A Dose of Bitter Medicine

[Robert McClanahan]

Maybe I can help the no tax party on how all of this shit works. We all have bills to pay for those things we need. We earn money to pay those bills, in the case of an individual that person has a job or other source of income. Hopefully that income is greater than the amount needed to service the debts and the costs of living. When an individual loses income that makes servicing debts impossible. In that case the individual must have more income to become self sustaining. So, less income means a need to increase income or lower your standard of living if no income is available, fairly simple?

So it is too with the nation, income fails to meet the needs then income must rise. the nations income is not raised by jobs though it is raised by taxes. In 2000 our nation had a ten trillion dollar surplus, many in government saw this as an ideal time to reduce taxes ostensibly to stimulate growth in the private sector. Sadly in less than one year, the attacks on the U.S. happened and the need for income in the nation increased in order to pay for our response. Still with me? Instead of ending the tax cuts and increasing income as we spent more and more on the military needs, we not only kept on with lowered taxes but lowered them even more. So, we had greater expenditures and less income.

Here's the tricky part, the government in its infinite wisdom looked at the numbers and panicked. The wars started to retaliate for the 9/11 attacks were bleeding the nations bank account dry and if added to the budget the numbers would plainly show the need for at least a return to the previous administrations tax rates. Unfortunately, the majority party in congress was too beholden to wealthy and powerful entities to face the negative response from returning too those taxes they had heralded as being so wonderful by virtue of how the economy would grow and prosper since the entities would now spend more on increasing their output, putting more people to work and increasing income by adding numbers to the tax roles and keeping rates low.

It didn't take long to see that the effects were somewhat less than accurately predicted. Upper level incomes and holdings grew but there was no corresponding increase in wages or workers. The tax savings were parked off shore in tax havens. So in order to save face, congress decided to keep the stupendously expensive wars "off the books" this allowed them to try and hide or deny the looming disaster. They figured (and now these words are my opinions and assumptions) We will lose the 2008 election and we should be able to drop the consequences for what we've done into the lap of a likely democratic president.

Once again these men miscalculated since the chickens came home to roost before their man could leave office. Still the disaster fell into the hands of the incoming president. Their free spending ways were exacerbated by the billions tossed to banks to keep them afloat all with no oversight to speak of. That has not stopped them from trying to associate the blame for this additional waste of funds on the man who did not sign the bill that passed it out like a reward for almost destroying the worlds economies just as thoroughly as our own.

So, Mr. Speaker, Senator McConnell, you have a point, spending is the problem, but you oversimplify it by implying that it is spending on social problem that gutted our economy. You fellows and the way you refused to admit the truth about tax cuts along with deliberate duplicity used to hide the true cost of the war of aggression in Iraq. That is the spending that put us here, not health care, not SNAP, not Social Security or Medicare. The combined cost of all of these programs amounts to less than six months of war in Iraq.

When you tell Americans that it is the fault of children, the disabled, and the elderly you lie. I know that lying is your go to defense for everything, having witnessed the last election cycle, but the time is over, trickle down is a lie. When the wealth is held by a few they do not spend it on the nation, they hide it and hold it like a medieval miser. So fellows, it is time to be men and face the music, admit that you have failed and that the economy and the nation must have more to function. Sure, there must be spending cuts as well as tax increases in the brackets that can afford them but, why must it be cuts made on those few things that help those people in need and not corporate subsidies or inheritance taxes or luxury taxes? Do you fellows think that it is okay for a poor person to go sick and hungry and live on the streets instead of making Joe Millionaire forego a vacation home or Rolls or two?

[Catnlion]

I really don't care who's fault it is that we are here.  The fact is we are.  Personally, I think all 535 of them are to blame.

The current president ran for office screaming how bad it is to raise the debt ceiling.  He wailed against all the spending.  So he has overseen the national debt going from 10 to 16 trillion dollars, and he wants more.  He used the divide line of they have to "pay their fair share" but he will never put a number on it. Neither will the people here BTW.  

