Sequester "Catch 22"

[blicht10069]

No problem.

I think we should always examine government spending and taxes, because times change, but I think it's stupid to push for austerity measures during bad economic times. It's always good to be more efficient, but what I object to is jumping on the bandwagon for spending cuts and not the bandwagon to fix this economy.

I agree with you about this. The budget issue is not currently an emergency. I have made a few posts within this same thread about this issue. It would have been better to have made a promise to reduce the deficit by some percentage once unemployment fell below some percentage (or use another indicator if you like, like two successive quarters of 3.5% GDP). This would have addressed any fears that our lender nations would suddenly refuse to lend to us unless the rates went way up.

I think some of our subsidies and tax breaks for farms and energy need to be examined and I don't believe some millionaires should be paid to not grow crops on their vast acreages of land. I don't like the idea of paying oil refineries to blend ethanol and calling it an ethanol subsidy.

Things that I've read have largely stated that we aren't even close to making the ethanol process energy efficient. Furthermore, this use of corn combined with the drought led to higher prices for food this year. Many blame the higher prices for food for the unrest in the middle east.

I think we should have bought sugar products to increase our ethanol production and reduced our dependence on foreign oil. I'd rather trade with sugar cane farmers in South and Central America. They could send us unprocessed sugar, which is high in nutrition to make ethanol and animal feed. Sugar beets is another option, so why pay millionaires not to grow on their land.

Our dependence on foreign oil is also a over blown in the media. 60% of our oil comes from Canada. We have tons of strategic reserves. We have a huge resource of natural gas, which is growing all the time (albeit with some controversy around fraking). The latest edition of the economist actually suggests that the US will be a net exporter of natural gas.

The government could fix things like how many jobs does our trade imbalance lose and what effect does it have on our GDP. By my calculations our GDP would be at least 5 percent higher if imports were maintained at the recession lows. We should have started a fair trade policy during that period and be on our way to balanced trade and repatronizing jobs.

I'm not so sure about this. Fundamentally, so some extent you would expect jobs to go where labor is cheaper. Over time, these places will have a rising middle class and cost of living will rise (also, arguably our cost of living will decrease) As these two forces reach equilibrium jobs can come back here. I realize it isn't quite as simple as that, and often its cheaper to manufacture goods close to where they'll be sold, despite the potentially higher cost of labor. It may be an economic fact, that for some time now, jobs may be harder to come by. I don't mean this as a statement of fact, but I think its a possibility that shouldn't be completely dismissed.

The problem with the way they are handling the deficit is they don't address the cause, which is loss of revenue. The fact that the economy and the government was functioning before the Republicans screwed it up, proves the government can work properly and that's totally contrary to the Republican way of life. The government is their enemy and they work to starve it of revenue. That's what creates the deficit.

I don't think all Republicans think like that. In fact, I think the idea that government must be abolished is held by a vocal but small group. Many Republicans still support the idea of fiscal responsibility (and lament the hijacking of their party by a faction of the Tea Party). Republican's have also put a higher premium on personal responsibility, sometimes this is exactly what we need. Don't get me wrong, I abhor rhetoric, and sound bites and right now congress is full of both, but I hope that a true discussion about what's best for the country can still come forth, if only in a forum somewhere on the internet.

 

[Dubya]

Only bills raising revenue are required to originate in the house. Congress has to start doing business the way they were intended to in order to get the results you're asking for. I don't see that happening, even with the threat of the senate losing their pay if they don't pass a budget. The two houses of congress are supposed to pass budget bills, then the two are supposed to got to a reconciliation committee to fix the differences and then sent back to both houses for another vote. This has not happened in 4 years even though the house has passed a budget every year. So tell me, who is doing the obstruction when the senate refuses to pass a bill to go to reconciliation?

Thank you OKTexas, I wasn't totally sure on what the rules were, but what you're saying make sense to me.

In regards to the senate there is apparently a procedural issue here. A simple majority is required to pass a budget, but it requires 60 votes to make it take effect.

I wanted to post a link to an economist article that documents what I'm saying, but I need to write 11 more posts before I can include a link. If you do a google search for "Why the Senate hasn't passed a budget " and "The Economist" I suspect you'll find the article. It was date Feb 15th, 2012.

However, I wasn't really accusing the House Republicans of failing the pass a budget or am I blaming them for the current impass. They are voting in accordance with how their constituents want them to vote. My issue is that I think the level of debate needs to be raised in the country as a whole. The issue is framed in terms of "Spending Increasers" versus "Tax Decreasers". This isn't a particularly useful fight. First off, from a budget stand point it make no difference. Second, from an economic productivity stand point it makes no difference. What really matters is what specific tax deductions do you remove. What specific programs that we spend money on now do you remove or downsize. The debate in public needs to talk about real things and representatives need to take stands on specific programs.

