Michael Ramirez for December 07, 2010

And the educational level of the “simple answer” is accurate. INCOME has to increase, and has to come from the people WITH MONEY, AND you cut spending, but wasteful spending, like the F-35, tobacco and other agricultural subsidies, corporate subsidies, and well, war-making in general. Health care, social survival, and infrastructure to run the country do NOT NEED to be cut further.

Increase taxes on the über rich - they got it dishonestly, they can afford it, and raising their income taxes a little would take care of our needs.

Ramirez arrogantly leaves out the national debt to make his same stupid point. There is not a single economist that does not state flatly that it will take spending cuts and revenue increases to pay down the national debt to where it was before Regean sent it upward after 40 years of strong decline.

If you’re a Repub, you can pretend all you want that the debt doesn’t matter, but it keeps taking an ever larger share of the GDP just to pay the debt service.

We could do away with that socialist program, Medicaid. *

1/3 of Medicaid goes to former middle class, mostly women, who run out of money and have nowhere to go but nursing homes.

You GOPers could put them out in tent cities and give the money to the upper 2% rich.

Repub Congress corrected what, Howie? And when? Debt’s been climbing since 1981, with brief downturn under Clinton.

” … . brief downturn under Clinton.”

???

National debt has been climbing steadiy since 1981. The only period of time debt did NOT increase was under Clinton, the “downturn” is a visualization of a graph ; the debt graph turned downward under clinton.

I’m really getting tired of the cons here taking credit for something they didn’t do. You didn’t balance the budget, you didn’t help pass civil rights, and you didn’t bring down the Russians (one speech ain’t gonna do it).

Yes, when you have a deficit, you could cut spending… or you could increase revenue, but that is verboten .

Or you could decide that either of these can cause more harm than the deficit, and concentrate on fixing the more urgent mess.

The GOP had little to do with the increased revenue that followed Clinton’s tax hike. In fact, they seemed to think that it wouldn’t work very well…

“Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), February 2, 1993: We have all too many people in the Democratic administration who are talking about bigger Government, bigger bureaucracy, more programs, and higher taxes. I believe that that will in fact kill the current recovery and put us back in a recession. It might take 1 1/2 or 2 years, but it will happen. ”

Yeah, only it didn’t. Then again, a lot of people on the right thought that way about TEFRA in 1982… Somehow, it didn’t impact recovery too much either.

So what exactly did the Republican Congress do about the deficit during the 1990s that was more important than the added revenue that Clinton’s tax plan provided?

According to Laura Tyson in 10 years 100% of ALL federal income will be needed to pay for 4 items

A) Social Security B) Medicare C) Medicaid D) Interest payments on the debt

That means if you cut 100% of defense, 100% of education, 100% of farm subsidies etc etc there still will be no money. Note that means we have totally eliminated all defense spending, all education spending.

There is no choice- none- we must cut from the 4 items above.

…but, make sure you have enough to cut taxes for the rich.

^ Don’t cut MY social security, don’t cut MY medicare, don’t cut MY medicaid but DO tax someone else.

Surprise- shock someone else doesn’t agree.

I think what’s being lost here in the “left vs right” argument, “who did what” argument, and the “don’t take this away” argument is that we have an unsustainable growth pattern. BOTH sides are guilty of it, and the current administration is just as culpable as the rest of the prior administrations since the New Deal came out. Has Bush blown a lot of money? Yes. Has Obama? Yes (albeit more, but that’s moot).

