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Rand Paul blocks vote on bill to aid 9/11 first responders (1 Viewer)

pamak said:
The CBO disagreed and all senators knew about that study.
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There's no requirement to vote for charity. I support this particular one, but it's not a requirement.
 
pamak said:
You did not say that though..

You said...

"Not taking money from people doesnt add to the debt"

This is factually wrong!
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It is factually true that not taking money from people doesnt not add to the debt.

I just did not take $100 from you. Did I incur debt?
 
American said:
He voted against an unfunded bill, which he does regularly. Take a look at your empty words on tax cuts. They worked.

Access to this page has been denied.
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Why do we still have to deal with the zombie lie that tax cuts increased revenue? Do you also believe in Santa Clause? If not, why do you think the way to grow government, make it bigger, pay for more spending, is to cut tax rates?

There's literally not a single legitimate economist on planet earth who believes TCJA increased revenues over the pre-TCJA regime. Not one. If you doubt that, find anyone and quote them.

CBO says that it will add on net, after all the additional economic growth from lower taxes is factored in, TCJA will add $1,900 billion over 10 years to the debt. The low side estimates that ignore the cost of borrowing put the tab at around $1 trillion, and they assume pretty massive impacts on growth. But that's best case - $1,000 billion over 10 years.

The IBD editorial's premise is just this stupid. Say you're a company and sales are growing 10% per year, and have for a decade. You hire a new PR guy and he revamps the advertising and marketing campaign, and in a great economy sales grow 0.01% the following year. Is there anyone stupid enough to look at those results and claim - "The new marketing campaign WORKED!!!! BONUSES FOR YOU MR. AD MAN!! Here's $1 million for your great work!!!"

Not to mention, editorials like that make an implied but unstated assumption that the ONLY thing that matters in the economy is taxes. If you want to know how the economy is going to do, all you need to know is tax rates. Interest rates don't matter, inflation doesn't matter, population growth doesn't matter, wage rates, world demand, the value of the dollar, productivity growth - all that is irrelevant. Of course that's idiotic, and only someone who is completely ignorant about economics and the economy would claim it, but that's what the editorial makes the reader accept as a given, if they accept their conclusion, because the only variable they consider is....tax rates.

Do they project what economic growth would be under the old tax regime? No. So they have no idea whether or how much the tax cuts impacted growth in 9 months in FYE Sept 2008. We know the economy had grown for about 8-9 years under the old rates, so why would that change It wouldn't.

Do they project tax revenues under pre-TCJA and compare them to actual under TCJA? No, of course not. So how can they even guess the impact of TJCA on revenues? They cannot.

Etc.....
 
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jonny5 said:
It is factually true that not taking money from people doesnt not add to the debt.

I just did not take $100 from you. Did I incur debt?
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Again, it is about having the interest ADDING to (growing) the debt which will certainly happen if the government decides not to take tax money to pay for its debt obligations
 
pamak said:
Again, it is about having the interest ADDING to (growing) the debt which will certainly happen if the government decides not to take tax money to pay for its debt obligations
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Thats a separate issue entirely, which is moot since it wont happen. As you say, not PAYING interest adds debt. Collecting less taxes, does not add debt.

As always, the problem is SPENDING, not REVENUE.
 
jonny5 said:
Thats a separate issue entirely, which is moot since it wont happen. As you say, not PAYING interest adds debt. Collecting less taxes, does not add debt.

As always, the problem is SPENDING, not REVENUE.
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As long as collecting taxes is used pay interest it isn obvious that failure to collect such money will add to the debt. Also, the longer it takes to collect enough taxes taxes to pay off the debt, the higher the debt will become even if there is no new spending.
 
pamak said:
As long as collecting taxes is used pay interest it isn obvious that failure to collect such money will add to the debt. Also, the longer it takes to collect enough taxes taxes to pay off the debt, the higher the debt will become even if there is no new spending.
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Except that doesnt happen. Meanwhile, 300bn in a new discretionary spending...

House passes sweeping budget, debt limit deal | TheHill
 
jonny5 said:
Except that doesnt happen. Meanwhile, 300bn in a new discretionary spending...

House passes sweeping budget, debt limit deal | TheHill
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It does not happen because we do take money from people to pay the interest. And of course, you should also note that the more we delay to pay the principal the more interest we well pay overall.And yes, I did not dispute that spending ABOVE revenues add to the debt. Spending itself does not add to the debt.
 
pamak said:
It does not happen because we do take money from people to pay the interest. And of course, you should also note that the more we delay to pay the principal the more interest we well pay overall.And yes, I did not dispute that spending ABOVE revenues add to the debt. Spending itself does not add to the debt.
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Not taking money from people ITSELF doesnt add to the debt either. Glad we're on the same page finally. Excess spending is the problem as always.
 
jonny5 said:
Not taking money from people ITSELF doesnt add to the debt either. Glad we're on the same page finally. Excess spending is the problem as always.
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Try to be consistent. Spending ITSELF does not add to the debt. Inadequate revenues is also a problem. If you accept this, then we are on the same page.
 