Is protecting the "death tax" more important than continuing Medicare part D? Are programs like Head Start more important than the Mortgage Interest Deduction? if you start putting all these things on a scale it we might start to be able to come up with real answers.

I Appologize if I end up double posting - it seems like my origianl reply didn't make it in.

Raising debate in the country as a whole is a real challenge, you could ask people on the street what the sequester is, or how long we've been operating without a budget and 9 out of 10 will give you a deer in the headlights look. Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have no idea what's going on in Washington on a day to day basis and they could care less until something hits them up side their wallet. Americans have become complacent and see government in very abstract terms unless the have to interact with it on some level. You will find the people on this board some of the better educated and unfortunately, in some cases, the most hyper-partisan in the country. If you look past the partisanship, you can learn allot.

Who are you bullshitting? Reconciliation doesn't have to involve any obstruction and can be selected to avoid lengthy discussion of the issue. I've read the Congressional Budget Office's report on the second Bush tax cut and they were told it would only cause revenue lose and not stimulate the economy.

 

[blicht10069]

Raising debate in the country as a whole is a real challenge, you could ask people on the street what the sequester is, or how long we've been operating without a budget and 9 out of 10 will give you a deer in the headlights look. Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have no idea what's going on in Washington on a day to day basis and they could care less until something hits them up side their wallet. Americans have become complacent and see government in very abstract terms unless the have to interact with it on some level. You will find the people on this board some of the better educated and unfortunately, in some cases, the most hyper-partisan in the country. If you look past the partisanship, you can learn allot.

Of course, your right that it is a challenge. However, elections right now are won by small number of people (percentage wise). A 3% swing, rounded, separated the two candidates in the last election. Assuming that those choosing to be uninformed vote randomly, then having 5% or maybe 10% informed would be enough to influence the politics.

Its hard enough to see what's going on now, when all too often the subjects get boiled down to sound bites. Does anyone who actually cares to paying even a little to politics really have a problem discerning the difference between Obama and Stalin or Obama and Hitler? Does anyone who cares at all to pay attention believe that that liberals want to destroy the country or that conservatives want to throw out all minorities and give all money to the rich?

The sad thing is that the real news media, the newspapers, not TV, is falling apart financially. TV news is a joke, always was, always will be. News isn't about two people coming on a show and arguing back and forth, often presenting incomplete or inaccurate facts that aren't challenged on the spot. News is about taking the time to fully research and article before publishing it. Its not race to get the information out, its challenge is in getting accurate information out. It requires a level of participation from the public to scrutinize some level of it. We living in a representative government, which means our people are NOT expected to be experts in all government activities, we don't directly control the government. However, we do need to hold our elected officials accountable, and that only happens when we are informed.

So while I agree with your premise (and your conclusion that I can learn a lot from people on the forum) I do think we can't afford to just say that's the way things are, and good luck with trying to get a more informed public. The best I can do to this end, the best that most of us can do, I think, is maybe to have the most straight forward discussion possible.

Okay, this whole post reads a lot better, if you read it while listen to music that gets louder and louder and more "uplifting" towards the end.

 

[edthecynic]

Hey, here's an idea: why don't people buy their own damn smart phones.
You want more technological innovation? Cut regulations and taxes that reduce incentives to do exactly that. Get gov't out of the way of business. These are people who can't sell whiskey and run whores and make a profit.

Again we see the typical Misinformation Voter. People DO buy their own damn smart phones! A Reagan/Bush/Obama phone is a barebones phone with no camera or bluetooth, just something for the elderly and the poor to be able to access emergency help or work or family.

 

[OKTexas]

Thank you OKTexas, I wasn't totally sure on what the rules were, but what you're saying make sense to me.

In regards to the senate there is apparently a procedural issue here. A simple majority is required to pass a budget, but it requires 60 votes to make it take effect.

I wanted to post a link to an economist article that documents what I'm saying, but I need to write 11 more posts before I can include a link. If you do a google search for "Why the Senate hasn't passed a budget " and "The Economist" I suspect you'll find the article. It was date Feb 15th, 2012.

However, I wasn't really accusing the House Republicans of failing the pass a budget or am I blaming them for the current impass. They are voting in accordance with how their constituents want them to vote. My issue is that I think the level of debate needs to be raised in the country as a whole. The issue is framed in terms of "Spending Increasers" versus "Tax Decreasers". This isn't a particularly useful fight. First off, from a budget stand point it make no difference. Second, from an economic productivity stand point it makes no difference. What really matters is what specific tax deductions do you remove. What specific programs that we spend money on now do you remove or downsize. The debate in public needs to talk about real things and representatives need to take stands on specific programs.

