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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
sweEt Mauritius said:
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.
Click to expand...




The point is that tax revenues increased so dramatically because the business base was so stoked. After 1/1/00, the bottom fell out of the boom economy and the tax revenues immediately started to fall.

Before you go wild and find that the revenues of 2000 were good, recall that the revenues received in 2000 were generated by activities in 1999.
 
Karl said:
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.
Click to expand...



Boehner and the Big 0 had a deal that the Big 0 walked away from.
 
code1211 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Like Karl said, there will be no deal because Republicans are not interested in reducing the deficit, period. If they were, they would agree to a balanced, commonsense solution of half cuts and half revenue increases. But they have ruled out ANY tax increases, so it's not happening. Until they decide they're willing to be serious about the issue, nothing will happen.

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.
Click to expand...

I don't see how making new tax regulations unpassable helps anything going into the future. How is a nation supposed to adapt to new stimuli if they can't touch taxes in the future?

To your other point, this whole notion of reducing rates and expanding people makes no sense. That might work in a country where there is not a staggering level of income inequality. However, we live in a country where 1% of the population controls something like 40% of the nation's wealth, so expanding the base is really not going to do as much as raising taxes on the highest income earners would.
 
sweEt Mauritius said:
Like Karl said, there will be no deal because Republicans are not interested in reducing the deficit, period. If they were, they would agree to a balanced, commonsense solution of half cuts and half revenue increases. But they have ruled out ANY tax increases, so it's not happening. Until they decide they're willing to be serious about the issue, nothing will happen.



I don't see how making new tax regulations unpassable helps anything going into the future. How is a nation supposed to adapt to new stimuli if they can't touch taxes in the future?

To your other point, this whole notion of reducing rates and expanding people makes no sense. That might work in a country where there is not a staggering level of income inequality. However, we live in a country where 1% of the population controls something like 40% of the nation's wealth, so expanding the base is really not going to do as much as raising taxes on the highest income earners would.
Click to expand...



The law of large numbers changes the math. If 300 million people all pay 20 dollars each, that adds up pretty quick.

The amount of income paid by the top wage earners is a pretty respectable % of what's earned. the % of the tax paid by the same drop is a larger % than that.

I don't understand why there are exclusions in the tax code. The level of income that is sub just to SS withholding stops at about $107,000/year. Everything above that is free and clear. I assume there was some logic behind this at some point in the past, but, seriously, what's the reason now? 14% of the wage of a minimum wage worker is a bigger hit to him than 14% of the Millionaire Obama supporter in Hollywood or a similarly rich guy supporting Romney on Wall Street.

As far as the poor not paying Federal income tax, that is just, plain infantile and stupid. Why is it that some are given access to all of the goodies of the society and are not required to help pay the bill. We are up to about 48% of the people not paying any federal Tax. That is stupid. If most of the people are allowed to not pay any tax, there is a problem that is brewing that has nothing to do with who is capable and who isn't.

I should think it would be a point of shame to be in the group that is freeloading.
 
sweEt Mauritius said:
Like Karl said, there will be no deal because Republicans are not interested in reducing the deficit, period. If they were, they would agree to a balanced, commonsense solution of half cuts and half revenue increases. But they have ruled out ANY tax increases, so it's not happening. Until they decide they're willing to be serious about the issue, nothing will happen.



I don't see how making new tax regulations unpassable helps anything going into the future. How is a nation supposed to adapt to new stimuli if they can't touch taxes in the future?

To your other point, this whole notion of reducing rates and expanding people makes no sense. That might work in a country where there is not a staggering level of income inequality. However, we live in a country where 1% of the population controls something like 40% of the nation's wealth, so expanding the base is really not going to do as much as raising taxes on the highest income earners would.
Click to expand...



That is the point. If a new tax regulation is passed, it is passed because some group paid of a politician in some way and now they get their little hook into the system and the system becomes less and less fair.

The 1% are the folks that get these things passed. Why are you trying to help this group?
 
sweEt Mauritius said:
Like Karl said, there will be no deal because Republicans are not interested in reducing the deficit, period. If they were, they would agree to a balanced, commonsense solution of half cuts and half revenue increases. But they have ruled out ANY tax increases, so it's not happening. Until they decide they're willing to be serious about the issue, nothing will happen.



