New IMF Head Says US Must Raise Debt Limit, or Face 'Nasty Consequences' 932
fysdt writes with this from an article on ABC News: "The International Monetary Fund's new chief foresees 'real nasty consequences' for the U.S. and global economies if the U.S. fails to raise its borrowing limit. Christine Lagarde, the first woman to head the lending institution, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that it would cause interest rates to rise and stock markets to fall. That would threaten an important IMF goal, which is preserving stability in the world economy, she said. The U.S. borrowing limit is $14.3 trillion. Obama administration officials say the U.S. would begin to default without an agreement by Aug. 2."
The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:2, Insightful)
How about doing something different, and not simply letting the banks loot another time?
Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The sky is falling...OH NO!!! /sarc (Score:5, Insightful)
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." Warren Buffet. His tax rate is lower then his secertary. They pay more then the none rich, because they make retardedly huge amounts of money, but for some reason their taxes as a percent of income is much lower then those of the middle class.
The only "nasty consequences" require courage (Score:1, Insightful)
The US won't "default" no matter what happens. Enough tax money comes in every day to sustain the interest payments on the debt. The tough decisions politicians need to make are the budget cuts. Obama and the Democrats don't want to cut anything (except for defense). The elephant in the room is all those people on the welfare dole. "Entitlements" account for the vast majority of the budget. Does a millionaire retiree really need that $2000 social security check and medicare? Those programs should be means-tested. Otherwise, they're just Ponzi schemes that are approaching the inevitable demise of more people taking out than putting in.
For those who want to raise taxes, I ask you: When has a tax increase ever created a job? On the contrary, Reagan knew what Kennedy (JFK) knew: tax cuts INCREASES private investment, which increases jobs, which adds more TAXPAYERS to the system. We don't need more taxes, we need more people paying taxes. Obama can sing his class warfare song (rich vs. poor) all he wants but the fact of the matter is, rich people INVEST their money. That creates jobs. Confiscate their money through taxation and that's less money available to invest. It's really quite simple. I'm glad my boss is a millionaire. If he wasn't, I might be unemployed right now.
The problem with "fiscal responsibility" ... (Score:4, Insightful)
EVERYONE wants lower taxes and reduced spending and "fiscal responsibility".
The problem is that each person has a DIFFERENT idea of what the government should be spending money on (and what programs should be cut) and what should be taxed.
And that doesn't even factor in the ear-marks and riders and other pork that gets attached to garner votes.
Re:Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The only "nasty consequences" require courage (Score:5, Insightful)
The US won't "default" no matter what happens. Enough tax money comes in every day to sustain the interest payments on the debt. The tough decisions politicians need to make are the budget cuts. Obama and the Democrats don't want to cut anything (except for defense). The elephant in the room is all those people on the welfare dole. "Entitlements" account for the vast majority of the budget. Does a millionaire retiree really need that $2000 social security check and medicare? Those programs should be means-tested. Otherwise, they're just Ponzi schemes that are approaching the inevitable demise of more people taking out than putting in.
For those who want to raise taxes, I ask you: When has a tax increase ever created a job? On the contrary, Reagan knew what Kennedy (JFK) knew: tax cuts INCREASES private investment, which increases jobs, which adds more TAXPAYERS to the system. We don't need more taxes, we need more people paying taxes. Obama can sing his class warfare song (rich vs. poor) all he wants but the fact of the matter is, rich people INVEST their money. That creates jobs. Confiscate their money through taxation and that's less money available to invest. It's really quite simple. I'm glad my boss is a millionaire. If he wasn't, I might be unemployed right now.
I used to agree with this line of thinking. The problem is the rich aren't investing in US companies. The current tax breaks are creating jobs they just happen to be in China.
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:5, Insightful)
Er... this has almost nothing to do with what happened with the banks in 2008. In fact, it's about as unrelated as it is possible for one looming economic crisis to be to some recently past economic crisis. The fallout from the prior crisis is a major contributing factor, of course, but if there is any issue of "looting", it's going to be we the people, through our elected representatives in Congress, who do it.
This crisis is entirely voluntarily precipitated by our political leadership, albeit with the excuse that they believe *some* crisis is coming sooner or later. We are facing default not because we've spent more than was budgeted, or more than was appropriated, but because we spent money that as budgeted and appropriated but now Congress won't let the Treasury raise the money to pay the people we owe money to as a result.
A cartoon: (Score:4, Insightful)
A relevant cartoon [photobucket.com].