Is protecting the "death tax" more important than continuing Medicare part D? Are programs like Head Start more important than the Mortgage Interest Deduction? if you start putting all these things on a scale it we might start to be able to come up with real answers.

I Appologize if I end up double posting - it seems like my origianl reply didn't make it in.

Raising debate in the country as a whole is a real challenge, you could ask people on the street what the sequester is, or how long we've been operating without a budget and 9 out of 10 will give you a deer in the headlights look. Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have no idea what's going on in Washington on a day to day basis and they could care less until something hits them up side their wallet. Americans have become complacent and see government in very abstract terms unless the have to interact with it on some level. You will find the people on this board some of the better educated and unfortunately, in some cases, the most hyper-partisan in the country. If you look past the partisanship, you can learn allot.

Who are you bullshitting? Reconciliation doesn't have to involve any obstruction and can be selected to avoid lengthy discussion of the issue. I've read the Congressional Budget Office's report on the second Bush tax cut and they were told it would only cause revenue lose and not stimulate the economy.

Poor baby boy, ya see the part I put in bold above, that was the only part I chose to address. And considering that fact, I have no idea what you're talking about. So carry on with your blather, I think I'll call it a night.

 

[blicht10069]

Again we see the typical Misinformation Voter. People DO buy their own damn smart phones! A Reagan/Bush/Obama phone is a barebones phone with no camera or bluetooth, just something for the elderly and the poor to be able to access emergency help or work or family.

If you went back a little further I think you would find that Nixon would also have excluded the voice recorder.

 

[Grandma]

Repped up for this post, which is the closest thing I've seen so far to what we really need. There are hundreds of programs that need refined and streamlined.

Cutting out unecessary subsidies, cutting out redundancy, cutting out things that either have a zero or negative effect could save us tons of money.

Cutting tax breaks that are geared towards those that can easily afford to pay their fair share and implementing a stimulus program that creates permanent jobs will increase revenue.

Long term, all of the above.

Hi, um, Grandma,

I've been trying to think of things we can do that would make things better. Obviously, there are a lot of hard choices, but I think there are at least something that can get reasonable support (although I will be interested in hearing any objections):

1) Raise age by 2 or 3 years for social security, however, exclude certain professions from having to wait. If you are a coal miner, factory worker, lumber jack, or any other job that relies primarily on physical labor, then I can't see making you work into your late 60s.

The problem is that with a lot of non-physical jobs people can't work past a certain age. For example, transportation companies force retirement at 65 because drivers'/pilots' reactions have slowed to the point of becoming dangerous. I'd like to see something like hospitals getting subsdies to pay the senior citizens that at present volunteer to man the help desks, something easy that seniors can do. There are target programs for rural, inner-city, youth, and minority employment, why not something for seniors? The great thing is that seniors already have experience, training isn't needed, just job placement.

2) Perhaps restructure the military budget. Right now a huge amount goes to human resources. It would be great to expand the R&D part of the military (so many of the great technology we have comes from the military - the internet is just the latest). Not sure if this would need to be a revenue neutral move or if it has to be revenue positive. Some consideration should be made toward the future value of the R&D.

Research and development is fine - as long as we aren't charged $900 for a new, improved hammer. The worst part of the military is the redundancy, everything is done twice in triplicate, then the backup files are backed up. Not only could we save manhours in filing, we could probably save enugh trees to terraform the Mojave Desert.

3) Perhaps its time to move to year round schooling. A common complaint is that teacher salaries are high relative to the amount of time they work. Its not their fault that the school year is not a full years work, they need to make enough money to manage their expense and have a life. Perhaps we can increase pay a little in exchange for a full year schedule. The net effect is it would be cheaper to educate our children.

Actually, once it's broken down, teachers' work is more than 40 hours per week, year-round. Before school starts there are rounds of mandatory meetings and workshops. During the year teachers stay late readying the classroom for the next day's lesson, they're up late grading papers, and they have to go to parent-teacher conferences, school plays, and sporting events. They spend a day each month shopping for school supplies that they pay for themselves. The majority of teachers that I know (most of the ones in my school district lived within blocks of my childhood home) spent the summer tutoring individuals or teaching summer school, or taking summer classes at KSU to upgrade their degrees.

However, with the numbers of working single parents and two-income households I'd like to see the school day extended a couple hours. It's very hard for a woman to get a full-time job when she has kids in school for less than 8 hours per day. Day cares usually don't take kids older than 10.

