• 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!

Will we go over the Fiscal Cliff

How does this one end?


  • Total voters
    36
Since the first term of GWShiiteForBrains we have had tax cuts for the wealthy and unemployment has steadily increased. That is not a coincidence. In my area, the unemployed cut firewood, haul junk, buy and sell, mow lawns, do shadetree mechanic work, etc. and would probably form Companies or LLCs or Corporations or whatever except for the cost of legal fees. Gov't incentivized programs make the most jobs and the opportunities are rife and ignored. Renewable energy is most efficient, both on a cost basis and an energy efficiency basis, when done locally. Instead, our gov't wants to spend our hard earned taxes on those mothers of all welfare queens, Nuclear energy and fossil fuel energy. Those are your wealthy companies and now they want us to subsidize a nice pipeline for them. Screw those welfare queens. Nukes just want us to finance all their costs and assume all their liabilities. Banks just want us to bail them out, when in fact, we should be prosecuting them. Hedge funds, vulture capitalists, etc. want money for moving paper and doesn't that make a lot of jobs? I have great admiration for local and national manufacturers that actually build things and create jobs. Create new areas of manufacturing by incentivizing renewables, tax credit local projects, For the most part, if you give big money more money, they will try to find higher paying interest paper, not make jobs. That's what Ronnie Reagan's service economy has reaped. Don't give big money anything and allow competition to be their incentive. Bush and Clinton invented tax breaks/credits that profitted corporations to move their equipment overseas. Keerist, if your head is up your nose, you are not alone.

Orwell would have loved that one! :roll:
 
Huh..."dissention" can be a RESULT of two opposing views, BUT, the extremism in the House existed BEFORE 2009. That was and still is the point which you cannot accept.

As far as what the House members are proposing, they are so shortsighted as to not be able to see that austerity is what is causing the EU to fall further behind.

That is correct - the EU tried a "balanced approach" of spending cuts and tax increases, not realizing that freeing up more resources for the economy through spending cuts was wise, but that then taking them back through tax increases meant that you would be unable to reallocate them to more productive uses.

President Obama claims to want to recreate their approach here. Perhaps that should give us pause.
 
That is correct - the EU tried a "balanced approach" of spending cuts and tax increases
Oreilly? Cite the tax rate changes since 2009 in the EU that are responsible for the continued poor economic activity. Specifically in Greece, Spain, Portugal and France. show how these tax rate changes have far exceed the effects of massive cutbacks in govt spending by each nation.
 
JON STEWART: 'Let's Go Over The Cliff!'

"Stewart didn't find much hope for a future compromise with the way negotiations are going right now. That led him to his conclusion: "Let's just go over the ... cliff!"

"Let's just go. Because, you know why? At least for a few seconds, it'll feel like we're flying," he said."

Watch the full clip below:

Read more: Jon Stewart On Fiscal Cliff: 'Let's Go Over!' - Business Insider
 
JON STEWART: 'Let's Go Over The Cliff!'

"Stewart didn't find much hope for a future compromise with the way negotiations are going right now. That led him to his conclusion: "Let's just go over the ... cliff!"

"Let's just go. Because, you know why? At least for a few seconds, it'll feel like we're flying," he said."

Watch the full clip below:

Read more: Jon Stewart On Fiscal Cliff: 'Let's Go Over!' - Business Insider

Easy for him to say...he has millions and he has a job. (even if he's not very good at it)
 
Easy for him to say...he has millions and he has a job. (even if he's not very good at it)

Right, it should be The Daily Show with Mycroft! I don't have millions and I'm with him, if that is what it takes to cut military spending and get the tax rates for the rich back to sustainable levels.

Let's ****ing go! :cool:
 
I would encourage Boehner and Co. to call obama's bluff and announce that going forward with the legislation he (obama) signed
to raise the debt cieling is the best solution on the table right now. Tell obama, the media and everyone that listens this thing
isn't the "cliff / horror" that its being made out to be and going over it is necessary to get our fiscal house in order; that is why
it was presented as an option to raising the debt cieling and since the President has offered no other viable solution lets roll.


Easy for him to say...he has millions and he has a job. (even if he's not very good at it)
 
That is correct - the EU tried a "balanced approach" of spending cuts and tax increases, not realizing that freeing up more resources for the economy through spending cuts was wise, but that then taking them back through tax increases meant that you would be unable to reallocate them to more productive uses.

President Obama claims to want to recreate their approach here. Perhaps that should give us pause.
Oreilly? Cite the tax rate changes since 2009 in the EU that are responsible for the continued poor economic activity. Specifically in Greece, Spain, Portugal and France. show how these tax rate changes have far exceed the effects of massive cutbacks in govt spending by each nation.
Hello....nothing?

