First things first - 10% cut across all major departments and programs. This includes Defense, Education, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid

ArkAngel: First things first - 10% cut across all major departments and programs. This includes Defense, Education, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid

What do you mean cut SS 10%? SS has it's own specific tax, as does Medicare/caid. Are you suggesting cutting benefits 10% but not cutting the tax? Or are you thinking of cutting both and having literally no effect on the deficit.

What the dick are you talking about?

This debt is nothing that a couple of tax cuts (one for corporations, one for top 1%) can't fix.

Can a nation ever really be in debt when it controls the currency of its obligations?

Discuss.

Barbigazi: ArkAngel: First things first - 10% cut across all major departments and programs. This includes Defense, Education, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid

What do you mean cut SS 10%? SS has it's own specific tax, as does Medicare/caid. Are you suggesting cutting benefits 10% but not cutting the tax? Or are you thinking of cutting both and having literally no effect on the deficit.

What the dick are you talking about?

Cut spending - either by benefit reduction or age increases.

GAT_00: ArkAngel: First things first - 10% cut across all major departments and programs. This includes Defense, Education, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid

Woohoo, broad statements without specifics! It's a nice catchphrase that doesn't actually do anything. But at least you got your own link bumped.

Actually, my last link approved was this:

Link (new window)

Bladel: Can a nation ever really be in debt when it controls the currency of its obligations?

Discuss.

When its currency is used elsewhere, yes.

Also, the federal reserve is technically not part of the government for this very reason.

Barbigazi: ArkAngel: First things first - 10% cut across all major departments and programs. This includes Defense, Education, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid

What do you mean cut SS 10%? SS has it's own specific tax, as does Medicare/caid. Are you suggesting cutting benefits 10% but not cutting the tax? Or are you thinking of cutting both and having literally no effect on the deficit.

What the dick are you talking about?

In theory, if the SS and medicare taxes were lowered (both very regressive taxes, btw), the income tax could be raised without any net tax burden on the populace, thus increasing income for the federal budget.

Income tax is also very progressive, which also serves to help low-income people.

imgod2u: In theory, if the SS and medicare taxes were lowered (both very regressive taxes, btw), the income tax could be raised without any net tax burden on the populace, thus increasing income for the federal budget.

Income tax is also very progressive, which also serves to help low-income people.

The more I think about it, the more I believe they should both be repealed and the difference made up for via a raise in income tax.

annoyed_grunt: craigmoz: I find it interesting that some are suddenly so concerned about government spending and debt when a Democrat is in the White House.

Yet, we incurred so much debt under 8 years of George W and that many times fails to get a mention.

First off, debt has gone up exponentially since then. Second, this is a fallacy--liberals across the board were biatching about the debt the country was accumulating under the W regime. Many of those same people are silent now. Selective memory.

A significant amount our deficits are just to maintain the Bush tax cuts and the 2 wars started by his administration. Obama's biggest failure so far has been to not undo enough of the Bush legacy.

HeadLever: davynelson: funny nobody seemed to give a sheeit when George W spent trillions

Oh there were plent of us out there. You just have a selective memory. That being said, what GWB added to the Debt is a drop in the bucket on what we are expecting for the next 10 years. As a little reference, GWB's deficits averaged about $380B. The deficits for 2010 and 2011 (we will let '09 slide) will average about $1.46T. In addition, the CBO estiamtes that deficts will average about 1T per year for the next decade.

I was curious about how the deficit grew so big so I perused the 07 and '10 budgets. It would seem the biggest increases were SS (+$119B), Medicare (+92B), Medicaid(+88B), Unemployment (+81B), Food Stamps (+35B) and defense (+115B).

The curious thing is that while defense, unemployment, etc. are paid by the budget, SS, Medicare/Medicaid should be covered by their own taxes, thus not introducing more of a deficit. But the revenue gained in 2010 (2.381 trillion) is actually less than that of 2007 (2.57 trillion).

A look at the fiscal revenue indicates Corporate Income Taxes dropped from $376 billion in 2007 to $147 billion for 2010. Individual income taxes dropped from $1.16 trillion to $946 billion.

So yes, spending has increased by about $800 billion but revenue has also dramatically decreased from lower corporate taxes, lower individual taxes and lower capital gains taxes collected ($940B in 2007 vs $540B in 2010).

Honestly, without major restructuring, almost all of these costs are just a function of the times of a bad economy (unemployment, food stamps, defense budget, lower income rates) and should alleviate themselves once themselves if we manage to get the economy to pick up.

So they're not long-term, drastic problems assuming we don't stay in a recession. What is a long-term, drastic problem is the interest on debt.

HeadLever: imgod2u: What is a long-term, drastic problem is the interest on debt.

Exactly. It is not the debt per se. It is how much that debt is going to cost us and how much revenue it is going to lost from use by other programs.

Last year, the interest on the extended debt was about 20% of all federal tax renvene. The basic question will be how to temper the explosion in future interest payemnts with inflation.

We also extended the Bush tax cuts last year. Geniuses we ain't.

clancifer: HeadLever: imgod2u: What is a long-term, drastic problem is the interest on debt.

Exactly. It is not the debt per se. It is how much that debt is going to cost us and how much revenue it is going to lost from use by other programs.

Last year, the interest on the extended debt was about 20% of all federal tax renvene. The basic question will be how to temper the explosion in future interest payemnts with inflation.

We also extended the Bush tax cuts last year. Geniuses we ain't.

Well, see, I wasn't a big proponent of that either but looking at the track record of capital gains tax collected, the Bush tax cuts didn't seem to make all that big of a difference. In fact, one of the highest years of capital gains tax collection ($900B+ in 2007) was a year that included the tax cut.

Income tax, likewise, has largely remained steady despite tax rates. Now, one could argue that the cuts put undue burden on the lower and middle class, leading to a long-term droop in the economy. But the argument that raising taxes would bring in more revenue, at least according to the data, does not seem to be valid.