over the fiscal cliff

[leahjade]

True but remember dis budgeters would also tell you, that you have to increase revenue.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the proposed tax increase would raise only $68 billion by shifting the top tax bracket from 35 percent up to 39.6 percent. The government expects to spend $9.9 billion per day, or a projected $3.627 trillion for this year. Based on these numbers, the addition $68 billion from a tax increase would pay for 6.8 days of government operation.

Raising taxes without cutting SPENDING (which they are doing) is not the answer. I wouldn't allow my family to keep charging and going into debt that we can't pay for, so I don't want my elected officials doing the same either.
It will be hard and people who are used to getting "free stuff" will protest but someone has to be tough and not worry about being liked to get this country back on track.

 

[OceanStateKelly]

my new rate will be 24% awesome

 

[GOOFY D]

Yep, and people are wanting to do away with Social Security and medicare for our seniors, but we can still find money to fund keeping troops in Germany to protect it from Russia...or to support rum production or...


Personally I think the cap on Social Security taxes should be removed completely. Why should it have a max pay in amount? The middle to lower income groups never reach the max amount and why should those who make more stop paying after a certain amount? Think of the money that would be collected just from those making over a million a year and I don't think the impact of that 2% would be nearly as harsh as cutting funding for seniors. Removing the S.S. cap would go a LONG way in funding the program for the future of everyone. I just cant imagine living in a country that can always find the money to aid other countries but are so willing to cut benefits for their own seniors.


You think it is costly to pay medicare just wait till you see what happens to your county taxes when people do not get preventive care and start using county hospitals for health care!

BTW My husband has not received a raise since 2000 and our family income has actually been cut in HALF since 2008.

Removing the cap would have worked had this country not defrauded the American public by tapping into their retirement (which is what SS was supposed to be). However, Congress felt the need to "borrow" from our retirement funds that we had no choice but to have withheld from our pay. Now, if the cap were eliminated, there is such a disparity between what individuals pay in and their benefits, that it would simply be another entitlement that the higher income worker would be required to pay and not receive the benefit of. SS is now just another tax.

 

[GOOFY D]

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the proposed tax increase would raise only $68 billion by shifting the top tax bracket from 35 percent up to 39.6 percent. The government expects to spend $9.9 billion per day, or a projected $3.627 trillion for this year. Based on these numbers, the addition $68 billion from a tax increase would pay for 6.8 days of government operation.

Raising taxes without cutting SPENDING (which they are doing) is not the answer. I wouldn't allow my family to keep charging and going into debt that we can't pay for, so I don't want my elected officials doing the same either.
It will be hard and people who are used to getting "free stuff" will protest but someone has to be tough and not worry about being liked to get this country back on track.

Exactly! Yet, last night our president was on TV already making his political statement to raise the borrowing limit.

 

[leahjade]

my new rate will be 24% awesome

Do you have a link for this?

 

[mrodgers]

Do you have a link for this?

A case of someone reading the first 3 posts of a 7 page thread and not paying any attention to the rest of the discussion or what happened out in the world since those first 3 posts.... The link is in post 3 I am guessing.

 

[rantnnravin]

Take a deeper look as to why they "needed" that bailout. At the very root of the problem were the worthless home loans that banks were compelled to write for people who had no means to pay for them. Who made the banks write those loans? None other than our Congress critters, some of whom still labor under the delusion that EVERYONE should own their own home.

That doesn't excuse the way that banks then went about bundling and reselling those worthless loans. But if they hadn't been strong-armed into making those loans in the first place, then the incentive to hide them in bundles and then get rid of them would not have been there.

And FWIW, most of Wall Street has repaid those loans, with interest. The biggest drain on taxpayers as a result of TARP? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG, GM and Chrysler.

 

[eliza61]

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the proposed tax increase would raise only $68 billion by shifting the top tax bracket from 35 percent up to 39.6 percent. The government expects to spend $9.9 billion per day, or a projected $3.627 trillion for this year. Based on these numbers, the addition $68 billion from a tax increase would pay for 6.8 days of government operation.

Raising taxes without cutting SPENDING (which they are doing) is not the answer. I wouldn't allow my family to keep charging and going into debt that we can't pay for, so I don't want my elected officials doing the same either.
It will be hard and people who are used to getting "free stuff" will protest but someone has to be tough and not worry about being liked to get this country back on track.

And that's what happens when you selectively read some thing. If you noticed I said you have to do both.

Cutting spending without raising revenue will not get the country "back on track" as you say. All it will do is pretty much shuffle the cost down to the state level who will then turn right back around and request aid from the feds. Without more jobs and more tax paying people you can cut out every so called "free stuff" you want. so according to your thinking if you cut out all medicare seniors no longer need it? they are "used" to getting it and they will get over it? Interesting.

See it all falls back to let's cut what we perceive does not effect me You assume that everyone who is under any program is collecting some thing for nothing (your free stuff comment) which of course is not true so ergo, let's kick those bums off.