I thought so.
 
Hello....nothing?

I thought so.

:) Sorry. Some of us have jobs.

Spain's Income Tax Increases Take It To Top of Tax Table

Europe's Failed Austerity

...In France, for example, the so-called austerity largely consisted of raising taxes. There was a 3 percent surtax on incomes above €500,000, an increase of one percentage point in the top marginal tax rate (from 40 to 41 percent), and an end to the automatic indexation of tax brackets for inheritance, wealth, and income taxes. There was also a 5 percent hike in the corporate income tax on businesses with revenue of more than €250 million, as well as a hike in the capital-gains tax, and closure of several corporate tax breaks. And even though most of these tax hikes were aimed at the wealthy, the middle class did not get off free. There was an increase in the Value Added Tax (VAT) and the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol...

Or take Britain, where the Tory-Liberal coalition recently suffered a drubbing in local elections, in part as a reaction to so-called austerity measures. Among the Cameron government’s first “austerity” measures was to hike the personal income tax to 50 percent for those earning more than £150,000 a year. That measure managed to actually decrease income-tax revenues by £509 million...

Other European countries have taken the same approach: tax hikes today (especially) on the rich and promises of tiny benefit cuts in the dim and distant future. Spain imposed a “wealth tax” on citizens with €700,000 of assets, and a 7 percent income tax on those earning more than €300,000 per year; capital-gains taxes were also hiked. Italy imposed a “Solidarity Tax” of 3 percent on all taxpayers who earn more than €300,000. Greece increased taxes by nearly twice as much as it cut spending, including a 5 percent surtax on the wealthy. VATs were hiked nearly everywhere. And fuel, alcohol, and tobacco were also prime tax targets....


You asked if they had raised taxes in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and France. The answer being: Yup.
 
Oreilly? Cite the tax rate changes since 2009 in the EU that are responsible for the continued poor economic activity. Specifically in Greece, Spain, Portugal and France. show how these tax rate changes have far exceed the effects of massive cutbacks in govt spending by each nation.
:) Sorry. Some of us have jobs.

Spain's Income Tax Increases Take It To Top of Tax Table

Europe's Failed Austerity

...In France, for example, the so-called austerity largely consisted of raising taxes. There was a 3 percent surtax on incomes above €500,000, an increase of one percentage point in the top marginal tax rate (from 40 to 41 percent), and an end to the automatic indexation of tax brackets for inheritance, wealth, and income taxes. There was also a 5 percent hike in the corporate income tax on businesses with revenue of more than €250 million, as well as a hike in the capital-gains tax, and closure of several corporate tax breaks. And even though most of these tax hikes were aimed at the wealthy, the middle class did not get off free. There was an increase in the Value Added Tax (VAT) and the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol...

Or take Britain, where the Tory-Liberal coalition recently suffered a drubbing in local elections, in part as a reaction to so-called austerity measures. Among the Cameron government’s first “austerity” measures was to hike the personal income tax to 50 percent for those earning more than £150,000 a year. That measure managed to actually decrease income-tax revenues by £509 million...

Other European countries have taken the same approach: tax hikes today (especially) on the rich and promises of tiny benefit cuts in the dim and distant future. Spain imposed a “wealth tax” on citizens with €700,000 of assets, and a 7 percent income tax on those earning more than €300,000 per year; capital-gains taxes were also hiked. Italy imposed a “Solidarity Tax” of 3 percent on all taxpayers who earn more than €300,000. Greece increased taxes by nearly twice as much as it cut spending, including a 5 percent surtax on the wealthy. VATs were hiked nearly everywhere. And fuel, alcohol, and tobacco were also prime tax targets....


You asked if they had raised taxes in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and France. The answer being: Yup.
A citation of tiny marginal rate increases WITHOUT showing any macro impact......AND not comparing it to, for example, the 7.3% cut in govt spending in Spain alone?

Apparently you glided over what I requested.

Try again.
 
A citation of tiny marginal rate increases WITHOUT showing any macro impact...

On the contrary, these tax hikes did indeed have macro impact.

AND not comparing it to, for example, the 7.3% cut in govt spending in Spain alone?

I have stated that Europe attempted to both cut spending and raise taxes. It is not perfectly uniformly true (for example, Portugal tried to stimulate their economy through public spending, which left them off worse than when they had started), but it is the accurate description of what European Austerity generally has meant - they instituted same kind of "balanced approach" that the President seeks, and it proved itself a failure. Why is this hard for you to grasp?
 
