• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

House passes huge GOP budget cuts

Let me go on the record as an advocate for tax hikes, draconian spending cuts, draconian cuts in government regulations (state and fed) and a horrible American recession that will last for nearly 10 years.

Medicine tastes bad but we (America) refuse to take our medicine because we have allowed the political propaganda machines of both parties to fill our heads with the idea that we can have our cake and eat it too. We think that we can build utopia because we are special, we are Americans and we are a super power that will never die.
 
This 3% is content to ship American jobs and money overseas to increase their wealth even further.

yup, just like the slasher's JOBS CZAR

General Electric is so good at doing their taxes, the government pays them. In 2010, the company reported global profits of $14.2 billion, $5.1 billion of which came from the U.S. But using a combination of offshore accounts and aggressive lobbying for tax breaks, GE managed to not only pay no taxes, but get a benefit of $3.2 billion. GE spent $200 million on lobbying in the last decade. At one point, when a generous tax break was about to expire, the head of GE's tax team met with Representative Charles Rangel, then chairman of the ways and means committee, and begged for an extension on one knee. Supposedly it was a joke, but GE got its extension, and Rangel got a $30 million gift for New York City schools.

GE Pays No Taxes - The Daily Beast
 
Let me go on the record as an advocate for tax hikes, draconian spending cuts, draconian cuts in government regulations (state and fed) and a horrible American recession that will last for nearly 10 years.

Medicine tastes bad but we (America) refuse to take our medicine because we have allowed the political propaganda machines of both parties to fill our heads with the idea that we can have our cake and eat it too. We think that we can build utopia because we are special, we are Americans and we are a super power that will never die.

I agree with everything but the regulation cuts. At least at the fed level. Most of the stupid regs I see are at the state level. I certainly don't want less inspections at meat plants.
 
Say what? How does existing law define any compliance with the definition of fair? Everyone's definition of fair varies. Is it fair that the rich pay more because they earn more? It is fair that the rich pay more because they own vast majority of assets in this country? It is fair that everyone pays the same amount? The problem with people like Turtle is that they define fair as they please and do not stick to that definition. I have no respect for people who unilaterally change their definitions based on how badly they are losing an argument.

Damn, that must give you fits when you look in the mirror.

There's a reason "fairness" isn't codified in law and why "fairness" is not a good basis for defining law in the first place.

"Fairness" is defined by mobs of uneducated greedy people seeking freebies. It's easier to define "equality", easier to regulate equal applications of the law, and easier to see where the cheats are happening.

An example given to the Mayor by a flaming socialist on another board was that some fund manager allegedly made $1,800 million dollars in one year and "only" paid 30% in taxes on this. He claimed it was totally "unfair".

The Mayor wanted to know what was "unfair" about one man paying over six hundred million dollars in taxes in one year. If that doesn't embody "fairness", how can anyone on the left even begin to define the term they throw around like mashed potatoes at a food fight?

It's not up to the govenrment to determine what a "fair" payment is. The government can't define fair, it can only balance the assorted compromises and develop an average value of fairness that will shift with the political currents.

The Mayor presented his views on fairness and income already. You are not arguing with those, you're whining that you can't argue them. Which is only fair.

That shouldn't be a problem as the COTUS doesn't cover that. Furthermore, taxation in excess of spending isn't necessarily a bad idea.

Yes, it's a bad idea. It siphons capital needed for growth and creates an asset the politician are as likely to leave alone as a six year old boy is to leave the scab on his knee alone. Guaranteed, they're both going to be a pickin'...

For instance, states do this all of the time. They deposit the surplus into rainy day funds which generate income which can be used for disaster, stimulus or budget balancing.

And then,....and then, along comes Willy Brown, the Democratic State legislature, and wuss named Wilson, and the state begins running uncontrollable deficits becuase once that keg is finally tapped, the drunkards start prominsing the brewery that they'll pay later for more beer today.

While it's pretty in theory, if you don't examine it closely, funds in excess of current and projected expenses, which must be locked up tight from prying politicians, are funds that are actually best left in the hands of the people who earned them.

Don't want the state to pay for that disaster looming? Pay for the fixed tangible assets needed to cope in advance. Don't expect that money left lying around will be lying around when it's needed. Look at all those states who supposedly had "pension funds", oh, gee, they're gone.

IMO, building a surplus is far preferable then deficit spending. I'd rather have the fed tax more, build a surplus fund and use that surplus fund for stimulus spending during recessions then borrow money.

The Senate in the 1980's decided that the Social Security funds being accrued for future obligations should be used to buy Treasuries. The same government decided that, gee, look at all that money that just came in. And spent it.

That's the natural fate of all rainy day funds, friend. The politicians steal it. It's what they do.

