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What's the best way to reduce the deficit?

What is (are) the best way(s) to eliminate the deficit?

  • A balanced budget amendment

    Votes: 20 24.7%
  • A line item veto amenndment

    Votes: 14 17.3%
  • replace income tx with a national retail sales tax

    Votes: 9 11.1%
  • Raise taxes on the rich

    Votes: 30 37.0%
  • Raise taxes on the middle-class

    Votes: 5 6.2%
  • Raise taxes stealthily in the form of fees, a federal lottery, etc.

    Votes: 3 3.7%
  • Nationalize oil and natural gas on federal land and get into the enegry business like Saudi Arabia

    Votes: 10 12.3%
  • Cut federal spending

    Votes: 56 69.1%
  • Sell services to prizate industry at a profit, privatize then tax them

    Votes: 3 3.7%
  • other

    Votes: 23 28.4%

  • Total voters
    81
You left something off: Tax newly legalized services. Sexual freedom should be legalized, meaning if someone wants to pay for sexual services, he should be able to. That should be regulated and taxed. If someone wants to consume marijuana or Psilocybin mushrooms for medicinal or recreational use, he should be allowed to. Again, regulate and tax it.

I would also put a 99% tax on all corporate bribery -- I mean donations -- of political campaigns. Of course, they might just quit donating if the tax were that high. FINE WITH ME!

There should be cuts, but not of Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, or education. We should END the war on drugs that would save money on wasted enforcement. Also give amnesty to people convicted of non-violent drug offenses and let them out of prison -- less money spend on prisons. Withdraw all troops from Afghanistan immediately -- more money saved.



i agree with Afghanistan. In the history books, Afghanistan will show up as the Super power the demolished both the Soviet union and the united States.

Out of curiosity, why should the Feds continue to spend anything on Education? Since they have been involved, the USA has slipped from number 1 to about 20th ranked against the rest of the world. That's not a great endorsement in my view.
 
Anybody with any sense says this and it is compared to what the feds used to spend. This link takes you to a chart that shows that Federal spending per household has about doubled since 1965 figured in constant 2012 dollars adjusted for inflation.

This is the perfect example of an organization doing less with more. Every other organization on the planet that has implemented the use of computers has reduced payroll as a result. Not the Gubmint. They have increased their headcount and the average pay of each head.

What's wrong with this picture?

Federal Spending per Household Is Skyrocketing


That coincides with the mass outsourcing of american jobs that has millions upon millions of used to be taxpaying middleclass out of work or under employed and on food stamps...It coincides with the rich enjoying the lowest tax rate in 50 yrs....get the picture here.
It coincides with the rich getting fabulously richer while the 98% of america slides further and further down....the pigs at the trough have sucked the life out of the country...now theyre bottom sucking
 
Remove capital gains tax. The single biggest mistake ever. All income should be taxed as income not "capital gains".

Means test many deductions or remove.

Cut waste in military and security spending. Includes cutting a branch of the military.

Cut waste in over all government spending... aka pork projects.

Means test SS. Ron Paul does not need SS...

Tackle the private healthcare cartel to reduce over all costs in healthcare which will effect Medicaid and care. Single biggest problem in the US at the moment.

But all this wont happen because of the money involved in the political process to maintain the status quo.



Many of your points are to punish those who have worked hard to have something when they need it. Why would you want to do this?

Our health plan at work has changed from the old model of the 80/20 coverage to a system where the first dollars are covered 100% up to a plateau. All preventative care is covered 100%.

After that initial plateau, 100% of the costs are covered by the employee and after that, it goes to the old 80/20 model.

Suddenly ALL employees are seeking ways to stay under the plateau where the company pays 100%. Big time savings when you have thousands of people working to produce savings on every medical decision. This is a model that brings everybody together to make the right choice. This is a model that should be considered by any group trying to control Medical costs.

Top down decision making, like the centralized models of Obama, are poison to savings as the skyrocketing deficits demonstrate.
 
I put other....we do not need to raise taxs...we need to plug the loopholes that allow the rich and corporations to get away with murder...we need more regulation that MAKES them keep jobs here to expand the tax base.

We need to cut spending reasonably in a way that does not hurt large groups of people...we need reasonable entitlement reform..

If we combine all 3 of those we would zooom right out of debt....without anyone getting hurt except for the larynxs of the far right



And if these steps were put in place, would the american people all fall in line and pay the increased costs to support the increased costs of the manufacturers who are producing the higher cost products to replace the lower cost products we love?

Businesses don't pay taxes. They collect taxes.
 
