ll be happy to know we’ve got $100,000 with your name on it.
Government employee: Okay!

That's just silly, you made crap up. If you have a legitimate issue to suggest, do that, but bottom line, the problem isn't overpaid workers. They're taking less and less and less.

There can be specific problems with things like excessive pensions - largely caused with management wants to get some short term profits for themselves and so they screw the company or taxpayer by having the union agree to lower compensation now, in exchange for great pensions later. That's not labor's fault. That's be something I agree to better regulate against.

The tax code is used to influence behavior in society. We provide discounts for people who are married or who have children or who decide to install solar panels. Many of these incentives are outdated or are unneeded. Marriage no longer provides for the familial stability that it once did; children are used by parents to get more discounts. Get rid of them.

Get rid of discounts or children?

The idea of using the tax code to incent things good for society is a great idea.

If you have specifics, mention them. Marriage is tricky; I'm happy for it to be revenue neutral, I guess. But how you tax one spouse making more, one nothing or less...

We should use tax incentives for things like the internet catching on (we had a 'temporary' suspension of taxes no longer needed) or solar panels.

In the end we tax everyone (including the poor) to create more revenue for the fed and a higher (40%) at the state level like the ‘left’ seems to want us to do, and we cut defense spending by 25% or more to reduce the spending, like the ‘right’ seems to want us to do.

The issue isn't taxation of the 47%, it's wealth distribution. You seem to be hung up on some arbitrary demand that the poor pay taxes, that makes no sense.

I'm happy for them to do so, if the wealth distribution is adjusted so they have more.

I'd suggest you read some books and authors (see my sig) for a lot of info on these things - Paul Krugman is one good source, but there are many others.

For example, check the author of 'Nickled and Dimed' for some practical issues with low incomes. But more importantly learn about the massive shift of wealth to the top.

There are many books out on the effects of income inequality being excessive - I just ordered another:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/160...ls_o03_s00_i00

 

[Siddhartha]

OP,
I recommend you read a book on Macroeconomics and then rethink your proposed agenda.

 

[soulcougher73]

Some good stuff in there but you didnt touch any any of the big 3 monetary issues. SS, Medicare/caid and defense spending.

My ideas for SS are to keep it as it was intended to be. Close the ruling that allows them to use it as a piggy bank for pork spending. It was a good system the way it was before Reagen got his hands on it. I view it as a sad neccessity for any country that cares about its people. Id love to see people more responsibly so we dont need it, but that just isnt going to happen.

Medicare/caid: Im pro single payer so we can just roll these into the new plan whatever its called. Save money overall and covers everyone.

Defense: I dont agree with policing the world mentality. Id rather a small highly advanced military here in the US only other than the Navy carriers to patrol the seas. Close all foreign bases and have more carriers as our worldy presense.

 

[Ninjahedge]

1. Increase taxes and/or remove tax breaks for the rich (we have too many).
2. Remove farm subsidies on crops that do not serve us. Tobacco being a BIG one, Corn a close second (ethanol?)
3. Reduce military spending. Bring back many troops and, at the very least, retrain them for domestic relief programs/DPW.
4. Reduce medical spending by limiting profit margins on things like Pharmaceutical companies. It is no good to increase Medicare only to have the price of XYZ go up to match.
5. DISCONNECT Social Security. We need to repay that fund NOW and stop taking cash from it. NJ screwed the pooch years ago with whats-her-face draining the pension funds and the current admin pointing the finger of blame at the unions who are asking where their money went. The same should not be done for SS. There are just too many old people to blame as easily.
6. Rebuild/repair/streamline the infrastructure. Too many bridges (NYC for example) are requiring too much $$ to keep up because they have only been barely maintained.



These are all well and good, but what we need to do now is get money from those that have. And yes, that means "tax the rich". But this needs to be done in CONJUNCTION with a cut or freeze in spending in many areas as mentioned above. Many would not object to a bailout if they also saw it paired with budget cuts.