How Does 40 Percent Less Government Sound to You?
SodaHead News
2011/07/22 11:00:00
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It's not looking good. Talks to raise the debt ceiling are dragging on with less than two weeks to go before our nation goes into default. While some Conservatives have pooh-poohed the talk of financial Armageddon, at the very least the failure to raise the borrowing limit will call for immediate, drastic cuts to our infrastructure.
Hell, that's not so bad, right? As it is, the GOP has been complaining for most of the Obama administration about the typical liberal orgy of spending, so a bit of a haircut is probably in order. Luckily, The Atlantic magazine broke down a few of the things that will have to be immediately jettisoned if a deal isn't met.
Don't worry, there will still be money to pay for Social Security, Medicare, interest payments on the debt, military payrolls and veteran's benefits. But what will go away overnight? No biggie.
-- No more maintenance or security of the nation's nuclear arsenal.
-- Get out of jail free cards for all our federal prisoners, because none of the guards will be paid and vendors will not deliver food, medical supplies, electricity, etc.
-- No one watching the border stations and all illegal immigrants currently in detention set free because we don't have the money to put them on a plane and send them home.
-- No fuel or electricity for our troops abroad, leaving them stuck in the desert with billions of dollars worth of equipment.
-- Forget about taking a trip overseas, since all of our embassies would have to close down.
-- No help from the federal government to fight wildfires or floods.
-- All those people living in housing projects put out in the street since their Section 8 vouchers would not be paid.
-- Home-schooling for all you public school kids, since that federal money for local school districts won't be in the mail and teachers won't get paid.
-- Oh, and forget about those guaranteed student loans for college.
-- Also, no more mortgage market, no more TSA to guard our airports, or air traffic controllers, for that matter and no more unemployment payments for the out of work.
Does 40 percent less government sound good to you?
Hell, that's not so bad, right? As it is, the GOP has been complaining for most of the Obama administration about the typical liberal orgy of spending, so a bit of a haircut is probably in order. Luckily, The Atlantic magazine broke down a few of the things that will have to be immediately jettisoned if a deal isn't met.
Don't worry, there will still be money to pay for Social Security, Medicare, interest payments on the debt, military payrolls and veteran's benefits. But what will go away overnight? No biggie.
-- No more maintenance or security of the nation's nuclear arsenal.
-- Get out of jail free cards for all our federal prisoners, because none of the guards will be paid and vendors will not deliver food, medical supplies, electricity, etc.
-- No one watching the border stations and all illegal immigrants currently in detention set free because we don't have the money to put them on a plane and send them home.
-- No fuel or electricity for our troops abroad, leaving them stuck in the desert with billions of dollars worth of equipment.
-- Forget about taking a trip overseas, since all of our embassies would have to close down.
-- No help from the federal government to fight wildfires or floods.
-- All those people living in housing projects put out in the street since their Section 8 vouchers would not be paid.
-- Home-schooling for all you public school kids, since that federal money for local school districts won't be in the mail and teachers won't get paid.
-- Oh, and forget about those guaranteed student loans for college.
-- Also, no more mortgage market, no more TSA to guard our airports, or air traffic controllers, for that matter and no more unemployment payments for the out of work.
Does 40 percent less government sound good to you?
Top Opinion
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Kris Says Hi 2011/07/22 14:24:06It sounds awesome
+20A smaller, smarter government is better than this lump of red tape that we've got.
The more government places a load on a business, something has to give, either you reduce production, or employees, or in some other manner reduce overhead.
Government does not operate on that plan. Goveernment does not produce,it consumes. And when Consumption exceeds Production you have a serious problem.
Right now over 44 Million people are on welfare in one form or another. And they feel "Entitled " to that welfare. And the more the government advocates this Redistribution of wealth, the further in the hole the country is going to go.
Once Obamacare kicks in the government os estimated be the largest single Employer in the country exclusive of the Military. 159 new Bureaucracies, and just about 10,000 new workers in the IRS alone with no estimate of the others.
When the government is a larger employer than the Free Market, how long before the system breaks down?
The irony is that it will produce stable jobs for many people while helping people to get real healthcare instead of paying a lot to get minimal benefits. I believe that healthcare should be a system to profit the people's well being, not the pockets of executives.
Canada has socialized healthcare and their economy is far more stable than our own. USA is one of the few modern, wealthy countries that does not provide healthcare to it's residents.
People don't abuse cancer treatment, they don't abuse asthma or diabetes treatments. They simply want and deserve to be able to live a full life.
