Democratic Candidates drinking the Republican Kool Aid

[darkwing_duck1]

To once again quote Reagan, "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

To once again point out the FACTS: there is not enough to cut in the budget to make a difference.

Get that through your head...there is not enough to cut.

Completely 100% shutting down the government except for paying SS, interest on the debt, and other mandated payments would BARELY bring the budget within striking distance of balance for one year only.

Do you comprehend what I mean by a 100% shutdown of the Government? Close all the doors, turn off all the lights. Send EVERYBODY home (including elected officials). Fire the entire military. End all welfare and assistance programs outside SS.

If you called any government switchboard, you would get a "disconnected" message.

Instant and complete shutdown of authority at the national level.

Can you imagine the bloodbath that would ensue?

 

[farmkid]

Honestly, we probably need to do the "worst" of both worlds, cut spending and raise taxes. Sorry gang, but that's what fiscal responsibility actually looks like.

The government is now in about the same state as all those families of the last decade or two who lived beyond their means thinking that their soaring property values would save them. Whenever you live beyond your means, at some point you will have to live below them to make up for it. The country (and many other countries, too) has been living beyond our means for a long time, and it can't go on much longer. Soon, we will have to live below our means to pay for the excesses of the past. That means a lot of government spending on things that, at a least at one time, people thought were a good idea. Those things may still be a good idea, but if we can't afford them, then we just can't afford them and they will have to end.

As far as increasing taxes, I don't know whether that will work or not. Increasing taxes does result in businesses moving offshore, small businesses going away, businesses choosing not to hire new people because it's just too expensive to do so, etc. At one extreme there will be a vigorous economy but very little government revenue because of low taxation, and at the other there will be high taxation but still little government revenue because of a poor economy. There is a happy medium somewhere in there somewhere where taxation doesn't restrict the economy too much, and government revenue is at a maximum. We may be close to it now, or it may be much higher or lower than where are now. I have no idea where that level is, and unfortunately, economic experts don't seem to agree on where that level is, either. I suspect, though, that that level is affected significantly by many other things, so that makes it even harder to figure it out.

 

[ichab]

Cut taxes on corporations (since corporate earnings are double-taxed, once when the company earns it, second when it's sent out as dividends or capital gains) while making up for it (and then some) by taxing individuals at higher income brackets.. And for God sakes, bring back the estate tax. You don't deserve a billion dollars because of who you're related to. The Ivy League's preference for "legacies" causes enough inbreeding and nepotism in the upper class by itself.

The estate tax is an unfair tax that hits small businesses as well as those rich people your side hates so much. 63 percent of the people making over $250,000 a year are small business owners. Agriculture takes a big hit as well because farmers own lots of land and high priced eqipment.

I also think it's wrong to intentionally tax someone just because they have the money to pay it. These people have paid taxes on their wealth many times over and now you want to hit them again when they go to their graves. That's just insidious.

As to the OP, it is very obvious that democrats are afraid of losing the house and that is why they are trying to distance themselves from the President. I don't think it's going work. The dems are going to lose the house.

 

[gturner]

To once again quote Reagan, "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

To once again point out the FACTS: there is not enough to cut in the budget to make a difference.

Get that through your head...there is not enough to cut.

There's tons to cut.

Social Security is $678 Billion. The Europeans are raising their retirement age and cutting back on payments, while the US government has concluded that errors in calculating the cost-of-living increase has caused the Social Security system to be the largest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in US history. They didn't even calculate the massively increased values of homes owned by seniors. Even though the real-world cost of living increases and interest rates are flat, Social Security payments per individual have kept going up every year.

Medicare is $453 billion and Medicaid is $290 billion. Can it be cut? Of course! Obama just cut $500 Billion from Medicare and nobody raised an eyebrow except for a bunch of old fogies who were outraged that their money was stolen to make Obamacare look like less of a boondoggle.

Then there are $571 billlion in other mandatory spending programs, including unemployment and welfare benefits that wouldn't need to be as large if we'd quite doing everything possible to throw everyone out of work.

Interest on the debt is $164 billion and set to skyrocket.

That's $2,156 billion in mandatory payments, and aside from debt payments due the Chinese, it could certainly be cut back by 20% or more, saving $398 billion.

Then zero out the Department of Labor ($13.3 billion - what do they do other than produce statistical reports?)

