Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue

teamosil · Sep 20, 2011

Conservative said:
You don't know what you are talking about. How much 1/3rd of the GDP?

Are you asking what 1/3 of our GDP is? Just under $5 trillion/year.

Conservative said:
Life is about making choices. You don't like a company, don't buy from them. You have yet to tell me how someone got rich while making someone else poor or middle class? Where is your initiative to become one of those evil rich people so you can give all your money away like you want others to do. Do you think that someone else should give their money to you?

Conservatives are so naive... You assume whoever has the money automatically has some special magical right to it. Like god went around declaring how much money people would have. In reality, who has what money is largely determined by a whole series of rules we set up as a society. What tax rates we set on this and that, what sorts of costs that companies create we make them bear and what costs we let them push off on to society, what national resources we charge them for and what ones we let them use for free, what types of anti-competitive practices we allow and what ones we don't, how members of boards of directors are selected, how performance reviews are structured, what information companies need to make public and what they are allowed to keep secret, how schools are funded, how health care is paid for, etc. Yet for some reason when those rules are tweaked in a way that pushes more money to the top, you're ok with that, but when they're tweaked in ways that push more money to the rest of the people you get all upset and start talking about taking people's money away. It's some strange type of doublethink. Right now the rules are dialed pretty much all the way towards pushing money to the super rich. They've won just about every one of those battles in legislatures, board rooms, stock exchanges and in employee negotiations and at this point everything is set up to suck money out of the rest of the country and dump it in their laps. We want to turn those dials back to a more sensible, traditional, level, that's all. If they're making such great choices they'll certainly continue to do fantastically well even on a more level playing field I'm sure.

teamosil · Sep 20, 2011

Conservative said:
When you have a 14.6 trillion dollar debt you have to cut spending and grow your way out of it. Cut Federal Spending, provide incentive to the private sector to put 25 million unemployed and under emplloyed Americans back to work payiing taxes. Then implement a flat tax so that all income earners pay something. That collects taxes from another 65 million Americans. The growth in this economy would be incredible.

So we are just coming out of three decades of shoving insane amounts of our GDP into the pockets of the rich. It got so bad that it collapsed our economy, our education is falling behind the rest of the world, our standard of living is sliding, other countries are moving ahead of us in terms of median income, our median income actually fell over an entire decade for the first time since the great depression, the EU beats us for GDP and China likely will shortly too, a larger percentage of our population is without health care than any other first world country, etc. And your answer is to take even more money from the middle class and give it to the rich? Why would we continue to head down a bad path? If you were right in your theories, why is our economy not exploding right now? We're on the bleeding edge of a radical experiment in reaganomics. This is as far as any first world country has ever gone in this direction. And we're finding that is blows. When you try something and it fails miserably, you stop doing it.

AdamT · Sep 20, 2011

teamosil said:
So we are just coming out of three decades of shoving insane amounts of our GDP into the pockets of the rich. It got so bad that it collapsed our economy, our education is falling behind the rest of the world, our standard of living is sliding, other countries are moving ahead of us in terms of median income, our median income actually fell over an entire decade for the first time since the great depression, the EU beats us for GDP and China likely will shortly too, a larger percentage of our population is without health care than any other first world country, etc. And your answer is to take even more money from the middle class and give it to the rich? Why would we continue to head down a bad path? If you were right in your theories, why is our economy not exploding right now? We're on the bleeding edge of a radical experiment in reaganomics. This is as far as any first world country has ever gone in this direction. And we're finding that is blows. When you try something and it fails miserably, you stop doing it.

As Einstein purportedly said, a good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Thunder · Sep 20, 2011

AdamT said:
As Einstein purportedly said, a good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

insanity...or just stubbornly wishful thinking?

TheNextEra · Sep 20, 2011

AdamT said:
As Einstein purportedly said, a good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Both parties (Dem and Rep) have failed us again and again yet people still vote them in power. The true definition of insanity.

mike2810 · Sep 20, 2011

Jetboogieman said:
You can't tackle the deficit and the debt with cuts alone. It's just not possible.
.