Listen, and understand! Those politicians are out there! They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. - From the film "Mr. Terminator-Smith Goes to Washington"

At least with that method we stay in the black. As Japan shows us, bad stuff happens. Going in to debt to fix that is not preferable when you can build up a safety fund during good times. What I vastly dislike about the Tea Party is that they don't seem to understand this .

Those Americans understand it just fine. And they're realists and know that a Congress that has proven it's perfidy cannot, by definition, be trusted to do the right thing. Allowing the United States Congress to hold "surplus" money is just as stupid as asking a heroin addict to hold onto your retirement funds.

And for the same reason.

Can you explain why you would trust Congress to do what Congress has proven it refuses to do, namely, handle money maturely?

The rich also own the greatest portion of asset.

Yeah, fancy that.

Just because a man owns money isn't an excuse to rob him. At some point the graduated tax scale becomes nothing more than a mugging, and the wealthy cease engaging in commerce and focus on capital preservation, and that's when the job creation comes to a grinding halt.

That does not logically follow.

Yes, it does. Anytime a mere 2% of the population is coerced to provide 50% of the national funding, they're being taxed excessively and the nation has to re-examine it's priorities. Be for real. 150,000,000 people in the US are getting a free ride.

To quote Captain John Smith:
Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries, I hope is sufficient to persuade every one to a present correction of himself, and think not that either my pains, nor the [investors'] purses, will ever maintain you in idleness and sloth. I speak not this to you all, for diverse of you I know deserve both honor and reward, better than is yet here to be had: but the greater part must be more industrious, or starve, how ever you have been heretofore tolerated by the authorities of the Council, from that I have often commanded you. You see now that power rests wholly in myself: you must obey this now for a Law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled) for the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain an hundred and fifty idle loiterers.



Actually it's both.

No. It's clearly a spending issue. When confiscating the earnings of everyone will net only 1/3 of the amount needed to cover the spending, then the issue isn't the taxes, the issue is the spending. Anyone attempting to run their business or their family's budget in such a fashion is in for a rude surprise.

Come again? 50% don't pay federal taxes? You got this where? Last I checked, payroll taxes are federal taxes. And only around 45% of the country is not working. Actually 10% of the population is carrying 55% of the burden.

So you feel there's such a huge difference between 45% and 50% that you've refuted my claim? That forcing 10% rather than 2% to carry such a huge fraction of the burden is soooo much fairer that you can again claim to refute the point being made, which is that too damn many people in this country are free loaders expecting more handouts stolen from those who work?

Read the quote from Captain Smith carefully, it defines the founding sensibility of the entire American experiment.

As for no "rational" definition, well that is your opinion.

Yes, that's rational, the Mayor's opinion is.

Take this for example: The economy is basically a machine to generate material wealth.

The economy is a machine to generate material wealth for the people who earned it.

To be specific.

But that does through the two-inch Snap-On combination wrench into your argument, doesn't it?

The economy is kept going by taxes that support the economy and regulate it so that it functions properly. Now, who should pay the majority of taxes in such a system? Those who own very few of the total wealth or those who own the majority of the wealth?

Gee. How pretty. You've just described the libertarian system of limited government with a laissez-faire approach to business in which the minimalist necessary controls are funded by those profitting most from the existence of those protections.

Too bad what we're really discussing is the parasitic lamprey policies of cancerous unconstitutional entitlement spending that's devouring the nation and destroying it's ability to survive, as all cancers andn leeches do.

So much for your "no rational definition of fair is going to allow this."


Pbbfttt! The example you cited was your own strawman that had nothing to do with the realities facing the nation and the current budget processes. Social Security has nothing to do with regulatory requirements to prevent fraud and contract infringements among commercial enterprises. Nor does Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC, the NEA, NPR, PBS, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Public Education System, and any of the other completely unconstitutional programs the producers are taxed to fund.

Your own attempt to define "fairness" excluded those and included only those items the Mayor would consider as fair.

So much for your attempt to reject the Mayor's superior ability to reason.

Which is nothing more than speculation.

No, clearly when the average man is being taxed at fifty percent of his earnings, the only position he can occupy on the Laffer Curve is the side wherein increased taxation leads to decreased government revenues.

Taxation =/= theft.
It certainly does when the destination of the collected revenues is illegal programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid...the list is three lines up, dude...

That depends how you look at things. See my earlier example.

The Mayor looks at things and sees the crashing end, and he doesn't want that for his children and grand children.

If you keep up the notion that taxation = theft, you are not worth talking you.

If you keep posting strawmen like that, you're going to have to buy a new farm.
 
Let me go on the record as an advocate for tax hikes, draconian spending cuts, draconian cuts in government regulations (state and fed) and a horrible American recession that will last for nearly 10 years.

