I gotta agree with @dagosa on this one but I think the black holes are in SSI and Medicaid as well as defense contractors and Homeland Security. I just want these jokers to stand up and balance the budget first and don’t care how as a first step-recession or no recession, tax increase or not. Then as a second step we can whittle away at the debt.
Now nothing against the victims of Sandy, but where were their disaster plans? Why is it my problem and how is it possible that power is not yet restored? And why is it my problem that someone lost their million dollar house on the beach that wasn’t insured? I’m just asking folks but seems to me the ball was dropped there as well as in NO. Bloomberg didn’t even want the NGs to help the police but now needs billions? In Duluth, MN we had a devastaing flood but were refused any federal help and people lost their homes on a hillside due to flooding. How is that different? And we have tornados in Minnesota and people have insurance and lose their houses and the Red Cross helps for a while but people have to use some common sense when they build.
In North Minneapolis, lots of people didn’t have insurance from a year ago when their roofs blew off and they still have blue tarps on the roof and they’re still sitting on the front steps watching the traffic go by and I really don’t feel too sorry for them.
Well ,well, who to blame? Robert Byrd and people like him(I guarentee he has a lot of fans in WVA)? Or this silly ass fear mongering( I got news for you a lot of people are partisan because thier parents were and a lot of people are Democrat because they are poor or liberal and a lot of people are conservative or republican because they are rich-of course there are exceptions).I say leave social security alone also medicare,the DOD needs to get leaner and meaner,we do not need bases all over the world,incredibly foresighted leaders such George Washington warned against becoming entangled in foreign affairs,even the erstwhile Dwight Eisenhower warned against the military-industrail complex,somehow “The Red Menance” doesnt seem so menancing now.The real enemies are internal and I assure they are losing little rest over the state of the union,just look around and open your eyes,something seems to be in the air,its time to question motives.
The United States,will probaly suffer" Balkanazation" sometime in the not to distant future,Mr Lincoln was willing to scrap the constitution to preserve the Union,what can we sacrifice this time to preserve the Union-our open borders?.I believe its about time to circle the wagons and level the playing field,some of these things big business has done is tatamount to treason.
Bring our industries home(I used to really pay attention to the way american things were made,castings of such quality,second to none,etc; the list goes on) a lot of these strategic materials can be substituted for and in my opinion the countries that hate us can pound sand.And I believe its time to reinstitue tariffs(maybe Wal-Mart would stop buying so many things from China) the list goes on.My point is stop giving the country away and mind our own business,maybe the NWO can be stopped-Kevin
dagosa, you must have misunderstood my post on social security. The only part I want to cut are the perfectly healthy people drawing SSI that are too lazy to get a job.
One more thing, how could Bush alone be responsible for all those things? I don’t remember him being elected dictator.
The government cannot control the federal budget like a tranical family patriarch. And it would be quite foolish to think that cutting social programs such as unployment benefits would improve the situation. Throwing the “unsorthy” on the street would quickly lead to a civil uprising that would be immencely more costly than continuing the give aways. There will never be a stern, arrogant, pompous Republican who stands in front of a camera and announces to the country that the lazy people must go to work or go hungry and homeless so he can ballance the budget… IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN.
@keith.my humble apologies avec Social Security.
As far as Bushes bungles concerned, I was careful to say that the Bush Administration initiated the efforts I listed. Were the wars voted on by enough Dems. to allow their initiation ? Absolutely, and Hillary Lost a nomination in part because of her support. But, the tax cuts during two wars and Medicare part D, the trillion dollar drug give away, were All Bush initiatives. They would not have happend otherwise. Neither would Greenspann’s admission that he failed to enforce the bank regulations that did exist. As a Bush appointee, he failed in his job.
So indeed, Bush did his part and is responsible for creating the perfect storm.
@Bing
Medicaid IS a big problem. But, it’s a problem of our own making. A huge part of Medicaid payments are to states who apply for reimbursement to hospitals for very expensive emergency room care for the uninsured. Insuring everyone, the CBO has stated would reduce these payments dramatically. Obama care does make some attempt to address these issues. Unfortunately, it 's not cool to support and more macho o say everyone should be independent and on their own; even the children.