I can agree with statement. Yet shouldn't the feds look at what spending can be reduced or elliminated, stopping porkbarrell spending, stop wasteful spending, aid to other countries, etc. If they had their fiscal house in order, they would know more on how much revenue they really needed to pay down the debt and function. What I won't accept is giving the feds more money without fiscal reform and discipline.
While the following is a drop in the bucket, it shows how stupid the feds can be:

A $16 muffin? Justice Dept. audit finds ‘wasteful’ and extravagant spending - The Washington Post

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is funding emission retrofits for many Mexican-owned trucks through the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. As of this week, the program had funded between 65 and 70 retrofits, which cost between $1,200 and $1,500 per unit.

http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2011/Apr11/041111/041411-01.shtml

teamosil · Sep 20, 2011

mike2810 said:
stop ... aid to other countrieshttp://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2011/Apr11/041111/041411-01.shtml

We already give a smaller percentage of our GDP in foreign aid of any first world country:

foreign-aid-as-a-percentage-of-gni-among-major-countries.jpg

That's only $18 billion. We can't possibly go lower than that. We ought to be aiming at, at least, coming in in the middle of the pack. We signed a commitment once that we would give 0.7% minimum, but here we are dragging up the rear at 0.13%... Pretty embarrassing for us IMO.

1Perry · Sep 20, 2011

Objective Voice said:
Then the options are:

a) continue living with the threat of inflation or stagflation looming overhead, or;

b) accepting the fact that it will take decades to pay down the debt with spending cuts alone.

Conservatives continue to press the false assumption that "if you can't pay off the debt tomorrow, what's the point of even trying"?

Just when I thought we might be able to have a discussion....

nonpareil · Sep 20, 2011

digsbe said:
I disagree with Obama's plan.

I also find the liberal hypocrisy regarding tax hikes for the wealthy to be lol worthy. So the liberal platform is typically "keep the government out of my bedroom!" "Keep the government out of women's wombs!" "Keep the government out of my lifestyle as it relates to marijuana!" "Keep the government away from the religious morals of the voting populace!"

All that flips with "Keep the government in someone else's wallet who has more than me." The typical argument I've seen is "if something doesn't affect you, then you have no right to stop it or interfere with another's choices." Many apply this argument to marijuana usage, sexual ethics, and abortion. Why not be consistent and not dictate how much someone else should pay in taxes? Why should you intrude upon someone's finances with your beliefs (that affect someone else and not you) and demand that they have to pay more? Hypocrisy is silly :mrgreen:

I'm not sure there are many people, right or left who hold such a radical belief completely. We definitely interfere on behalf of children, even though it doesn't affect us personally. Secondly, you haven't demonstrated that tax policy doesn't affect the "liberals". What someone else pay in taxes affect how much I might need to pay in taxes either now or in the future. If someone pays less, I might have to make up the difference in the future or see a cut in the services I want the government to provide. And third, "liberals" see themselves as part of society, as a user of public goods and government services - roads, other infrastructure, parks, school, health, environmental and safety regulations, healthcare, protection by police, fire service and military etc. They believe that any changes to these affect them personally eventually which is why they are so vocal in how how these things should be structured.

1Perry · Sep 20, 2011

AdamT said:
As Einstein purportedly said, a good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

QE3 anyone?

Smokified · Sep 21, 2011

teamosil said:
Well if cost of living is your issue then taxes rather than spending cuts is definitely in your interests. Spending cuts would come out of your pocket where tax increases would come out of the pockets of folks that can afford them. For example, a cut in social security means you need to save more for retirement starting tomorrow. If they cut college loans, you need to save more for your education or your kids' education. If they cut education spending you are more likely to have to pay for your kids' school. Everything they cuts means firing people which means more people competing with you for jobs. Etc. Spending cuts equate to taking it out of the middle class's pockets.

As for being responsible for the money we do have, I see it differently. Societies that reinvest a significant portion of their GDP in maintaining their foundations like a strong education system, good chances to get out of poverty, strong scientific research, etc, do much, much better and everybody tends to live much better. So to me the question is more about being responsible about chipping back in to cover those expenses. Trying to save a few bucks in the short term in taxes and trading in the future to get it, that is what I consider irresponsible.