 

[imsayin]

I have worked in human resources and LUCK has an awful lot to do with where you go in life.

Have you read the book Outliers? It supports this theory.

 

[leahjade]

so according to your thinking if you cut out all medicare seniors no longer need it?

Talk about selective reading or quoting?? In which of my posts did you ever see me mention cutting out all medicare?? I have worked in government, so I know that there is a huge portion of entltlements that is pure waste and if you think otherwise you are very naive. We constantly had to tell people to spend their government grant money or lose it. People had to buy stuff they didn't need or want to stay in the program.
A school district in our state has misspent nearly $1 million in federal taxpayer money, according to the Pennsylvania auditor general.
In what state Auditor General Jack Wagner calls "blatant misuse" of taxpayer dollars, the school district reportedly spent $834,000 on unused items sitting in York City's storage room. Items purchased by the district include 16 boxes of hula hoops, three greenhouses and hundreds Wii video game systems that were found sitting in a warehouse never opened or touched. And this is only one school that got caught!
We need to make cuts to almost all the programs not keep adding new ones - the buses in my city are currently advertising to get senior citizens on food stamps - is this not a waste of money? But to keep government jobs we have to get more people on the programs, not phase them out. When someone (the government in this case) is the watchdog of its own programs, you will always have wasteful spending.

 

[luvmy3]

What businessmen? I hope you don't mean Wall Street. They "needed" a $700B bailout from the taxpayers.

There are plenty of successful businesses in this country that don't have a Wall Street address.

 

[leahjade]

No matter what "new math" you use, there is no way government can support everyone in this country from cradle to grave. The way it is now for some: government pays for your birth control (or abortion if you'd rather), then medical bills when you decide to have a baby, childcare costs, food, education, healthcare, student loan subsidies, then 30 years of Social Security and Medicare. And I'm not even counting housing subsidies, help with utilities etc. You can tax the less than 50% of us who are even paying federal income tax at 100% and it will never be enough to support all the many entitlement programs our country is supporting.

 

[donaldlovesdaisy]

No matter what "new math" you use, there is no way government can support everyone in this country from cradle to grave. The way it is now for some: government pays for your birth control (or abortion if you'd rather), then medical bills when you decide to have a baby, childcare costs, food, education, healthcare, student loan subsidies, then 30 years of Social Security and Medicare. And I'm not even counting housing subsidies, help with utilities etc. You can tax the less than 50% of us who are even paying federal income tax at 100% and it will never be enough to support all the many entitlement programs our country is supporting.

 

[vacationer1954]

I'd like a mix, I'd like a bunch of businessmen but also a bunch of educators.

I'd like it to be oncology nurses, inner-city social workers, and economists.

Spending must be CUT drastically.

Easy! Just make everything cost less.

 

[manning]

Hear about those rich people about to be hit with the 75% tax rate? A lot of them are leaving France. Let's see 75% of 0 is..... Gee zero.

Hmmm, a new meaning of take the money and run before its stolen

 

[bdcp]

Hear about those rich people about to be hit with the 75% tax rate? A lot of them are leaving France. Let's see 75% of 0 is..... Gee zero.

Hmmm, a new meaning of take the money and run before its stolen

French court overturned that last week because it was such a stupid idea to begin with

Actually, the story is out there somewhere. Basically they said it's unconstitutional.

 

[4luv2cdisney]

French court overturned that last week because it was such a stupid idea to begin with

Actually, the story is out there somewhere. Basically they said it's unconstitutional.

Don't know anything about France, but in the US the top tax bracket was anywhere from 60% - 92% post Depression thru the early 80's.

 

[Colleen27]

Don't know anything about France, but in the US the top tax bracket was anywhere from 60% - 92% post Depression thru the early 80's.

And that's something I think most people overlook. No matter what the current rate, the discussion is always "taxes are just too high these days" with the implication that it was better in the "good old days"... when the reality is that top rates were much higher and lower income earners weren't expected to pay in at all for most of the history of the American income tax.

 

[eliza61]

Hear about those rich people about to be hit with the 75% tax rate? A lot of them are leaving France. Let's see 75% of 0 is..... Gee zero.

Hmmm, a new meaning of take the money and run before its stolen

You know I have in laws in Paris and Lisbon, I asked them about that. They know of no one who is moving. LOL. I think it's one of those urban myths like all the doctors who supposedly are quitting due to the healthcare law and all those people who swear every 4 years that if certain people win the election they are moving to Canada, yet they never seem to go.

I'm heading to Paris to visit in May, Ill see if there is a mass exodus.

 

[tinatark]

We employ many college students from Poland, Russia, etc... J-1 students, come over and work 60-90 day contracts. One couple just moved back on a long term visa, because their degrees are basically worthless over there - everyone has one... I see our education system going in that direction.

I think the cap for SS contributions be removed, with a maximum benefit cap added.