The Department of the Treasury ($13.3 billion - can't they print their own frakkin' money?)

The Department of Energy ($26.3 billion dedicated to making sure we don't have electricity anymore)

The Department of Homeland Security ($42.7 billion devoted to strip searching old white ladies while waving through 25-year old radical Muslim males from Pakistan)

The Department of Education ($46.7 billion dedicated to protecting failing teachers and making sure US students are dumber than their Asian counterparts) which steps on a role traditionally held by the states.

The Department of Transportation ($72.5 billion to build West Virginia roads named after Robert Byrd and provide slush funds for state politicians)

The Department of Housing and Urban Development ($47.5 billion to build more slums in Chicago)

The Department of Health and Human Services ($78.7 billion and you still aren't safe eating an egg).

The State Department ($51.7 billion to make people hate Hillary less)

The EPA ($10.5 billion being spent to eliminate the last remaining US jobs)

The Department of Agriculture ($26 billion to subsidize the tobacco farmers?)

The Department of Commerce ($13.8 billion for overseas junkets for Congressmen)

Then cut Defense from $663.7 billion to an even $500 billion.

That didn't touch NASA, Veterans affairs, Justice, the Interior, the NSF, the Corps of Engineers, the Small Business Administration, or the GSA, for a total of $841 billion in savings. Add the $398 billion from a 20% cutback in some of the mandatory spending and you've got $1,239 billion in savings, which would put the 2010 budget in the black!

Let's take a quick look back:

In 2007 (back when people had jobs) the total revenue was $2,540 billion, spending was $2,780 billion, and the deficit was $244.2 billion.

In 2010 the total revenue was $2,381 billion but the spending was $3,552 billion, with the deficit a staggering $1,171 billion

Revenue has only dropped by $159 billion, but instead of dropping expenditures proportionately (which would've been only a $15 billion dollar decrease), the government increased spending by $772 billion.

The extra spending isn't on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, or Interest on the debt. Those payments only went up by $84.4 billion from 2007 to 2010. The biggest jump was in welfare and unemployment benefits, which went up by $277 billion because everybody is out of work. We spent hundreds and hundreds of billion with the promise that blowing money on elite financial houses, foreign banks, windmills, and road contractors would keep unemployment below 8%, but gosh darn it, things got worse.

So instead, how about restoring some fiscal sanity. Heck, apply my cuts to the 2007 budget and we'd be running a $1.2 to $1.5 trillion dollar surplus. Paying off the entire debt in about 10 years.

It beats massive tax increases that will collapse the US economy, reduce federal revenues, and make interest payments swallow up the entire budget with the ironic effect of zeroing out all the programs I was going to zero out anyway.

 

[STR]

The estate tax is an unfair tax that hits small businesses as well as those rich people your side hates so much. 63 percent of the people making over $250,000 a year are small business owners. Agriculture takes a big hit as well because farmers own lots of land and high priced eqipment.

Straw man argument. You can arrange the tax to exempt agricultural land and machinery, just as you can adjust the floor to cut out non-incorporated small businesses.

These people have paid taxes on their wealth many times over and now you want to hit them again when they go to their graves. That's just insidious.

Right, and perpetually rolling over wealth that one man accumlated to generations of trust fund children is just as equitable.

You made a fortune? Great. You don't need it when you die, and if your children think they have what it takes, let them build their own fortune. This is meritocracy at its most pure.

your side hates so much

I highly doubt you have any idea what "side" I'm on, since I'm specifically thinking of Kennedys and Rockefellers with this. One man's bootlegging should not guarantee a grandson a chance at getting into Congress.

[too long to repost]

I suggest you do a little more work that just lopping off entire departments. The assertion that the State Department exists solely to polish the image of its secretary is immediately discrediting. Equally so is your clear ignorance of necessity of the Treasury, and what the DoE does.

In summation, your solution is flat out lazy.

 

[gturner]

The estate tax is an unfair tax that hits small businesses as well as those rich people your side hates so much. 63 percent of the people making over $250,000 a year are small business owners. Agriculture takes a big hit as well because farmers own lots of land and high priced eqipment.

Straw man argument. You can arrange the tax to exempt agricultural land and machinery, just as you can adjust the floor to cut out non-incorporated small businesses.