The disconnect we have here is that you are pointing out public "necessities" while I am pointing out entitlement programs. I fully agree that we should continue to invest as much as we can afford into education. Funding education will reduce the amount of money that we spend on entitlement programs significantly. There are far too many things that we could afford to not fund with public money before we get to important things like education and scientific research (which is essentially redundant). We don't need the government to support and fund everything to make it easier for people. We need the people to start working and supporting the country that they expect so much out of. Raising the "tax rate" is a stupid idea compared to promoting better education and harder work (which will generate more taxes naturally) which will also promote more spending NATURALLY which will just better our economy without a bunch of political BS and partisan fueding over which stupid method is less stupid.

Phys251 · Sep 21, 2011

The rich may have to pay a little more in taxes. WAAAAAAAAAA!

The divide between the rich and the poor might actually close a tiny morsel. WAAAAAAAAAAA!

"Class warfare." WAAAAAAAAAAA!

The top tax bracket might actually nudge a bit closer to the Nixon tax rates or the Eisenhower tax rates. WAAAAAAAAAAAA!

The rich may have to start buying slightly smaller yachts. WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

===========

Christ! What is up with the crybabiness??

teamosil · Sep 21, 2011

Smokified said:
The disconnect we have here is that you are pointing out public "necessities" while I am pointing out entitlement programs. I fully agree that we should continue to invest as much as we can afford into education. Funding education will reduce the amount of money that we spend on entitlement programs significantly. There are far too many things that we could afford to not fund with public money before we get to important things like education and scientific research (which is essentially redundant). We don't need the government to support and fund everything to make it easier for people. We need the people to start working and supporting the country that they expect so much out of. Raising the "tax rate" is a stupid idea compared to promoting better education and harder work (which will generate more taxes naturally) which will also promote more spending NATURALLY which will just better our economy without a bunch of political BS and partisan fueding over which stupid method is less stupid.

You seem to only be talking about people on welfare? That's less than 1% of the country and less than 1% of the federal budget. It is only available to people who have young kids and only for a maximum of 5 years and what the hell else are we going to do? Let these kids live on the streets? Forget about that. Lets talk about the other 99% of the country.

We have a huge deficit. There are three ways to fix it- we can increase taxes, we can cut domestic spending or we can cut military spending. Realistically none of these is enough alone. In fact, no two of these are even enough. We can't cut $1.6 trillion out of domestic spending. That would be nearly ALL domestic spending. That means collapsing into a third world country with no decent highways or safe food and whatnot. Nobody wants that. Same with the military. To cut that much in military spending you would need to cut everything from veteran's benefits to all of our personnel, everything. Tax hikes you could theoretically get $1.6 trillion a year, but you'd need to set taxes so high that the economy would be severely undermined.

So, our only option that isn't totally disastrous is to do all three. But the GOP refuses to agree to two of the three. They're blocking action on the deficit. They know as well as everybody else does that we can't come close to closing the deficit just with domestic cuts.

Now, the military spending cuts actually have a pretty narrow impact compared to the others. We have to back out of some military commitments, but frankly our military has been misused too often anyways. It will hurt military families though and that is rough and means a lot more unemployment. The domestic spending cuts would have a brutal impact on the middle class. People who were relying on medicare for example, suddenly need to pony up a lot more money, people who have kids heading towards college suddenly need to save a ton more, laying off a million or so people means unemployment shooting up and jobs being harder to find for everybody, etc. So all those things are huge sacrifices for the middle class to be making. They'd be putting a ton of skin in to the game.

So, when we're looking at how to divide up the tax hikes, isn't it only fair that those would go to the rich, since they didn't have to pitch anything in yet? I don't see how we can possibly put the whole weight of the deficit on the shoulders of the middle class. It would pretty much crush it... Already the middle class is struggling and the rich are rapidly pulling away consuming more and more of our GDP every year. To put a $1.6 trillion weight around the neck of the middle class at a time like this and put nothing on the rich, that would be all she wrote for the middle class. We'd be headed towards just having 1% absurdly rich and 99% poor.

1Perry · Sep 21, 2011

Centrist Dems Already Trying To Put The Brakes On Obama’s Tax Increases

President Obama's deficit-reduction plan--complete with tax increases on the wealthiest Americans--won high marks from his liberal base encouraged to see Obama back in fighting mode, but the plan is set to hit a brick wall in Congress -- even in the Democratically controlled Senate and the bipartisan super committee.

