@rod…I guess my point is that the military should start assuming a lot of the responsibilities of private contractors…that’s a $100 billion dollar savings over the next ten years. Don’t we have the best trained military in the world ? Between the private contractors and expensive weapons systems, the average military personnel is being short changed. The only weapons system I would vote for is the one we’ll have to use to shoot down asteroids. I’m a big supporter of putting the military to work here at home. Speaking from experience, they would love it too. " See the world in the military, starting with wind farm projects in the Appalachian Mtns."
What inflation?
To think that defense cuts will solve the budget problems is incorrect:
Get out of Iraq/Afghanistan? Close overseas bases? Sure, but our problems will still be there.
Folks seem to think that stocks are owned by the rich few, and that taxing trades would only affect them. Wrong, they're part of millions of folks pensions and retirement plans.
The capital gains tax would raise from 15% to 20% for HIGH INCOME FAMILIES. Are you one of those high-income families???
I’m NOT.
Since many company executives pay is almost all tied to the company stock options…they are paying a much lower rate then I am. I don’t see a problem with leveling the playing field.
I made no comment about the capital gains tax. I was commenting on a 1% transaction tax.
@texases
Let me get this right. Medicare and Social Security whose taxes which don’t go into the general fund but are payroll taxes and support entitlements on a paygo system, should have their benefits cut so the funds in of both of these systems can then transferred over to, say the military. Let’s see, all workers including the working poor pay payroll taxes but are considered too poor to pay income taxes. So now, suddenly, they are not too poor to have their payroll taxes moved into the general fund and have their benefits cut…just so we can maybe, eliminate capital gains taxes and keep all the loop holes for the rich who pay a lower rate then many in the middle class already.
Sure, what am I missing here. I always thought that entitlements funds were dedicated funds for entitlements and if the poor need more, we adjust there contributions like we have since the system was instituted WITHOUT A HITCH. Now, the dumbest economic guru in the world, Paul Ryan is a genius !
I am lost…Medicaid and Medicare spending is outrageously high because HEALTHCARE IS OUTRAGEOUSLY HIGH…and the world except for us knows that single payer is the only way out…short of let’m die !
With all due respect…the chart is only half the story and if we are proposing single payer as a solution, great. Otherwise, holding entitlements hostage is the wrong answer.
Social security is part of the ridiculous shell game, @texases. FICA taxes are always conveniently left off the bar graphs when the Republican line being pushed is “the wealthy pay most of the taxes.” But now, when the hot button line is entitlements vs military, up jumps Social Security into the graph. Very convenient. Very confusing to quite a few it seems. But I’m getting old and have learned to look for the truth.
Medicare is long term extremely underfunded. SS is about ok and can be fixed with some adjustment. Medicare Medicaid as currently structured are a financial disaster.
Medicare, thanks impart to Medicare part D which doesn’t allow for negotiating prices of drugs over pays by many ( I don’t dare guess ) dollars does not need reform. Let me repeat, Medicare does not need reform. The healthcare system needs reform. Example, we all pay more for the same drugs in the US as does Canada who uses the SAME American suppliers…why. Because they practice free enterprise AND WE DON’T with our healthcare plan. HEALTH CARE SHOULD BE NON PROFIT. it’s that simple. Medicare does not need to be fixed but profiting In a non competive environment for healthcare does…
Social Security has always had small adjustments to keep it in the black…right now, it is poorly managed because it has been running a surplus and it should not. The goal should always be to keep FICA taxes low enough so excess is not generated and the general fund can keep their FICA hands off it.
Again, holding hostage these programs puts the poor, soon to be you and me, at risk. We are better then that.
The rest of the world gets it…but we dumb a$$e$ don’t, or don’t want to.
This is a common tactic. Get bigger benefits, and when they bust the bank blame the benefit supplier. Should our health system work better? Absolutely! But everybody knew the day the increased M/M benefits were passed that they were underfunded. Do it the right way: fix health care, then adjust the benefits.
The excess FICA funds that are spent as general funds are part of the shell game, for sure. The minimum wage burger flippers pay FICA wages on every last dime that they earn with no deductions or exemptions. The total FICA tax rate is greater than the capital gains tax rate. But apparently Romney, Ryan, and the Fox Family don’t know. Or could it be that it suits their agenda to not know it?
Without any investigations, I’d go with a stock/bond transaction tax. I remember my early trades when you had to use a broker-where trading cost was 2-3%. Which made you a buy and hold of very good securities. Now the transaction cost is so trival that it doesn’t even register. HF traders roil the markets and should have additional tax for monitoring purposes.
@texase
Fix healthcare, then adjust benefits…
Absolutely, 100% agree. If the healthcare system simply made the changes it should, Medicare costs would go down, and benefits would decrease on their own accord.
@rod. And that’s why I have always maintained that SS was over taxed and shoild not be generating a tempting surplus…it’s a pay go system by a non profit and the govt. Maybe violating it’s own laws in some years pertaining to non profits when maintaining this high a surplus… Ryan is a budget guru my FICA asteroid.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Nonprofit-Law-2266/Non-profit-surplus-Accumulation.htm
My understanding is that there is no SS cash flow surplus now.
Check the SS trust fund. What a delightful name “trust fund”. Chart not fully realized from 2011 butbyouncan project that…you may well be right.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/assets.html
As you can see, as a paygo some quarterly reports do indicate there is no surplus…But, by years end, there still may well be, and the thieves march in and scoff it up.
Funny how they raid the fund it to cut the deficit, but don’t count that which they steal and owe later as part of the deficit…instead, as turn coat Obama is suggesting, just start cutting benefits.
See the make believe accumulated deficits on the first chart.
IMO:
PBO is purposing changes in SS that the R;s have advocated and theoretically agreed to by Boehner in 2011 budget talks. PBO is taking heat from within that would have been targeted at the R’s had the talks been made public. The heat will soon be directed towards the R’s, first towards the Senators and then towards the House. Congress got till early fall 2013 to conclude this, else new candidates for Congress will be attacking, It’s not looking good for the R’s when they have capitualated on immigration, forced to vote and debate gun control, and to observe an improving economy without inflation and low gas prices. North Korea will be played into PBO’s favor.
It’s not so much as PBO’s strategists are smarter, its just that the R’s continually force themselves into limited favorable Conservative outcomes.
And the beat goes on…screw the middle class with hidden increases in taxes while cutting SS benefits and swapping their pay roll tax over to cut the deficit…what a deal.
The Pentagon’s slice of the TAX budget is outrageous
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
More than half of the budget is spent on the military.
Once you eliminate Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, the military is the major thing left that the feds SHOULD be involved in, besides federal highways.
Well why not just drop the military out of the equation, @texases? Each state can fund its own guard/militia and Washington can call up whatever troops it needs and let the states fund them. Isn’t that what our founding fathers wanted. I feel sure that Rick Perry would be happy to pull his share of the load. Texas could fund that new $trillion airplane and a couple of carriers. The Pentagon could become a shopping mall.