More taxes and cuts to spending causes depression?

Apparently, if the Republican deadlock isn't over, tax cuts expire and government spending is automatically cut this coming January. Most papers are screaming dire warnings and supposed experts are saying that the USA will be back in recession.

I haven't put 2 & 2 together on this yet.

How can more money in, less money out send you broker?

 

More taxes and spending cuts causes poverty not depression. The state get's richer and the people get poorer . What those so called experts left out of the pictures is the massive cash lost due to trade deficit and off-shore outsourcing.

 

I feel your pain Bush. You are suffering from the confusion an outsider must feel from looking at a 18 months worth of lies being spoon fed to you by the media without having a clue as to the underlying issues.

I'll clear it up for you in a few short sentences, though I don't think you either like or accept the truth.

1) The "Bush Tax cuts for the Rich" were actually a suite of tax cuts created in the wake of the dot com bubble bursting and 9-11, both of which were catastrophic events which could have sent us into an Obama type recession. Bush, along with healthy support from the Democrats, cut taxes across the board. They cut the taxes for the rich, the poor, and the middle class. They did this to stimulate the economy and it worked.

Your confusion comes from inaccurate demagogic phrases like "Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich" when they were actually tax cuts for everyone. Your confusion comes from Obama and Earlpearl telling you tax cuts don't help stimulate the economy before the election, while in 2003 and now, they told you those same tax cuts definitely stimulated the economy.

2) Obama ran on how he cut everyone's taxes, based on the idea that he passed a temporary payroll tax cut which is now set to expire. The problem is, he told everyone that a) tax cuts don't stimulate the economy, and b) that he would cut the deficit in half and keep social security alive and now that those tax cuts are about to expire, he is going to have to confess that tax cuts do stimulate the economy and take ownership of the associated deficit spending

3) The sequester, or automatic trillion dollars in spending cuts, was a backstop measure put in place to satisfy the markets and the American people that Washington could cut spending, even if they couldn't reach an agreement on how. Now that those spending cuts are set to take place, Repulicans who ran on reduced government spending are scrambling to prevent them from happening to avoid cuts to the military. They are also being forced to admit that mass government layoffs from cuts in spending will impact the economy. Democrats naturally hate government spending cuts, if only to avoid layoffs of unionized government workers who are essentially paid to vote Democrat. Both parties who during the election championed reduction of the deficit and debt are now working directly against that exact cause because those cuts are done with a butcher knife instead of a scalpel.

In a nut shell, raising taxes and firing government employees (reducing government spending) will impact the economy. The more that is done at once, the more impact there will be. Failure to fire government employees/reduce government spending and raise revenue will put us on a path to Greece. Romney was the guy who had a plan to do get the job done safely, and a track record of being able to work with the other party, which will be necessary to do these things. Obama was the guy who had no real plan, outside of raise taxes on the rich, which the CBO clearly stated will not do the job. Obama is the guy that has a proven track record of refusal to compromise, even with his crappy ideas.

This is why you see the markets selling off. It is going to be a very bumpy few weeks coming up.

 

"More taxes and cuts to spending causes depression?"
Well perhaps it does, but unfortunately it is the only answer to uncontrolled extravagance and fictitious high standard of living.

The US does not know what taxes, uncreased cost of living and depression is, they are living in Cuckoo land. Try the UK and many countries in Europe, THEN you would wimp. Try filling your tanks with gas over here and you would need a very big overdraft on your credit card indeed.

The world debt is so big I cannot even print it on the page width allowed. Almost every single country has been living far beyond their financial means by borrowing colossal sums from the IMF, the EU piggy bank or living off Foreign Aid given by stupid Western countries. People have been living in an Alice-in-Wonderland paradise since WW2.

Just look at the apparent prosperity and standard of life they enjoy and expect in North America and Europe. Everything is lovely, fat salaries, big houses, big cars, luxurious holidays - life is good. Then look at the cost of this fictitious extravagance to their countries - they are almost or completely broke and in the shit up to their ears with debts or bail-out borrowing. GOD ! Half a dozen countries in Europe are bloody bust already and have been bailed out, some wanting yet another hand out, with another half dozen queuing up for charity. The EU is being sucked dry by lame ducks living way above their means.

