Now Hear This!

[blueballs]

No it's not. It is a spending problem. The govt takes enough money from all of us. The govt needs to live within its means.

In your opinion, but if you're into balanced budgets, reality says govt isnt taking enough from some of us.

You're right Kalm. About half the population pays no federal income taxes. That needs to change, and the best way for it to change is for nobody to pay income taxes. http://www.fairtax.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

However, the problem isn't that the government's annual take of approximately $2.5 trillion isn't enough. The problem is spending, pure and simple.

[kalm]

In your opinion, but if you're into balanced budgets, reality says govt isnt taking enough from some of us.

You're right Kalm. About half the population pays no federal income taxes. That needs to change, and the best way for it to change is for nobody to pay income taxes. http://www.fairtax.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

However, the problem isn't that the government's annual take of approximately $2.5 trillion isn't enough. The problem is spending, pure and simple.

In the long term you might be right. You've been winning me over lately. But in the short term, if youre truly a deficit hawk, you've got to find a way to fund wars and tax cuts for the mega rich and multinational corporations.

[houndawg]

I know you don't want to hear this, but it's just as much a revenue problem of which the Democrats and the Obama administration have compro...er I mean caved just as well.

No it's not. It is a spending problem. The govt takes enough money from all of us. The govt needs to live within its means.

We have 700+ military bases outside the US and have a bigger "defense" budget than the next 15 biggest defense budgets on the planet. When I start hearing about some that money being on the table then I'll believe that the GOTP is serious.

[HI54UNI]

No it's not. It is a spending problem. The govt takes enough money from all of us. The govt needs to live within its means.

We have 700+ military bases outside the US and have a bigger "defense" budget than the next 15 biggest defense budgets on the planet. When I start hearing about some that money being on the table then I'll believe that the GOTP is serious.

I'm on board with this.

[JohnStOnge]

In your opinion, but if you're into balanced budgets, reality says govt isnt taking enough from some of us

I guess you're right since low and middle income people don't carry much of the overall tax burden. I have a link to what it was like as of 2000 in terms of all federal taxes except estate and gift levies (i.e., this includes payroll taxes). It's http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publicat ... ID=1000566" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . I guess I could try to find an update but I think we can all agree that the basic picture hasn't changed.

Anyway, as of 2000 the bottom 40% only paid 5.9% of the cost of running things and the bottom 60% only paid 15.7%.
So, yeah, I'd say that if we're going to clamor for Mommie government to take care of us while most of us aren't carrying our fair share of the burden maybe we should start making those in the bottom 60%...and especially those in the bottom 40%...start paying more of what it costs to sustain the monster.

[JohnStOnge]

We have 700+ military bases outside the US and have a bigger "defense" budget than the next 15 biggest defense budgets on the planet. When I start hearing about some that money being on the table then I'll believe that the GOTP is serious.

We spend a lot on the military but if you use the numbers we get with our nifty tax instructions you can see that we could eliminate military spending entirely and still have a huge deficit. You get about $770 billion spent on "National defense, veterans, and foreign affairs" vs. a deficit of about $1.4 trillion in FY 2009. The deficit would've been around $640 billion with no defense spending at all.

I could go for cutting military spending some. But I don't think it's the fundamental underlying problem. I think the fundamental underlying problem is that we've evolved into a nation that thinks that government is responsible for ensuring the well being of every individual while managing the population as though it is some vast herd of cattle.

When I'm looking at the pie chart in the IRS instructions I'm a lot more concerned about the segments labeled, "Social programs" and "Social Security, Medicare, and other retirement" because those things accounted for 55% of expenditures (about $1.9 trillion) and except for some portion of the "other retirement" they represent things the Federal government shouldn't be involved in at all.

[houndawg]

We have 700+ military bases outside the US and have a bigger "defense" budget than the next 15 biggest defense budgets on the planet. When I start hearing about some that money being on the table then I'll believe that the GOTP is serious.

We spend a lot on the military but if you use the numbers we get with our nifty tax instructions you can see that we could eliminate military spending entirely and still have a huge deficit. You get about $770 billion spent on "National defense, veterans, and foreign affairs" vs. a deficit of about $1.4 trillion in FY 2009. The deficit would've been around $640 billion with no defense spending at all.

I could go for cutting military spending some. But I don't think it's the fundamental underlying problem. I think the fundamental underlying problem is that we've evolved into a nation that thinks that government is responsible for ensuring the well being of every individual while managing the population as though it is some vast herd of cattle.

When I'm looking at the pie chart in the IRS instructions I'm a lot more concerned about the segments labeled, "Social programs" and "Social Security, Medicare, and other retirement" because those things accounted for 55% of expenditures (about $1.9 trillion) and except for some portion of the "other retirement"they represent things the Federal government shouldn't be involved in at all.

I don't think they should borrow from Social Security either.