A bold plan to slash the U.S. budget deficit fell short Friday of winning support needed from a presidential commission to trigger congressional action, but it was expected to help shape future budget debates.
The plan found more backing than many anticipated, from Democrats and Republicans, and parts of it could be used in President Barack Obama’s next budget, due in February, as well as in congressional proposals to follow.
A formal commission vote did not occur, but 11 members said they supported the plan and seven said they did not. It needed 14 votes to be sent to Congress for legislative action.
Look, we as a society are not about to make the kind of “tough decisions” that are required to slow down the spending and the rising of the deficit. “When the people understand that they can vote themselves monies out of the treasury, the country’s goose is cooked.” That is a paraphrase, but one of the Founders said it a long time ago, and he had it right.
Unfortunately, countries rise, they succeed for awhile, and then they decline. We are about to find out what that feels like. And NONE of us are willing to pay the prices that would turn it around. Anyone here who is above 62 years old who is willing to take a 50% cut in social security payments? Anyone here who is under 62, who is willing to forego all social security in their future, except perhaps a small stipend? Anybody willing to cut the defense budget by 30% immediately, and maintain that level of military spending? On and on.
The problem is in a dysfunctional society like ours is you have net contributors and net takers, organized on a progressive / socialist structure (from each according to his abilities to each according to his wants, a/k/a the “wealthy” should pay for everyone else).
The net takers want the system to continue because they are getting more than they give.
The net contributors are fooled into continuing the system because they think someday they’ll be the ones with needs and will get back what they are putting in.
It’s a recipe for disaster all the way around.
Every time the net contributors are told they have to contribute more to make the system work, it just means the net takers increase, either in number or what they get.
The solution is for the net contributors to stop contributing and not play the game any more. But of course that means the Ponzi scheme then collapses.
No. 1,
Actually, anyone under 40 who has any grip on political events knows full well we ain’t gonna see a dime of meaningful social security. And we have for the most part have come to terms with the fact that the Federal Government is going to go bankrupt in our lifetime. No one is counting on social security in their retirement portfolio.
“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.â€
Frederic Bastiat
I think one simple change in Government policy would go a long way toward solving all this. Granted, the solution might work its way through a central government collapse, but on the other side of that collapse might be a more faithful adherence to our Constitution. And what would that one simple change be?
No more income tax and FICA withholding. People write checks to Uncle Sam for their obligations.
Capt. Deacon Warren,
You are so right. After being out of work, I am now an independent contractor, blessed to have found a well paying contract with very little trouble. I get every penny of my bill rate in a check, from which I have to remit my self-employment taxes, as well as federal and state income taxes, so I have to carefully set aside money from each check so I will have it ready when the tax man comes with his hand out.
You clergy out there know what I am talking about when I say that paying estimated taxes for both self-employment and federal/state taxes takes a breathtaking hunk out of your earnings. You have to set aside the money yourself and then write Uncle Sugar a check each quarter. If everyone had to do this, there would be howls and screams of protest. And don’t forget if you hold back too much until you file your tax return, you end up paying penalties and interest for under payment of estimated taxes. Are we having fun yet!
Ah Yes. The Herbert Hoover/Andrew Mellon crowd. Inflation is near zero, unemployment is sky high, we’ve been robbing the Social Security fund so that we can pay for two wars so that secretaries pay higher taxes than Billionaires, but the answer is … let’s stick it to the poor and middle class. Somehow it’s OK that only the rich have made out over the last 30 years? Somehow it’s OK to use fraudulent home loans, unregulated securitization, and $60 Trillion of leveraged derivatives to almost bring down the whole international banking system and capitalism itself and let the perps walk away with their jillions (at a 15% tax rate) but Social Security recipients should take the hit?
I say pull a dime out of your pocket. Look at FDR’s face and remind yourself why it’s not Hoover on the dime and then think about whether you should turn in your baptismal certificate or go to confession. Besides bad economics, (we didn’t really pull out of the Great Depression until virtually everyone went to work for Uncle Sam during WWII and the deficit made today’s deficit look like chump change, followed, of course, by the GI Bill) I do not understand why so-called Christians think it’s a good time to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.
With inflation near zero and flirting with deflation it’s probably an excellent time to just be printing money.