The US has an external debt of over $16 Trillion and the UK about $1.5 Trillion whilst keeping half the world by giving away vast sums of money of borrowed money to do it and incurring enormous extra financial costs in practical humanity or military aid. It is a policy of financial lunacy and world finance experts forecast a total fiscal collapse as an imminent certainty. THEN we will all be in the shit.

A budget is so simple a baby can do it. It all boils down to ensuring that expenditure is kept below income.

You do not borrow to give money away and if the people have to rough it, then so be it. Europe has had a rough deal for decades in austerity - the UK certainly has. Well now it is the turn of America to suffer economic deprivation and social hardship - a situation they have not experienced since the 1920`s, even in WW2 the US never even knew there was a war on - goodies galore and the sweet life still went on unaffected.

My advice to the pea brained nutters who govern US policy ? STOP giving away those countless $Trillions to overseas countries and having to borroww to do it. STOP all foreign aid including commodity supplies and particularly military aid. STOP trying to police the world and fight wars that are none of your business. LET the "free market" syndrome reign supreme in the world - "The strong survive and the weak go under", "March or Die". YOU CANNOT KEEP THE WORLD !

Finally - STOP keeping that shit hole, useless, anti-American, terrorist sanctuary providing pox hole of a country Pakistan as if it was another State in the Union. Let them die gracefully, no bugger will miss them and good riddance, well when you pull of a leach - do you miss that ? What the Hell as Pakistan done for the US ? Sheltered Osama bin Laden for years and no doubt trained the terrorists that wrecked the Twin Towers and the Petagon. You think that is worth paying for Pakistan`s survival ? I don`t !

 

When you get done explaining the US to a buncha whiny-ass meddlers will you stop by my house and teach geometry to my dog?

I won't pay you, but he has a better personality and he's a helluvalot smarter, so it should be more fun than what you're doing here.

 

The ever important difference is, your dog doesn't run a blog site with math advice.

 

Thanks for attempting, would be better without the partisan stuff, 'Obama will fuck it whereas Romney would fix it', not helpful (though to be expected lol).

TAX CUTS EXPIRE: Government receives more money but some people now have less money. Less spent on 'stuff'. Retailers may close?

Well seeing it was a tax cut and it expires it would be like a grocery voucher that expired. You're lucky to have had the discount but now you pay 'normal price' to get your country back on track. How many people complain about docket discounts running out?

SPENDING CUTS: Government spends less on stuff (you hinted military). That could mean many things without affecting people. It could also mean layoffs?

I still don't get it. In one breath we get 'Democrats rely on government to do everything for them' yet Republicans are now complaining about spending cuts? Is the argument now turning to say government should spend more of our money to keep people employed or what?

 

@Rob: He's not qualified to teach your dog how to eat a bone, let alone geometry. But once he takes a couple of my classes, he'll at least be able to demonstrate to your dog how to gnaw on a bone.

Now @ O-nation: nice of you to reference me above: (

.....). I hadn't even been over here and I'm on your mind.

Just pay me for the classes and you don't have to reference anyone else here.

@Bush: you are correct about the Right Wing Mumbo Jumbo:

Here is the crisis scenario in a nutshell. When the past debt ceiling and other issues hit the sh1t fan in the past and the two sides couldn't agree to anything they came up with a way to get settlement by pushing an immense serious critical problem out to the future. Now is the future.

The issues are two fold. If there is no "reasonable" solution then drastic things will occur.

Immediately the tax cuts by Bush on everyone will revert to the pre 2001 rates. hey look it really doesn't hurt the wealthy with immense disposable income...but it will take another bite out of the pockets of the 80% of the population that makes less than $90,000/year household income. With their money going to the govt, it means they will spend less on the economy...on purchases, etc. Lower economic activity.