That coincides with the mass outsourcing of american jobs that has millions upon millions of used to be taxpaying middleclass out of work or under employed and on food stamps...It coincides with the rich enjoying the lowest tax rate in 50 yrs....get the picture here.
It coincides with the rich getting fabulously richer while the 98% of america slides further and further down....the pigs at the trough have sucked the life out of the country...now theyre bottom sucking



During that period was the Space Race, Viet Nam, watergate, The hostage crisis, Stagflation, the Reagan Revolution, the .com Bubble, the Real estate bubble and the worst president in the history of the Republic in terms of debt, Obama.

Have you ever wondered why the pioneers went west and dug holes in prairie and lived like moles instead of staying in the cities of the east? Life sucked at that time.

Whatever your life conditions are right now in the USA, you are living better than you would have for the rest of the history of civilization.

If your life is miserable, man up and go to work. Your whine needs a cork.
 
1. Raising nominal rates on upper income earners will not produce more revenue
2. It will increase the amount of time, energy, and resources that upper income earners spend minimizing their tax exposure which
3. Means that it will also decrease the amount of time, energy, and resources that they put into being productive.

:lamo . . . . . . . . . . .
 
A few other things I would do that should help...

-A complete and thorough audit of The Federal Reserve. Heads should roll in this investigation and we need to know what our money is funding.
-An investigation into corruption within the Federal governments' three branches. Find a way to get them out of suits and into prisons
-Immediately release all non-violent drug users from prison and put them into an out-patient rehab center. Redefine addiction as a medical issue rather than a criminal one and we save money by not having overcrowding prisons. (This comes with the notion that healthcare is a private entity not to be funded exclusively through the government.)
 
The worst thing you could do to our consumer economy is to tax spending. [...]
Actually that would be one of the best things to do if you wanted solid growth rather than a series of bubbles.[....]
:lamo

No nation has ever consumed it's way into prosperity - you produce your way into prosperity.
:lamo

The United States currently has the most progressive income tax structure in the modern world.
:lamo

According to World Bank data, Denmark currently has the highest top marginal tax bracket worldwide, with a tax rate of up to 62.3%. Sweden has the second-highest marginal tax rate—at 56.7%—and The Netherlands comes in third, at 52%. Austria, Belgium, The Congo and Japan follow closely at 50%.

Read more: Personal Income Tax Rates | Global Finance
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike
Get a FREE subscription to Global Finance magazine : http://www.gfmag.com/subscribe.html
Taxation of an individual's income in Japan is progressive. [....] The tax rate for an individual in 2012 is between 5% - 40% [The U.S. individual income tax rates for 2011 are 10%-35%].

Japan Tax Laws Tax System 2012. - WorldWide-Tax.com
Please -- enough with the right wing talk media Kool Aid talking points... I'm gasping for breath here :2razz:
 
And if these steps were put in place, would the american people all fall in line and pay the increased costs to support the increased costs of the manufacturers who are producing the higher cost products to replace the lower cost products we love?

Businesses don't pay taxes. They collect taxes.

You buy into the corporate koolaid like so many toe the line conservatives do...

Manufacturing in China does not decrease the cost here....what the freight will bear decides pricing not manufacturing cost.. The ran to china to avoid paying fellow americans a decent wage...out of GREED no other reason...they dont want to pay ANYTHING to their workers...no pensions no health insurance...they just want to stick it in their pocket.
Our dearest corporate rich guys have gladly...stuck it to their own country out of greed...they have millions of americans out of work because of outsourcing and not paying taxs and some on the public dole....they have millions on non union private sector workers..working far longer hours for LESS...they have caused this malais no one but the rich corporate interests....ALL OUT OF GREED. Now after they caused this, they want to attack public workers...and seniors on social security and medicare and the poorest americans on medicare and food stamps and say THEY ARE THE CULPRITS...we need more tax cuts to create jobs....where ahs in china like you have been ?
 
A few other things I would do that should help...

-A complete and thorough audit of The Federal Reserve. Heads should roll in this investigation and we need to know what our money is funding.
-An investigation into corruption within the Federal governments' three branches. Find a way to get them out of suits and into prisons
-Immediately release all non-violent drug users from prison and put them into an out-patient rehab center. Redefine addiction as a medical issue rather than a criminal one and we save money by not having overcrowding prisons. (This comes with the notion that healthcare is a private entity not to be funded exclusively through the government.)