4) This one is, admittedly, generic, we need a way to bring down the administrative costs of health care. Its not entirely clear the best way to achieve this. Its possible, republicans are correct that competition would be best at bring down the cost, but I have my doubts about this b/c people can't or won't do comparison shopping when they need emergency work done. Inherently, I think trying to actuarialize the problem would be most effective, but that requires us to have a single giant mandatory insurance program and there doesn't appear to be consensus around that solution.

A federal list of All Things Automatically Covered No Matter If They Get Pre-Approved Or Not would be a good start. (I got nailed once when during a surgery the surgeon discovered I had another issue that had to be dealt with immediately. My jackass insurance said to finish the original surgery, and call them back in a week to see if they approved the second procedure, after which the surgeon could bring in a specialist to perform the second procedure. Not only would that have extended my recovery time considerably, I would have spent an extra two weeks in the hospital, had two surgeries at the same incision site, two operating rooms, two anesthesiologists, two of everything else... The surgeon hung up on them and did the second procedure that day. I'm glad for that. Out of spite the insurance company refused to pay for any of the second procedure, over $15,000.)

5) Dividend taxes should be completely changed. Right now dividends are taxed at 45% (15% personal and 35% corporate when compounded together makes 45% or about 53% if you are in a high tax state like me). The result is that corporations keep a lot of money offshore and just allow their EPS to rise (thus lifting the stock price and keeping investors happy). I propose that the tax law be changed. Corporations should pay no tax on their side when they send out dividends and that they are taxed as ordinary income on the personal side. I believe this is one of those cases where a general lower rate will yield more tax revenue b/c companies will start to pay dividends at a greater rate then before. Also, this helps lower income people, b/c their investments will return them more (see next point for more on this).

I have to disagree here. Income is income, and should be taxed before it leaves the country. Dividends should be added into personal income and taxed according to the 1040 tax tables.

6) Remove incentives to buy homes (possibly provide some help with renting). A home is a horrible, horrible investment for anyone who doesn't have a decent amount of capital. Its completely illiquid. If you are ever in trouble, in a best case, you can tap a home equity loan, which means accessing your money costs you substantial cash. In a worst case scenario, all too common an occurrence, you can lose a good deal of your original investment. Unless you have a lot of reserve capital you have no business buying a home with a mortgage. This means that for the most part, people should be using standard stock market offerings (ETF, Index Funds) to put away cash and not a home. We need to remove the tax deduction for mortgages (and yes, this hurts me personally, but we need to do it).

Home ownership represents freedom. I'm in a rental and it gets really frustrating to not be able to paint the walls a nice color, or add on a sunporch or whatever. However, people need to be educated about homes. A lot of them don't understand that shit happens and things have to be fixed. Home equity loans should only be considered in a worst-case scenario. Some sort of program should be developed for middle-income housing, to educate buyers, and to provide incentives for contractors to build practical, liveable homes instead of high maintenance money pit McMansions.

I'll post more as I think of additional ideas. But this was already lengthy.[/QUOTE]

 

[OKTexas]

Raising debate in the country as a whole is a real challenge, you could ask people on the street what the sequester is, or how long we've been operating without a budget and 9 out of 10 will give you a deer in the headlights look. Unfortunately the vast majority of Americans have no idea what's going on in Washington on a day to day basis and they could care less until something hits them up side their wallet. Americans have become complacent and see government in very abstract terms unless the have to interact with it on some level. You will find the people on this board some of the better educated and unfortunately, in some cases, the most hyper-partisan in the country. If you look past the partisanship, you can learn allot.

Of course, your right that it is a challenge. However, elections right now are won by small number of people (percentage wise). A 3% swing, rounded, separated the two candidates in the last election. Assuming that those choosing to be uninformed vote randomly, then having 5% or maybe 10% informed would be enough to influence the politics.

Its hard enough to see what's going on now, when all too often the subjects get boiled down to sound bites. Does anyone who actually cares to paying even a little to politics really have a problem discerning the difference between Obama and Stalin or Obama and Hitler? Does anyone who cares at all to pay attention believe that that liberals want to destroy the country or that conservatives want to throw out all minorities and give all money to the rich?

The sad thing is that the real news media, the newspapers, not TV, is falling apart financially. TV news is a joke, always was, always will be. News isn't about two people coming on a show and arguing back and forth, often presenting incomplete or inaccurate facts that aren't challenged on the spot. News is about taking the time to fully research and article before publishing it. Its not race to get the information out, its challenge is in getting accurate information out. It requires a level of participation from the public to scrutinize some level of it. We living in a representative government, which means our people are NOT expected to be experts in all government activities, we don't directly control the government. However, we do need to hold our elected officials accountable, and that only happens when we are informed.