Medicine tastes bad but we (America) refuse to take our medicine because we have allowed the political propaganda machines of both parties to fill our heads with the idea that we can have our cake and eat it too. We think that we can build utopia because we are special, we are Americans and we are a super power that will never die.

I agree with your post. There are really two ways to fund the government - Debt and taxes, and the spot that we are in right now is going to require reducing spending to lower the debt burden, and taxation to help pay it off. It is going to require both, since just one won't cut it. And yes, the medicine is going to be painful. In this case the cure for a painful disease is going to have to be painful itself.
 
I’m not sure how well this will go for the Republicans. Getting people to vote against their economic interests only works when economic issues are eclipsed by social fluff issues like gay marriage and abortion.

ah. and you think that enslaving their children to the Chinese is in American's economic best interest?



but there is a simple way to tell if you are correct or not. If you are right, then Democrats will spend the 2012 election cycle avoiding social issues and focusing in on the Ryan Budget like a laser.

But if you are wrong, Democrats will desperately throw out and harp on any social issue they think will make Republicans look "right wing" (as they did with Planned Parenthood) in a desperate attempt to talk about anything other than spending.


:) Let us see who is correct.
 
I agree with your post. There are really two ways to fund the government - Debt and taxes

The US is also the largest land-owner on the continent. Seems to me we could start selling some stuff.

and the spot that we are in right now is going to require reducing spending to lower the debt burden, and taxation to help pay it off. It is going to require both, since just one won't cut it.

Except you can't really raise revenue above 18.5% of GDP with any degree of predictability. So the only way to "raise taxes" is to "raise GDP".
 
What does any of that have to do with the fact that today the unconstitutional programs both parties passed a lifetime ago are leading the nation into economic disaster, and that only one party is even making an attempt, as lame as it is, to rectify the error made so long ago?

Why aren't you focusing on the essential realities, namely:

1) The programs were unconstitutional when passed.
2) The programs are still unconstituitonal.
3) The programs are killing America.
4) The death of America is going to hit those poor you pretend to care about the worst of anyone?
5) The Democrats are doing everything they can to increase the damage done, they're not simply attempting to maintain the status quo, they're actively seeking to expand the damage.

Those are the salient issues.

You're addressing not one of them.

We have a United States Supreme Court to decide these matters and they did decide these matters.

Your side lost.

The people who believe such programs were unconstitutional lost and they were ruled as constitutional.
 
Last edited:
jewel of the new deal---very good

but if the jewels are so valuable why are they in such dire need of fixing

Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs Simpson And Bowles Release Eye-Popping Recommendations | TPMDC

Because we have exempted income above the level of $106K for FICA tax contributions. If we popped the cap on that amount and then applied toe FICA tax to all amounts above that current cap AND took the step to freeze benefits at todays level plus inflation, we would have solved the vat majority of any financial shortfall.

Sometimes jewels need to be reset to make sure they will be around for the next several generations and they are not lost due to an inadequate foundation.
 
A few people have mentioned Ryans plan cutting taxes on people making over 250,000, while cutting entitlements. Isn't this also part of the Ryan plan:

Simplifies tax rates to 10 percent on income up to $100,000 for joint filers, and $50,000 for single filers; and 25 percent on taxable income above these amounts. Compare Ryans rates with the following:

10% Up to $8,375(Single) Up to $16,750 (Married)

2010 Tax Brackets | Tax Rates
 
We have a United States Supreme Court to decide these matters and they did decide these matters.

Your side lost.

The people who believe such programs were unconstitutional lost and they were ruled as constitutional.

and few people who understand the issue will say that was anything other than a FDR intimidated court worried about politics It required complete reversal of 130 years of precedent facilitated by FDR's court packing threat and FDR's big win in 1936
 
and few people who understand the issue will say that was anything other than a FDR intimidated court worried about politics It required complete reversal of 130 years of precedent facilitated by FDR's court packing threat and FDR's big win in 1936

Spin, spin and more spin. So what? Such intellectual rationalization means nothing compared to the reality of the power of the Court and the decisions they render.
 
Spin, spin and more spin. So what? Such intellectual rationalization means nothing compared to the reality of the power of the Court and the decisions they render.

so tell us-what sound precedent caused the Supremes to overrule Schechter Poultry and the hundred+ years of precedent it was based on?
 
so tell us-what sound precedent caused the Supremes to overrule Schechter Poultry and the hundred+ years of precedent it was based on?

Its irrelevant. Accept it and move on. Or not. It means precious little to me.

You tried this before to no avail. I NEVER brought up the case. You did. If it means so much to you - you start a thread on it and discuss it. It means NOTHING to me and I never brought it up. The fact is a simple one: you are not on the US Supreme Court. Those that are, those who have the legal power, disagreed with you. Accept it or not. It means little to reality.
 