Not a straw man. The bill may start out with a tax exemption for that, but by the time it gets through committee and reconciliation it will have morphed into a tax break for chiropractors but double-penalties for tanning salons and privately owned fishing-worm farms.

Plus, the more externalities you introduce via tax laws, the less efficiently business decisions are made regarding supply, demand, and market price. Taken to extreme, the system starts allocating resources just as badly as centrally planned economies.

[too long to repost]

I suggest you do a little more work that just lopping off entire departments. The assertion that the State Department exists solely to polish the image of its secretary is immediately discrediting. Equally so is your clear ignorance of necessity of the Treasury, and what the DoE does.

In summation, your solution is flat out lazy.[/QUOTE]

Exactly my point. Slashing spending is not only not impossible, it's not even hard. You just start at one end and slash your way to the other, which is what governments end up having to do when bleak fiscal reality strikes, as is happening in many European countries. Usually it's big percentage across-the-board cuts, leaving it up to each department on how to scale back.

Government departments are like university buildings. No matter how old and obsolete they are, universities rarely tear them down to build something new. Each department forcefully lobbies for its own importance and makes sure it spends all the money allocated to its operation, otherwise it gets cut back in next year's budget. They can't ever do more with less because spending less means they are getting too much fund. Here in Kentucky, the Railroad Commissioners have been lobbying for the abolition of their own Railroad Commission, pointing out that they haven't actually done anything in decades. When was the last time you heard of a department doing that?

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Even though the real-world cost of living increases and interest rates are flat, Social Security payments per individual have kept going up every year.

What frakking dream world do you live in? The cost of living is running well above the "official" numbers. Between outright price increases and product "shrinking", groceries are up at a minimum 10-15%. The insulin I need to live just took a 23% jump, on top of the nearly 50% increase I've had to figure out how to pay over the prior 18-24 months. Rent goes up every year like clockwork. Gas is holding at least 70 cents above where it was prior to the "oil shock"..

The cost of living is NOT flat. It is nowhere NEAR flat. Do you KNOW what a 20% drop in income would mean for the worst off seniors and disabled? It's the difference between being able to eat and NOT being able to eat for a lot of them.

Medicare is $453 billion and Medicaid is $290 billion. Can it be cut? Of course! Obama just cut $500 Billion from Medicare and nobody raised an eyebrow except for a bunch of old fogies who were outraged that their money was stolen to make Obamacare look like less of a boondoggle.

Out of one account and into another. net effect: zero.

Then there are $571 billlion in other mandatory spending programs, including unemployment and welfare benefits that wouldn't need to be as large if we'd quite doing everything possible to throw everyone out of work.

So just rip the bread from the mouths of hungry poor people as they're kicked out on the street? If you don't have a job, too bad for you...you go die now?

Interest on the debt is $164 billion and set to skyrocket.

Which is why we need more revenue.

Then zero out the Department of Labor ($13.3 billion - what do they do other than produce statistical reports?)

Are you really that ignorant? Among other things, the DoL oversees wage and hour regulations, labor law as it applies to unions, anti-discrimination and disability laws, etc:.Educate yourself:

http://www.dol.gov/index.htm

The Department of the Treasury ($13.3 billion - can't they print their own frakkin' money?)

They also are responsible for the Secret Service and for law enforcement related to financial matters.

The Department of Energy ($26.3 billion dedicated to making sure we don't have electricity anymore)

The Department of Homeland Security ($42.7 billion devoted to strip searching old white ladies while waving through 25-year old radical Muslim males from Pakistan)

The Department of Education ($46.7 billion dedicated to protecting failing teachers and making sure US students are dumber than their Asian counterparts) which steps on a role traditionally held by the states.

The Department of Transportation ($72.5 billion to build West Virginia roads named after Robert Byrd and provide slush funds for state politicians)

The Department of Housing and Urban Development ($47.5 billion to build more slums in Chicago)

The Department of Health and Human Services ($78.7 billion and you still aren't safe eating an egg).

The State Department ($51.7 billion to make people hate Hillary less)

The EPA ($10.5 billion being spent to eliminate the last remaining US jobs)

The Department of Agriculture ($26 billion to subsidize the tobacco farmers?)

The Department of Commerce ($13.8 billion for overseas junkets for Congressmen)

Then cut Defense from $663.7 billion to an even $500 billion.

