[speechlesstx]

Nothing to be amazed by, I hate the nanny state but love babies. They should have rights, too.

QUOTE by speechlesstx;
Um, yes I commented on that, "we have a president and Treasury Secretary (who couldn't do his taxes) that think our federal debt rising to 900 percent of the GDP is a good thing."

QUOTE by talaniman;
He never said it was a good thing, no one did, but they do say it was necessary thing to do, in light of the robbery perpetrated by the banking sector on the GLOBAL economy.

NO, what he said was "what our budget does is get our deficit down to a sustainable path". Debt at 900 percent of GDP is not a "sustainable path".

[talaniman]

Geez dude even Ryan, and Romney show no deficit reduction for two to ten years in their plans. Why, because of the recession. If that's not a priority, grow the economy, then deficit reduction won't work either. Everyone knows that. I like babies to.

[tomder55]

The path to a balanced budget is budget cutting . The government collects plenty of revenue . The red ink is on the spending side of the ledger .

[talaniman]

The path to a balanced budget is fair taxation, balanced spending, and a growing economy, AND TIME.

Even Laffer couldn't balance a budget without adding revenue streams. Cutting spending during a recession is counter productive to growth. And cutting those who have little or nothing is discrimination.

[speechlesstx]

And cutting those who have little or nothing is discrimination.

No one has any plan to cut the safety net for those who NEED it. Just as no one had any plan to ban birth control. You guys are making up boogeymen and I have news for you, these boogeymen don't exist.

[paraclete]

The path to a balanced budget is budget cutting . The government collects plenty of revenue . The red ink is on the spending side of the ledger .

Tom are you certain you know what you are advocating, The shortfall of revenue covering expenditure is massive, to do what you suggest you would need to dismantle the military, social welfare, obamacare as well as much of the administration. The economic impacts would deepen the recession and lead to civil unrest. You are talking about cutting the budget by about 40%. One of the big budget items is paying for the massive debt and you can't wipe that out with a stroke of the pen, you need to turn the whole revenue-expenditure equation on its head and that takes increasing taxation

[tomder55]

Even Laffer couldn't balance a budget without adding revenue streams.

The revenue came with tax cutting stimulating the economy... not spending .It reached record levels in both the 1980s and later in the last decade . What Laffer couldn't do ;and neither could Reagan ;is cap the spending that came out of the O'Neill Congress . Only in the 1990s ,with Newt's budgets and Clintoon triangulating and , a mini dot-com boom (those evil corporations ) did the budget balance.

We have serious problems with both the levels of spending and the unfunded "entitlements "(made worse because of that beer money coming to you in the payroll tax cut that directly funds SS and Medicare .) You see Greece ? I really don't want that here. But "progressive " policies enacted over the last 50 years have brought us there one step behind the democratic socialist states of Europe.

[paraclete]

So Tom you are saying you need Newt back again?

[talaniman]

No one has any plan to cut the safety net for those who NEED it. Just as no one had any plan to ban birth control. You guys are making up boogeymen and I have news for you, these boogeymen don't exist.

So I guess the Ryan plan to privatise medicare and give everyone a voucher is a figment of leftwings imagination huh? And in his plan we grandfather in the ones who are 55, but after that the ones paying into the social security, and medicare plans get reduced benefits managed by a for profit corporation. And that's how we get a balanced budget in 15 years.

REALLY??

[talaniman]

The budget was balanced by closing military bases, and shrinking the military. And a tax that promoted expanding the tax base. The government didn't have to spend because there were enough revenues from an expanded base (23 million jobs), to run surpluses killed by GHB, and his congress. That's when the massive extraction began, right after workers took health benefits instead of wages, as companies downsized and went over seas. First to Mexico, then all over the globe.

Nobody listened to the cries of OUTSOURCING, and slave labor by foreign countries. Or even the notion that cheap labor could be found in backward places and we couldn't compete with the slaves they found overseas. Naw blame it on progressives for living the American Dream, fueled by debt and deception of the corporate class, and the right wingers who cheered them on after getting robbed blind and scared to death. Poor people were okay until you became one, then you were cursed for life as a lazy bum.

I was there. And I'm watching it happen all over again. Righties love it, when the government is small and weak and lets the corporations do as they please, and the churches bring us back to the morality only they have, and you don't. Righties seek to destroy from within, and that's their whole agenda, and always have been. All this in the name of freedom to be part of the haves and taking from the have nothings.

So the economy struggles on at the perfect pace for the right wing agenda so their leftist immoral enemies are so busy hustling beans to notice this is the same script we saw during the 30's. Again the solution will be a long hard war with some foreign country, bent on ruling the freakin' world.

Or, maybe not, VOTE DEMOCRATIC, and pay no attention to those clowns on the right. They are great at throwing pies in each other face, but its foolish to take them seriously.

Or we could end up like the GREEKS, in the streets throwing rocks.

[tomder55]

The British government introduced a higher tax rate on the rich in 2010, promising that it would bring in added revenue. But, as any sensible person could have guessed, just the opposite has happened.

Gordon Brown's Labour Party government launched the 50% rate in income taxes allegedly as a means to bring in more revenue.

The London Telegraph reported earlier this year that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs estimated the British version of the Buffett Tax would "show a 'surge' in revenues totaling hundreds of millions of pounds from the first year."

The "surge" wasn't even a trickle. In fact, there was actually a reversal. Collections fell by $800 million compared to income tax payments a year earlier.