Meanwhile, the govt, which is the biggest consumer in the country by far far far...will start cutting on all programs. They will cut back spending across the board on all kinds of programs. The govt will be withdrawing money from the economy also.

Less money into the economy from consumers, less money into the economy from the biggest customer in the economy---> leads to a lot less money into the economy. All of it occurring simultaneously means that the economy takes a BIG DIVE all of a sudden.

Just to review: Just before the housing market hit its peak and started to dive...which preceded that Bush era mother of recessions, ( ) overall consumer debt, corporate debt, and financial institution debt were at all time highs in the US economy. All those 3 elements had skyrocketed over the years with consumer and financial debt really skyrocketing.

then the Bush era Mother of all recessions ( ) hit. Oooof we all said. One of the slowing aspects of recovery was that consumers and businesses stopped borrowing and were paying off and lowering debt. When they were paying off debt they weren't spending. the economy slowed...and its still relatively slow although in the last months of this year there have been upticks, some of it surrounding more purchasing of cars and homes (both come with increases in debt).

So if consumers cut spending and the govt (biggest consumer in the country) slow spending....and the govt goes hole hog like crazy paying off debt real fast.....the other side of the coin is that economic activity will really take a HIT--> hence the (probably well reasoned) fears of recession.

now that is straight economics...real demand supply stuff....not some political mumbo jumbo

 

Common Bushy, you are playing into Rob's commentary. I spelled this out as simply as I could. Let me try again.

Tax Cuts
Both Democrats and Republicans really don't want tax cuts to expire right now. Both believe citizens who have more money in their pockets will use that money to create demand for goods, products, and investments which will spur economic growth. Both believe the economy is weak enough that taking money away from consumers could send us back into recession. Both do not want to be labeled as the party who raised taxes on you, or someone you know. Consumer spending/investing = demand = economic growth.

The only real difference here is that Democrats feel it is morally OK to single out a small subsection of the population and tax the living crap out o them since a) they are an extreme minority so they don't have enough votes to strike back by voting them out of office, and b) They have more money so they feel it is ok to take as much of it as they like.

Spending Cuts
Only Republicans want government spending cuts. I remember seeing a statistic that shows more than 30% of employment in America is government related, be it direct employment through the federal, state, county, or city government, or indirect employment for a government contractor or a business that sells mostly to the government. Add in government spending on Welfare, Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Jobs Training programs, and a myriad of other programs, and it becomes obvious that cutting government spending in any serious way is going to impact a whole lot of people's bottom line and/or livelihood. This brings us back to the same issue with tax cuts. Unemployed Ex-government employees or cuts in "free" gubment cheese mean less money circulating around our economy creating demand.

Democrats tend to look at Government employment as a jobs program, where people can get a job even if nobody else would ever hire them.


Opposing the tax cuts and spending cuts we have the Deficit and Debt
Both sides claim to want to get the Deficit and Debt under control, since the interest on the debt eats up 40% of our budget and, if it continues without change, our economy will collapse. The problem is, Democrats do not want to reign in spending on anything EXCEPT the military. In fact, they want to expand spending on entitlements, such as Obama's new health care entitlement @over 1 Trillion dollars. Republicans seem willing to make spending cuts so long as they aren't cuts to the military budget. The truth is, many Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats in using taxpayer dollars to pander to their constituents, so real spending cuts are very difficult on both sides of the aisle.

When Bill Clinton came to office, he ran on a very similar platform as Obama. Government health care, taxes on the rich. He managed to get his tax hikes through congress, and promptly got his ass handed to him in the 94 election cycle. That was when good ol' Billy started compromising, getting cuts to military spending by agreeing to cuts to Welfare/government assistance programs (Cuts Obama has since rolled back).

Even if we taxed the rich at 99%, there would not be enough money for all the spending Democrats want to do, no matter what Obama and his minions like Earlpearl tell you.