I don't see how making new tax regulations unpassable helps anything going into the future. How is a nation supposed to adapt to new stimuli if they can't touch taxes in the future?

To your other point, this whole notion of reducing rates and expanding people makes no sense. That might work in a country where there is not a staggering level of income inequality. However, we live in a country where 1% of the population controls something like 40% of the nation's wealth, so expanding the base is really not going to do as much as raising taxes on the highest income earners would.
Click to expand...




The talk from early this year was that the Republicans wanted to reduce spending to the levels of 2008 in every department and every position.

The Democrats said this was DOA.

This sounds like pretty good place to start to me.

What do you think might be wrong with this?
 
code1211 said:
The point is that tax revenues increased so dramatically because the business base was so stoked. After 1/1/00, the bottom fell out of the boom economy and the tax revenues immediately started to fall. [....]
Click to expand...
Oooh, sorry, wrong again. That Kool Aid is obviously stale; perhaps you should mix a fresh batch.

As the chart (courtesy of Karl) below clearly shows, 'business' (corporate) income tax receipts pretty much track personal income tax receipts well before and after your magic 2000 date, other than spiking in the 2005-2008 timeframe.

FedIncomeTaxesByCategory1.jpg


Source data: Historical Amount of Revenue by Source
​
 
sweEt Mauritius said:
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.
Click to expand...

A few things here.
  1. I think code's point is that if private business' revenues and profit decrease, so do the receipts to the government. In his experience the bottom dropped out in 2000.
  2. The Clinton surplus is a myth. He had a windfall of money but never achieved a surplus year.
  3. In recent history I concur regarding the champion and stonewalling. However in the Clinton years it was the Republican congress (and the dot com boom) that reduced the deficit to a mere 18 billion at it's lowest point
 
code1211 said:
The talk from early this year was that the Republicans wanted to reduce spending to the levels of 2008 in every department and every position. The Democrats said this was DOA. This sounds like pretty good place to start to me. What do you think might be wrong with this?
Click to expand...
I think your refusal to acknowledge the Grover Norquist pledge, and your refusal to address sweEt Mauritius' common sense proposal -- "half cuts and half revenue increases" -- is what is wrong with your argument. In fact that, and your repeated posting of debunked right wing propaganda (which I have in some cases debunked yet again), has led to the total failure of your credibility and therefore your argument.

Ergo, what you say the Democrats said or did not say, or what the Republicans proposed or did not propose, is simply suspect. Conversely, we know for a fact that 98% of the Republicans in the House and 87% of the Republicans in the Senate signed the totally idiotic Grover Norquist pledge. You are dodging facts, and spouting what may well be propaganda. Not a winning strategy, at least amongst the moderately well-informed/well-reasoned.
 
Phoenix said:
A few things here. I think code's point is that if private business' revenues and profit decrease, so do the receipts to the government. In his experience the bottom dropped out in 2000.
Click to expand...
His experience and his claim has already been proven wrong. Check the post right above yours.

Phoenix said:
The Clinton surplus is a myth. He had a windfall of money but never achieved a surplus year.
Click to expand...
It is close enough for government work. You are arguing semantics (or miniscule details), which is doomed to failure. Clinton left office with the budget in outstanding shape considered what he was left by George Sr.; and then George Jr. -- and a Republican Congress -- promptly trashed it.

Phoenix said:
However in the Clinton years it was the Republican congress (and the dot com boom) that reduced the deficit to a mere 18 billion at it's lowest point.
Click to expand...
Sure it was. But if the deficit had increased instead of decreased, it would have been Clinton's fault, right? :lamo
 
code1211 said:
[...] I should think it would be a point of shame to be in the group that is freeloading.
Click to expand...
That would be Mitt Romney; if he's only paying capital gains, then he's paying no SS at all.
 
Karl said:
That would be Mitt Romney; if he's only paying capital gains, then he's paying no SS at all.
Click to expand...

and if he never paid in he will not get benefits. If he has made a salary at some point in his life he has paid into the system. Probably more than you and I ever will so you claim is false.
 
Phoenix said:
A few things here.
  1. I think code's point is that if private business' revenues and profit decrease, so do the receipts to the government. In his experience the bottom dropped out in 2000.
  2. The Clinton surplus is a myth. He had a windfall of money but never achieved a surplus year.
  3. In recent history I concur regarding the champion and stonewalling. However in the Clinton years it was the Republican congress (and the dot com boom) that reduced the deficit to a mere 18 billion at it's lowest point
Click to expand...