Secondly, Medicare, though solvent is stressed by making payments for treatments where 80% is for preventable conditions. The big part of that is diabetes and their related ailments. Those who do reach 65, are entering these years less healthy then they could be. Insuring everyone and practicing preventative care while curbing obesity both by education and regulation of foods like high fructose corn syrup is important without which, we make it impossible to fight obesity without govt. regulatory intervention. Like cigarettes, foods tainted with these ingredients contribute to our deficit as much as any other single factor. It is not a case of free will once addicted !
The difference is, I believe in investing in people, regardless of the preceived expense. The return is always greater.
I respectfully disagree that SS, medicare/medicaid, and defense are the “black holes”.
I also believe that these areas are primary obligations of our federal government. The areas listed in my earlier post are, I believe, not only large black holes, but areas that our tax dollars were never intended to go, should not go, and if they were addressed first and the budget still didn;t balance I’d then be comfortable looking at the “earned benefits” programs that are identified in this post.
IMHO we’re doing this backwards by starting with increasing taxes, then areas critical to national defense, then critical safety nets, and never looking at subsidies, grants, and porkbarrel projects. The priorities should be in exactly the opposite order.
Re: FEMA assistance, I read that $400 million of the $2 Billion promised to Victiims of Sandy is earmarked for portkbarrel projects. That, to me, is a disgrace.
As to blaming it all on Bush, I dont really care who you blame it on. What I do care about is we’re headed full-speed in the wrong direction.
dagosa, you must have misunderstood my post on social security. The only part I want to cut are the perfectly healthy people drawing SSI that are too lazy to get a job.
Even by conservative estimates I read in the WSJ about a year ago…that only accounts for about 1%. Not much of a savings.
the trillion dollar drug give away, were All Bush initiatives
Anyone who thought that this bill was intended to HELP people on medicare didn’t read the bill. It’s sole intention was to give the drug companies BILLIONS of dollars because they are big contributors to the republican party.
Compare this drug plan to the VA drug plan…BIG difference. The VA drug plan allows there to be competition. The medicare drug plan is a no-bid plan. The drug companies are allowed to charge what ever they want. And in some cases 1000 times more then the same drug costs under the VA plan. And who pays for this…We the tax payers.
Banging on Bush (or anyone else, for that matter) is fruitless. Right now the bus is racing in the wrong direction, headed over the cliff. We need to focus on turning it around. Right now it seems the current drivers are pushing the gas pedal harder but not changing the direction.
You’ll note that I wrote “current drivers (plural)” and not “current driver (singular)”. IMHO the Congress (both houses), Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid (in particular) are as much factors in this impending disaster as is Obama. Ben Bernanke also plays a roll, but secondary. IMHO it is the spending that’s the roblem, the gifts and givaways and the backroom deals.
Obama, for his part, had promised two things: (1) to balance the budget, and (2) to have a totally open government, with domestic policy decision decided in open meetings and with complete and open communications to the public about these negotiations. And yet perhaps the most corrupt process in the history of the congress took place in order to get Obamacare passed, and all of it in secret and out of the public’s view. It was so badthat Nancy Pelosi, when questioned while on the floor of the congress about what was in the bill, said “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it".
As to balancing the budget, I was/am no more pleased with the deficit that Bush left than I am with the job Obama has done reducing(?) it. But the deficit is more a reflection of what the future will hold than a snapshot of the current state of the economy. This administration’s drive to balance the budget by shifting costs to the taxpayers will be devastating. I just received my officiela notice outlining some of the changes:
the Social Security Tax Rate has returned to 6.2% (from 4.2%)
the Act established a new “Additional Medicare Tax” of .9% for those earning over $200K
the Employee Medicare tax rate for those earning over $200K has gone up from 1.45% to 2.35%
for those making over $450K (family income), taxe rates willl be 39.6%, up from 35%. This us clearly income redistribution, and it will stifle investment and cause those in the higher brackets to move their money offshore.
