Do you support eliminating taxes on TIPS??!!

Why don't you cite a source or two. Especially for you claim that high earners are fleeing France.

Obviously we need to eliminate as much wasteful spending as we can.

But we still need to invest in America, and this is the time to do it. This is the time to build needed infrastructure and put people back to work at the same time. Building costs are down, both labor and supplies, because there's very little building going on in the private sector. NOW is the time to INVEST.

it's been done many times in our nation's past. The Federal government heavily subsidized railroad companies by giving them huge amounts of land AND money in the 1860's to build a transcontinental railroad and spur lines. That greased the wheels of Capitalism to the benefit of all Americans.

FDR did the same thing by building dams and hydroelectric plants.

Eisenhower did the same thing by building an interstate highway system.

These government funded projects set this nation up to be THE world superpower.

We need infrastructure, and we need to get people working. Let's do it. Of course this will add to the debt, UNLESS revenue is greatly increased as well.

For now, we should spend and keep taxes low. Both of these things can stimulate growth. (Look up Financial Policy.) But when the country gets moving again, we definitely need to revoke GW's idiotic tax cuts.

Let's not forget that before GW's tax cuts, things were booming during the Clinton administration. Look how well things are going with GW's cuts still in place.

By the way, your "pro business and pro jobs climate" is just empty rhetoric with no real plan to back it up.

I agree that paying our bills is important! You'll get no argument from me on that point.

If a family is short, they may try to get more revenue by working extra hours or putting to work ones that aren't currently working. But there are limits. So if you are in debt, you work with your creditors and you certainly stop spending more than you bring in... even for necessities. In fact, you must stop spending because you can't spend what you don't have.

In the government's case, it can print money out of thin air, but that only devalues the money, screws creditors, and impoverishes everybody. How is the government going to double its revenue? You tell me? Do you really believe we can double all tax revenues? What tax rates would that require? I don't believe it can be done. If you doubled all taxes tomorrow, you would have less revenue next month. Tax avoidance would go through the roof. You could sell government assets to pay down the debt. Then all you would have to do is balance the budget. I think increasing taxes is going to have a negative impact on the economy and on government revenues. But I would accept the notion that we manipulate the tax rates up and down to find the optimum point that maximizes revenue. I just don't believe there is a point where federal revenues can be doubled. I'd recommend changing from income taxes and payroll withholding to the Fair tax Plan. That will marginally increase revenue and should positively impact the economy. But we won't know unless we try. I also know we can eliminate all "discretionary" spending and we won't balance the budget. Military and entitlement spending are simply too much. So we need to cut them as well. Sure, some may be worse off, but there is no scenario where we can balance the budget without a lot of middle class and poor people being worse off. Funny thing, though, while they may be worse off in the short term, many of them will be better off in the long term as they are motivated to become self-reliant and less dependent on government.

Do we really need to maintain foreign military bases and provide foreign aid? Do we really need to provide taxpayer funded unemployment benefits for 99 weeks? Do we really need to have the government provide for our health care? Won't that just increase the costs as competition and choice falls by the wayside? Does the federal government really need to fund art during hard times? Or build and maintain magnificent buildings? Does the government really need to give to the schools when they have always managed on their own? why do schools do worse the more money the government provides? These are serious questions to consider before making a blanket statement that we simply can't cut spending. If you can show me how and how much we can increase federal revenue, I might be willing to meet you halfway. I just think there are limits to how much revenue can be generated and we are near the upper limit already.

" . . . but to the extent that government is providing assistance to the wealthy, the wealthy are in large measure paying for it in taxes to begin with."

Absolutely WRONG.


We 99 percenters pay a huge of amount of tax, compared to the one percent.

Even the poor, who pay little or no INCOME tax, pay far, far, far more EXCISE taxes in proportion to their income than do the one percent.

Think about it. if a rich man, who earns 300 times the income of a poor man, buys a Whopper, he pays the same amount of sales tax as the poor man. In other words, the poor man pays 300 times as much in sales tax , relative to income, as the rich man.

Excise taxes, and there are a lot of them, are highly REGRESSIVE taxes. Sales taxes, gas taxes, telephone taxes . . . those are all highly regressive excise taxes that fund government, but one percenters pay only a tiny fraction of them.

During the Eisenhower administration, the highest marginal income tax rate was over 90 percent. Now, it's around 30 percent.

Back then, we had low yearly budget deficits, and even a surplus now and then. That's because we had adequate tax revenue, even though we were spending like crazy building an interstate highway system AND fighting the cold war.

Those facts should tell you something.

And no, I do not advocate that we eliminate ALL subsidies to business. That would be unwise.

We need to spend where we need to spend. We can't be near-sighted, and we need to think in the short term AND the long term in order to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

You assume the rich man and poor man will both buy hamburgers. Truth is that the rich man will buy prime steak and expensive wine and will in fact pay more tax with a consumption tax. He will buy tailor made suits while the poor man buys off the rack at Wal-Mart. And the Fair Tax Plan provides for a prebate so that the folks below poverty level (or some threshold) should have no net tax liability. The prebate essentially makes federal taxation entirely voluntary. It has lots of other advantages and if you are interested, I'll share/debate them. But for now let's stay on topic.

Do not confuse tax rates with actual net taxes paid. why would you care if a man who earns $5,000,000 pays a lower percentage than a man who earns $50,000, when the rich man pays more than 10 times as much in net income taxes? How is that even fair or moral that somebody who earns more should pay more net taxes. air would be a head tax assessed equally on each individual citizen. But to cover current spending with such a head tax, most people would be bankrupted the first year.

What is worse, those who are becoming rich and are generating a high income to do it are penalized with a high tax rate, but those who are already rich and do not need or choose to work can end up paying no taxes on their wealth. The latter group is the one usually associated with the idle rich in a derogatory way. The wealthy are always going to be in a better position to shelter or move their wealth out of the rich of the tax man unless you tax them when they buy something. What good is wealth if you don't use it, anyway.

You said, "We 99 percenters pay a huge of amount of tax, compared to the one percent." That may be true. You would expect 99% of the people to pay close to 99% of the tax burden. But that is not even close. Do you disagree with the numbers that are thrown around showing that nearly half the people are net takers and that the top 10% pay most of the taxes? I don't have the numbers handy, but they are presented frequently on SH and other forums.

Finally, during the Eisenhower administration when marginal tax rates were so high, there was a plethora of tax breaks, exemptions, deductions, and shelters available for those in the 90% tax bracket. I doubt anybody smart enough to earn an income putting them in the 90% bracket was dumb enough to pay even close to 90% of their income in taxes.