So while I agree with your premise (and your conclusion that I can learn a lot from people on the forum) I do think we can't afford to just say that's the way things are, and good luck with trying to get a more informed public. The best I can do to this end, the best that most of us can do, I think, is maybe to have the most straight forward discussion possible.

Okay, this whole post reads a lot better, if you read it while listen to music that gets louder and louder and more "uplifting" towards the end.

You'll get no argument from me that journalism is dead in America, even the print media seem to be more agenda driven than anything.

Forgive me if I think you're just a tad naive when it comes to our current occupant in the oval office. He said he was going to fundamentally transform this country and he has been doing it since day one. I'm not going to take the time to go into allot of detail because the information is all available on the net, but you might want to take some time and look at his upbringing and his associates in his early adulthood. At best he is a Marxist and is doing everything to bring our country down a few notches. If you doubt me just take a look at some of the speeches he made on his world apology tour right after he was first elected. He thinks the US is an arrogant imperialist nation and don't deserve the standing we have in the world. Just stop and think what he has done since taking office, look a the number of coal fired power plants his EPA has forced to close, he's increased domestic discretionary spend by 80% and cries like a baby when the sequester take 4% of it. No you'll never convince me he has our nations best interest at heart. Sorry this got a bit longer than I intended.

 

[The Rabbi]

Hey, here's an idea: why don't people buy their own damn smart phones.
You want more technological innovation? Cut regulations and taxes that reduce incentives to do exactly that. Get gov't out of the way of business. These are people who can't sell whiskey and run whores and make a profit.

Just to clarify, I wasn't actually suggesting that as policy, just using it as an economic example. There are a lot of programs that spend money in the name of stimulus and there are a lot of tax deductions done in the same name:

Deduction for charity
Deduction for IRA/401Ks
Deduction for Mortgage Interest
Deduction for State and Local Taxes
Deduction for R&D

and a litany of others. There are also spending policies aimed at stimulating the economy:

Road & Bridge Repair
Work Training programs
Head Start
Food Stamps

and many many more.

Poll after poll finds that no clear majority of people agree on where money should be cut from. That is every program out there has a plurality of supporters behind it.

All I'm saying is fundamentally this isn't such an easy problem that can be solved by simply vowing to cut spending. Or rather the Vow is easy, the action is not. The sequestration only takes out 85 billion dollars.... its okay, but a lot more needs to be done.

OK, we know that gov't spending does not stimulate anything except waste and fraud. We have had the largest stimulus program ever and it is a gross failure.
It is not that a plurality of people support given programs. It is that each program has a core of die hards in favor while most people are only mildly opposed. Further, people are misinformed. If we suggest cutting some programs for school nutrition people scream we want to poison school kids. Never mind that there are 106 other programs that deal with the exact same thing. Or Head Start. Most people believe it is a worthwhile program that promotes school achievement. It isn't. The media is complicit in all this, failing to report the salient facts. But if people were properly informed they would be outraged. At least the minority who actually pay taxes.

 

[blicht10069]

The problem is that with a lot of non-physical jobs people can't work past a certain age. For example, transportation companies force retirement at 65 because drivers'/pilots' reactions have slowed to the point of becoming dangerous. I'd like to see something like hospitals getting subsdies to pay the senior citizens that at present volunteer to man the help desks, something easy that seniors can do. There are target programs for rural, inner-city, youth, and minority employment, why not something for seniors? The great thing is that seniors already have experience, training isn't needed, just job placement.

This is fine, I was basically saying, raise the age where applicable, and in other cases we'll need to deal with it. If we can place people into other jobs great, but in the case of jobs based on physical labor, I think we will have a hard time. I agree with your solution so long as it isn't just creating busy work. Also, keep in mind that manning a desk by a senior takes a job away from someone else. If its truly a case where no one else will do that job, and the job is needed then I'm on board with this.

Research and development is fine - as long as we aren't charged $900 for a new, improved hammer. The worst part of the military is the redundancy, everything is done twice in triplicate, then the backup files are backed up. Not only could we save manhours in filing, we could probably save enugh trees to terraform the Mojave Desert.

Part of the goal of government doing R&D is that they sometimes go down paths that are expensive. Hammers aside, sometimes redundancy can help you spot some issues. By its nature, they are doing research that private companies won't touch because the risk/reward ratio isn't high enough, or the benefits aren't quick enough for their shareholders. The internet and the integrated circut are examples of things the military played a major role in and both have paid out better than almost any other invention in the 20th century.