Before we do that start putting this corporate scumbags in jail first...and stopping all the criminality by the big banks...wall street and the corporate crooks...and the drug makers....and watch how fast it gets better...bottom feeding scum they are....every day theres a new corporation, bank or ceo caught SCREWING AMERICANS...and it all ends the same way...SCUMBAGS NUMBER 1-2-3 admit to no wrongdoing but agreed to pay 3 billion in fines on the 25 billion they STOLE from americans....pfffffffffffffft
 
A widget that costs less and is of the same or higher quality [...]
I see... you're not manufacturing widgets, you're manufacturing goal posts. Carry on :2razz:
 
You buy into the corporate koolaid like so many toe the line conservatives do...

Manufacturing in China does not decrease the cost here....what the freight will bear decides pricing not manufacturing cost.. The ran to china to avoid paying fellow americans a decent wage...out of GREED no other reason...they dont want to pay ANYTHING to their workers...no pensions no health insurance...they just want to stick it in their pocket.


Blue collar workers in the US are overpaid.
 
[....] Whether it is as a nation or as an individual, the way to reduce debt is to reduce spending to less than income and pay off the debt with the excess. Loaves and fishes have nothing to do with it.
Do you live in that conservative universe where increasing income is a mathematical impossibility?
I live in Indianapolis where both the City and the State have surpluses.
Dodge. I thought you were a Chrysler man.

If the feds sold off the interstate highway system to foreigners, they might have a surplus as well. Did not Mitch Daniels thereby increase state income?
 
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Many of your points are to punish those who have worked hard to have something when they need it. Why would you want to do this?

Our health plan at work has changed from the old model of the 80/20 coverage to a system where the first dollars are covered 100% up to a plateau. All preventative care is covered 100%.

After that initial plateau, 100% of the costs are covered by the employee and after that, it goes to the old 80/20 model.

Suddenly ALL employees are seeking ways to stay under the plateau where the company pays 100%. Big time savings when you have thousands of people working to produce savings on every medical decision. This is a model that brings everybody together to make the right choice. This is a model that should be considered by any group trying to control Medical costs.

Top down decision making, like the centralized models of Obama, are poison to savings as the skyrocketing deficits demonstrate.

Listen, it is your lot, the GOP that claim that the US is in a deep hole with massive debt and deficits. You need to do something to fix that. Cutting and cutting from the budget WONT WORK, it is simple math! The social costs of cutting SS, medicaid and care are so massive that any big cuts here, will come and bite you in the ass. It is already doing this if you look at the TB outbreaks in the US. And we all know that the right would never cut the military budget, even though the waste there is massive and dwarfs the waste in SS, Medicaid/care.

You need to fix the income aspect of the math, and here the single biggest problem is capital gains, which is a rich mans tax. Not only does it promote "non work" over actually daily work, but also primarily benefits the wealthy. And nothing pisses off people more than someone that is earning more than you, paying less in taxes in % than you.. and working far less for that money. Also Capital gains taxes have shown not to do anything other than make the rich richer since they dont pay taxes.

There is no punishment in fixing the inequalities of the tax code.

Another fix should be forcing everyone to pay income taxes, or at least go through the motions. Sure they might not earn enough to beat the deductibles, but they should be paying something even if it is just symbolic. In my home country we all pay taxes, even the 14 year old who has a paper route. Now the trick here is to make it an active system, and in Denmark we do it by giving each citizen a tax card, where they can either choose to take a bulk deduction or a monthly one. This they present to their employer and the employer puts their choice in the system. Now they might not earn enough to pay taxes, but the active part is key to getting a respect of the tax system and feeling part of the system. And before you come with the "administration" costs.. it is all electronic so costs very little.

As for your health system.. it is horiffic and punishes those how have little... and the costs increases are not because of Medicaid and care, but because of the private sector not being under any control or supervision, so they have the ability to bleed the consumer dry. You have to understand that the whole system is a cartel and the faster people understand this and deal with it, the better.

But as I stated, there is far too much money involved in maintaining the status quo.. for both parties. That is why big pharm pumped millions into the Bush campaign, so that they could get import of drugs banned and a sweet deal with Feds on buying drugs. The list of "buying off" the elected politicians on both sides, and including the sitting President.... is very very long. And as long as that is possible, then the changes will never be made that benefit the majority.. only changes that benefit the minority 1%.
 
Listen, it is your lot, the GOP that claim that the US is in a deep hole with massive debt and deficits. You need to do something to fix that. Cutting and cutting from the budget WONT WORK, it is simple math! The social costs of cutting SS, medicaid and care are so massive that any big cuts here, will come and bite you in the ass. It is already doing this if you look at the TB outbreaks in the US. And we all know that the right would never cut the military budget, even though the waste there is massive and dwarfs the waste in SS, Medicaid/care.