That didn't touch NASA, Veterans affairs, Justice, the Interior, the NSF, the Corps of Engineers, the Small Business Administration, or the GSA, for a total of $841 billion in savings. Add the $398 billion from a 20% cutback in some of the mandatory spending and you've got $1,239 billion in savings, which would put the 2010 budget in the black!

Let's take a quick look back:

In 2007 (back when people had jobs) the total revenue was $2,540 billion, spending was $2,780 billion, and the deficit was $244.2 billion.

In 2010 the total revenue was $2,381 billion but the spending was $3,552 billion, with the deficit a staggering $1,171 billion

Revenue has only dropped by $159 billion, but instead of dropping expenditures proportionately (which would've been only a $15 billion dollar decrease), the government increased spending by $772 billion.

The extra spending isn't on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, or Interest on the debt. Those payments only went up by $84.4 billion from 2007 to 2010. The biggest jump was in welfare and unemployment benefits, which went up by $277 billion because everybody is out of work. We spent hundreds and hundreds of billion with the promise that blowing money on elite financial houses, foreign banks, windmills, and road contractors would keep unemployment below 8%, but gosh darn it, things got worse.

So instead, how about restoring some fiscal sanity. Heck, apply my cuts to the 2007 budget and we'd be running a $1.2 to $1.5 trillion dollar surplus. Paying off the entire debt in about 10 years.

It beats massive tax increases that will collapse the US economy, reduce federal revenues, and make interest payments swallow up the entire budget with the ironic effect of zeroing out all the programs I was going to zero out anyway.

I was going to go point by point, but you obviously are talking out your proverbial a**. Government provides vital services to the country that maintain order and promote the public good.

Building and maintaining roads is a good thing.

Making sure foods are pure and drugs are safe is a good thing.

Preventing workers from being even MORE exploited than they are now is a good thing.

We have to have these services or society devolves into anarchy and people suffer and die.

But we have to pay the costs, on that we agree.

 

[gturner]

Even though the real-world cost of living increases and interest rates are flat, Social Security payments per individual have kept going up every year.

What frakking dream world do you live in? The cost of living is running well above the "official" numbers. Between outright price increases and product "shrinking", groceries are up at a minimum 10-15%. The insulin I need to live just took a 23% jump, on top of the nearly 50% increase I've had to figure out how to pay over the prior 18-24 months. Rent goes up every year like clockwork. Gas is holding at least 70 cents above where it was prior to the "oil shock".

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics

The consumer price index has gone up 1.1% in the past 12 months, most of that in fuel oil. Food prices have gone up 1.0% Clothing has dropped 0.4%, and shelter is down 0.7%.

You're off by over an order of magnitude.

Are you really that ignorant? Among other things, the DoL oversees wage and hour regulations, labor law as it applies to unions, anti-discrimination and disability laws, etc:.Educate yourself:

Exactly. Now how does "overseeing" cost $13.3 billion a year? Are they paying their lawyers $10 million an hour or something?

I was going to go point by point, but you obviously are talking out your proverbial a**. Government provides vital services to the country that maintain order and promote the public good.

And it was also doing all those things back when it's budget was $300 billion a year, even $30 billion a year. It was doing all those things back in the Bush and Clinton administrations, when we didn't have trillion and a half dollar deficits.

 

[STR]

Not a straw man. The bill may start out with a tax exemption for that, but by the time it gets through committee and reconciliation it will have morphed into a tax break for chiropractors but double-penalties for tanning salons and privately owned fishing-worm farms.

That's definitely a straw-man there, or is that the ol' slippery slope. It can be hard to tell sometimes. Either way, it has nothing to do with whether or not it's good/bad idea to reinstate the estate tax on non-agricultural assets.

Plus, the more externalities you introduce via tax laws, the less efficiently business decisions are made regarding supply, demand, and market price. Taken to extreme, the system starts allocating resources just as badly as centrally planned economies.

I think leaving vest amounts of assets in the hands heirs, which provide no proof that they can effectively manage it, is an incredible misallocation of resources.

Here in Kentucky, the Railroad Commissioners have been lobbying for the abolition of their own Railroad Commission, pointing out that they haven't actually done anything in decades. When was the last time you heard of a department doing that?