Actually, once it's broken down, teachers' work is more than 40 hours per week, year-round. Before school starts there are rounds of mandatory meetings and workshops. During the year teachers stay late readying the classroom for the next day's lesson, they're up late grading papers, and they have to go to parent-teacher conferences, school plays, and sporting events. They spend a day each month shopping for school supplies that they pay for themselves. The majority of teachers that I know (most of the ones in my school district lived within blocks of my childhood home) spent the summer tutoring individuals or teaching summer school, or taking summer classes at KSU to upgrade their degrees.

However, with the numbers of working single parents and two-income households I'd like to see the school day extended a couple hours. It's very hard for a woman to get a full-time job when she has kids in school for less than 8 hours per day. Day cares usually don't take kids older than 10.

Most people work more than 40 hours a week. Jobs require this. I put in 50 to 60 a week where I work all year round. I only get paid on 45, btw, but its my job. There's another reason for doing this. The age discrepancies of kids in a class room are really high early on (i.e. there's a huge difference for a Kid who turns five in January and one that turns five in December, but their in the same class). I think (personal opinion here, I have limited supporting evidence) this may make things more difficult for younger children. There is a documented effect in the area of sports for example b/c of this.

A federal list of All Things Automatically Covered No Matter If They Get Pre-Approved Or Not would be a good start. (I got nailed once when during a surgery the surgeon discovered I had another issue that had to be dealt with immediately. My jackass insurance said to finish the original surgery, and call them back in a week to see if they approved the second procedure, after which the surgeon could bring in a specialist to perform the second procedure. Not only would that have extended my recovery time considerably, I would have spent an extra two weeks in the hospital, had two surgeries at the same incision site, two operating rooms, two anesthesiologists, two of everything else... The surgeon hung up on them and did the second procedure that day. I'm glad for that. Out of spite the insurance company refused to pay for any of the second procedure, over $15,000.)

While I don't disagree with the value of this, I'm not sure how much it will impact the administrative costs. I do see, how in your specific case it would help, but I think the problem has a lot to do with the rather arbitrary prices that are charged for things. There doesn't appear to be a market that controls the price, and the administration level of health care seems to reap a great amount of the reward. And YES, insurance companies do suck, btw. That's a whole other issue, but one that needs to be addressed -- recourse when things go wrong.

5) Dividend taxes should be completely changed. Right now dividends are taxed at 45% (15% personal and 35% corporate when compounded together makes 45% or about 53% if you are in a high tax state like me). The result is that corporations keep a lot of money offshore and just allow their EPS to rise (thus lifting the stock price and keeping investors happy). I propose that the tax law be changed. Corporations should pay no tax on their side when they send out dividends and that they are taxed as ordinary income on the personal side. I believe this is one of those cases where a general lower rate will yield more tax revenue b/c companies will start to pay dividends at a greater rate then before. Also, this helps lower income people, b/c their investments will return them more (see next point for more on this).

[/QUOTE]

I have to disagree here. Income is income, and should be taxed before it leaves the country. Dividends should be added into personal income and taxed according to the 1040 tax tables.

I apologize, I should have been more clear. What I am saying is that dividends should be taxed as ordinary income 1040. The corporation should pay no taxes on it. Today, when the corporation pays an employee a salary they pay no taxes (well, they pay payroll 7.5% up to the first 100K, but they pay no income tax). Essentially, any business expense is tax deductible to the corporation. So payment of dividends should not be taxed at the corporate level. This would encourage corps to pay a greater percentage of their profits in the form of dividends instead of keeping it offshore. The receivers of the dividend would pay the standard income tax on what they received.

Home ownership represents freedom. I'm in a rental and it gets really frustrating to not be able to paint the walls a nice color, or add on a sunporch or whatever. However, people need to be educated about homes. A lot of them don't understand that shit happens and things have to be fixed. Home equity loans should only be considered in a worst-case scenario. Some sort of program should be developed for middle-income housing, to educate buyers, and to provide incentives for contractors to build practical, liveable homes instead of high maintenance money pit McMansions.[/COLOR]

I spent most of my life in rentals. The ability to modify the place is largely up to the landlord, but in many cases they will let you. Owning a home doesn't give you unlimited control. Coops can override your decisions and even when you have a house in suburban area local community laws can restrict what you do on your property. I understand what you are saying, but financial freedom is better than home freedom. The fact is, if you save enough in the market, the dividends it pays out can continuously pay your rent for the rest of your life -- in effect, you can live in your investments. Also, these investments can be converted to a real home if that's what you ultimately want to do. I think that if you can't put 20% down on your home, and still have 2 years of expenses worth of cash available after purchase that buying a home isn't a sound decision.

 

[blicht10069]

OK, we know that gov't spending does not stimulate anything except waste and fraud. We have had the largest stimulus program ever and it is a gross failure.