Here’s another idea. A 5% tax on internet sales – 2% to the states for Federal programs like Medicaid, 1% for infrastructure improvement, 1% to the states outright and 1% to Uncle Sam. It wouldn’t be huge, but the Republicans get something that looks like a flat tax and both the states and Uncle Sam get some revenue. Local merchants get a little more level playing field.
Vashti Winterburg
RE: “Anyone here who is under 62, who is willing to forego all social security in their future, except perhaps a small stipend?”
IN A HEARTBEAT.
Just give me the money that comes out of my paycheck that purports to be for my “future Social Security” [heh] and I’ll forego what I’m not going to get anyway with bells on.
Rome is burning. Can you smell the smoke? Nancy, Harry, and Barry, Steny, Henry, and Barbara are happy to make slaves of my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great great-grandchildren. Can we not craft a law suit from private citizens’ against them for the slave system they are building?
In 1938 Henry Morganthau Jr. FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury told fellow Democrats:
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong…somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises…. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…. And an enormous debt to boot!”
FDR did enormous damage to this country and perhaps fatally undermined the Constitution. I suggest reading: New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America by Burton W. Folsom Jr.
Ditto to #8
And #7 said:
[blockquote]
…we’ve been robbing the Social Security fund so that we can pay for two wars…[/blockquote]
Yet, the reality is that we spend 23% of the federal budget on the military, veterans, and foreign affairs combined while we spend 28% of the federal budget on social programs and physical, human, and community development combined. We also spend 38% on Social Security, Medicare, and other retirements combined. The actual war spending is well under a quarter of the federal budget. Wealth redistribution (stealing from the half of Americans that actually pay income tax and giving it to those that do not pay) costs us all far more than our war fighting and is well over a quarter of the budget.
Now, look at the constitution. There is a constitutional mandate for the federal government to protect its citizens with a military. Where is there anything giving the government the right to take money from my family and give it to another? The complaint that military spending is the source of our fiscal woe is a tired Liberal canard that is demonstrably FALSE. The “War on Poverty” has cost us nearly $7 Trillion, it has utterly failed, and the Liberals want still more while complaining about the cost of national defense! They have structured the system so that only about half of Americans pay ANY federal income tax, and force productive people to pay the whole amount.
What if productive people just stop? What if we get tired of being constantly ripped off by the Liberal elitest establishment that is so generous with OUR money? The Liberals are oppressive tyrants and eventually, either by bankruptcy or popular uprising, this EVIL system of oppression and theivery that they have foisted upon us to salve their own egos and dark consciences (for not being charitable themselves) will come crashing down.
Data source: http://www.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/whys/assessment/as_thm01_les01.jsp
Conservatives give more to charity:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2008/04/conservatives-give-more-to-cha.html
And that’s a good thing? Have I entered an alternate universe?
#2,
You have entered an alternate universe, one where the Congress and Senate tells you that they are for “working families” (read pinky ring union thugs, illegal aliens and layabouts). They will spend us, tax us, and regulate us into prosperity and we can just see their success.
I actually called my Senator’s office and asked if anyone, anywhere in Wash, D. C. was willing to stop or even slow the spending, following the record TARP and bailout monies dished out. The aid met my question with silence. Yesterday the papers told us that TARP billions were sent to foreign lands and foreign banks -not surprising. More transparency. Dozens of companies beyond GM.
They risk our national security with crushing debt.
that should say #12 (not #2) sorry
RE: “You have entered an alternate universe, one where the Congress and Senate tells you that they are for “working families†(read pinky ring union thugs, illegal aliens and layabouts).”
lostdesert I fear you have *radically* misread WarrenS’s ideology.
; > )
Sarah, for once we may actually agree. Now I’ll let you get back to thumping your ideology.
[i]The actual war spending is well under a quarter of the federal budget.
And that’s a good thing? Have I entered an alternate universe? [/i]
Of course it is not a good thing, no conservative would ever say that it is. But what conservatives would point out is that while people of all political directions debate the wisdom of a particular war(s) and how they should be prosecuted, at least the money spent by the government for defense in general and that war in particular is at least directed by the Constitution for the Federal Government to do.
The deficit, and ultimately the debt, would be things of the past if we took the 2011 spending proposal and chopped out those things not called for by the Constitution. Spending would decline by about 2/3, taxes could be cut radically which would ignite an economic boom that would be like nothing the current generations have seen. The gush of revenue to the Federal Government could then either finance more spending or more tax cuts.
It might forever kill the notion that the government can “fix the economy”.