Currently, the economy is dead and the working class are suffering. Taking money from those that would invest in the economy, and teking more money from those already suffering, will exascerbate the damage. I’ll bet lunch that Moody’s reduces our credit rating.
I fear for our future. A crippled economy with a crippled military will not bode well for us on the world market. We’re losing our leadership position and our strength.
That’s true, it is.
With no disrespect meant, you might have been able to reduce that burden with some tax planning. Are you working with a good tax accountant?
Taxing the wealthy at 39.5% is not going the cripple our economy, quite the opposite in fact. When you look at historical tax rates and compare them to periods of relative stability and growth, 39.5% is one of the lowest tax rates on high earners during these periods. I remember the tax rate when I first started filing. It 93% on income over $100,000/year. There was no “earned income” and everyone who made over $600 had to pay something. At that time, our economy was stable and unemployment was very low.
The debt is going to cripple the economy and we need debt reduction immediately and it has to be much bigger than a couple billion over the next ten years. It needs to be a trillion every year starting now.
Statisticians love to pull out the hockey stick when it comes to conveying an urgency, I haven’t seen it used here but the national debt is a classic example of it. The hockey stick is where something is plotted and the curve shows a slow steady rise to a point, and then suddenly shoots upward. You see it used a lot by environmentalist for things like population growth and global temperature. Once you reach the bend in the hockey stick, what ever you are plotting becomes unsustainable.
Our biggest enemy is not Al Quida, Communism, the Chinese government or even the climate (though that is debatable), it is the national debt. We can fix or address all those other problems unless the national debt takes us down first.
Well in the news today just as an example, “South Dakota legislature is considering the expansion of Medicaid to include 48,000 more people. Most of the costs would be paid for by the feds.” That’s me folks and where are they getting the money? Now you’ve got to realise there are only about 800,000 people in the whole state so 48,000 is a lot.
Also in our town they just approved building new 4 plexes that are 1, 2, and 3 bedrooms, with the help of multiple grants. All of them will have rent restrictions on income or in other words subsidies to low income, plopped in the middle of people who bought their own. That’s my money too folks, and it is a public subsidy to private companies that not only profit from building this stuff but refuse to pay high enough wages to the folks they hire.
Seems to me we could just stop some of this stuff for a few years to get things under control on the spending side.
Re; tax accountant. When self employed there is no payroll deduction, taxes are paid with a check and the entire 14% FICA tax is there to be paid on the first and last dollar unless you are fortunate enough to pass the cap and I never was that fortunate. If withholding from payroll ended and each tax payer was required to write a check to the IRS each pay day to cover their taxes Washington would be levying all taxes on the wealthy as it would not be worth the effort to chase down individual tax payers.
As a self employed individual (and I tip my hat to you) you might be able to depreciate and/or deduct a lot of things that an accountant would see. It was just a thought. I have no intention of delving into your personal finances. I would not do that to a person.
Thank you tsM, but my personal finances are quite simple now that I have retired and I am relatively healthy and comfortable financially and otherwise. I hope those who are 40 today will be as lucky when they are 65.
@keith “our biggest problem is the national debt…”
Everything else is doable compared to global warming which IMO is a bigger problem. Thousands of people dying each year because of lack of health care, is a bigger problem. Having the highest gun violence rate among all industrialized nations is a bigger problem. Generally, when people die or suffer from preventable conditions like obesity, lung cancer or traumatic conditions as a result of an ill conceived war, is a bigger problem. It wsn’t a problem for the Reagan administration or the Bush administration when in office, why is it a problem that’s worse now when the same people who complain, support programs that still increase it ? http://www.examiner.com/article/ryan-budget-increases-the-debt-and-hurts-everyone-but-defense-contractors
The biggest problem is in making the debt “so much of a problem” we use it’s an excuse to kill more people by cutting social programs which actually stimulate the economy. Our biggest problem is listening to people in politics complain about a debt they created.
"even the climate( though that is debatable)"
This is another problem…it’s too many of us putting concerns about money before people and lack of empathy. Investment in people is always profitable.