JANFU said:
Rand Paul blocks vote on bill to aid 9/11 first responders - CBS News



He never thought that when he voted for the Tax cuts that caused the deficit to explode.

Link to where he voted yes

Now Republicans are concerned over the deficit, yet again

How Every Senator Voted on the Tax Bill - The New York Times
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This is just another example of right-libertarians not understanding the concept of 'picking your battles.' And they wonder why they are an outlier ideology in the 'Land of the Free.'
 
pamak said:
NOW, we are on the same page...:)
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Doubt it, but now what? How does this reduce the debt? They just voted to increase it. 5% of the population is paying most of taxes. 50% doesnt want to pay anything, and worse, wants all sort of expensive services. The politicians come up with new ideas daily to increase spending by trillions.
 
jonny5 said:
Doubt it, but now what? How does this reduce the debt? They just voted to increase it. 5% of the population is paying most of taxes. 50% doesnt want to pay anything, and worse, wants all sort of expensive services. The politicians come up with new ideas daily to increase spending by trillions.
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That 5% should pay even more because they also possess most of the wealth. Until they do, there is no reason to try to cut services that benefit the bottom 50%.
The spending cut should start from the military with a reduction of the order of about 50%. There is no reason for the US to spend as much as all its adversaries combined.
A 50% reduction in military means about $350 to $400 billion savings annually.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Military_Expenditures_2018_SIPRI.png

And by the way, the DOD are not the only related military expenses. For example the DOE has also military related expenses related to nuclear weapons.
 
jonny5 said:
Doubt it, but now what? How does this reduce the debt? They just voted to increase it. 5% of the population is paying most of taxes. 50% doesnt want to pay anything, and worse, wants all sort of expensive services. The politicians come up with new ideas daily to increase spending by trillions.
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Nobody wants to pay taxes.
 
pamak said:
That 5% should pay even more because they also possess most of the wealth. Until they do, there is no reason to try to cut services that benefit the bottom 50%.
The spending cut should start from the military with a reduction of the order of about 50%. There is no reason for the US to spend as much as all its adversaries combined.
A 50% reduction in military means about $350 to $400 billion savings annually.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Military_Expenditures_2018_SIPRI.png

And by the way, the DOD are not the only related military expenses. For example the DOE has also military related expenses related to nuclear weapons.
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A 50% reduction would leave use with a 700bn deficit. What else?
 
jonny5 said:
A 50% reduction would leave use with a 700bn deficit. What else?
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You should start not with the CURRENT deficit which came after the tax cuts but with Obama's last deficit. After you do this, THEN you can see how that deficit is reduced with a 50% reduction of military expenses!
 
pamak said:
You should start not with the CURRENT deficit which came after the tax cuts but with Obama's last deficit. After you do this, THEN you can see how that deficit is reduced with a 50% reduction of military expenses!
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Fine, lets move the goalpost. Under the 2016 baseline, the deficit would have gone up to 1.4 trillion in 10 years due to health care spending doubling. Minus 50% defense spending leaves us with 1.1. trillion. So what else?
 
jonny5 said:
I want to pay taxes. To pay for services that I want, namely securing my rights.
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Ahh, so you want selective veto power over everything the government does, because it’s wrong to spend your taxes on something that you personally disapprove of.

Curious. May I have this dictatorial power also?
 
jonny5 said:
Fine, lets move the goalpost. Under the 2016 baseline, the deficit would have gone up to 1.4 trillion in 10 years due to health care spending doubling. Minus 50% defense spending leaves us with 1.1. trillion. So what else?
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It is not moving the goalpost. I always maintained that revenues are part of the debt issue.

And you do not follow my advice. The deficit projections for the next decade is calculated based on things like the CURRENT level of DOD expenses. Now, do you want to see the annual deficits in 2015 and 2016 under Obama or not?
 
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jonny5 said:
Fine, lets move the goalpost. Under the 2016 baseline, the deficit would have gone up to 1.4 trillion in 10 years due to health care spending doubling. Minus 50% defense spending leaves us with 1.1. trillion. So what else?
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Ohh, I missed your wrong calculation! Notice that 50% reduction of military expenditures is saving about 300 billion annually not over a period of 10 years!
 
pamak said:
Ohh, I missed your wrong calculation! Notice that 50% reduction of military expenditures is saving about 300 billion annually not over a period of 10 years!
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How is that wrong? Thats what I said. Cut defense spending in half (300-400bn a year), fine. What about the other 52 trillion we spend in the next decade under the baseline of Obamas last year?

Heck, we CUT defense spending by 120bn from 2011, and its still lower now than it was then. The deficit keeps going up.
 
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