It actually happens all the time, even in the notoriously money-hungry DoD. The thing is that people don't notice when underperforming programs are cut like A-12. They want a big headline like liquidating the DoL. Except, that's asinine. Or some programs (actually a lot of them) are in factmoderately successful. It's easy to paint something as a waste when you don't depend on it, which is precisely WHY THIS IS SO DAMN HARD.

There simply isn't a trillion dollars being pissed away each year on do-nothing programs. There's just a lot of programs that don't impact YOU, or YOU don't see the difference, or YOU disagree with them politically, so YOU deem them worthless.

Unfortunately, the federal government's constituencies don't end at the tip of your nose.

 

[gturner]

Not a straw man. The bill may start out with a tax exemption for that, but by the time it gets through committee and reconciliation it will have morphed into a tax break for chiropractors but double-penalties for tanning salons and privately owned fishing-worm farms.

That's definitely a straw-man there, or is that the ol' slippery slope. It can be hard to tell sometimes. Either way, it has nothing to do with whether or not it's good/bad idea to reinstate the estate tax on non-agricultural assets.

Well, let us also note that agriculture programs are often prime examples of the law of unintended consequences. Many of the program designed to benefit small farmers caused the value of their farmland to skyrocket, pricing their children out of the farmland market and causing many to go deep in debt and then into bankruptcy because they used the increased collateral to buy farm equipment they could never pay off. That's why we had Farm Aid concerts and a massive expansion of giant corporate farming - because the government tried to help the small farmer.

Plus, the more externalities you introduce via tax laws, the less efficiently business decisions are made regarding supply, demand, and market price. Taken to extreme, the system starts allocating resources just as badly as centrally planned economies.

I think leaving vest amounts of assets in the hands heirs, which provide no proof that they can effectively manage it, is an incredible misallocation of resources.

But they're not YOUR resources to reallocate. I think everyone would be better off if they gave me all their money, because I could better allocate it, not that I would really care if I didn't. But nobody has a better vested interest in how their own money is allocated than the people who actually own the money. This is crucial to why a free enterprise system, even with an uneducated populace, outperforms command economies run by Harvard geniuses.

Here in Kentucky, the Railroad Commissioners have been lobbying for the abolition of their own Railroad Commission, pointing out that they haven't actually done anything in decades. When was the last time you heard of a department doing that?

It actually happens all the time, even in the notoriously money-hungry DoD. The thing is that people don't notice when underperforming programs are cut like A-12. They want a big headline like liquidating the DoL. Except, that's asinine. Or some programs (actually a lot of them) are in factmoderately successful. It's easy to paint something as a waste when you don't depend on it, which is precisely WHY THIS IS SO DAMN HARD.

There simply isn't a trillion dollars being pissed away each year on do-nothing programs. There's just a lot of programs that don't impact YOU, or YOU don't see the difference, or YOU disagree with them politically, so YOU deem them worthless.

Unfortunately, the federal government's constituencies don't end at the tip of your nose.

But isn't that exactly the same problem we have with a federal government deciding which industries and companies deserve subsidies and which should be taxed into non-existence? In Iran they're busy trying to eliminate traders (middle-men, buyers and sellers) because they think only producers and end consumers matter. They view the shop owners who buy and sell as some sort of parasites, not realizing that those people are providing a critical component in the supply chain.

Our government's decision makers are almost entirely made up of lawyers who have never worked in the private sector (other than as a lawyer). They will tend to share many of the same biases, worldviews, and misconceptions, leading to majority support of bad economic decisions.

 

[ichab]

Our government's decision makers are almost entirely made up of lawyers who have never worked in the private sector (other than as a lawyer). They will tend to share many of the same biases, worldviews, and misconceptions, leading to majority support of bad economic decisions.

You hit the nail right on the head with that statement and it applies to both parties.

 

[gturner]

Maybe it would improve government if civil service jobs were limited to 10 or 15 years, so government employees wouldn't have the outlook and incentive to make things as cushy, permanent, expensive, and perk-laden as possible for themselves. More of a stint you perform like being in the Peace Corps or the military before returning to the private sector.

It might also help close the perceptual divide between the tax payers and "the ruling class."

We could also try filling most government jobs with convicts, which would save money, plus they're pretty much the same class of people we elect anyway.

