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How's this for a compromise?

Would this be an acceptable compromise to you?

  • Total voters
    16
TurtleDude said:
federal income taxes on the poor have decreased even more and the top 1 and 5 percent are paying more of the federal tax burden than at any time in the last 55 years
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And they also have their greatest share of national wealth since just before the Great Depression.
 
TurtleDude said:
if taxes need to be increased we should first tax those who are paying way less than they should not those who already pay way more than they should
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And if we close loopholes, we would probably do that...
 
FilmFestGuy said:
And they also have their greatest share of national wealth since just before the Great Depression.
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as time goes on those who have money to invest are always going to increase their wealth

what you fail to account for is that top group is not the same people year in year out
 
liblady said:
do you really want to know what this country would be like without a middle class?
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Can we put you on the nightly news? You'd be great with scaring people about bird flu, or wait swine flu, wait I mean killer hurricane season, I mean wait the next catastrophe.

Wait just 2 years to raise taxes....we kill the middle class. Don't raise the debt limit, we destroy the worlds economy. Cut spending and vandals will rove the streets. So what you're saying is if we don't do it the way you all want that literally in 2 years time all chaos will break out.

Could things get bad down the road, absolutely...both sides agree with that. But this doomsday talk as if its all going to hell immedietely if one side doesn't get thier way is being ridiculous on both sides
 
Here's the thing. EVERYONE wants a balanced budget. The issue is not whether or not to cut spending. It's WHAT to cut. Democrats want to cut things like military spending, and tax spending to increase the wealth of the upper class. Republicans want to cut things like social security, education, and aid programs. That's where the conflict arises.
 
FilmFestGuy said:
And if we close loopholes, we would probably do that...
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the biggest loophole is getting full federal citizenship benefits including voting and not paying any net federal income taxes
 
TurtleDude said:
as time goes on those who have money to invest are always going to increase their wealth

what you fail to account for is that top group is not the same people year in year out
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yes, i think it pretty much is. do you have some stats to back that up?
 
liblady said:
one third of 1 percent. big deal. and a total of 1% total is hardly "gouging the wealthy".....please. i know there won't be a painless fix, it could get very ugly. the poor and middle class will undoubtedly suffer the ugliness FAR MORE than the wealthy will. it's their programs that will cut.....after all. no tax increase combined with spending cuts means exactly that.....the wealthy are unaffected and the poor and middle class are heavily affected. that's hardly sharing the pain.

do you really want to know what this country would be like without a middle class?
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Namibia... :)
 
Paschendale said:
Here's the thing. EVERYONE wants a balanced budget. The issue is not whether or not to cut spending. It's WHAT to cut. Democrats want to cut things like military spending, and tax spending to increase the wealth of the upper class. Republicans want to cut things like social security, education, and aid programs. That's where the conflict arises.
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Indeed, which both sides need to get it through their head to cut first and then hash it out and hopefully with both sides working on it we get something sensiable which is cuts across the board including to the military and entitlements. Indeed, Military and Entitlements, dollar amount wise, should be having the biggest cuts from them.
 
Zyphlin said:
Are you suggesting that every rate is increased like 2% across the board or something? Or are you playing Class Warfare, no different than the Democrats, when you are suggesting we should increase it only on the bottom of the bracket where it only significantly affects the lower classes. That is no different than what they're doing by saying we should increase it only at the top.
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The big difference being, of course, that the top brackets have a lot more money to spare, whereas the lowest brackets can barely afford their rent. %'s of income are a way of obscuring the real issue. The real issue is wealth, and the possession of it. Some people barely have enough to live, and their income does not allow for any extravagances or emergencies. Others have far more than enough to live, and tons leftover for extravagances and more than enough for any conceivable emergency. The point is, take from the funding for extravagances first, and hopefully never need to take from emergency funds or basic living expenses. %'s just confuse the issue. Some people have a lot of money to spare. Some people have none. Take from those who do so that no one will suffer and die.

Some of course, would prefer that others die than give up their extravagances.
 