Canada has a Free Market Economy, that is not over controlled by the government and Unions. That's why they are a bit and only a bit better off. But that may be changing as well. Strikes have cost the Canadian economy some serious money recently. However, things seem to have quieted down for now and Canada fortunately appears to have avoided "the big one" - a strike by the British Columbia port workers.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
And it you think O'care is going to solve anything, you are in a dark place. For one thing the first thing that is happening, and will get even worse, Doctors are no longer accepting new Medicare Patients. Including my Primary Care Physcian, My Urologiust, and My wife's Cardiac Specialits. All 3 of whom have big signs that they no longer are accepting new Medicare or Medicaid patients, but will accept private Insurance Plans.
Businesses, an estimated 30%, John Deere and others or example, are going to quit giving Company supported Health care. It's cheaper to ...
Canada has a Free Market Economy, that is not over controlled by the government and Unions. That's why they are a bit and only a bit better off. But that may be changing as well. Strikes have cost the Canadian economy some serious money recently. However, things seem to have quieted down for now and Canada fortunately appears to have avoided "the big one" - a strike by the British Columbia port workers.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
And it you think O'care is going to solve anything, you are in a dark place. For one thing the first thing that is happening, and will get even worse, Doctors are no longer accepting new Medicare Patients. Including my Primary Care Physcian, My Urologiust, and My wife's Cardiac Specialits. All 3 of whom have big signs that they no longer are accepting new Medicare or Medicaid patients, but will accept private Insurance Plans.
Businesses, an estimated 30%, John Deere and others or example, are going to quit giving Company supported Health care. It's cheaper to pay the fines than provide the insurance.
And how is it working in Massechussetts? Not quite as planned. Please note who has provided this analysis. The MMS.
Mass. Medical Plan Foretells Obamacare’s Ills
Five years ago, Massachusetts’ then-Gov. Mitt Romney approved a new medical plan that requires almost all state residents to have health insurance, just as Obamacare’s individual mandate would for the entire nation.
Today in Massachusetts, the wait time to see a doctor can be as long as seven weeks, and many doctors won’t accept patients in the subsidized insurance program. That does not bode well for national healthcare reform if it is fully implemented as planned by President Barack Obama and the Democrats.
A new study by the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), which has 23,000 physicians and student members and publishes the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, takes an in-depth look at healthcare in Massachusetts under the state program, which is often regarded as a model for Obama’s 2010 healthcare reforms. Among its findings:
• The average wait time for an appointment with an internist is 48 days, and the wait time to see a family physician is 36 days.
• The average wait time for pediatricians is 24 days, according to the MMS’s “2011 Study of Patient Access to Health Care.”
• Access to primary care physicians is becoming more restricted — 53 percent of family physicians and 51 percent of internists are not accepting new patients.
• Patients wait an average of 43 days to see a gastroenterologist, and 41 days to see an obstetrician/gynecologist.
• While 87 percent of family physicians accept Medicare, only 62 percent accept MassHealth, the state’s version of Medicaid.
• Only 56 percent of family physicians and 43 percent of internists accept Commonwealth Care, an insurance program for adults who don’t have private health insurance and don’t qualify for Medicare. Just 44 percent of family physicians and 35 percent of internists accept Commonwealth Choice, a program for uninsured adults that offers unsubsidized health insurance to people who are not eligible for Medicaid or Commonwealth Care.
• Due, in part, to a shortage of doctors participating in the program, the number of emergency room visits has actually risen under the Massachusetts plan.
“Massachusetts has made great strides in securing insurance coverage for its citizens, but insurance coverage doesn’t equal access to care,” said Alice Coombs, M.D., president of the MMS. “We still have much work to do to reduce wait times and widen access. This has important implications for healthcare cost control, as difficulty or delay with routine access to care leads people to seek other options, such as the emergency room, which is much more costly.”
Socialism and redistribution of wealth does not work for long. Pretty soon the Consumers ( the Government) runs out of toher peoples money (The taxpayers)
I used my last years tax form as a basis, and compared it to what it would be under the fair tax.
Poverty level for a Senior Citizen and wife is $14,700 per year for the couple. So with my Military retirement alone, I am over the poverty level and would be paying the 27% tax on everything that is taxable. Resulting in thousands of dollars a year that I am presently exempt from.
Be sure to look at the Un-intended consequences of anything like this and apply it to your own life. Our present tax system may need tweaking, but like Obamacare should not be totally done away with. Those Unintended consequences are a bitch.
Second, the prebate doesn't not go to those make over the poverty level. It prebates everything up to the poverty level(you would pay taxes on the first $14,700 spent). Also, if you don't spend all of your money, you can lower your own tax burden. This helps to encourage people to live within their means an not get trapped under a pile debt. I make well above the poverty level myself in the $60K range. I'm in the middle class which this is supposed to "hurt" the most, but calculated at my spending rate (I save a good portion for retirement) That I would save ~$1,500 a year in taxes overall.