Last edited:
Its irrelevant. Accept it and move on. Or not. It means precious little to me.

You tried this before to no avail. I NEVER brought up the case. You did. If it means so much to you - you start a thread on it and discuss it. It means NOTHING to me and I never brought it up. The fact is a simple one: you are not on the US Supreme Court. Those that are, those who have the legal power, disagreed with you. Accept it or not. It means little to reality.

haymarket, what is your opinion of the SCOTUS case that struck down mccain-feingold?
 
Its irrelevant. Accept it and move on. Or not. It means precious little to me.

You tried this before to no avail. I NEVER brought up the case. You did. If it means so much to you - you start a thread on it and discuss it. It means NOTHING to me and I never brought it up. The fact is a simple one: you are not on the US Supreme Court. Those that are, those who have the legal power, disagreed with you. Accept it or not. It means little to reality.

for the purposes of discussion it is not irrelevant

of course you can pretend it was based on sound legal reasoning and precedent which it was not to justify your support of the idiocy we have in terms of a bloated federal government today

and if a court were to say strike down the sham wow health care power grab believe me you statists will be screaming how the Obamacare is consistent with the fdr precedent.
 
winners win losers lose but that 3% is not static so that sort of blows a big hole in your class envy

There's no class envy at all. I'm perfectly happy and comfortable in my life. i don't need to have excess. I do however care about the people in this country that are struggling and don't mind paying my taxes to support my country.
See....I don't buy into your philosophy that he with the most wins....or that more is always better. If fewer and fewer people in this country adhered to that philosphy, we could return this country to being a great country again.
 
There's no class envy at all. I'm perfectly happy and comfortable in my life. i don't need to have excess. I do however care about the people in this country that are struggling and don't mind paying my taxes to support my country.
See....I don't buy into your philosophy that he with the most wins....or that more is always better. If fewer and fewer people in this country adhered to that philosphy, we could return this country to being a great country again.

if you want the country to be great you have to deal with the fact that the current tax system which allows the many to vote up the tax burden of a minority has caused a huge expansion in both government and government debt.

you apparently are upset at the rich wanting more is bad yet you support a system where your dem masters win elections by spending money on the many while allowing the many not to pay the bills
 
if you want the country to be great you have to deal with the fact that the current tax system which allows the many to vote up the tax burden of a minority has caused a huge expansion in both government and government debt.

you apparently are upset at the rich wanting more is bad yet you support a system where your dem masters win elections by spending money on the many while allowing the many not to pay the bills
i see you are having the same problem as conservative, that is proving your claim.
 
If you run up a big debt and elect to reduce your income, what do you expect to happen?

the same thing that happens when you make tens of trillions of dollars of empty promises to members of social security and medicare, to public employees concerning their pensions which are collectively two point five trillion dollars short

if soc sec and the m's are such wonderful programs, then why are they killing us

america is in desperate need of major budget reform

barack the slasher hussein is the last obastacle
 
if you want the country to be great you have to deal with the fact that the current tax system which allows the many to vote up the tax burden of a minority has caused a huge expansion in both government and government debt.

you apparently are upset at the rich wanting more is bad yet you support a system where your dem masters win elections by spending money on the many while allowing the many not to pay the bills

Yeah say they rich are starving to death, poor babies, take a peek at this list and these arent even the big guys....arse wiping the rich and whining they pay to much and have it soo soo bad doesnt change the disparity between the have and havenots growing wider and wider...its all a bs story

2010 CEO pay chart, sorted by total - USATODAY.com

Again keep in mind that these are mostly minor pigs at the trough the big pigs arent included in this
 
for the most part Obama has followed the same policies as Bush when it comes to the economy.

it's a matter of scale

McCain would have done not much different

the maverick wouldn't have crammed obamacare via senate reconciliation a few days after being prepared to deem the dumb thing

a couple hundred billion here or there

astonishingly cavalier, ie, don't run on that platform

we're currently overspending on the order of a hundred billion dollars every two weeks

is the slasher seriously considering taxing the rich on the order of tens of b's each fortnite

is there even that much rich out there

if so, fine, but tell slash to put it in writing

great and excellent speeches don't suffice in a crisis

interest on the debt alone is racing towards a trillion per year

Now as Keynesian theory suggests that durin good economic periods running a governmengt surplus is in order to fund government deficits during the bad years

keynes is disgraced, from athens to sacto

ask cuomo

why can't the the slasher pronounce anymore the s-word, suddenly obscene

Echo Chamber: The new S-word? - Alexander Trowbridge - POLITICO.com

Just don't call it a 'stimulus' - Alexander Burns - POLITICO.com
 
Back
Top Bottom