 

On the side of the cranks, crazies and crackpots of the tea party ladies. He who has been wrong about everything leading into the election and who supports the party who gave the world the GFC we have Obamanation. The same man who blamed Obama for two days of stockmarket falls but who doesn't mention the 50% rise since Obama was first elected.

On the other side we have Earlpearl.

Let me think who I'll listen to.

 

Gee, that must make it all better! All is well!

I think your leopard skin fedora is cutting off the circulation to your brain.

 

A wise man said the solution is always found within the problem and i'm trying to cut the confusion and get to the real story to work out the real problem, if it even exists. I believe both you and Obamanation have provided great answers with genuine beliefs though it raises a few more questions in my mind.

From both sides of this debate' I see they both are relying on government for America to survive, and it seems they both agree the more that government spends (on the right things), the greater the economy will be?

The argument is what they're spending it on, not that they're spending, in fact you both seem to be saying they could spend more money because it will better the economy?

Let's look as if you earlpearl were the president and Obamanation was Romney. We know (from previous conversations on DP) you two would probably make a great team buying and selling houses and could make a shitload of cash for yourselves and your families (the country) but with such vast differences in ideologies how do we get you both working together?

What makes you say it worked? Not being smart here but didn't Bush leave with a recession?

So you do want them all fired, just more slowly than they're suggesting?

Nothing new about a few weeks of shakiness though. At this stage I think the markets would be selling off junk assetts like just before every election they rise. The market usually has a lot of people investing in stuff based on whose they think will be running the country (the risktakers). For example the pipeline that Romney would have pushed through would have been worth the investment as shares would have likely risen pretty quickly. Once the election's over, the people who invested based on Romney's election now pull out of their now faulty investments knowing that pipe's going nowhere fast. Just a guess though, too early to say for sure but it is the sharemarket after all.

Now it's relying on 'virtual' stuff (like Facebook and Google etc.) there's a new dangerous bubble in the making.

Mumbo Jumbo is on both sides though, the press just likes the scandals, we (everybody) only get part of any story, i'm confused and I think the world is too. I, along with many I believe, haven't cared about the economy. We see it as all built on straw anyway (as the ponzi scheme it is) and the same can be done over and over if so desired as long as the confidence is there, though it probably isn't legal it is the nature of humanity, we have gotten away with it in the past and will continue getting away with it in the future, which is why I put my faith back into housing.

So your answer is they both need to talk to work out what they're cutting?

Do we agree...as it stands;
Republicans want less spent on people and more spent on military?
Democrats want the opposite, more on people, less on military?

But we know he can be wrong.

So you would be happier if the replacement tax was across the board, or are you pushing for keeping tax cuts for all at the expense (detriment) of the country, or you think the tax cuts are not at detriment to the country?

I see many government jobs as welfare. What's the difference between someone staying home getting $300 per week for doing nothing and someone getting $5,000+ per week plus lurks & perks for being in a government job? I'd somehow rather cut those highly paid government-employed honchos to $300 per week.

Anybody can see it's a huge deficit that needs to be sorted. I found out even Even if we taxed the rich at 99%, there would not be enough money for all the spending Democrats want to do, no matter what Obama and his minions like Earlpearl tell you.[/QUOTE]

There's many ways of making money out of nothing, as the rich will attest. How do you suggest the government should get the right amount of money to feed everyone's wants?

 

They both agree that government spending can stimulate the economy. The difference lies in whether that spending is structural or temporary. Democrats want structural big government, Republicans and classic liberals may agree to temporary spending out of necessity, but believe small government and limited debt allows for greater long term economic expansion and government flexibility.

Imagine you are laden in debt and barely making the interest payments. How are you going to produce extra cash when an emergency arrives when you are already leveraged to the hilt?

Unfortunately this is has been true for more than a decade. It took the Tea Party to realign Republican ideology to that of smaller government. They still haven't quite got the message, but they will.

Every nation deals with dramatic differences in ideology. America's strength has always come from finding common ground, and our best leaders have always accomplished that goal. It accentuates what a truly bad leader Obama is.