Then there is his agenda.  He doesn't just want the money. He only wants the money if it comes from a rate increase.  Change the laws and get the same amount of money from reduced deductions, nope.  It has to be rate increase.  Why?  Isn't a dollar a dollar?  I guess not.

He wants this tax that will raise about 8 billion dollars next year. Last year they over spent 1024 billion dollars we didn't have.  It would be nice if the Senate would do their duty as spelled out in our laws and pass a budget.  Senator Reid hasn't let one come to the floor to be debated or voted on in about 3 years.  The House did their part and passed one and sent it to the Senate where it sits in limbo.  It should would be nice to have a plan on where we are going to spend our money.

So the president gets enough extra money to run the government for 8 days. You may be able to go and get a part time job to close your budget short fall but the president only wants 8 days of shortfall covered.  The fact is you can't cover the amount of money he is over spending my doing anything with taxes.  You have to cut the  budget.  If you leave all entitlements alone, like the president wants you don't have enough to balance the budget if you cut everything else to zero.

While almost everyone here complains about the "evil big oil" I don't think they realize that the state and federal government both make more money off a gallon of gasoline that the oil company does. That is just a couple of the thousands of hidden taxes on everything we do.  It's time to say enough and scrap the 90,000 pages of tax code the IRS doesn't even understand and go to a flat tax or a fair tax and repeal all of the other hidden taxes.  That way when they say the tax rate is XX.X% you know what you are paying.  Right now I'm guessing you can't tell me what the total percentage of your income that goes to pay a tax of some sort is.

There is no free lunch.  Not even from Obama's stash.

[Robert McClanahan]

Never meant to imply that there was a "free lunch".  What I'm saying is that the two men I singled out don't seem to see any where to go but to social programs and I say the problem will be better served if those with money to spare pay a larger percentage until the thing at least stabilizes. They should pay more because they have made more and taking away form people with nothing is going to net nothing.  

[Catnlion]

If you don't touch social entitlements there isn't enough in the rest of the budget to cover what Obama wants to overspend in the next year.  He is talking about a Billion dollars per year for every year in his second term.  This from a guy who promised to cut it in half during his first term.  Yes you can blame part of it on Bush.  I do, but Obama was a sitting US Senator.  You mean to tell me he didn't know what was going on?  That doesn't look good for his side.

Also, you again went with the they make more they should pay more.  How much more?  Give me a number,  50%? 60%?  France just raised their top rate to 75% and you know what the biggest movie star in France did?  He said screw it and he moved to Russia.  What did the French government do?  They bad mouth him for not wanting to give up 75 cents on every dollar he earns.  Can you blame him?  So please, give me a number and not the liberal talking points. To be fair, research shows that millionaires moving because of taxes does happen, but as a general rule it's not a great problem.  I would be more worried about people who just quit working.  They have enough money to live on so why bother?

And people do think there is a free lunch.  What about the two ladies that were all over TV wanting money from "Obama's stash" or the lady who didn't have to worry about making her house payment or car payment now that Obama was elected?  Now you can look at the 47% of people who pay no income tax at all.   That's about half the population.  That means if you are working you are supporting your family and another one.

Now look.  We need a social safety net.  Nobody is saying that we don't.  There are people in this country that can't work and will always need taken care of.  You can't help it if you were born with Downs syndrome or have a spinal cord injury or any of hundreds of problems that will leave you out of luck.  But look up the unemployment numbers.  You can stay on UE for almost two years.  Do you know when most of them find work?  Yup, right before the money runs out.

[DaisyJane]

oh cat, do shut the fuck up.   obama didnt create it, obama wont solve it, bc people like you talk shit with no real information to back it up.  they have the biggest surpluses IN THE HISTORY OF MANKING AND NO JOBS ARE BEING CREATED AND WAGES HAVE STAGNATE SINCE AT LEAST 1999.  what the fuck dont you get in that sentence?  their prices and their profits have ALL INCREASED with NO INCREASE in purchasing power.

sorry bob.  but i am so sick of people refusing to read a simple fact and draw from it.