I'm not going to convince you of anything on this. The arguments are counter factual in nature. That is, who knows what would have been had the stimulus not been done. I will make two points to this end, not to convince you of the value of the stimulus but to at least get you maybe to accept that it isn't a certainty at all that the stimulus didn't help

1) Comparison of the effects in Europe where they had no stimulus versus the United States where we had a stimulus. The united states weathered the recession much better then Europe.
2) Most Economists believe that the stimulus helped the economy. In fact, the magazine The Economist ended up endorsing Obama for presidency b/c of the stimulus he pushed though.

I'm not asking you to change your mind about the effects of the stimulus, and i agree the two statements I put up are not proof, but can we maybe agree that its not a slam dunk that the stimulus was useless?

It is not that a plurality of people support given programs. It is that each program has a core of die hards in favor while most people are only mildly opposed. Further, people are misinformed. If we suggest cutting some programs for school nutrition people scream we want to poison school kids. Never mind that there are 106 other programs that deal with the exact same thing. Or Head Start. Most people believe it is a worthwhile program that promotes school achievement. It isn't. The media is complicit in all this, failing to report the salient facts.

Actually it depends on what media you are talking about. The New York Times, for example, has written articles in the past questioning the true effectiveness of Head Start.

I have not seen the statistics on the level of support, but basically, when surveyed for what things they would cut not single category got a majority in favor of it. The closest was foreign aid (which got about 42% of the people saying we should cut that).

Its certainly true that there is government waste, just as there is huge waste in our large corporations. Its very difficult managing resources across something so large. I don't believe that our entire problems can be solved by cutting waste or redundancy, but I'm sure for it if we can find it.

I can't agree with you that all government programs are bad. Some are certainly imperfect, but things like school lunches provide a valuable service, cheaper than people could do on their own (you get discounts for buying in bulk). Local police forces, fire departments and the military are all things the government does pretty well. Its just not a black and white issue. I applaud you when you specified Head Start, because that was specific. Its more difficult to have the discussion in the abstract.

But if people were properly informed they would be outraged. At least the minority who actually pay taxes.

If you only look at federal income tax then you end up with 47% of the people paying no taxes. However, I don't see why we don't include payroll tax. I mean that's money that leaves your paycheck and goes to the government. Its just as un-spendable by you as the money you pay for income tax. If you count payroll tax at 7.5% (the tax rate applied to your first 100K) then the number of people who pay no federal taxes drops to 22%. However, payroll tax isn't really 7.5%. its actually 15%. You pay 7.5% and the company who is paying you pays 7.5% (I know, I have my own company, and I pay both sides for my salary). So once you consider that the payroll tax is 15%, the number of people who net out to paying nothing to the government (or less) is about 7%.

 

[The Rabbi]

The argument "it would have been worse if we hadn't done it" is a loser's argument. No economist believes the stimulus ended the recession. At least not any who haven't taken a paycheck in this administration. We have the worst recovery in history AND we have spent more on stimulus than any other time in history. Those aren't unconnected. I don't care what the Economist says.
One article in the NYT is not journalism.
Most people who pay payroll tax get back more from the gov't than they paid in. So the minority figure is still valid.

 

[blicht10069]

The argument "it would have been worse if we hadn't done it" is a loser's argument. No economist believes the stimulus ended the recession. At least not any who haven't taken a paycheck in this administration. We have the worst recovery in history AND we have spent more on stimulus than any other time in history. Those aren't unconnected. I don't care what the Economist says.
One article in the NYT is not journalism.
Most people who pay payroll tax get back more from the gov't than they paid in. So the minority figure is still valid.

Actually, by definition a single article in the new York times would be journalism, but I used a plural there. They wrote several (I don't remember exactly how many, but I know I personally read 2 of them).

Not sure where you're getting your statistics about the number of economists who believe in the stimulus but that's fine, as I said before, it wasn't offered as proof, just anecdotal evidence.

I don't think we'll be able to get anywhere on this specific point, just b/c its nature doesn't lead to something that can be proved one way or the other.

 

[The Rabbi]

Yawn. This is too easy.
More Economists Agree ? the Stimulus is a Failure | The Weekly Standard

Robert Barro: Stimulus Spending Keeps Failing - WSJ.com

And two articles--even 10 articles in the NYT is not media in sense I used it.

 

[blicht10069]

No you'll never convince me he has our nations best interest at heart.

You know I couldn't stand George W. Bush (thought his father was great though). I thought literally 99% of his policies were terrible. I thought they were bad for the country and the wrong direction for our nation. However, I never thought he wasn't trying to do what he thought was right and best for our country. I may be naïve, but its hard for me to believe anyone would run for election and go though all that hell to do something bad for the country. I mean to go out of your way to harm it. I mean the president has very limited power, you can do more harm other ways, if you were so inclined.