The plan may have a few problems, but those would get looked at and worked out to help keep it revenue neutral. Also, part of the point of FairTax is that, there are no loopholes.
http://www.rothcpa.com/archiv...
I went to fair tax.org and ran myself through the calculator. It excludes Social Security as income. So it is definately skewed. When I put in our actual income, it gives a different picture. A big tax increase. And how will they possibly know if I'm spending money from my SS check or from my Taxable retirement money. So there still would have to be a IRS and yearly filing of some sort
And it is based on a platform that consumption will increase over time and generate the income differences that exist in the present system. Most economists say it is a bad idea as well. Most Canadians I know are of the opinion that they are overtaxed with their system, which is close to a Fair Tax..
And of course that would mean no deductions for the state taxes etc, so I essentially would be paying closer to $6000 in taxes, where last year I got back a small refund.
The Fair Tax proposed does not take into consideration State and Local taxes remember. So the 27% in our area plus the 8.75% local tax,...
http://www.rothcpa.com/archiv...
I went to fair tax.org and ran myself through the calculator. It excludes Social Security as income. So it is definately skewed. When I put in our actual income, it gives a different picture. A big tax increase. And how will they possibly know if I'm spending money from my SS check or from my Taxable retirement money. So there still would have to be a IRS and yearly filing of some sort
And it is based on a platform that consumption will increase over time and generate the income differences that exist in the present system. Most economists say it is a bad idea as well. Most Canadians I know are of the opinion that they are overtaxed with their system, which is close to a Fair Tax..
And of course that would mean no deductions for the state taxes etc, so I essentially would be paying closer to $6000 in taxes, where last year I got back a small refund.
The Fair Tax proposed does not take into consideration State and Local taxes remember. So the 27% in our area plus the 8.75% local tax, comes closer to 40%. And then no deduction for Mortgage interest, adds another $2500 per year.
Effectively reducing my overall income by about $500 per month or more. And of course paying taxes on my Social Security as I spend it which is Taxes on Taxes.
The fair tax is very comparable to a VAT like Canada has. And it is estimated that by the time anything is bought by a Canadian, it has been taxed at close to 60%
And to be realistic, it is a better deal for rich than for the Middle Class.
If you are rich and earn say 50 Million Dollars a year, and only spend 10 Million of it on goods and services, you would pay about $270,000. Where now even with deductions a person with that kind of earnings pays a heck of a lot more that that amount, closer to 1.7 Million.
And don't throw GE into the discussion. They paid no taxes last year because much of their money is made overseas, and deductible, and they took a big loss when their stocks took a big hit.
The federal tax rate for corporations is 35%. Wal-Mart's effective income tax rate came in just under that, at 32.4% So that 27% would be a boon for companies like Walmart wouldn't it?
It works the same way for individuals. Just as a person can lower his or her tax rate through deductions and credits, so too can major corporations, said Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation.
I worked overseas as a civilian for some time. You get a big deduction on american taxes, as you are paying taxes to the country where you work. In my case it was 90% right off the top.
FairTax is a consumption based and not an income based tax, those that spend the most will pay the most. It encourages saving. This will mean that my generation and following ones won't end up as mired in debt as the country is now by promoting savings. I make more than I spend (to the tune of about $12K a year). I know this would save on my personal taxes. It would also mean not needing to file income taxes or need the IRS to handle ~140 Million personal returns each year. Business would still file under this system it would be just ~30 Million businesses filing instead which reduces workload for both the businesses and the government and saves money.
What do Reps do for the poor or disadvantaged?
Why do Reps insist that massive tax breaks for companies create jobs?
(I have worked for a mail order pharmacy which was owned by Aetna. When the workload was too much they asked you to work overtime. Every pharmacy technician had to type at least 40 prescriptions an hour, and every week you had to meet with your supervisor about productivity. Threats and intimidation was the rule to force that you made that goal. The pharmacists had to check 80 prescriptions per hour or they were fired. If you have prescription meds that come from any mail order facility, it was processed and packaged for mail delivery within 10 minutes or less.
They dont care if there is a drug interaction that may slip by because the pharmacists are forced to work at such a rate. All they care about is getting the most productivity, and paying the least compensation period. They can afford to hire more staff to make the workload lig...
What do Reps do for the poor or disadvantaged?
Why do Reps insist that massive tax breaks for companies create jobs?