He did, though that was many years later, resulting from a myriad of other related and unrelated events. 2001/2002 could have been a melt down of Obama proportions had Bush not stepped in.

Government spending has traditionally hovered around 18% of GDP. We are currently at 25%. Revenues are at 15% of GDP. We need to drop spending by 7% of GDP and raise revenues by 3%. A little more would actually put us on a path to great prosperity. It can't be done over night, or with a single stroke of the pen. When you talk about reducing the size of our federal government by nearly 30%, there is going to be some pain. It just needs to be done slowly, carefully, and intelligently, and no it doesn't mean anyone wants them "all fired". At 18% of GDP on a healthy US economy, we have more than enough government services for the most needy.

Fair assessment, but I suspect we are looking at something a bit bigger than that. There was no change this election. I think the markets expected a change big enough to create compromise. The players we have now are the same players from the last four years. The chances of compromise are slim. The fiscal cliff is coming, and the market is prepping for a likely outcome.

To quote Art Laffer, our tax code is full of ducks and chickens. I'm for a progressive tax code, but a fair tax code. The rich can afford to pay more and they do. Dramatically more. I think any tax code above 40% is draconian, and we are already well past 40. We need to get rid of the things that allow the mega wealthy and corporations to evade taxes, like Obama campaign contributors GE, GM, Google, Apple, and the rest. They pay practically nothing in taxes. I liked Romney's idea of lowering the top marginal rate to 28% and eliminating carried interest and other ridiculous deductions/loopholes. The bipartisan Simpson Bowles commission had similar recommendations.

A good progressive tax code, in my opinion, goes from 1% to 30%, not -4800$ to 90%. I'd be alright with capital gains going from 15% to 20% on gains over 200k per year (a 33% tax increase on investment income of the wealthy). Its a far cry from a regressive tax or a flat tax, but an improvement to what we have now, and a lot more profitable than trying to drag an extra 4% out of some small subsection of our society.

Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, many of our government workers are pulling down more than that, and they have unionized, making reigning them in all the harder.

Its not the governments job to feed everyone's wants.

 

Of spending on structural or temporary, if it works the same way here then Democrats (Labor) build stuff for the government to earn money on and when the Republicans (Liberals) get voted in they sell it off. That cycle has gone on here for the last 50 years. (though lately Labor has been happy to sell off our assets too).

Depends how good my credit rating was. Firstly I would take assessment of the problem and how critical it was. Whilst borrowing more wouldn't be my first answer I might go for that option under some circumstances, especially if 300 million people depended on me and I had a plan of turning a profit.

It doesn't accentuate that imho. It seems the Republican team are the main obstructionists. You can't work together or get anything done if they constantly just say no. It's like I come to your house for a beer and you just turn your back on me the whole time then go on to blame me for the problem.

Here we go, got some real numbers out of you, now I can work with them. Not that tradition really matters (trendsetting's more my style), what % are the 'traditional' revenues, now at 15%? Judging by the raising it by 3% I'm guessing traditionally it's 18%.

Does that 18% include defense/welfare/education etc.?

By 'them all fired' I meant all employees currently earmarked by the automatic cuts, not every government employee.

'fiscal cliff' - there's those scary words again. Even if it happens in its worst possible form, you do know you won't die yeah?

Corporations first and foremost need pulling up and made to pay proper taxes, well ahead of them taxing (even rich) individuals. With a base wage before payroll tax kicks in of say $100,000, a pro-rata tax of 10-32% up to $200,000 would be fair enough in today's economy, though 33% of all income above 200k should be more than enough to run and improve the place, a real 33% though, fudgable only by those heading directly to jail.

Not sure if you have a GST but we have an across the board goods and sales tax of 10%.

Government also raises money from land rates.

I would also want a better return for the finite resources (the mining industry) being dug up and removed forever.

Administration wise, it could be...

