OMG the goverment is shutting down. Now where will I get cheese from....

Even if we wanted to roll back tax cuts, right now really isn't the time to do it because of the current economic climate. And even if tax cuts are rolled back, they are going to push for all tax cuts to be rolled back.
 
[quote name='benjamouth']Only the UK really had a choice, the other 2 were kind of forced into it by the other folks in the Euro who couldn't afford for it to collapse (i.e Germany)

For all the people who seem to be saying "Lets just spend our way out of debt !!", is there a country where that's worked out well ?[/QUOTE]

I do not think that many people here are proposing we spend our way out of debt. I think the liberals here are more just set to not bring a machette to the budget and when we cut cut the right things that cause growth. Republicans want to come in and make huge cuts to the social safety net and things like education. This will cause short term growth problems because the middle class will reduce spending and investing(as we have seen over the last 10 years)and they are one of the biggest drivers of our economy. Worse though is that it will cause bigger long term issues because our nation is already not producing enough tradesmen, scientists and engineers. If you cut education it will mean we produce even less skilled workers in a market that demands them.

I think I can freely speak for most of the liberals of this board in saying we want to see the government spending less money and making big cuts.....we just want the cuts from our bloated defense budget, housing 100,000s of soldiers all over the world and ending the damn war already. We want the money raised by raising taxes on the rich and fixing our broken system that lets corporations pay little to no taxes. The idea that the rich will provide more jobs if they pay less has been debunked time and time again both by simply watching things like the Bush tax cuts wreck our economy and also through studies like one Canada recently which again showed it doesn't freaking work. And finally in additions to the immediate income that would be raised through cutting defense and raising taxes on the rich we want to see more income from long term growth by actually investing in our infrastructure and education. You know, the same thing China who is kicking our ass is doing.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']Even if we wanted to roll back tax cuts, right now really isn't the time to do it because of the current economic climate. And even if tax cuts are rolled back, they are going to push for all tax cuts to be rolled back.[/QUOTE]

Again because rolling back those tax cuts did so well under Bush or any other time in history. Its an easy disproved myth. You give the rich more money and they either sit on it or they invest it...just not in the US!
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']I do not think that many people here are proposing we spend our way out of debt. I think the liberals here are more just set to not bring a machette to the budget and when we cut cut the right things that cause growth. Republicans want to come in and make huge cuts to the social safety net and things like education. This will cause short term growth problems because the middle class will reduce spending and investing(as we have seen over the last 10 years)and they are one of the biggest drivers of our economy. Worse though is that it will cause bigger long term issues because our nation is already not producing enough tradesmen, scientists and engineers. If you cut education it will mean we produce even less skilled workers in a market that demands them.

I think I can freely speak for most of the liberals of this board in saying we want to see the government spending less money and making big cuts.....we just want the cuts from our bloated defense budget, housing 100,000s of soldiers all over the world and ending the damn war already. We want the money raised by raising taxes on the rich and fixing our broken system that lets corporations pay little to no taxes. The idea that the rich will provide more jobs if they pay less has been debunked time and time again both by simply watching things like the Bush tax cuts wreck our economy and also through studies like one Canada recently which again showed it doesn't freaking work. And finally in additions to the immediate income that would be raised through cutting defense and raising taxes on the rich we want to see more income from long term growth by actually investing in our infrastructure and education. You know, the same thing China who is kicking our ass is doing.[/QUOTE]

Fair enough, I see your point.

Admittedly I thought cuts needed to be made in the UK (and still do), but the way the coalition government has gone about it is all wrong.
 
[quote name='benjamouth']Only the UK really had a choice, the other 2 were kind of forced into it by the other folks in the Euro who couldn't afford for it to collapse (i.e Germany)

For all the people who seem to be saying "Lets just spend our way out of debt !!", is there a country where that's worked out well ?[/QUOTE]

If fiscal contraction worked Hoover would have had four terms.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Again because rolling back those tax cuts did so well under Bush or any other time in history. Its an easy disproved myth. You give the rich more money and they either sit on it or they invest it...just not in the US![/QUOTE]

That's not my argument. You're talking about giving the rich money, I'm talking about what would happen if you took money away.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Pie chart showing how much each nation spends on their military. We spend 6x as much as China and make up almost 50% of the worlds military expenditures.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/11/military-spending-doubled-since-2001/[/QUOTE]

The exact numbers vary (Do you count vet benefits as social spending or military spending? etc.) but yeah - we could probably cut our military spending by half and still be pretty safe. We might have to, you know, stop playing Team America: World Police and such though...
 