Re:Only in America (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The only "nasty consequences" require courage (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, the infamous Lafffer curve (too lazy to post a link to wikipedia, check it yourself). Too bad it has not been proved, nobody knows where the optimal point is (why they always assume the optimal point is with LESS taxes, and no with more?), and everything else. But it gives some people a good mantra to repeat and repeat.
As other post has already put, everyone is willing to make sacrifices and cut costs... unless it is in something that benefits them.
At least some people is honest and choses consequently "I want good public services and I'll pay the taxes needed to/I do not want good public services but I want less taxes instead". Others just say"If I pay less taxes then everything will magically solve". With the first people one can try to get to a common point, arguing with the later ones is just a waste of time.
Re:The problem with "fiscal responsibility" ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
You stupid fucker. You think CEOs pay their employees out of pocket? Hell no. Corporations pay peoples' salaries. Raising taxes on the rich has absolutely no impact on this. But they've drummed their lies into your head enough that you're now afraid to tax them, which is why hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate than their IT staff, despite earning about 50 times as much.
Re:Only in America (Score:3, Insightful)
Heroin (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that the shit was just hitting the fan as Bush was leaving office, right? And that when the President took office the economy was more or less in free fall. In that context only a great fool would suggest that it wasn't Bush's fault. The President deserves a great deal of credit for being able to keep the unemployment rate that low considering where he started.
Tax cuts were a significant portion of the problem, they weren't the only problem, but they were a significant portion of the problem. It's doubtful that we'd still be in the mess we're in had Bush not left us with nearly $10tn worth of debt, we could have gotten another round or two of stimulus with that money. But the biggest issue is that Bush left us with two very expensive wars which were providing us with very little bang for the buck.
On top of that under Bush the DoJ effectively stopped investigating antitrust violations and he was very much opposed to the sorts of regulation which would have prevented the sort of catastrophic down turn that later showed up as he was leaving.
Re:Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The only "nasty consequences" require courage (Score:5, Insightful)
The Laffer curve is a miserable failure, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of economic history can deduce.
The only private investments tax cuts will spur will be in paying accountants to find new and unique ways to hide the taxable income in esoteric financial constructs designed specifically for the wealthy.
Balancing the budget requires cutting spending AND raising taxes.
Re:This threat isn't from banks this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Tea Party which is holding President Obama hostage on the budget. They simply do not want Obama to pass a budget
Well, when the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency in 2010, they failed to pass a budget. The Tea Party didn't have any power to stop them back then.
The Tea Party wants a budget - they just want it to be balanced, rather than simply pile on more and more unsustainable debt.
So that's why the US wanted her as head of IMF (Score:4, Insightful)
So that's why the US wanted her as head of IMF
Re:Expect a Civil War if the US defaults (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you have your finger on the pulse of America (what little pulse there is). Unless you're going to acknowledge the same civil rights to gay people that everyone else has on a federal level, or you're going to shut down the NFL, or you're going to ban latte's, there is nothing that will ever cause the US to erupt. If that video of our troops unloading on unarmed people with really pathetic commentary on the open mics didn't cause a riot, nothing will. If Goldman Sachs executives running the treasury giving massive bailouts to Goldman Sachs didn't cause riots, nothing will. If going to war for almost a decade against a country that didn't attack us for reasons that were later acknowledged to be manufactured and false (and that we're still participating in) didn't cause riots, nothing will.
Re:Cheap theater (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not? They've been robbing us for decades, to pay for their retirements and social services.
Re:The right doesn't want to prevent default (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't tell if you're retarded or insane.
Re:The only "nasty consequences" require courage (Score:2, Insightful)
The Laffer curve is a miserable failure, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of economic history can deduce.
The Laffer curve is common sense. At 0% tax rates the government has no revenue because there's no tax. At 100% tax rates the government has no revenue because no-one in their right mind will work to see everything they do stolen by the government. Hence revenues must peak somewhere between 0% and 100% tax rates.
Of course common sense is pretty rare after a century of compulsory schooling by government teachers.
Re:Stop Spending! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you hate your grandparents?
Because they spent decades partying as they built up huge debts that they now expect their grandchildren to pay?
Re:Cheap theater (Score:4, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? Congress has been dominated by giant pussies for decades, who do whatever the president demands of them. They may bitch and whine and moan, but when it comes down to the voting and the actions, they're less a counterbalancing branch of the government than they are the lapdogs of the president (whichever president it is at the time).
Frankly, it's time to fucking grow up and stop spending more than we make. It's bullshit to say "you can't point that gun against our head!" when referring to refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Continuing to have unrestrained spending forcing us to continue raising our debt is itself a threat held against our own heads. When someone has a spending problem, you cut up the fucking credit cards. I don't see how difficult this is for us to understand.
