Why I think Tax Cuts For The Rich Are Good?

Serapis said:

yeah, those damn old people on Medicare! what shall we do with all of them? And their damn prescriptions are so expensive... we should just wipe out the millions of them that are taking up space in nursing homes, waiting to die.... we'd be doing them a favor...

[/sarcasm]

Click to expand...

Yes this is going to be a problem and we will figure it out cause thats what we do. Social Security is fixable and only recently started running a deficit, but is broke except for some IOUs from Uncle Sam. Retirement will be raised and I think there should be no cap on the tax for higher earners, I think it is bull shit to stop at $106K, raise it up and lower the rate for everyone and move from a defined benefit to a cash basis and get that money out of the Governments hands, they are a poor investment at this time.

MediMarij said:

Kind of off topic but IMO interconnected with the Big Picture. Can someone explain why some billionaire with morals hasn't started a non profit "group policy" health insurance plan on the simple premise that not all members of the group are sick every day/month/year? This would introduce competition which in turn would lower rates while raise quality of service.

Click to expand...

Because Health Care is now controlled by the Government. There are lots of solutions, the Government is not one of them.

And how does increasing taxes and spending more money stimulate the ecomony? It does not, it grows government, did you even look ar the deficits in the chart? You can't spend your way out of a recession!

Click to expand...

Yes, yes we can.

I've already gone through extensive lengths on these boards to prove this point... You can check my posting history for a plethora of sourced information.

BTW the government does not waste money as people have said in this thread. The government goes through the same decision proccess to determine return on investment as everyone else. here is an explanation of the thought process they use. Looks like the same kinds of questions businesses ask... They look at costs and benefits in terms of dollars, social impact, potential future savings, optimum productivity levels...

For example, The Washington State WIC program reports that 80%($127 million a year) of it's funds go towards groceries for mothers and children - boosting demand and thusly, the local economy. Furthermore, this program supports 1,000 jobs in Washington. source

On top of that,

Mothers served by WIC have better birth outcomes and are 50 percent less likely to have a very low birth weight baby. Hospitalization for one of these babies can cost over $220,000.​

Click to expand...

Bonzi Lighthouse said:

Because Health Care is now controlled by the Government. There are lots of solutions, the Government is not one of them.

Click to expand...

Last I checked the Health Insurance Industry is an oligopoly as well as the energy Industry as well as most industries including govn't sectors protected by unions. Lobbyist's are paid millions I understand this but my question was how come some Billionaire with a heart hasn't made a difference yet? Why hasn't the govn't broken down these oligopolies as they did to Rockefeller's control on oil? Is it contributions to politicians, lobbyists, gen pub to stupid to demand change?? All of the above?

Besides, the laffer curve suggests we gain nothing from lowering taxes from current rates and the Rahl curve shows that we're just fine at government being as big 20-25% of GDP (especially considering during the next boom government size in GDP will shrink down to 20-21% or less...).

Medicare is not going away. And "cutting benifits" can be view in a number of different ways.
However, the status quos is unacceptable and it needs to be reformed.

You can pick up at least an extra 10-15% by cutting out fraud and waste. And that is hard core fraud and fuck ups.
Reorganize to where the system is not being milked beyond hard core fraud and you can probably pick more.
Medicare spending is growing steadily in both absolute terms and as a percentage of the federal budget

Literally every single government agency and program is held to strict standards in terms of efficiency. Otherwise, they are ripe for defunding

Click to expand...

HA HA HA HA

mame said:

Yes, yes we can.

I've already gone through extensive lengths on these boards to prove this point... You can check my posting history for a plethora of sourced information.

BTW the government does not waste money as people have said in this thread. The government goes through the same decision proccess to determine return on investment as everyone else. here is an explanation of the thought process they use. Looks like the same kinds of questions businesses ask... They look at costs and benefits in terms of dollars, social impact, potential future savings, optimum productivity levels...

For example, The Washington State WIC program reports that 80%($127 million a year) of it's funds go towards groceries for mothers and children - boosting demand and thusly, the local economy. Furthermore, this program supports 1,000 jobs in Washington. source

On top of that,

Much of these potential costs would likely be pushed onto the taxpayer (so WIC saves money in this respect).​

Literally every single government agency and program is held to strict standards in terms of efficiency. Otherwise, they are ripe for defunding... To think all government spending is waste is idiocy at best - blantant partisanship at worst, considering if they were truly as wasteful as the Republicans would have you believe they'd have no problem justifying their removal (hint: they cant justify jack shit).​

Click to expand...

How do they keep their books? Do they follow GAAP? Do they run their "Business" on a cash basis or is there another why they report profit and lose?

Of course you believe we can spend our way out, it grows Government, it puts a larger and larger portion of our GDP in control of the Government.

This is where we will always disagree, luckily it only took this country 2 years to figure it out and now our President let's hope he is as successful at moving to the right as President Clinton was, that is if he gets reelected. Will the far left support someone, who just today said, they will not raise the debt limit without spending cuts.

Sounds good but I doubt he means what he says, we will see.

HA HA HA HA

Click to expand...

