I don't think the working poor need to be taxed any more than they already are. They currently pay their payroll taxes the same as anyone else. In PA that means social security and medicare, state income tax,and their share of unemployment tax. They also pay the same sales tax as someone like me, there are no exemptions for them for making less. Trying to balance the budget on their backs is too unfair in my mind after the huge tax cuts we've had going in the other direction in the last decade.

I'm a big believer in the theory that those with no skin in the game do not value what they get in return (for "free"). We'd see a decline in use of government services if those using them saw a direct cost impact to their wallets/paychecks.

Abolishing Social Security and Medicare would put more money in every working persons pockets...

"Abolishing Social Security and Medicare would put more money in every working persons pockets..."

It wouldn't do much for the people on social security and medicare...

Social Security
 

I have put over $100K into SS and REALLY want to get some of it back!

1) The debt will never be paid off, further more it shouldn't...Public debt is Private Savings. When you say pay off debt what your also saying is destroy private savings.(do a search for US sectoral balances)
2) The US can never go broke: our debts are 100% denominated in US dollars that the US governemtn is the monopoly supplier of.
3) When Private spending is not happening the government must deficet spend...(.could they be doing it more effieciently should be the conversatiion)
4) In a non-covertible currency economy, taxes play the role of helping to controling money supply.(period) We don' use taxes to pay bills...ever.
5) Social Security can never go broke, again the US governement can always print money it alone is the supplier of to cover expenses.

By cutting deficit spending at this time or raising taxes we will kill any economic recovery that is slowly happening. (both political parties have this wrong because the do not understand how our monetary systme works....or they do, but don't care in order to retain/gain power with voters who don't understand how our monetary system works.)

U print enough of those USD bills and it becomes toillette paper.

Yes, Inflation is the only constraint on a floating exchagne rate currency system. However, that is currently not a problem with our giant output gap from our current productivity to what our potential is. That is why the deficit spending is needed. Increasing the money supply in an of itself doesn't cause inflation. That money has to go somewhere. Currenlty mzm and m2 velocity are way down.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2...-08,2011-11-08

We can see exactly what has happened to the Social Democracies of Europe...THEY ARE BROKE and scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. The Chinese have said they are "WORN OUT WELFARE SYSTEMS, whose work ethic promotes sloth and indolence." The Chinese ARE NOT going to put any money into that BK system unless AUSTERITY measures are taken. Which will promote civil unrest. At some point those governments out of self preservation are going to resort to more draconian measures better known as a reconstitution of the Sturmabteilung. The end of the Progressive era is nye.

Social Democracies promote SLOW TO NO GROWTH...and that is what our fearless leader in the WH has promoted all along as evidenced by his 2 good friends and ad visors..Andy Stern, MR I want to see the US model the German economy and Jeffery Immelt...Mr the future of Capitalism is a public and private partnership. Then he wonders why the economy remains moribund. His notions of a socialist wonderland has met the asphalt of reality.

You want growth in the US economy, it becomes real simple cut wages to 5 USD an hour along with deregulation so business is not all consumed with compliance and red tape and level Taxation so that it promotes business growth. Then manufacturing will return to the USA..Anything less than that is going to turn the USA into a Third World Nation.

This is not a right or left issue, it is reality. Quite simply until Americans wipe off the table their preconceived notions of a progressive society that has been instilled since the end of WW2 things will not only not get better but will get worse. That is until Americans get hungry enough to work for that 5 USD again.

Mr Fint you have been instilled with the National Security State mantra that has been the conventional wisdom since the end of WW2. President Eisenhower if you recall was a 5 Star, warned as he left the stage, "Beware of the Military Industrial Complex." The whole agenda of the MIC is to promote fear of a "dangerous world" so that they can keep siphoning off dollars in the form of military budgets to protect us. The US has in fact subsidized Europe, Japan and even China with the US umbrella of military protection. This has in fact worked for the benifit of the USA as it worked for Rome. However Ameirca is fast coming to the point where it will not be able to afford the bullets for the rifles and exactly what good is that defense going to do for you if the cupboard is stripped bare?

No doubt the world is a dangerous place, it always has been and always will be. Perhaps one should take to heart the old military axiom that he who trys to defend everything in the end winds up defending nothing. Or as Clint said, "A man has got to know his limits."

So what they have done amounts to pushing on a string. The conventional Keynesian wisdom of the last 70 years has not worked. I will postualte rethink that position. Think out of the box.

Realize that day that GW came on the Tube and said we were in a crisis..was a game changer. A whole new set of rules are at play now. I will get back to U when I have time.

I believe Keynesian economic theory is outdated . Our current monetary system is most accurately described by Modern Monetary Theory. Actually it's not a theory at all, but rather a detailed description of how our monetary system functions. (Just like someone can write a description of how the internal combustion engine works. MMT describes how a free floating exchange rate currency works.)

Very astute, Tabs. You forgot Canada btw. We have the ultimate umbrella because we were also your compliant buffer during the Cold War. But you are very right. Any discussion of a reduction in debt has to involve a major disruption of the MIC, which is a tough pill for to take for many.

Ian

No it's not. It is, as I said, the economy. Gross Domestic Product.

I agree. That is what was wrong with Steve Forbe's flat tax. He would have exempted even more people.

Immediately yes, but over their lifetimes, no.

Only true under the assumption that they did would invest on their own behalves and make intelligent decisions about medical insurance, and so forth. Returns on SS "investments" have been abysmal, and Medicare is clearly not a model provider of economical healthcare.

GWB spent as much as the Obama administration.

Look it up fiscal hawk.

The banks are sitting on about one Trillion dollars, unwilling to loan it out to main street USA.

The top 1% are sitting on another one Trillion dollars, unwilling to let it get the country back to work.

The people with the money have halted the recovery for the single purpose of changing the man in the White House. It's all very sad that we all have to suffer for the selfish goals of a few.

Why exactly is that? The cost of the military has remained constant as a percentage of GDP while almost everything else has gone up exponentially. Why would you cut one of the few areas called for by the Constitution...especially if it is clearly not the source of the huge debt? Why not cut the growth areas?V

The previous administration didn't put the cost of two wars in the budget. The current administration does. It's all numbers gamesmanship. the "cost of war" is not the cost of war, because obligations are created (post combat care) that make an $800 billion war actually a $1.2 trillion war.

But the core of the problem is that there isn't enough discretionary spending to cut anymore without big cuts to defense, which some will not countenance despite huge waste and irresponsibility.

Taxes (especially on the top bracket_ are lower now than at any time in the past 40 years and they need to come back up to Reagan-era levels, at least.