Good point. These graphs and charts ALWAYS list the president not which party controlled the congress, that actually does the budgeting. The president really has very little choice, on budget matters, they may either sign it or veto it.
 
Karl said:
His experience and his claim has already been proven wrong. Check the post right above yours.
Click to expand...
That chart you posted? It completely supports his claim. During the dot com years people were free with their money and invested easily hoping (and often succeeding) to make a big gain. The dot com bubble busted in 2000. People pulled their money back. Revenue to the treasury dropped. The point being is that without the associated financial "bubble" (dotcoms) we can't recreate the Clinton years. Tax rates are only one part of the equation. Interesting, government revenues have surpassed 2000 levels and yet we still have a huge deficit. Spending problems maybe?

Karl said:
It is close enough for government work. You are arguing semantics (or miniscule details), which is doomed to failure. Clinton left office with the budget in outstanding shape considered what he was left by George Sr.; and then George Jr. -- and a Republican Congress -- promptly trashed it.
Click to expand...
No doubt about that. +1 for you.

Karl said:
Sure it was. But if the deficit had increased instead of decreased, it would have been Clinton's fault, right? :lamo
Click to expand...
Since it took a government shutdown a hardass named Newt Gingrich to get the budget cuts Clinton takes the credit for, sure I think that is plenty fair.
 
Phoenix said:
That chart you posted? It completely supports his claim. During the dot com years people were free with their money and invested easily hoping (and often succeeding) to make a big gain. The dot com bubble busted in 2000. People pulled their money back. Revenue to the treasury dropped. The point being is that without the associated financial "bubble" (dotcoms) we can't recreate the Clinton years. Tax rates are only one part of the equation. Interesting, government revenues have surpassed 2000 levels and yet we still have a huge deficit. Spending problems maybe?


No doubt about that. +1 for you.


Since it took a government shutdown a hardass named Newt Gingrich to get the budget cuts Clinton takes the credit for, sure I think that is plenty fair.
Click to expand...


Your forgetting that since Clinton pushed through nafta millions of jobs have been outsourced and those people out of work are playing no taxs and in some cases recieving govt assistance. As long as the greedsters keep bleeding jobs to china and elsewhere this country is never going to get back in the black. Not only for every job they send is that an american out of work...its an american not paying any taxs and not putting anything back in the economy...the rich corporate interests are cutting their own throat..for a fast buck
 
Karl said:
Oooh, sorry, wrong again. That Kool Aid is obviously stale; perhaps you should mix a fresh batch.

As the chart (courtesy of Karl) below clearly shows, 'business' (corporate) income tax receipts pretty much track personal income tax receipts well before and after your magic 2000 date, other than spiking in the 2005-2008 timeframe.
Click to expand...

...actually, your chart shows that corporate revenues were pretty much comparatively flat throughout the entire time that individual incomes fluctuated significantly, again, agreeably, with the exception of the 2004-2008/09 period.
 
Karl said:
I think your refusal to acknowledge the Grover Norquist pledge, and your refusal to address sweEt Mauritius' common sense proposal -- "half cuts and half revenue increases" -
Click to expand...

it's not a "common sense" proposal - it's an economically ignorant proposal built around the notion that one can simply order up additional revenues through the measure of increasing nominal tax rates.

Check with Illinois to see how well that approach is working.
 
other
The tea-bagging conservatives are ever harping on this - no, the world is NOT coming to an end.
But , fair and equaable taxing (Clinton era) can be restored.
And, we can cease with these overseas adventures (wars).
 
earthworm said:
other
The tea-bagging conservatives are ever harping on this - no, the world is NOT coming to an end.
Click to expand...

Do you know what the word "unsustainable" means?
 
Phoenix said:
Karl said:
code1211 said:
[...] I should think it would be a point of shame to be in the group that is freeloading.
Click to expand...
That would be Mitt Romney; if he's only paying capital gains, then he's paying no SS at all.
Click to expand...
and if he never paid in he will not get benefits. If he has made a salary at some point in his life he has paid into the system. Probably more than you and I ever will so you claim is false.
Click to expand...
Spin all you want, he's currently dodging FICA -- which is an insurance program -- and that makes him a freeloader by right wing standards, the same as those that the right is always whining about who make too little to pay federal income tax.