 

[ichab]

There simply isn't a trillion dollars being pissed away each year on do-nothing programs.

Maybe not a trillion, but hundreds of billions? Oh yes there is....

There's just a lot of programs that don't impact YOU, or YOU don't see the difference, or YOU disagree with them politically, so YOU deem them worthless.

Unfortunately, the federal government's constituencies don't end at the tip of your nose.

http://hoguenews.com/?p=4834

Money for tattoo removals, hurricane fraud, farm subsidies, airline subsidies(9/11 was ten years ago, why are they still being subsidized?) frank mailings, museums, etc.etc.You're right, none of that impacts me nor does it impact anyone except a small minority that should be using their local governement to pay for that garbage. Of course that fact doesn't matter when YOU aren't paying for it right?

And I'll make it my business anytime I want when MY tax dollars are being spent unwisely by MY government that preaches fiscal responsibility but then goes right behind everyone's backs and spends MY money for wasteful purposes.Some of us out there actually work hard for our money.

 

[STR]

But they're not YOUR resources to reallocate.

No, they're the resources of a dead man. His claims to it ended with him. It's money that the heirs didn't work to produce. The only reason they're entitled to anything at all is because of arcane laws that have roots in the feudal era.

There simply isn't a trillion dollars being pissed away each year on do-nothing programs.

Maybe not a trillion, but hundreds of billions? Oh yes there is....

Okay, prove it. Find $200 billion in the 2010 budget that we can all agree is an utter piss-away of money. I'll be generous, I'll even grant you 5 out of your 6 examples (I'm not tossing the Smithsonian in with tattoo removals). That leaves you with what about...199 billion left to argue over.

No counting loan guarantees and activities that would, in the private sector, be viewed as investments either.

 

[gturner]

But they're not YOUR resources to reallocate.

No, they're the resources of a dead man. His claims to it ended with him. It's money that the heirs didn't work to produce. The only reason they're entitled to anything at all is because of arcane laws that have roots in the feudal era.

Yeah, his wife should get nothing, even though she worked with him every step of the way, and his kids, who ran his business for the last 20 years of his life, should get nothing. In fact, let's have all life-insurance policies go directly to the government, because parents don't actually care if their children are thrown out in the street, and heck, the state will probably feed them in some sort of communal orphanage.

That's the attitude that keeps people terrified of the government, and it's this total failure to understand even the simplest basics of human nature that condemn statism as an evil aberation.

 

[STR]

Taxing an estate is more just than raising an equivalent amount by taxing the income of people that actually work for their money. That is the crux of the argument, that a widow, and an heiress are less entitled to keep their money than (say) a CEO. Therefore, if more taxes are needed, you get it from the former first. You don't even need to apply this to a situation where more taxes are needed. I'd support raising the estate tax (and closing loopholes) if it meant that workers would pay less and the government nets no more or less money.

If you seriously believe that trust funds children should be given preference over productive workers, then we're not going to agree on anything, and further discussion is futile, because we're never going to find common ground.

 

[gturner]

Taxing an estate is more just than raising an equivalent amount by taxing the income of people that actually work for their money. That is the crux of the argument, that a widow, and an heiress are less entitled to keep their money than (say) a CEO. Therefore, if more taxes are needed, you get it from the former first. You don't even need to apply this to a situation where more taxes are needed. I'd support raising the estate tax (and closing loopholes) if it meant that workers would pay less and the government nets no more or less money.

If you seriously believe that trust funds children should be given preference over productive workers, then we're not going to agree on anything, and further discussion is futile, because we're never going to find common ground.

You do realize that the working class actually breeds and produces fertile offspring, don't you? So what is the point of pretending to let workers have wages if you're just going to steal it all back from them? That means their wages aren't actually their's, it's just a temporary loan to con them into shoveling coal until you can conveniently toss them into a grave after prying the fillings out of their teeth.

People don't have an insentive to improve their property, create a business, and build prosperity if you turn it into a temporary illusion, a cruel joke that makes the individual and the family an expendable cog of the state.

Surely a government worthy of the people has a more dignified role to play than acting like a common grave robber.

 

[ichab]

Okay, prove it. Find $200 billion in the 2010 budget that we can all agree is an utter piss-away of money. I'll be generous, I'll even grant you 5 out of your 6 examples (I'm not tossing the Smithsonian in with tattoo removals). That leaves you with what about...199 billion left to argue over.