On the contrary, these tax hikes did indeed have macro impact.
Then show it, how many times do I have ask?



I have stated that Europe attempted to both cut spending and raise taxes. It is not perfectly uniformly true (for example, Portugal tried to stimulate their economy through public spending, which left them off worse than when they had started),
| Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:08am GMT
(Reuters) - Portugal announced additional spending cuts and reforms on Friday to cut its deficit by an extra 0.8 percent of gross domestic product this year in an attempt to stave off intense pressure to take a bailout.

Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos spelled out a raft of measures including spending cuts on health services, social welfare and delaying infrastructure projects, which he said would guarantee the government will reach its target of a 4.6 percent fiscal gap this year.

but it is the accurate description of what European Austerity generally has meant - they instituted same kind of "balanced approach" that the President seeks, and it proved itself a failure. Why is this hard for you to grasp?
You are just not going to go beyond inaccurate rhetoric and show the macro impact of these small marginal tax rate increases compared to the impacts of spending cuts (double the percentage size of the marginal changes).

And just to note, you are applying apples to oranges, the troubled states of the EU are suffering from a second recession, unemployment double ours, with these edicts coming from German banking.....and these states have given away their control of their currency.

We on the other hand have not double dipped, have seen consistent declines in unemployment while the top 2% have seen massive increases in wealth.....which is directly who the Obama administration wants to allow the tax breaks to expire upon.
 
Then show it, how many times do I have ask?

That Europe has suffered under the President's "balanced approach"? You really need this demonstrated?

| Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:08am GMT
(Reuters) - Portugal announced additional spending cuts and reforms on Friday to cut its deficit by an extra 0.8 percent of gross domestic product this year in an attempt to stave off intense pressure to take a bailout.

yup.

They got there because:

17 Dec 2008 Portugese Prime Minister Announces Stimulus Package
 
That Europe has suffered under the President's "balanced approach"? You really need this demonstrated?
Lets see, that comes ought to 3 swings at the same question....you are out.



Lets review....they suffered from the same worldwide economic downturn as the US and the EU did......and their stimulus happened after the crash, but somehow the stimulus has caused a worse outcome? We call this "causation without correlation". I asked multiple times for you to show the direct connection between these events, nothing from you....just the usual citation of events.

Again, you can't show the connections AND you still haven't acknowledge the basic difference between the EU and the US. So I'll try once again to enlighten you....the Euro states have a greater amount of govt spending as a % of GDP, so cuts in govt spending have a much greater effect than marginal tax rate changes on their economy. And closer to home, I'll point you to the Congressional Research Service Report On Tax Cuts For Wealthy, which showed among other things that the marginal rate has no correlation to economic activity. Again, if you believe the story is different for the EU states...then show it, but you won't, you avoid doing so.
 
They will find some way to put a band aid on a broken leg. Soon the leg will develop staph infection and the rest of the body will die and they continue to use band aids instead of actual solutions.
 
:shrug: I see your CRS report (which has it's own issues) and raise you 30 years of economic history of industrialized nations

...The deficit debate is often misleading, however, because it tends to ignore a huge difference between the two kinds of deficit reduction. The evidence speaks loud and clear: when governments reduce deficits by raising taxes, they are indeed likely to witness deep, prolonged recessions. But when governments attack deficits by cutting spending, the results are very different.

In 2011, the International Monetary Fund identified episodes from 1980 to 2005 in which 17 developed countries had aggressively reduced deficits. The IMF classified each episode as either “expenditure-based” or “tax-based,” depending on whether the government had mainly cut spending or hiked taxes. When Carlo Favero, Francesco Giavazzi, and I studied the results, it turned out that the two kinds of deficit reduction had starkly different effects: cutting spending resulted in very small, short-lived—if any—recessions, and raising taxes resulted in prolonged recessions...

deficit reductions that successfully lower debt-to-GDP ratios without sparking recessions are those that combine spending reductions with such measures as deregulation, the liberalization of labor markets (including, in some cases, explicit agreement with unions for more moderate wages), and tax reforms that increase labor participation.

Let’s be clear: this body of evidence doesn’t mean that cutting government spending always leads to economic booms. Rather, it shows that spending cuts are much less costly for the economy than tax hikes and that a carefully designed deficit-reduction plan, based on spending cuts and pro-growth policies, may completely eliminate the output loss that you’d expect from such cuts. Tax-based deficit reduction, by contrast, is always recessionary...

Europe tried the Presidents' "Balanced Approach". It failed there, it won't do well here.
 
Back
Top Bottom