Now I'm not going to indict him for gaming the system, but I will indict him for supporting the system -- he clearly enjoys paying a smaller percentage of his income as taxes than the average, or at least the slightly above average, Joe. Of course I suppose the rich always feel entitled, but always find it odd that so many of the poor agree.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Good point. These graphs and charts ALWAYS list the president not which party controlled the congress, that actually does the budgeting. The president really has very little choice, on budget matters, they may either sign it or veto it.
Click to expand...
So then you agree that the Republican Congress is responsible for the nearly balanced budget during the latter half of the Clinton administration, culminating in a mere $18 billion increase in the total public debt for FY1999[sup][1][/sup],

and that they were also responsible for the increasingly unbalanced budget during the first half of the Bush Jr. administration, culminating in a $574 billion increase in the total public debt for FY2005[sup][2][/sup].

Odd how that happened with Republicans in control of Congress for the whole time, eh? ;)


1. Government - Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual 1950 - 1999
2. Government - Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual 2000 - 2010
 
Phoenix said:
That chart you posted? It completely supports his claim. During the dot com years people were free with their money and invested easily hoping (and often succeeding) to make a big gain. The dot com bubble busted in 2000. People pulled their money back. Revenue to the treasury dropped. [...]
Click to expand...
I suspected that chart may have been too complicated. Oh well -- pictures are as simple as I can make it :shrug:

Phoenix said:
Interesting, government revenues have surpassed 2000 levels and yet we still have a huge deficit. Spending problems maybe?
Click to expand...
You would expect spending to remain at 2000 levels? Why in the world would you expect that?

Let's say you have a livestock farm. Over the course of 12 years, your livestock grows and multiplies. Also over the course of that 12 years, your feedgrass grows to replenish itself, but you also have to plant more feedgrass to keep pace with the increased births of livestock. You also need increased barn and corral space, which costs money.

Around year 8, your area experiences a severe drought. Feedgrass dies. Your livestock looses weight, has fewer births, and you even have a few deaths -- therefore your income is reduced, complicating the feedgrass problem... you can't afford to buy as much new feedgrass acreage as you did in the past. Do you:

a) figure that you have slightly more feedgrass now than you did in 2000, despite the size of your operation increasing by some 25%, and blame the situation on your livestock multiplying?

b) slaughter some of your livestock, at a loss, to reduce feedgrass consumption (spending) to available supply?

c) borrow some money to buy additional feedgrass to keep your livestock alive until the drought passes and feedgrass growth returns to normal?
 
Karl said:
Let's say you have a livestock farm. Over the course of 12 years, your livestock grows and multiplies. Also over the course of that 12 years, your feedgrass grows to replenish itself, but you also have to plant more feedgrass to keep pace with the increased births of livestock. You also need increased barn and corral space, which costs money.

Around year 8, your area experiences a severe drought. Feedgrass dies. Your livestock looses weight, has fewer births, and you even have a few deaths -- therefore your income is reduced, complicating the feedgrass problem... you can't afford to buy as much new feedgrass acreage as you did in the past. Do you:

a) figure that you have slightly more feedgrass now than you did in 2000, despite the size of your operation increasing by some 25%, and blame the situation on your livestock multiplying?

b) slaughter some of your livestock, at a loss, to reduce feedgrass consumption (spending) to available supply?

c) borrow some money to buy additional feedgrass to keep your livestock alive until the drought passes and feedgrass growth returns to normal?
Click to expand...

Very nicely put!
 
Phoenix said:
[...] Interesting, government revenues have surpassed 2000 levels and yet we still have a huge deficit. Spending problems maybe?
Click to expand...
As I suspected, wrong again. In constant (inflation adjusted) dollars,
FY2000 revenue was $2.3 trillion, or 20.6% of GDP,
while FY2011 was $2.0 trillion and 2012 is projected
to come in at $2.1 trillion (15.4% and 15.8% of GDP, respectively). Source: Historical Federal Receipt and Outlay Summary

The percent of GDP figures are the most illustrative of how revenues have fallen... we are, in effect, still 5.0% behind the curve, or some $750 billion annually (more than half the current deficit).
 
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