 

So two things. First I was talking about spending, not "building stuff for the government to earn money on". The government is not a business. It continues whether it is profitable or not, and the leaders do not get any reward for it being profitable or efficient. They get rewarded based on who the pander to. That isn't to say a business person can optimize and clean up government operations, assuming he/she can get cooperation from the myriad of other political appointees who don't have to listen to him/her, and that he/she can neither hire nor fire. In consideration of these facts, bigger government invariably means bigger waste and bigger corruption. Government should be only as big as necessary, and no bigger.

Second, in the US, structural spending usually doesn't involve "building stuff for the government to make money on". Take the TSA for instance, brought to us by George W. Bush. These are mostly people who could never get a job somewhere else, paid healthy salaries and retirement benefits to indiscriminately harass US airline passengers and violate our right to privacy. It earns nothing. It creates nothing. Arguably, it doesn't do a very good job at keeping airline travel safer, especially in a cost/benefit analysis. This is a classic example of structural spending, vs Stimulative spending (Stimulative tax refunds, temporary boosts to unemployment insurance benefits, etc).

Great quote. "300 million people dependent on me". This is exactly how the government goes broke and we become Greece. If you make people dependent on themselves, not the government, you don't have to figure out how to make a bureaucracy turn a profit. As I mentioned before, you'll have a better chance getting Mikael to love Jews than you will getting a bureaucracy turn a profit, for reasons I've already mentioned.

Now who is using political spin? When you ask a girl to sleep with you and she says no, is she an obstructionist? Perhaps she should be forced. Get real. Congress is a coequal branch of government to the Executive branch (president). They too are elected to office for EXACTLY what they are doing. Its called a balance of power. The "obstructionists" were elected to office in 2010 specifically to obstruct Obama's bad ideas and unrestrained spending. Why are we covering material that was discussed several posts ago? Rob's dog/geometry?

When Obama's temporary 3% payroll tax holiday expires, revenues will be back to 18%, no new taxes on the rich required. The word "Tradition" was a matter of speech. Growing the government from 18% of gdp to 25% is a structural shift in the size of our government. It is not something Americans are in favor of.

Yes, all of the above, and payments on the debt.

The federal spending needs to come back below 20%, by any means necessary. Trust me when I say this. Our congress will NEVER approve any new budget to save this country from the fiscal cliff that does not shrink the size of our federal government below those numbers. If they do, you will see all of the new "radical obstructionists" voted out of office in their primary elections and replaced with people we think will do the job.

Earlpearl, and many on the left, really don't seem to understand what is driving Tea Party politics. It isn't a few "radical" candidates. It is an American electorate that has had it with Washington spending from both parties. These people are highly motivated and shown willingness to evict people who "go along to get along/status quo" even if it means giving the seat up to a Democrat by fielding a substandard candidate (we've had few). These people are not any less fired up than they were 2 years ago.

I get a chuckle out of people who think this election is evidence the country has taken a left turn. We sent MORE hard core Conservatives to congress, not less, and we now own 30 out of 50 governorships. 2014 will be another big year for the Tea Party. Change is coming to Washington, if it has to be brought there kicking and screaming.

Funny you should say that. I happen to agree. I'll say this. I'd much rather we let all those tax cuts expire and all those government cuts take place than endorse making Obama's new size of government permanent, even if it means recession. Recessions are actually healthy and normal. They are times for rebuilding and reorganization. One of the reasons we are dealing with this debt crisis is from doing ridiculous things to avoid recession.

Two things. 1) That will never happen. Washington is in bed with big business. Besides attacking business in the US is like attacking Kim Jong Il in N. Korea. We love business here.

2) We already have some of the highest business tax rates and regulations on the planet. It is simply a matter of fact that the biggest corporations (fortune 100) manage to bypass all those taxes based on cronyism. This is a place I 100% agree with Earlpearl. Washington is not the friend of small business. Those high business tax rates are there to punish up and comers, not the status quo. I agree business tax reform is a must, but it isn't just a matter of raising the rates. Its much more complicated than that.

That is called communism. It doesn't work.