As Francesca Lagerberg, head of tax at the accounting firm Grant Thornton, told the Telegraph this week, the apparently unexpected outcome "highlights the fact that high tax rates don't always deliver high tax revenues."

But shouldn't they? Yes, if nothing else changes. But things change. They always do.

As government sources explained to the Telegraph, the lower revenue is the result of "well-off Britons" changing their behavior so they could "avoid the new higher rate."
Despite the inverted results and the obvious problems they will cause, the British left is insisting that the rate remain in place. Why? Because, the Telegraph reports, the left believes that "it is important to demonstrate that the rich are paying their fair share."

The jealous urge to punish the rich and to enforce a subjective fairness that blinds lawmakers in Britain is the same disorder afflicting politics in this country.

Britain Learns That A Tax On The Rich Doesn't Increase Government Revenue - Investors.com

So even though there is a demonstrated inverse result from these targeted tax increases ,the left insists on them . Why ? Because of their distorted image of fairness and not sound fiscal policy.

[paraclete]

Britain Learns That A Tax On The Rich Doesn't Increase Government Revenue - Investors.com

So even though there is a demonstrated inverse result from these targetted tax increases ,the left insists on them . Why ? Because of their distorted image of fairness and not sound fiscal policy.

Raising taxes in a recession may not mean an immediate increase in overall tax revenue because the tax base is much broader than the rich and millions were earning less including the rich the value of whose investments had crashed. I remember when the highest tax rate was 90% can't imagine how few there were who actually paid it but your theorum is that if tax rates were zero the economy would boom. Let me tell you a story about a nation who had many tax evaders, they introduced a broad based consumption tax and presto, collections increased dramatically and oddly enough the economy boomed. A tax led recovery perhaps

[talaniman]

Companies must stop hoarding cash and start investing instead | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer

Nice try Tom, but they have the same problems that we do, the job creators ain't doing their jobs and are actively keeping the money from circulating. The solution is the same as ours, government spending, and higher taxes and incentives to actually invest in their country. If the right would embrace the idea of instead of cutting poor people and there safety net, and let the rich guys PAY for REAL jobs creation like a ten years infrastructure program, partnering with schools, and colleges to get some workers they could use, instead of importing them, we wouldn't be wasting time on just waiting for job creators to do their job.

A tax increase just to have one is useless in the broader picture, but add to it some really stimulative projects, and you have some actual jobs being created, and the burdens the government is now carrying would be lessened and you can start to think of some deficit reduction.

Drastically cutting government spending creates NO jobs, NONE! It will stifle economic growth though, and have even more people out of work on that dole you decry so ferociously from the right. Depending on banks and corporations, has created no jobs, NONE! That's the role of government buddy, and not a weak one. To incentives through tax policy reinvestments in this country. I mean they haven't done squat to bail out the ones who bailed them out. Typical greedy b@stards they are. They just went back to business as usual playing amongst themselves. Tax them high, and if they want to help, give 'em a break.

Go ahead, kiss some more rich booty and see where that gets you.

Just curious, if Keystone is such a hot idea, why do taxpayers have to pay for that too? The oil companies make the profits from it so why am I building it for their benefit??

I smell more legal robbery coming to the already strapped taxpayer,

You righties got life and BS all confused.

[tomder55]

And you lefties still cling to 1930s models that were a complete failure . You have already extended the negative effects from the 2008 recession for 4 years with no end in sight. You tout very modest increases in growth and very modest and distorted unemployment figures as proof that what you are doing is working ? Then you accuse us of being confused ? Your idiot in chief yesterday told us we can convert soilent green into biofuels to solve the energy crisis... that's all we need to know about his plans . It's all otherworldly cr@polla

[excon]

It's all otherworldly cr@polla

Hello again, tom:

You, along with your party are drifting rightward into unknown territory... Come back... Come back...

I COULD argue that the 30's lefty policies produced the largest sustained increase in wealth and upward mobility the world has ever seen. You'd like to take us back to the 19th Century. That's why I asked about a right wing WISH LIST. You didn't step up then, but it looks like you just did.

Surly, if we elect a Santorum, and you manage to get a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, you WILL, (a) repeal Obama care, (b) end Medicare and Social Security as we know it, (c) repeal Roe, (d) OUTLAW contraceptives, (e) drug test all the liberals, and (f) (fill in the blank from a panoply of repressive choices.)

Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that isn't what you'd do IF YOU COULD.

excon

[talaniman]

If Mitt would have let the car company go bankrupt, then he will let YOU go bankrupt too. And homeless. He said so.

[speechlesstx]

If Mitt would have let the car company go bankrupt, then he will let YOU go bankrupt too. And homeless. He said so.

He'd also drop everything and go rescue your family on the lake or shut down the business to go find a missing girl.

Obama on the other hand will hold a beer summit after accusing you of racism or use other people's money to buy you some condoms.

[talaniman]

It was racism, and its his job to delegate the spending of public money, not other peoples, on the common good. Please tell me where the free condoms are.

[speechlesstx]

No, it was not racism and it's the House' job to spend our money and they suck at it, too. What, you didn't know a condom was a contraceptive and Obama plans on making those free? We've been discussing it.

[talaniman]

We have been discussing woman's contraceptives. Show me where the president wants to make condoms free, please. I must have missed that one.

30 days until baseball, are we ready? Wheres Ex when you need him.