(I have worked for a mail order pharmacy which was owned by Aetna. When the workload was too much they asked you to work overtime. Every pharmacy technician had to type at least 40 prescriptions an hour, and every week you had to meet with your supervisor about productivity. Threats and intimidation was the rule to force that you made that goal. The pharmacists had to check 80 prescriptions per hour or they were fired. If you have prescription meds that come from any mail order facility, it was processed and packaged for mail delivery within 10 minutes or less.
They dont care if there is a drug interaction that may slip by because the pharmacists are forced to work at such a rate. All they care about is getting the most productivity, and paying the least compensation period. They can afford to hire more staff to make the workload lighter and safer for their customers but no. They work you to death, even if its your prescription medicine.)
Tax breaks mean nothing. They are NOT investing the extra money into the company, they are getting $40 million in bonuses and could care less if your prescription was correctly filled or not.
Money changes people... the richer most people become the more greedy they become... Right now the top 1% most wealthy Americans together dominate our economy. Everything from jobs to financing presidential candidates... Who do you think Mitt Romney calls to get 4+ million dollars in donations?
In the end America is also about opportunity, even for people who need a helping hand.
1) "we've come a long way closer to democracy than the republic that we started as". Your obvious disdain for Americas founding beliefs expose you for the communist that you are.
2) "the richer most people become the more greedy they become". Real Americans don't fall for your messiahs class warfare scam, especially when the top 1% of the earners in America are paying most of the taxes. BTW where do you think dumbos billion is coming from??
3) Again you assume wrongly because you've been trained as a communist. Nobody in America believes that we shouldn't have safety nets when people stumble on hard times, however keeping people on entitlement programs is way more evil than not helping them at all because you become the slave owner. "If a man is hungry, don't give them a fish, teach them how to fish"....
If a man is hungry and you industrialized the fishing market and you now have legal rights to the fish, there are no fish for him to catch. He has to pay you for the fish and does not have the capital to start a competitive fishing company that you will buy out if it becomes a threat. Our society is NOT strictly capitalist. No modern society can be. Don't you understand that more and more layman work is being taken over by robotics. Within a century I imagine that there will not even be a tenth of the current demand for blue collar jobs. I believe the strength of our economy is the fact that USA is flexible, it is neither pinned to a tradition nor anarchy. That is why USA has in fact changed the whole world, we've taught a thing or two about how government should work. Despite the fact that it may forever be an evolving entity, it has thus far taken the right form at the right moment in time.
Capitalism it'self is cold and heartless... it's sort of like extreme Darwinism which was ultimately the path of Hitler. Strive for perfection and let natural selection run it's course. There has to be a balance. We are involved in humanitarian efforts around the world, but within our own country there are people who need help.
The fishing example is where government needs to step in as it did with Bell back in the day. Government must create a level playing field and allow capitalism to work from there. Neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism will work.
P.S. Thank you for your service. I served in the USMC during peacetime prior to 2001. I tried re-enlistment and was denied for medical reasons. However, I have an AR-15 that would serve me nicely if a foreign military ever had the balls to attack us here at home.
When you have 20 or more come and brag about it.
And I doubt that as well. You have the most communistic ideas I've ever seen here in SH. And Boy I've seen a bunch.
And you are right about one thing. We have taught the world that the Free Market is the best kind of Economy. So China and India and Russia have gone that route, and are turning us into a third world country.
While we are following the ideas you advocate, and going down the tubes. Socialism works until you run out of other peoples money.
Government is a consumer not a producer.
BTW, shame on you for believing the liberal lies that conservatives are bad people. They help people down on their luck WAY more than the lying communist dems!!
I doubt that you are however, and you seem to have no clue as to the load being placed on small busines by the government.
Even Steve Wynn, a strong Democrat all the years we lived in Vegas, has come out and said tha tthe present administration and congress are ruining the American Economy.
All wealthy are not corrupt. When I hear someone say something like that it makes me wonder. Kind of like when someone tells you everybody is a liar, you suspect they might be a liar.
Look that up. They were origianlly a socialist society as determined by the Mayflower Pact they signed to come over here, and nearly starved. Then the work ethic was put into play and they thrived.
1) Why is there such an intense desire by Republicans for a small government?
2) What do Republicans do for the poor or disadvantaged?
3) Why do Republicans insist that massive tax breaks for companies create jobs?
I am hoping for a complete answer for each question if you can answer them.
(We both know you cant answer and your only argument is that "Americans dont buy this or that")
Your answers will be thoroughly examined, and answered by me only. You can consult Carl Rove if you need help with your answers, I wont object.
I will ask questions according to your answers and nothing will be a "statement of opinion"
You MUST back up your answers when asked by me with a link to whatever site supports your position regardless of the sites allegiance to the right or left as long as it is a credible news agency.
The game is afoot if you accept it, but you will be soundly defeated for anyone on SH that cares to watch.