Some factual realizations that need to be recognized:

If you eliminate defense spending, like so many doves are suggesting, it exposes us to lose more than paying the small percentage of our budget to the military. We may as well start brushing up on our russian, mandarin, or arabic. If you have, others will want. If you can’t stop them from taking, they will take. Nothing can be a sacred cow. Lib1 is right in one regard: In a finite amount of time, the expenses of the 4 sacrosanct programs will cost us our entire worth of GDP. This will CRUSH our ability to borrow, we will have a downgrade in credit, and the amazing country we all love (why else would we argue so vehemently about it?) will cease to exist as we know it. EVERY program must be reviewed, expenses trimmed, and costs cut. Does that mean some of our defense spending needs to be restricted? Possibly. Does that mean subsidies need to be cut or eliminated? Possibly. Does that means SS needs to be revamped? Possibly. We can’t let these programs hold common sense hostage because “I’ve been paying in for 40 years, and I want what I paid for.” You know what? I’ve been paying in for nearly 20 years, and I am expecting nothing in return. I’m contributing to my 401(k), Roth IRA’s, and personal savings. It’s not easy; I could certainly do other things with that money that I’d rather spend elsewhere, but I recognize hard choices need to be made and I make them. We need to recognize that the economy needs help before we keep hammering away on social agendas (DADT, Wikileaks, Immigration, etc.). Spending ourselves into oblivion trying to coax and coerce the economy to get moving isn’t working. It hasn’t been working for the last two years. We need to get contact with those businesses that are holding $3 tn in cash reserves and ask them, “What do we need to do so you start hiring again?” Don’t guess, don’t pander, don’t force. Ask. If they say, “Lower the corporate tax rate permanently,” then that’s what you do. If they say, “Impose tarrifs to restrict competition,” then that’s what you do! Government can’t provide everyone employment, and having over 2 years of unemployment benefits doesn’t help anyone long term. The money that’s being spent on unemployment would better be spent on figuring out how to get the economy roaring again. Because those jobs? Those will provide far more benefits than any unemployment check.

The freshmen congressional members are right. We need to cut spending. Period. Do we need to raise taxes to potentially accelerate the recovery from the debt and defecit? Yes. Should we do it before our economy is burning red-hot? Absolutely not.

^To address your points

We’ll be speaking those languages regardless because those nations are owning us. We’re willing not to give up our national sovereignty but we’re willing to give up our economic sovereignty, where the real war is being fought. Plus I don’t see the need for us to be the world’s police officer.

You can easily pay for S.S. by lifting the cap millionaires and billionaires pay on it. They pay a tenth of it after the first million and it gets smaller afterwards under our current system. Lift the cap (and raising taxes) would make these programs solvent forever.

Rather than enforcing tariffs that have protected this country for over 200 years you’d rather ask these crooks on your hands and knees what we can do to get their money to come back? First they are gonna flip you off, tell you to sit on it and rotate, and then they are gonna tell you to set the tax rate to zero. It’ll accomplish two things. One: we’ll never see a dime of it and Two: it’ll be the best democracy money can buy, speculate on the market, own more companies, etc. If you don’t understand try looking up monopoly capitalism.

@ LOONEY1 If the only people who are gonna have a problem with it are the tiny minority who own everything, then I’m fine with their taxes going up.

Cut spending WHERE?

The wars are also spending. They should be cut before anything else.

That little guy on the right should run for President …!!

“Should we do it before our economy is burning red-hot? Absolutely not. ”

When WAS it red-hot? It was NOT hot in 1982, when TEFRA raised taxes - granted, to offset a previous cut ? It bleeep well wasn’t, and this was iirc the largest (in terms of the economy at the time) tax hike in post-WWII US history. Countless economic know-it-alls predicted doom and gloom. What happened? The recession ended less than a year afterwards. Now near everyone on the Right considers Reagan an icon - yet somehow, forgets that little TEFRA bit and what happened before, when he gave a major tax cut and got himself a double-dip recession..

The economy wasn’t so NOT hot in 1993, when Clinton raised taxes. Again, the political opponents said that it would cost a million jobs at least, and cripple the US economy. Instead, we got a long period of economic growth, and faster job creation than under either of the two previous presidents. Oh, and more or less manageable deficit.

The idea that tax cuts are 100% harmful to the economy is a frequent mantra in some circles that doesn’t necessarily make it RIGHT.

@ Vent: Yes, the Marine Corps has a retirement fund you can donate to, and if you bothered to look at my other posts I have commented that I am both a Marine and civilian employee. Figure it out.