Centrist Dems Already Trying To Put The Brakes On Obama's Tax Increases | TPMDC

Will the fringe be able to carry the day?

Simon W. Moon · Sep 21, 2011

teamosil said:
We already give a smaller percentage of our GDP in foreign aid of any first world country:

View attachment 67115902

That's only $18 billion. We can't possibly go lower than that. We ought to be aiming at, at least, coming in in the middle of the pack. We signed a commitment once that we would give 0.7% minimum, but here we are dragging up the rear at 0.13%... Pretty embarrassing for us IMO.

How does GNI relate to GDP?

Simon W. Moon · Sep 21, 2011

Smokified said:
I think our society will accept anything that "sounds good". Could it work? Maybe. Is it worth trying to implement a "band-aid" plan when the real solution lies elsewhere?

What are the odds of a "real solution", h/e you define it, being passed?

I know that there're more than one "real solution" to issues like illegal immigration and the drug wars that will never get anywhere simply because there's not enough political will to get any of them accomplished.

Smokified · Sep 21, 2011

Phys251 said:
The rich may have to pay a little more in taxes. WAAAAAAAAAA!

The divide between the rich and the poor might actually close a tiny morsel. WAAAAAAAAAAA!

"Class warfare." WAAAAAAAAAAA!

The top tax bracket might actually nudge a bit closer to the Nixon tax rates or the Eisenhower tax rates. WAAAAAAAAAAAA!

The rich may have to start buying slightly smaller yachts. WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

===========

Christ! What is up with the crybabiness??

What if they asked you to actually start paying taxes? Waaaaaa. Shut up.

Smokified · Sep 21, 2011

teamosil said:
You seem to only be talking about people on welfare? That's less than 1% of the country and less than 1% of the federal budget. It is only available to people who have young kids and only for a maximum of 5 years and what the hell else are we going to do? Let these kids live on the streets? Forget about that. Lets talk about the other 99% of the country.

We have a huge deficit. There are three ways to fix it- we can increase taxes, we can cut domestic spending or we can cut military spending. Realistically none of these is enough alone. In fact, no two of these are even enough. We can't cut $1.6 trillion out of domestic spending. That would be nearly ALL domestic spending. That means collapsing into a third world country with no decent highways or safe food and whatnot. Nobody wants that. Same with the military. To cut that much in military spending you would need to cut everything from veteran's benefits to all of our personnel, everything. Tax hikes you could theoretically get $1.6 trillion a year, but you'd need to set taxes so high that the economy would be severely undermined.

So, our only option that isn't totally disastrous is to do all three. But the GOP refuses to agree to two of the three. They're blocking action on the deficit. They know as well as everybody else does that we can't come close to closing the deficit just with domestic cuts.

Now, the military spending cuts actually have a pretty narrow impact compared to the others. We have to back out of some military commitments, but frankly our military has been misused too often anyways. It will hurt military families though and that is rough and means a lot more unemployment. The domestic spending cuts would have a brutal impact on the middle class. People who were relying on medicare for example, suddenly need to pony up a lot more money, people who have kids heading towards college suddenly need to save a ton more, laying off a million or so people means unemployment shooting up and jobs being harder to find for everybody, etc. So all those things are huge sacrifices for the middle class to be making. They'd be putting a ton of skin in to the game.

So, when we're looking at how to divide up the tax hikes, isn't it only fair that those would go to the rich, since they didn't have to pitch anything in yet? I don't see how we can possibly put the whole weight of the deficit on the shoulders of the middle class. It would pretty much crush it... Already the middle class is struggling and the rich are rapidly pulling away consuming more and more of our GDP every year. To put a $1.6 trillion weight around the neck of the middle class at a time like this and put nothing on the rich, that would be all she wrote for the middle class. We'd be headed towards just having 1% absurdly rich and 99% poor.

Welfare, Medicare and Social Security are the 3 most expensive government programs. If you really truely believe that government assistance is as cut and dry as you are trying to make it sound then you need to spend less time reading liberal news stories and take a trip through a trailer park.

Stop ignoring the glaringly obvious facts just to support your argument. If it is true that 1% of our population is on some kind of welfare yet that 1% accounts for 1 out of every 7 tax dollars, then there is serious problem here. The rich utilize public services far less than any other group, and for you to suggest that the people pay the most and use the least pay more is downright silly.