Zyphlin said:
Indeed, which both sides need to get it through their head to cut first and then hash it out and hopefully with both sides working on it we get something sensiable which is cuts across the board including to the military and entitlements. Indeed, Military and Entitlements, dollar amount wise, should be having the biggest cuts from them.
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It would also be nice if we could spend some money on infrastructure and education and maybe bring up the GDP, so we'd have more money to work with.
 
Paschendale said:
The big difference being, of course, that the top brackets have a lot more money to spare, whereas the lowest brackets can barely afford their rent. %'s of income are a way of obscuring the real issue. The real issue is wealth, and the possession of it. Some people barely have enough to live, and their income does not allow for any extravagances or emergencies. Others have far more than enough to live, and tons leftover for extravagances and more than enough for any conceivable emergency. The point is, take from the funding for extravagances first, and hopefully never need to take from emergency funds or basic living expenses. %'s just confuse the issue. Some people have a lot of money to spare. Some people have none. Take from those who do so that no one will suffer and die.

Some of course, would prefer that others die than give up their extravagances.
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why should those who pay most of the federal taxes pay even more? its not their fault many people are "poor"

The tax the rich crowd operates on one or two assumptions

1) taxes should be based on ability to pay rather than what you receive in value

2) those who are rich were somehow given something by the government or the poor and thus should be forced to pay extra
 
I am hurt. Zyphlin responded to every one but me. He is a meany.:2razz:
 
LesGovt said:
No way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All this proposal does is eliminates an entitlement and creates yet another welfare program while punishing others. You want "the wealthy" to take an income tax rate hike, cut them out of receiving Social Security and make them pay for those who do receive Social Security. You generosity is simply overwhelming.
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If I had money such as Bill Gates? I would happily give my bennies up for those that need em more. It just seems like the right thing to do;)
 
Zyphlin said:
Alright, here's your compromise.

1. Republicans agree to raise the debt limit in a nearly clean bill, with its only additional bit of legislation stating that if the following resolutions don't pass the bill is invalid.

2. Democrats must agree to pass a resolution requiring that the 2012 and 2013 budget must be balanced in regards to expenditures compared to revenue, IE that spending will match predicted revenue. Included in this resolution is that no tax increases will be allowed to be considered until FY 2013.

3. Democrats and Republicans agree to form a bipartisan committee to draft a bill to reform the tax code and close loopholes in such a way to increase efficiency in the system while maintaining the current effective tax rates

4. Republicans agree to a 1% per tax bracket (starting with the 2nd bracket) increase that does not go into effect until FY 2014 AND is rendered invalid if spending in 2012 or 2013 exceeds both the budget and taken in revenue.

For Democrats:

This gets the Debt Ceiling raised with a relatively clean bill. You also have a tax increase signed in and ready to occur but also doesn't happen immedietely giving Obama a bit of cover regarding taxes in the near term. The tax increase would take those making 175K or more a year up 4% and those making over 380k up 5%.

For Republicans:

You get a balanced budget for the next two years with significant spending cuts and political ammo to potentially push for entitlement reform. You get one and a half years free of having to worry about any tax increases. And the tax increase that will come in 2014 will only come if the budget actually remained balanced for 2 years meaning only if the government actually acts seriously regarding spending.

Would this be an acceptable compromise for you?
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I've got only one issue.

How do you propose to balance the budget in 2012/2013 without increased revenues? We're talking about a 40% gap between spending and revenue.

If that will all be done with cuts, we will probably go back into recession. It's too big and too fast of a transition to make on a fragile economy. So how do you propose to make that work without upping revenue?

Personally, I would like to see the budget balanced with more gradual cuts combined with the gradual revenue increase. I'm ok with running a slightly unbalanced budget for another year or two in order to prevent a shock to the economy de-railing our recovery. Though of course we should be closing that gap as much as we reasonably can with each successive year.

But if you've got a suggestion for that I'm happy to hear it. Are you open to 2013/2014 as the goal for a completely balanced budget, if progress is being made with every fiscal year?

Other than that slight timing problem, I like it. How I vote will depend on your proposed solution to the above.
 
Kali said:
If I had money such as Bill Gates? I would happily give my bennies up for those that need em more. It just seems like the right thing to do;)
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Uh, Bill Gates has one of the largest charities in the world, He happily provides true charity where liberals believe charity is forcing someone else to pay for what they want done.
 