[quote name='UncleBob']The exact numbers vary (Do you count vet benefits as social spending or military spending? etc.) but yeah - we could probably cut our military spending by half and still be pretty safe. We might have to, you know, stop playing Team America: World Police and such though...[/QUOTE]

I do not think that vet benefits are a part of that, another one of those nifty little hidden costs in our society. Every time I have read about government spending vet benefits are kept separate from military expenditures. I recall reading something recently that was talking about the real cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars, it talked about how when you add what Bush kept off the budget as well as expected benefits from the vets from these wars the costs sky rocket.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']I do not think that vet benefits are a part of that, another one of those nifty little hidden costs in our society. Every time I have read about government spending vet benefits are kept separate from military expenditures. I recall reading something recently that was talking about the real cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars, it talked about how when you add what Bush kept off the budget as well as expected benefits from the vets from these wars the costs sky rocket.[/QUOTE]
If I remember right from the most recent quadrennial review, they are actually apart of that number.
 
[quote name='benjamouth']Fair enough, I see your point.

Admittedly I thought cuts needed to be made in the UK (and still do), but the way the coalition government has gone about it is all wrong.[/QUOTE]
We're all rawr liberal for the most part here, but I'm sure all of us would agree that waste, fraud, and abuse is rampant in government. It always is everywhere! There should never be an end to reform of every area. There's always a newer, better, cheaper way to do things and nobody here would advocate anything other than the dogged continuation of that chase for a better functioning government.

But like MSI said, America is great because of its entrepreneurial spirit, individualist streak, and the most incredibly educated workforce on the planet. Screwing with that screws with our future and erodes our competitive advantage. We just don't want that.

Like it's been said many times on this board, the libs here (and most libs in America I genuinely believe) would be willing to really support the Republican/Tea Party deficit/debt issue if they were to be really serious about it. And that means two things.

1. Cut defense significantly.
2. Increase federal taxes.

And to be blunt, anyone that says they are serious without those as a part of the plan is a liar.

But those are the Republican/Tea Party golden calves. They don't want to slaughter their golden calves, they want to slaughter trivial bullshit like Planned Parenthood funding (of which exactly 0% of their federal funding goes to abortion BY FEDERAL LAW). And the Paul Ryan plan is simply god awful. Not in a "I don't like it cause I'm a lib" way, awful in a "every cost saving assumption is a flat out lie" kind of way. He promises 2.8% unemployment down the line. It would be hilarious if it wasn't the head of the House Budget Committee saying that. It means the bus driver has no idea what a bus is, much less how to drive it.

There's only one reasonable deduction. They're full of shit. The terrifying thing about this is that they've had every day of 2 full years to put a plan together, knew this would be *THE* issue of the day (they pushed it!), and this was the best they could come up with. Friggin terrifying.
 
I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, and this woman, can't remember her name, basically said that federal money pays for abortions because it pays for operational expenses and that frees up more money for abortions.

This is the conservative mind at work.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Pie chart showing how much each nation spends on their military. We spend 6x as much as China and make up almost 50% of the worlds military expenditures.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/11/military-spending-doubled-since-2001/[/QUOTE]

Not bad considering we're involved in 85% of the world's military expeditions!

I kid because I love.

The link with the five graphs:
As much as I hate to nitpick, Social Security and Medicare/caid don't come from Federal income tax dollars, they're OASDI and a separate deal. That kind of skews the info a bit. If you take those things out of the graphs you see that we spend most of our federal income tax on the military and very little on what most people complain about (giving those silly poor people foodstamps for instance).
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']These two graphs from that link really show what's wrong with our tax systems.

030856_composition_of_taxes.jpg



Spending is part of the problem, as shown by the graph below. Defense spending in particular, though it's been more stable. But we also have to find ways to cut costs in social security and health care for sure.

But the deficit will not go away if we don't roll back some of the tax cuts for the wealthy and close corporate tax loopholes and get both of those back to levels in the early years in the graphs above. That's the only way the debt will ever go away.

[/QUOTE]

looks like businesses are paying plenty of taxes. i mean, businesses pay the payrolll tax right? i know im just looking at a picture but the ups and downs of the coroporate income tax and payroll tax seem to correlate pretty darn well.
 
[quote name='Clak']I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, and this woman, can't remember her name, basically said that federal money pays for abortions because it pays for operational expenses and that frees up more money for abortions.

This is the conservative mind at work.[/QUOTE]

Cool so no funding for hospitals!
 
[quote name='RAMSTORIA']looks like businesses are paying plenty of taxes. i mean, businesses pay the payrolll tax right? i know im just looking at a picture but the ups and downs of the coroporate income tax and payroll tax seem to correlate pretty darn well.[/QUOTE]

From a vague recollection I havefrom econ classes as an undergrad, increasing pay roll taxes hurts middle and lower class workers as companies tend to do layoff its, cut benefits etc.

Corporate income taxes hit profits and end up (ideally) doing things like reducing absurd executive bonuses and salaries etc. rather than trickling down as directly to the workers as it hits profits rather than being directly tied to payroll of workers.

But it's been ages since I've had those econ classes, so that may well be way off base.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='dmaul1114']Corporate income taxes hit profits and end up (ideally) doing things like reducing absurd executive bonuses and salaries etc. rather than trickling down as directly to the workers.[/QUOTE]

God I love humor.
UnitedHealth CEO made over 10M last year. Benefit payments down, pay goes up!
 
