How do you pay back the $16 TRILLION dollars that the government has borrowed? No matter what combination of measures you take, it’s going to hurt.
The first step is to balance the budget and control spending.
The second step is to raise taxes on ALL Americans. When you consider that the 50% who don’t pay income tax reap the rewards of the taxes that others pay — maybe it’s time to ask them to put some skin in the game too.
The Obama Plan won’t work because it doesn’t not aggressively curtail the spending that some cynics suggest is used to buy votes.
The Republican Plan won’t work because it doesn’t increase taxes, and most of us don’t think that $16 trillion dollars can be repaid by broadening the base and tax cuts.
This brings us to Bowles-Simpson. This plan raises the retirement age and uses less generous measures of inflation when it calculates benefits on Social Security recipients. It also raises taxes significantly on the middle class, which the rich might like because it doesn’t make them feel like they’re being singled out.
Tax rates on the top .01% don’t really matter anyway because they don’t pay them. They simply move capital to a place on the planet where the tax rates are more favorable. It looks good to slam them, but collections never measure up to political hype. Both Bowles and Simpson understand this, but they wanted to make it look as if they were going to inflict tax-pain on the rich.
The middle class will have to shoulder the burden of rampant entitlements and vast borrowing by the Obama Administration no matter how you slice the pie. Both the Democrats and Republicans have to pretend as though this will not be the case because the majority of high propensity voters fall within the bounds of the middle class.
To listen to the MSM, you would think that the average Joe on the street, and his wasteful spending are what got us here…and that 535 elected leaders in DC saved us from ourselves…
Race, good thing you watch the MSM for me, because I no longer have the stomach for it.
LL, did the house pass the senate plan last night? How does that affect us? Is that the Obama plan?
Race – Rampant entitlement hand-outs is not unlike giving poor people crack cocaine and expecting them not to get high on it and addicted to it. Then when you withdraw it, they go into — withdrawals. As you point out, we have 535 drug/borrowed cash pushers in DC.
Opus#6, yes the House passed the Senate plan. Yes, it is the Obama plan with earners over $400K taking the hit instead of $250K. In my opinion, the Republicans 'screwed the pooch' at every possible turn, and one is left to wonder if any of them will be re-elected. It's not a mob, a mob has a credible leader. The Republican Party today is more of a herd.
We are, I suppose, going to hold hands while we leap from a tall building in a single bound.
Only if Obama says, "Simon says jump."
The best remedy is to give business a clear signal for the, let's say, next twenty years. LOWER business taxes, and raise taxes on the POOR! Give them an invested interest in what's going on in Washington.
How does that fit into "bribe for votes" thing in a democracy where they bribe the public with "other people's taxes"?
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