No counting loan guarantees and activities that would, in the private sector, be viewed as investments either.

So you're willing to admit that there already is hundreds of billion of dollars in waste already thru pork? Good. If we were able to control that, there would be no need to cut further. Now if we could cut spending back to what it just a few years ago we'd be in business. We could start with lowering congress's salary to 2004 levels with no possibility of an increase. These people shouldn't be making more than $100,000 in the first place so I'm being generous with that offer. Knock the president's salary down to $200,000 a year while you're at it. These people aren't in it for the money anyway right? We should also cut down significantly the DOE, since education is supposed to be handled by state and local governments. Here are just a few things I caught when going thru the president's budget...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget_factsheets_departments


$28 billion – a $3 billion increase – for programs authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), plus up to $1 billion in additional funding if Congress successfully completes a fundamental overhaul of the law. Together, these measures would represent the largest funding increase for ESEA programs ever requested.
$900 million for School Turnaround Grants.
$1.35 billion to continue the President’s Race to the Top challenge and to expand the competition from states to school districts that are ready for comprehensive reform.
$73 million – a $14 million increase – to build agency capacity to review and permit renewable energy projects on federal lands. DOI has set a goal to permit at least 9,000 megawatts of new solar, wind, and geothermal electricity generation capacity on DOI-managed lands by the end of 2011.
Nearly $620 million through the Land and Water Conservation Fund for DOI and USDA to acquire new lands for national parks, forests and refuges, protect endangered species habitat, and promote outdoor recreation.
Nearly $2.6 billion for Bureau of Indian Affairs programs that invest in community infrastructure, education, worker training, and job opportunities along with initiatives to improve the quality of life in Indian Country.
$3.3 billion total for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) for states to provide low-interest loans to communities to finance wastewater and drinking water infrastructure.
$1.3 billion, a 14 percent increase from 2010 and the highest level ever, to help states and tribes protect their air, water, and land:

• $274 million – a $45 million increase – for state water pollution control grants.
• $309 million – a $58 million increase for air quality management grants plus an additional $25 million in new funding for state greenhouse gas programs.

$215 million – an increase of $42 million from 2010 – to accelerate and expand brownfields cleanup with integrated area-wide planning and environmental remediation activities.
$21 million – an increase of $4 million from 2010 – to implement the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule and ensure the availability of high-quality emissions data.
$56 million– including $43 million in new funding – for the EPA and states to address climate change effectively through regulatory initiatives to control greenhouse gas emissions

• $25 million to aid states in permitting activities for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the New Source Review and Title V operating permits programs
• $7 million to develop New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) to control GHG emissions from major stationary sources
• $6 million in new funding to implement the 2010 light duty vehicle rule and to develop regulations for large mobile sources
• $5 million to develop guidance regarding the best available practices and technologies to control GHG emissions under permitting programs
• $300 million for restoration efforts in the Great Lakes basin, the largest freshwater system in the world, with a focus on contaminated sediments and toxics, non-point source pollution, habitat degradation and loss, and invasive species.
• $17 million in new funding for the Mississippi River Basin where the EPA will work with USDA to target nonpoint source reduction practices on agricultural land to reduce nutrient runoff.
• $63 million – an increase of $13 million – for the Chesapeake Bay restoration, enabling EPA to conduct robust regulatory, permitting, modeling, and reporting efforts
• $19.6 billion for the Housing Choice Voucher program to help more than two million extremely low- to low-income families with rental assistance to live in decent housing in neighborhoods of their choice.

 

[ichab]

Taxing an estate is more just than raising an equivalent amount by taxing the income of people that actually work for their money. That is the crux of the argument, that a widow, and an heiress are less entitled to keep their money than (say) a CEO. Therefore, if more taxes are needed, you get it from the former first.

You're right, this is the crux of the argument because I don't see how the government has a right to pick winners and losers. You say that if the government needs more money then it should go looking for someone to tax while I say they should go looking for something to cut or wait until they have the money. That's how the rest of us balance our budget, why can't the government think like that?

 

[Guartho]

The rest of us also sometimes, and I know this sounds crazy but hear me out, look for ways to bring in more money when we're trying to balance our budget. Why can't the government think like that?