In addition, the “two years” comment I’m getting at is the paradigm that Obama and his democrats have been exhibiting: Spend ourselves to prosperity. Deficit spending to prosperity has been proven to not work in the past. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It didn’t work then, it won’t work now. Government consumes resources, it doesn’t generate them.

I actually didn’t hear or read anything from Gingrich prior to me posting that. If he states the same thing that I did, that’s pure coincidence at best.

Small percentage: Yes. Defense spending in 2009 accounts for 23% of our spending, and that’s including 2 deployments of troops to foreign soil. SS is 20% (and climbing) and Medicare is 19% (again, climbing). Two programs dwarf defense spending which covers 5 branches, R&D, and other multitudes of functions. SS and Medicare are entitlement programs that are GOING to grow. We know this as FACT.

And while in principle I do agree that there shouldn’t be a cap on what money you pay taxes on (I believe taxes should be evenly applied to everyone), I don’t believe the “rich” need to be “soaked,” simply because they are rich. That’s like saying you should pay more for a bar of soap because you work in a coal mine and get dirtier than a desk worker.

Vent, the rest of your comment I’m not going to bother wasting my time on, because you aren’t going to listen. I could spend another hour telling you how your rationales aren’t rational, but it won’t do any good. So, to you, good day.

@ 4uk4ata: Raising taxes doesn’t help create job growth in the private sector. It only helps fund government programs. If the economy has an already-strong tailwind that will not be severely impinged by the tax raises, then you’d be fine to raise them, but only if they are used to level a budget instead of encourage more spending. Frequently, many in Washington consider tax increases as credit limit increases on their Government Charge Card, which doesn’t do anyone on Main Street any good.

I highly doubt anything I say is going to change your mind.

Oh, and maybe you’ve not heard, but the military has this thing called “The Reserves.” Given how articulate you are with your posts, I’m shocked I had to barney-style that bit of info.

Regarding the 23%, I’m comparing it to the 39% that is going to be higher next year and the years after, etc, when the 23% is going to shrink because its costs are relatively static. Yes, 23% is a big chunk of money, but it will be shrinking either way you slice the pie (chart).

In regards to services provided to you, during Katrina, the armed forces were mobilized to help there. Or is that not a valuable service to help fellow citizens in times of turmoil? We also protect your right to say whatever you want here, no matter how vitriolic or inaccurate it may or may not be.

Regarding the stimulus package, it didn’t stimulate squat. We have no way to prove that it saved 1 million jobs, especially in the private sector who was shedding jobs to stay afloat. The reason I know this is that the stimulus money was funneled to special interests in the state and local governments, and did nothing to “stimulate” the private sector. All that “stimulus” pulled down on our private sector because it was additional unfunded payouts (aka debt).

And spending isn’t just the stimulus bill. The spending is also the bailouts (I even hated the ones GW did, they were wrong) that shouldn’t have happened, the health care bill that isn’t going to save money or improve anyone’s health, or other unfunded programs like continued unemployment.

“Too big to fail” needs to be removed from our vocabulary. It’s a false sense of security, and this nation was built on the survival of the fittest notion. Businesses start and fail every day, and yet there’s no stimulus for them. Had the “too big to fail” people failed and gone into bankruptcy, another healthy bank would have purchased them and brought them back.

In addition, and this may be considered callous by a lot of you here, sometimes you have need to go through the horrific pain of cutting open an infected wound to save the patient. Letting these idiots at AIG and GM etc watch their businesses fall apart would have solved the problem in one fell swoop. Instead, now we have companies who are held together with bandaids and duct tape because government stepped in, and the original problem still exists, lurking in the background: Poor business decisions (potentially partly forced on them by the government), poor personal decisions (seriously, who gets a 5-year ARM with a payment that is equal to your monthly income?), and unfunded liabilities with no form of backup in case stuff falls apart.

The root problem hasn’t been solved. It’s only been glossed over. And like so many of you left-viewers like to say, these giants are still getting huge bonuses. Boy, we sure taught them!