I'm not a big Obama fan. I find he's too secretive and quite frankly allows the same abuse of privacy rights that his predecessor felt comfortable making. I do understand why people think this is a valid trade off. I just don't agree.

I guess time will tell, but I will be shocked, quite literally, if we find out that he was actually trying to subvert the country in some way. That his goal was to become president and destroy this nation.

 

[blicht10069]

Yawn. This is too easy.
More Economists Agree ? the Stimulus is a Failure | The Weekly Standard

Robert Barro: Stimulus Spending Keeps Failing - WSJ.com

And two articles--even 10 articles in the NYT is not media in sense I used it.

I read the weekly standard article. That one is from 2011. It's title suggests more economists agree (not most). As a general principal I don't read op-ed pieces in any paper.. I.e. no krugman from the NY Times and nothing from the WSJ. I base my knowledge on factual articles and not from someone else summary. However, I read the wsj op-ed piece but I lend it less credibility b/c its an op-ed piece. It however, did not dismiss the effects of the stimulus, but its called them minorly positive.


As I said before, I don't really see the point of debating this. I won't convince you. My position is that it probably helped, but I can't say with certainty because I'll never know the path not taken.

 

[The Rabbi]

No you'll never convince me he has our nations best interest at heart.

You know I couldn't stand George W. Bush (thought his father was great though). I thought literally 99% of his policies were terrible. I thought they were bad for the country and the wrong direction for our nation. However, I never thought he wasn't trying to do what he thought was right and best for our country. I may be naïve, but its hard for me to believe anyone would run for election and go though all that hell to do something bad for the country. I mean to go out of your way to harm it. I mean the president has very limited power, you can do more harm other ways, if you were so inclined.

I'm not a big Obama fan. I find he's too secretive and quite frankly allows the same abuse of privacy rights that his predecessor felt comfortable making. I do understand why people think this is a valid trade off. I just don't agree.

I guess time will tell, but I will be shocked, quite literally, if we find out that he was actually trying to subvert the country in some way. That his goal was to become president and destroy this nation.

You thought taking on terrorism, shoring up American alliances, and keeping unemployment low, and inflation low were bad for America? You must be a Soviet spy.
I didnt agree with many of Bush's policies. His steel tarrifs were a terrible idea. So were the entitlements. But his worst mistake was thinking he could work with Dems in Congress.

 

[The Rabbi]

Yawn. This is too easy.
More Economists Agree ? the Stimulus is a Failure | The Weekly Standard

Robert Barro: Stimulus Spending Keeps Failing - WSJ.com

And two articles--even 10 articles in the NYT is not media in sense I used it.

I read the weekly standard article. That one is from 2011. It's title suggests more economists agree (not most). As a general principal I don't read op-ed pieces in any paper.. I.e. no krugman from the NY Times and nothing from the WSJ. I base my knowledge on factual articles and not from someone else summary. However, I read the wsj op-ed piece but I lend it less credibility b/c its an op-ed piece. It however, did not dismiss the effects of the stimulus, but its called them minorly positive.


As I said before, I don't really see the point of debating this. I won't convince you. My position is that it probably helped, but I can't say with certainty because I'll never know the path not taken.

So your position is, DOn't confuse me with the facts? that isn't any way to go about it. The administration made claims for its stimulus that did not pan out. We have the worst recovery on record. All of those are facts. What fact can you point to that it worked, other than "it might have been worse"?

 

[Dubya]

Yawn. This is too easy.
More Economists Agree ? the Stimulus is a Failure | The Weekly Standard

Robert Barro: Stimulus Spending Keeps Failing - WSJ.com

And two articles--even 10 articles in the NYT is not media in sense I used it.

I read the weekly standard article. That one is from 2011. It's title suggests more economists agree (not most). As a general principal I don't read op-ed pieces in any paper.. I.e. no krugman from the NY Times and nothing from the WSJ. I base my knowledge on factual articles and not from someone else summary. However, I read the wsj op-ed piece but I lend it less credibility b/c its an op-ed piece. It however, did not dismiss the effects of the stimulus, but its called them minorly positive.


As I said before, I don't really see the point of debating this. I won't convince you. My position is that it probably helped, but I can't say with certainty because I'll never know the path not taken.

So your position is, DOn't confuse me with the facts? that isn't any way to go about it. The administration made claims for its stimulus that did not pan out. We have the worst recovery on record. All of those are facts. What fact can you point to that it worked, other than "it might have been worse"?

The only fact you have there is you're a fucking liar!

 

[editec]

The rich pay too little in taxes.

That is screwing up the economy big time.

Raise taxes on the superwealthy and corporations.

Problem solved.