Redress said:
I like the basic premise of compromise, but I dislike too many details in this compromise. That large of spending cuts, at once, would have a significant negative effect on the US economy to my mind, possibly enough to take us back into recession. It has taken 50 years to get where we are, it is unreasonable to try and fix that in one year. Further, I have and do oppose any tax increases.
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Frankly I'm fine with reentering another recession now to stem off a possible depression in the future. That said, an alternative would possibly be a 4 year plan instead of 2, where the budget needs to reduce the deficit its running by half the first year, then half of that the next year, and THEN balanced the two years after that.

And I'm not exactly big on tax increases to, but I was attempting to put forth a hypothetical fair compromise based on what both sides are saying.
 
MistressNomad said:
Other than that slight timing problem, I like it. How I vote will depend on your proposed solution to the above.
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See my last post, you could set it up so that its:

Year 1: Budget Deficit reduced by half
Year 2: Reduce that half by another half
Year 3: Balanced
Year 4: Balanced and Tax Increases go into effect

Note the year 4 with taxes. If we're going to bump back the year we get a balanced budget then the year in which taxes come into play need to be bumped back too. I wanted 2 years of proof that we'd have a balanced budget before we'd give the government MORE money. I'll consider 2 years of cutting the Budget Deficit in half as 1 year of a full balanced budget, so it can go into effect in year 4 instead of year 3.

As to how to reduce it? Yes, I mean to do it completely by decreasing spending with EVERYTHING on the table...that means screw the Republicans who say that National Defense isn't on the table and screw the Democrats who say Social Security/Medicare/Health Care isn't on the table. EVERYTHING needs to be on the table for potential spending cuts. Will it make things difficult and bad off for a time during the present? Yes. However, if we keep putting it off as this President has done for 3 years and how the last President had did for 8 years then all we're doing is being selfish bastards who are afraid of a little hard time now instead of a significantly hard time for the next generation. There is NOT going to be a way that this situation gets fixed without some pain, it just simply isn't realistic. Its delusional to think that. We need to cut spending, cut it significantly, get rid of luxuries on the part of GOVERNMENT before we start trying to deem what level of luxuries private citizens should have, and then if you want to raise taxes lets do that and rather than using those taxes as justification for MORE spending to return us to those problems how about we act like fiscally mature adults and use that extra money to pay more to our debt payments to buy it down quicker and move to a debt free life.
 
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The debt limit should be raised with no strings attached, just like it's been done every time in the past. Budget fight must be done without putting our economy in danger. The chick**** from the GOP is just that, chicken****.
 
The OP's suggestions do nothing to address the real issues. Compromises won't work, either.

First, welfare reform went through a long time ago, no need to cut there at all.

Second, Social Security has already been drastically slashed, by the CPI revision farce in 1995, so no need for cuts there, either.

Third, the tax cuts removed any incentive for investment in expanding businesses, and by extension jobs, in the U.S.; why risk money when you're already so rich you're just sitting on your money for lack of places to put it?

Remove tax breaks for overseas business, raise tariffs, hardly anybody we've signed those lop-sided 'free trade' scams are complying with their ends of the deals anyway. Pass true health care reform, not a bunch of 'compromises' insurance companies can live with.

In short, make no deals with Republicans at all. It's their turn to come up with cuts in their pet socialist programs, like 'Defense', lopping some $300 billion a year off of that would be a nice conservative start and show of good faith, and remove the tax cuts for hedge Funds, their managers, and raise taxes on LBO's and these mergers that are gutting the country.

Of course, nothing is going to happen until major election reforms are forced on the political system, so it's all just for entertainment purposes only.
 
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Zyphlin said:
See my last post, you could set it up so that its:

Year 1: Budget Deficit reduced by half
Year 2: Reduce that half by another half
Year 3: Balanced
Year 4: Balanced and Tax Increases go into effect

Note the year 4 with taxes. If we're going to bump back the year we get a balanced budget then the year in which taxes come into play need to be bumped back too. I wanted 2 years of proof that we'd have a balanced budget before we'd give the government MORE money. I'll consider 2 years of cutting the Budget Deficit in half as 1 year of a full balanced budget, so it can go into effect in year 4 instead of year 3.