Smokified · Sep 21, 2011

Simon W. Moon said:
What are the odds of a "real solution", h/e you define it, being passed?

I know that there're more than one "real solution" to issues like illegal immigration and the drug wars that will never get anywhere simply because there's not enough political will to get any of them accomplished.

Well with the way people want to distort reality just to support their desire to work less and receive more, there will never be a real solution other than the reality that everything will collapse and we will eventually have to rebuild.

The problem is not the ideas, the problem is people that have your kind of attitude. Why try if nobody else is going to? Right?

Simon W. Moon · Sep 21, 2011

Smokified said:
The problem is not the ideas, the problem is people that have your kind of attitude. Why try if nobody else is going to? Right?

You're way out in left field somewhere where there is no game going on. But, that's your prerogative.

AdamT · Sep 21, 2011

Smokified said:
Welfare, Medicare and Social Security are the 3 most expensive government programs. If you really truely believe that government assistance is as cut and dry as you are trying to make it sound then you need to spend less time reading liberal news stories and take a trip through a trailer park.

Stop ignoring the glaringly obvious facts just to support your argument. If it is true that 1% of our population is on some kind of welfare yet that 1% accounts for 1 out of every 7 tax dollars, then there is serious problem here. The rich utilize public services far less than any other group, and for you to suggest that the people pay the most and use the least pay more is downright silly.

The rich utilize direct public assistance less, for obvious reasons, but they rely indirectly on government services far more than the poor, also for obvious reasons. If you run a company you require reliable highways and bridges. You require free trade agreements. You require a sound banking and financial system. You require reliable and plentiful power. You require patent and copyright protection. You require a strong court system to peacefully resolve disputes. You require an educated work force. Etc. None of these expensive government programs means much to a guy living on the street.

Gill · Sep 21, 2011

sangha said:
You claimed that these regs cost jobs. Now you're making another argument because you know those regs don't cost jobs

Perhaps you could point out where I claimed these regs cost jobs......

Conservative · Sep 21, 2011

AdamT said:
I believe that people shouldn't be self absorbed, materialistic, greed heads. If people ARE like that, I certainly am not jealous of them. It must suck to be you.

What you always do is speculate about that which you do not fully understand. I learned accepting personal responsibility a long time ago. Never did I expect, like you apparently do, that someone else should give me money for personal responsibility issues. I found it much better to spend my own money locally to solve social problems is obviously conflicts with your believe that it is ok for people to send their money to D.C. so that D.C. can give that money to you.

Conservative · Sep 21, 2011

AdamT said:
Who said anything about buying products? Can you try to stay on topic?

Maybe if you would focus more on all the posts on this thread than just mine, you would be able to answer that question?

Conservative · Sep 21, 2011

teamosil;1059812548]Are you asking what 1/3 of our GDP is? Just under $5 trillion/year.

Good, now name for me any group of rich that control 5 trillion of that?

Conservatives are so naive... You assume whoever has the money automatically has some special magical right to it. Like god went around declaring how much money people would have. In reality, who has what money is largely determined by a whole series of rules we set up as a society. What tax rates we set on this and that, what sorts of costs that companies create we make them bear and what costs we let them push off on to society, what national resources we charge them for and what ones we let them use for free, what types of anti-competitive practices we allow and what ones we don't, how members of boards of directors are selected, how performance reviews are structured, what information companies need to make public and what they are allowed to keep secret, how schools are funded, how health care is paid for, etc. Yet for some reason when those rules are tweaked in a way that pushes more money to the top, you're ok with that, but when they're tweaked in ways that push more money to the rest of the people you get all upset and start talking about taking people's money away. It's some strange type of doublethink. Right now the rules are dialed pretty much all the way towards pushing money to the super rich. They've won just about every one of those battles in legislatures, board rooms, stock exchanges and in employee negotiations and at this point everything is set up to suck money out of the rest of the country and dump it in their laps. We want to turn those dials back to a more sensible, traditional, level, that's all. If they're making such great choices they'll certainly continue to do fantastically well even on a more level playing field I'm sure

Isn't that what liberals are proposing, that my money be sent to D.C. so that politicians can send it to you?

Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue

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