 

While you and O-Nation have plowed ahead with more back and forth, I had to laugh at the last line (I bolded). there was a WINNER and a LOSER--> I think labeling O-Nation the loser is an apt description. LOL

well, I'm not sure of that. Ha ha. I used to be a commercial real estate guy, buying and selling and leasing commercial spaces and buildings, and O-Nation has evidently dealt in overseas RE. I always worked with others...but there are times when partnerships don't work out... LOL


As to the rest of the commentary, it does appear O-Nation and I have similarly described the "fiscal cliff" in the sense that as of the end of 2012, if nothing is done, the prior legislative/administration stop gap measure established in 2011 to get the budget ceiling raised (that was an artificial crisis created by the Tea Party Wing Nuts), established an utterly drastic "solution" in typical...political put off till tomorrow what you don't want to deal with today, fashion. In mid 2011 when this was created the two sides were at drastic opposite ends and created a "drastic" short term response.

As to solutions: I'm not going to go specific but I'll speak in greater generalities.

Of the US govt expenditures these days, it appears that health care is way north of 20% of the fed budget, and defense is around 20%. Social Security is around 20%, but social security is funded in a separate way and frankly if all you did was raise the limit on incomes on social security taxes you could deal with that issue, at least for the foreseeable future.

Of all costs, health care costs are the big troublesome difficult area. Health care costs have skyrocketed over time. It hits the federal budget, but it also hits families and individuals at extraordinary levels.

By example this data is extraordinary: The cost of family and individual insurance increased by significantly more than 100% over a ten year period: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/mone...15-insurance-costs_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Those kinds of cost increases rip into the family budget, especially if your income isn't going up. Likewise health care costs have increased significantly and alarmingly for the Fed budget.

Just consider a side note for a sec. Insurance premiums for everyone increase a lot when the number of uninsured increases. Besides the above data on individual premiums the other tough nut on individuals is that minimum deductables on individuals and families increased a lot.

But back to the big budget numbers:

Basically the Dems have already accepted a lot of cuts. The dems want to see the uber wealthy pay an increased share of their incomes on taxes to help pay for the budget slashing.

Its a simple premise. When folks are taking a hit make sure that everyone shares in it. During the last couple of years the radical Tea Party extremists simply want to slash the hell out of huge percentages of America's less fortunate and REWARD the wealthy.

WHAT????


I'd accept well reasoned cuts on social programs. I'd also hit the programs that don't need money, including some of those right wing favorites, and I'd hit the military budgets.

The US spends roughly 1/2 of what the world spends on defense. Among those expenditures are weapons programs with over $1 trillion in cost overruns and really absurd expenditures like about $200 million for military bands....$200 million for Ooom pah pah music. O-Nation are you for that????

 

Earl, I was actually enjoying your post up until this point where it turned into pure fiction:

Dems accepted a lot of cuts? Republicans don't want everyone to share a tax hit? Maybe you aren't reading the same news I am, but our President wants the rich to be the ONLY people who feel a tax hit. Republicans are the ONLY people insisting everyone shares the tax hit. Maybe reading too much Talking Points Memo?

I'm up for targeted cuts made across the spectrum of expenditures the government has. I'm not sure about Military Bands, The Blue Angles, or any of the other seemingly wasteful military government expenditures, but I would hope the guy in charge of making cuts for the military would give up the Blue Angles before giving up research into supersonic drones or something essential to our defense.

I'm also more of a fan of reforms that yield savings to our social programs rather than flat cuts. California schools have been making cuts left and right without addressing the Teachers Unions and we are losing 20% value for every 10% cut we make. Reform would yield a 20% increase in value for a 10% cut. I would imagine the same is applicable to many of our government programs.

 

Wow, so insightful...

Who has been in office for the past 4 years (doing a not so great job)?

 

Besides the fact that your comment doesn't relate in any way to my comment, I'll just mention that the bloke who has had the job for the past four years has been re-elected. That should indicate to you that the majority of Americans believe that he will do a better job than the alternative.

 

Dealing with some new overseas (over river) clients coming to the USA.