I guess I get the last laugh... according to Politifact, Fraud likely accounts for 3-9% of all medicare spending. That's pretty in line with the private sector.

It's quite interesting how one of President Obamas own strategy to pay for Obama Care was to cut waste and fraud from Medi Care.

Are you contradicting the president?

Bonzi Lighthouse said:

It's quite interesting how one of President Obamas own strategy to pay for Obama Care was to cut waste and fraud from Medi Care.

Are you contradicting the president?

Click to expand...

It's a good political move.

It doesn't hurt and there are always ways to cut out waste and fraud - corporations spend money every year on this issue just like the government. People have a perception that government spending is wasteful and so it is a good political move to pledge less waste... isn't that what politics is? Perception? It is up to democrats and the president to make the case for spending as bulletproof as possible. That includes assuring the public that waste and fraud is under control.

Every year the federal government spends between $100 billion and $200 billion on programs and initiatives deemed by the independent Government Accountability Officeto be duplicative and redundant ...and that is from the GAO.

In 2010, they estimate $70Billion in innapropriate medicare payments.

i'm just going to go ahead and lay down some cold, hard truth:

1) the government can operate under a 'deficit'. under-educated conservatives keep blaberring about the deficit as if it were such a huge problem. IT'S NOT. IT'S NOT A SOLVENCY MEASURE, AND OPERATING UNDER A DEFICIT IS NOT LIKE A CORPORATION OPERATING UNDER CONTINUING LOSSES. THE DEFICIT IS MEASURED AS A LEVEL, NOT AN AMOUNT THAT ACCUMULATES, ANYBODY WANT TO TAKE A GUESS WHY???

2) the worst thing for the government to do to our economy right now is to start cutting spending left and right. that will HURT the recovery and give repukes a chance next election. they'll ride the wave of economic uncertainty and rise in unemployment, and won't shoulder any of the blame even though those cuts WILL hurt our economy.

3) the wealthiest corporations and individuals are sitting on round 2-3 trillion dollars in CASH. not stocks, bonds, or treasuries... CASH. THEY ARE NOT PUTTING IT TO WORK.

that is all.

Bonzi Lighthouse said:

So I say YES give tax cuts to the wealthy, let them invest (you don't think they are just sitting on piles of cash do you?) and let the government get back to what they are constitutionally mandated to do.

Click to expand...

You raise a valid point, however recent history shows that line of thinking didnt work. Remember the Bush era?

Remember the richest in our society only got richer. At the same time jobs were lost and average income remained stagnant. Weve been down that road and its a dead end for 90% of all Americans.
So I guess maybe they just sit on their piles of $, they sure didnt "invest in America"

MrDank007 said:

Medicare is not going away.

Click to expand...

uh.... the house just passed a bill that effectively kills Medicare...... today....

it won't pass in the senate...thanks to harry reid..........

I voted yes if Rich means us all.

If we cut all taxes for everyone who has money even one penny then i am all in favor of cutting all taxes off of everything.

If you mean Rich as in those who have more than $100,000 then no I vote no on cutting taxes because voting yes to cut taxes for the rich means the poor have to pay more either in monies, loss of quality of life or both.

Hitler had a final solution for the problem of an unwanted class of people so what is to stop our rich elite from killing unwanted poor in a thousand years?
The Nazis saw the social burden of the poor and this is the final solution after they were reduced to skin and bones for every economic use possible. Then they pulled the gold from their teeth and burned them.

We are facing the same thing with the budget issue.. Why should our Economic Nazis be burdened with the financial responsibility for society?

TheDemocrat said:

it won't pass in the senate...thanks to harry reid..........

Click to expand...

Gotta love the 3 branches, Teabaggers are up in arms this isnt like the British Parliament.

Just how low can they go? Teapublicans are all for taking milk out of a babies mouth but against those who can afford a farm having to share the wealth with a baby who cannot pay.

Am I wrong?

There is a lot of talk about this $2trillion in cash. Saving money and tightening the belt made sense during the credit crunch. Several buisnesses had problems when their credit dried up. Sitting on cash forever is not an investment though. Now that the survival mode of buisness is starting lessen and credit is becoming more available, they will begin to put that money to work. There will be pressure to utilize it.

MrDank007 said:

Every year the federal government spends between $100 billion and $200 billion on programs and initiatives deemed by the independent Government Accountability Officeto be duplicative and redundant ...and that is from the GAO.
.

Click to expand...

Okay, and what kind of percentage of total spending does this equate to? I'm not saying fraud is 100% nonexistent I'm saying that the notion that government is any more wasteful than corporations are is incorrect; I'm saying that Republicans are exaggerating the problem(for political purposes ofc)... I'm saying that government spending is most often justified and over 90% fraud and waste free. You can type out big dollar numbers all you want but when you consider that a couple billion dollars is chump change for an operation as large as the government - than the numbers start to really not look that bad (they are, after all, in line with the private sector in terms of percentages). That is my point. Waste happens... The government takes the same measures that corporations do to minimize any losses but some waste is just a fact of life.

Now, if 20-30% of all government spending was waste - you'd have a point... But that's just not the case.