You need to fix the income aspect of the math, and here the single biggest problem is capital gains, which is a rich mans tax. Not only does it promote "non work" over actually daily work, but also primarily benefits the wealthy. And nothing pisses off people more than someone that is earning more than you, paying less in taxes in % than you.. and working far less for that money. Also Capital gains taxes have shown not to do anything other than make the rich richer since they dont pay taxes.

There is no punishment in fixing the inequalities of the tax code.

Another fix should be forcing everyone to pay income taxes, or at least go through the motions. Sure they might not earn enough to beat the deductibles, but they should be paying something even if it is just symbolic. In my home country we all pay taxes, even the 14 year old who has a paper route. Now the trick here is to make it an active system, and in Denmark we do it by giving each citizen a tax card, where they can either choose to take a bulk deduction or a monthly one. This they present to their employer and the employer puts their choice in the system. Now they might not earn enough to pay taxes, but the active part is key to getting a respect of the tax system and feeling part of the system. And before you come with the "administration" costs.. it is all electronic so costs very little.

As for your health system.. it is horiffic and punishes those how have little... and the costs increases are not because of Medicaid and care, but because of the private sector not being under any control or supervision, so they have the ability to bleed the consumer dry. You have to understand that the whole system is a cartel and the faster people understand this and deal with it, the better.

But as I stated, there is far too much money involved in maintaining the status quo.. for both parties. That is why big pharm pumped millions into the Bush campaign, so that they could get import of drugs banned and a sweet deal with Feds on buying drugs. The list of "buying off" the elected politicians on both sides, and including the sitting President.... is very very long. And as long as that is possible, then the changes will never be made that benefit the majority.. only changes that benefit the minority 1%.




It sounds as if you are from Europe. I love this about the internet that i can be conversing with people from various places with various outlooks.

The big problem with our healthcare costs is that patients have been conditioned to not ask what it coasts and the providers have been conditioned to not know the answer. I work with a gentleman who recently had an operation. He asked what it would cost and was looked at as if he was from a different planet. He was asking the surgeon who would perform the operation in a hospital OR, there of course were various test prior to the decision to operate, there would be an anestestheologist in the room, there would be a time in the ICU, then some time in a hospital room, then some outpatient care and then follow ups...

Every one of these things would be invoiced separately.

Asking what does this cost is not a question that is easily answered in this system. The OR carried a cost of $24,000.

In my own experience, before the insurance process changed at work, i allowed the doctor to select medication he wanted me to use without question. Now I do question it and have saved plenty of expense.

That is a sensible change in the system. The Obamacare answer has about about 2400 pages in the law and each page will on average be supported by 10 to 100 pages of regulations. That is 2400 + 24,000 pages of legalese that we are to be subjected to. Your government might be a transparent one. Ours is not.

Regarding our deficit, spending by the Federal Government per household has more than doubled, in constant inflation adjusted dollars, since 1965. I haven't noticed the improvement in the services to me.

If you think that the answer is the government, we disagree. At the time of the establishment of the Federal department of Education, our students tested at the top of the world's scales. Now we are at about #20. I don't see the advantage the D of E has provided.

Our Federal government is a cess pool of corruption, graft and bribery with very little to recommend it. Raising the amount of money they have available to steal is not the answer.
 
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[...] If the Trillion dollars or so of the Failed Stimulus had been used as tax credits instead of a fund to pay back, pay off and prop up Obama supporters, [...]
Again with the debunked right wing talking points.... propaganda is no way to win a debate.

And one-third of the 750 billion stimulus was tax credits :roll:
 
I put other....we do not need to raise taxs...we need to plug the loopholes that allow the rich and corporations to get away with murder...we need more regulation that MAKES them keep jobs here to expand the tax base.

We need to cut spending reasonably in a way that does not hurt large groups of people...we need reasonable entitlement reform..

If we combine all 3 of those we would zooom right out of debt....without anyone getting hurt except for the larynxs of the far right

if the rich didn't get away with murder-as you blather-does that mean they would be paying 50% of the FIT bill rather than 40%? Its the middle class that pays far less than it should
 
Again with the debunked right wing talking points.... propaganda is no way to win a debate.

And one-third of the 750 billion stimulus was tax credits :roll:


Tax credits or tax cuts? Big difference in the execution and in the effect.

Who got the tax cuts contained in the Failed Stimulus and how were these intended to stimulate the economy? Please recall that the poorly designed and ill conceived Cash for Clunkers program actually did stimulate the economy. This is more like a tax credit. However, as soon as the Stimulative effect was being noticed, the program was cut off. Now, used cars are scarce and the entire industry of used car refurbishing is way down. Another unintended consequence of the know nothings in DC.