As to how to reduce it? Yes, I mean to do it completely by decreasing spending with EVERYTHING on the table...that means screw the Republicans who say that National Defense isn't on the table and screw the Democrats who say Social Security/Medicare/Health Care isn't on the table. EVERYTHING needs to be on the table for potential spending cuts. Will it make things difficult and bad off for a time during the present? Yes. However, if we keep putting it off as this President has done for 3 years and how the last President had did for 8 years then all we're doing is being selfish bastards who are afraid of a little hard time now instead of a significantly hard time for the next generation. There is NOT going to be a way that this situation gets fixed without some pain, it just simply isn't realistic. Its delusional to think that. We need to cut spending, cut it significantly, get rid of luxuries on the part of GOVERNMENT before we start trying to deem what level of luxuries private citizens should have, and then if you want to raise taxes lets do that and rather than using those taxes as justification for MORE spending to return us to those problems how about we act like fiscally mature adults and use that extra money to pay more to our debt payments to buy it down quicker and move to a debt free life.
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I'm totally with you on putting EVERYTHING on the table. Hell, with inefficienct and redudant programs alone we could cut endless billions with no real impact on functioning (although jobs would be lost - pointless as the jobs themselves may be).

But I am still worried about how such huge spending cuts so immediately will hit the economy. Would you consider raising taxes on the upper 1-2% in Year 2 and slowing the cuts? I'd like to see them happening together to help ease the pressure. Doing them one at a time seems pointless to me when eventually we're planning to raise revenue anyway. Why not reduce the blow economically by doing both simultaniously and in a tiered way?
 
Because Tax Cuts happen immediately. They pass, people start paying them, end of story.

Spending cuts don't. Even if you pass a budget saying you're only going to do "X" amount of spending there are numerous ways congress can authorize more and more money through riders, emergency bills, and other such things.

IE, tax cuts happen...and their there. End of story. People are paying more money and are going to do so until you cut taxes which is historically somewhat difficult and its not something a tax payer can just ignore and not do. Spending cuts are theoretical, have multiple avenues to invalidate them, and are easy for the government to ignore.

So I'm not willing to go along with a tax increase with a trust that somehow, someway, spending decreases will honestly happen at any kind of level other than a token amount. I don't particularly think that Tax's will significantly increase revenue in the long run, but that said I'd be at least willing to give it a try if its felt somewhat by everyone (Even if its more felt by the top) and if its after we've been shown an honest good faith effort on the part of the government to significantly and tangibly cut down on the spending, waste, and luxuries on the part of government.
 
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Zyphlin said:
Frankly I'm fine with reentering another recession now to stem off a possible depression in the future. That said, an alternative would possibly be a 4 year plan instead of 2, where the budget needs to reduce the deficit its running by half the first year, then half of that the next year, and THEN balanced the two years after that.

And I'm not exactly big on tax increases to, but I was attempting to put forth a hypothetical fair compromise based on what both sides are saying.
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Some rough numbers, working off memory. Will look them up later when I have more time if you need them.

Govt spending = 24.1 % of GDP(I couldn't wait, had to have right numbers, so looed now)
36 % of the money spent by government is borrowed(sadly, this is improved from 40 % 2 years ago)
Revenue is expected to be 14.8 % of GDP this year, almost a historic low.

To get to a balanced budget even in 4 years, you have to, over that 4 years, chop 2 % off of GDP, which this year would put us in negative growth, which will slow recovery, and make things even worse next year.

There is no sign that we are in danger of going into depression due to government spending, and even with modest cuts, to bring growth in spending down below growth in GDP would eliminate any chance of it. That can be done within a year or two, without endangering the while economy or slowing recovery. Once into a full scale recovery, revenue starts rising again, growth happens faster, and continuing to make modest cuts, we can go surprisingly fast from deficit to balanced.
 
pbrauer said:
The debt limit should be raised with no strings attached, just like it's been done every time in the past. Budget fight must be done without putting our economy in danger. The chick**** from the GOP is just that, chicken****.
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That's not a good solution. All that will do is breed more irresponsibility.
 
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