As a philosophical debate, I dont think corporations/businesses should pay *any* tax. I say this because it's largely just a shell game to begin with. The tax that is "paid" by a business is largely passed off to the customer anyway. So it ends up being a 'hidden' tax on the individual. I'd rather have the tax bill be transparent to the one actually paying it (the customer).

What I'd rather see is all income treated equally. Whether it is wages, dividends, simple interest, capital gains, etc., it should all go to the same tax liability.
 
[quote name='hostyl1']As a philosophical debate, I dont think corporations/businesses should pay *any* tax. I say this because it's largely just a shell game to begin with. The tax that is "paid" by a business is largely passed off to the customer anyway. So it ends up being a 'hidden' tax on the individual. I'd rather have the tax bill be transparent to the one actually paying it (the customer).

What I'd rather see is all income treated equally. Whether it is wages, dividends, simple interest, capital gains, etc., it should all go to the same tax liability.[/QUOTE]

Ummmmm this is only true if the consumer is willing to pay more for their service. Not all increases in cost of business tax or not get passed to the consumer.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']From a vague recollection I havefrom econ classes as an undergrad, increasing pay roll taxes hurts middle and lower class workers as companies tend to do layoff its, cut benefits etc.

Corporate income taxes hit profits and end up (ideally) doing things like reducing absurd executive bonuses and salaries etc. rather than trickling down as directly to the workers as it hits profits rather than being directly tied to payroll of workers.

But it's been ages since I've had those econ classes, so that may well be way off base.[/QUOTE]

i just reread my post and i failed at being facetious enough. too late to edit it now...

but, yes, the payroll tax is the most regressive tax we have and its one of the most heavily relied upon taxes. you can thank entitlement programs for that.
 
[quote name='Clak']I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, and this woman, can't remember her name, basically said that federal money pays for abortions because it pays for operational expenses and that frees up more money for abortions.

This is the conservative mind at work.[/QUOTE]

I similarly chortled with MSNBC hosts were using the same logic:

Abortion: Money is fungible?!?!

Political advertisements: Money is fungible!!!!
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Ummmmm this is only true if the consumer is willing to pay more for their service. Not all increases in cost of business tax or not get passed to the consumer.[/QUOTE]

That's why I said "largely passed off". Off hand, I cant think of any product from one of these large corporations whose demand is so inelastic that they couldnt afford to raise prices to offset a bigger tax liability before needing to cut into their profits. Sure, theoretically that could happen. I just dont know where it practically would happen.

Just look recently at how many products not oil based increased in price due to 'gasoline costs'. I imagine you'd see similar increases with an increased tax liability.
 
[quote name='hostyl1']That's why I said "largely passed off". Off hand, I cant think of any product from one of these large corporations whose demand is so inelastic that they couldn't afford to raise prices to offset a bigger tax liability before needing to cut into their profits. Sure, theoretically that could happen. I just dont know where it practically would happen.

Just look recently at how many products not oil based increased in price due to 'gasoline costs'. I imagine you'd see similar increases with an increased tax liability.[/QUOTE]

Actually I have seen the reverse of this. When I read the business section and watch things like CNN Money all they are talking about is how the price of oil has sky rocketed and yet the price of most other stuff has not increased that much. They have talked about how base materials in general such as metals and plastics have sky rocketed on the stock market as well as the price of things like grains and what not. Meanwhile while the base price of these items is up hundreds of percents in many cases the actual cost to buy them at the market is either not up or its up only a few %. The argument has been that we may see a few more % or even a large % like 15% over the next year, but that most businesses do not feel comfortable passing on the costs because they fear people will stop buying their product.

Again its easy to believe that every time a business is hit with an expense they pass it on to the consumer, but this is simply not the case and if these businesses can manage to deal with the price of materials going up 200% they can deal with a 10% tax increase. And again how you can make such an asinine argument during a time whenever we have seen these prices increase this much and yet we STILL have seen business after business post record profit is just beyond me.
 
I would imagine in good times, when consumer spending is higher that companies may feel safer with passing on costs, but in times like this, yeah I'd say they're more worried with keeping people buying the stuff at all.
 
The CBO appears to operate something like a computer. You can give them directions like: evaluate this budget but assume that a) b) and c) in it will actually happen, despite thats its completely fictional.

Or give us the savings of this budget, but dont include costs of this or that.

The problem seems to be less the CBO and the instructions that they are sometimes given.

Thats the way I see it anyhow.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']The CBO appears to operate something like a computer. You can give them directions like: evaluate this budget but assume that a) b) and c) in it will actually happen, despite thats its completely fictional.

Or give us the savings of this budget, but dont include costs of this or that.

The problem seems to be less the CBO and the instructions that they are sometimes given.

Thats the way I see it anyhow.[/QUOTE]
I feel exactly the same way. The devil is always in the details with the CBO, but good data in seems to produce good data out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top