What Is in the Obama Economic Stimulus Package
 
Spending cuts need to be the largest factor, we are spending far too much and it isn't sustainable. [...]
Says who, and compared to what?
Anybody with any sense says this --
Actually it's the opposite, as I'll illustrate below.

-- and it is compared to what the feds used to spend. This link takes you to a chart that shows that Federal spending per household has about doubled since 1965 figured in constant 2012 dollars adjusted for inflation.
Indeed it does. Assuming that the Heritage Foundation is not playing footsie with the numbers (like using budget figures instead of actual expenditures), it shows a linear progression in the amount of spending over the past 50 years. Common sense should tell you that such a linear increase does not mean that "we are spending too much" and "it is not sustainable"; although, upon reflection I suppose if it had then you would not have posted it in support that we are and it isn't.

Nor, if the Heritage Foundation had any common sense, would they have described this linear increase as "skyrocketing". Bad thing about propaganda -- once you get used to promulgating it, you can't seem to stop. Based upon their own chart, if spending is "skyrocketing" now, then it was also "skyrocketing" under Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., and most certainly Bush Jr.

This is the perfect example of an organization doing less with more. Every other organization on the planet that has implemented the use of computers has reduced payroll as a result. Not the Gubmint. They have increased their headcount and the average pay of each head. What's wrong with this picture?
Common sense -- it's missing (as the population grows, one might expect government to grow). Also facts -- they're missing too... the facts are that the total number of federal employees has decreased from 5.2 million in 1965 to 4.4 million in 2010. Ouch. :doh See Total Government Employment Since 1962


code1211's Heritage chart for reference, with a trend line in yellow added by yours truly. Note the flattening of the spending increase during the Clinton administration (1993-2000) and the reduction in spending since Obama took office. Almost a DNC campaign ad, eh? :2razz:


HeritageSpendingPerHousehold1.jpg
 
1. Raising nominal rates on upper income earners will not produce more revenue
2. It will increase the amount of time, energy, and resources that upper income earners spend minimizing their tax exposure which
3. Means that it will also decrease the amount of time, energy, and resources that they put into being productive.

Sorry, but that's not how it works. I understand where you're coming from, but raising taxes on, for example, a university dean who makes a $500,000 per year salary is going to produce more revenue. With that being said, we also need to simplify the tax code and eliminate loopholes and other ways that the ultra-rich minimize the amount they pay. But to say that raising taxes on high earners is somehow not going to do anything to increase revenue is just ridiculous.
 
Clinton's surpluses were based on the .com revolution. When that ended, so did the boom.

I was managing a business when the millennium turned and it was like a light switch was flipped. We had to scrap all of the budgets in about march and start over. The same was true of all of business nation wide.

I'm not talking about businesses, I'm talking about the federal government's budget. It's irrelevant that private businesses had to rework their budgets. It has nothing to do with the fact that Clinton reduced spending and raised taxes. That is exactly the kind of compromise that could begin to meaningfully reduce our deficit, and it's an approach that Democrats have championed and Republicans have stonewalled.
 
I'm not talking about businesses, I'm talking about the federal government's budget. It's irrelevant that private businesses had to rework their budgets. It has nothing to do with the fact that Clinton reduced spending and raised taxes. That is exactly the kind of compromise that could begin to meaningfully reduce our deficit, and it's an approach that Democrats have championed and Republicans have stonewalled.


If the spending cuts were to occur right now as the tax increases would, then a deal might be achieved. Under Reagan, every tax increase was tied to a spending cut to occur in the out years and they never, ever happened.
 
Sorry, but that's not how it works. I understand where you're coming from, but raising taxes on, for example, a university dean who makes a $500,000 per year salary is going to produce more revenue. With that being said, we also need to simplify the tax code and eliminate loopholes and other ways that the ultra-rich minimize the amount they pay. But to say that raising taxes on high earners is somehow not going to do anything to increase revenue is just ridiculous.

I am all for eliminating every deduction for individuals in the tax code and then making new tax regulations unpassable. Include in the new law that any change can only be effected by a 75% majority vote from both houses.

There have been something like 40,000 loopholes built into the tax code since the tax deal that Reagan got passed. That is simply ridiculous.

That said, though, reduce the tax rates and expand them to include more people. "The Rich" with no deductions available to them will pay more at 25% than they do at any high rate after the magic of accounting and legal tricks.

The rest of us don't have that magic, so we will just go on getting screwed.
 
If the spending cuts were to occur right now as the tax increases would, then a deal might be achieved. [...]
No. No deals will be achieved, since no taxes will be increased by the Republicans, who are now controlled by Grover Norquist. The GOP has simply gone totally bat **** crazy.
 
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