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.
Care to sum up the REAL agendas?
What you say below is a lot of the propaganda they say to get your vote.
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.
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.
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.
Until recently I was supportive of the no-tax policy many of them adopted but have started to realize that such bone-headed stubbornness isn't the way to go about fixing the problems.
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.
What is long term and short term in this situation? Even in times of economic success we're still spending more than we take in . . . "pay as you go" sounds like a teenager with a credit-card and the idea that daddy is rich and can pay for it so dont' worry about it.
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!
I won't defend the (R)s for their hypocracy, it's easy for me to see. . as it is now there is no real oversight to the spending other than congress, and it's not their money so they see no problem spending it in the short term, hurting us all in the long term. We haven't had a budget since Obamas' been in office and the debt has skyrocketed. I'm not blaming him, just the congress who refuses to do their job.
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?
we need a change of mentality in DC in order to get on the path of debt reduction.
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.
they have large responsibility and little accountability. i want something to be done about it . . . pay seems the logical place to start. strict regulations on what they can do during and after holding office would work too by reducing the influence they get from lobbyists, which really mess up agendas. . .
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?
assuming the extra $40 wasn't spent and came back . . . maybe it was something else but i seem to remember hearing a story about how agencies were spending on just stupid stuff to get to their budget number so it wouldn't be reduced the following year . . . . stop spending!!
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?
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.
slash? hardly and as i said the states should institute steeper progressinve taxes.
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.
Garbage? I haven't seen the explanation, I only saw statistics. And I did specify federal income tax. The main two points were in that section were to reduce the loopholes/deductions and everything and go to a much more simple system. Second is i feel everyone, and i mean EVERYONE should pay towards the federal government and not have "negative taxes".
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?
tax 'em more at the state level, or as i said, add an additional 20% tier in there. the whole point was to cut the crap out of the tax code for individuals and make sure everyone was paying.
I'll make you a deal, cut the taxes of the rich - by having income better distributed.
how regressive? it seems to me by having a threshold it puts a tax on "luxury" items. too low of a threshold? make it $100 then.
Seems like a bad idea - it's a regressive tax.
But Europe likes the VAT, so I'm open to hearing arguments for it.
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.
lower the rate and reduce the deductions? sounds like it could increase overall revenue from that source to me
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.
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 agree on your following points, some things should stay national. mostly the social welfare programs such as food-stamps, housing, child-care, transportation . . .
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.
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.
Why? If they can't afford it why are they having too many 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.
Who said i didn't want to take care of the children? what's next you're going to accuse me of wanting to push granny off the cliff? more left wing propaganda.
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.
Nobody said anything about suddenly. I imagine it would take two generations to really start seeing a difference. I don't care about someone being married or not. . . just have a stable home for your child or children. Make sure that YOU can afford to pay for them, not just shirk responsibility for your bad decisions.
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.
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.
It's not creating new government policies, it's taking out old ones. . . . just as you say below, using the tax code to incentivize behavior for buying solar, we're just incentivising peopole to have fewer children if they can't afford them.
Why not just do what you are close to suggesting, but won't say, adopt the China policy?
Again, i'm not saying only have one child, but you only get some sort of CREDIT for one child with an obvious exception for multiple-births. Have you seen the movie idiocracy?
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.
what, that's exactly what i'm suggesting, reduce the number of poor.
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%.
I was killing three birds with one stone. 1) bring the troops back 2) keep them employed by putting them on the border, and 3) protect against illegal crosssings, either drug runners or immigrants.
We should look at that, with increasing spending on education not to use drugs and rehabilitation programs.
Sorry that one is idiotic, no offense intended. Again you are morally challenged and cluless about the issues you want to kill people over.
I admitted I made it up . . . And i've got nothing against union members, it's the union management and the government negotiatiors i'm not happy with. as you said, they make silly bargains to get a short term gain by promising long term goodies, then can't make good on it at the taxpayers expense. needs to have more oversight.
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.
Get rid of discounts or children?
hrm, that is a bit ambiguous isn't it . . .. .
The idea of using the tax code to incent things good for society is a great idea.
as i said above, incent them to NOT have too many kids.
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...
indeed, didn't consider that one previously
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.
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.
Why does it make no sense? EVERYONE needs to contribute.
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.
I agree there is too large of a gap, maybe i will check out a few of the books
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
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