I mean, really, what do you expect to happen? We're going to raise the ceiling this time around and everyone will promise to "be really good" next time? The democrats will promise not to spend zillions on more bullshit social programs and the republicans will promise not to spend billions on bullshit military actions? Really? If we just promise to let them go over this one more time?
This is the same fucked up "logic" that the public was fed to justify bailing out corporate America. Feed them bullshit through the media until everyone was worked up into a frenzy. We can't afford NOT to hand out seven trillion dollars! If we don't, the entire country will be bankrupt and you will be eating road kill off the streets as your house burns to the ground and your entire family contracts malaria!
All these endless threads here about "conservatives durp durp" and 'liberals durp durp". Let's call it what it is... fucktards and fucktards. And both groups of fucktards are trying to scare the shit out of you to continue raping us all. And we're fucking falling for it, like morons.
It's clear what's going to happen. We'll raise the ceiling into the indefinite future and we'll continue to spend more and more into the indefinite future, until our deficit becomes so large that it topples over and the whole country is done. There will be a breaking point, eventually. We have to get control of this bullshit, sooner rather than later. But... we won't. And so we'll get what we deserve.
Re:oh no (Score:4, Insightful)
People tend to be afraid of stock market drops, because they have the perception that the drop in the stock market caused the great depression. It did not, it merely accompanied the depression.
This is more than a theoretical issue: people often focus on trying to improve the stock market number, instead of trying to improve the economy as a whole. Trying to raise the stock market by printing more money, by borrowing more money, is counter-productive and causes problems.
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lagarde is also the politician who has been involved in a huge scandal over offering french troops to Tunisia's ousted dictator Ben Ali to suppress demonstrations.
In other words, she's perfect for the job. She supports dictatorship, systemic oppression of the masses to benefit rich elite and increase of power of private financial institutions at the cost of public ones.
Which is exactly what IMF has always stood for under all the glossy slogans.
Re:Cheap theater (Score:5, Insightful)
It would frankly be wonderful if enough Congresscritters had the chuzpa to not raise the limit.
Yeah, it would be great if our credit rating were downgraded. That would be wonderful. Paying extra percentages on the 14 trillion we already owe and can barely pay is a wonderful way of staying afloat. In fact, I stay up nights thinking "Gee, I wish the value of the dollar entered the sort of massive decline that Mexico saw in the 90's."
What I really wish is that the Republicans or Democrats actually believed that a balanced budget was worthwile. I'm sorry, if you're willing to axe a historic deal because you don't want to close tax loopholes on the most profitable industry in America (all the while cleaning up after its oil messes), then you're just a posturing nit. Oh no, we can't lower military spending. Oh, Social Security is sacrocent. And while we're at it, let's extend those tax cuts for the rich again, and keep taxing income from stock accounts at half of what normal income is taxed as.
Re:Only in America (Score:2, Insightful)
You could literally confiscate every dime the wealthy earned last year, and still be nowhere near closing our yearly deficits.
You could easily repeat a stupid and easily debunked lie over and over, and find millions of suckers who believe it.
Re:doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
"military contractors, lay off TSA, DEA, ATF, etc. " You mean they could remain on furlough until some heinous crime or terrorist act happens. Then Obama would get screwed. And those aren't the agencies driving the debt. 2/3 of the budget is ENTITLEMENTS. Fail to attack those means you do squat against the debt.
There is another aspect to the debt. The Bush tax cuts were enacted when they "could see surpluses as far as the eye can see". Well, that lasted...well...it didn't last. Why didn't it last? Two elements: (1) Bush never funded the wars, and (2) the Clinton years were the dot.com bubble. Regarding (2), there was deadlock between Congress and the White House, neither would agree to the other's spending plans. So they simply stopped increasing spending lest their enemies get the leg up in the next election.
In addition, the economy changed during the aughts. Companies shifted more of their operations overseas due to shortsighted Business School Product, and an antiquated tax structure that made it prohibitive for Big Business to invent in the U.S. The latter is open to speculation. Anyhow, the anti-regulation atmosphere of the Bush Years (although started under Clinton attempting to "triangulate") allowed investment banks to invade the loan market. They were aided by the credit rating agencies, and Congress who thought any business is good business. Their bright idea was to securitize (sp?) loans and sell them widely...with collateral "guaranteed by the rating agencies".
That alone wouldn't have caused the current mess.The missing element was the American people. Being greedy and too dumb to understand (or read) the fine print, they bought houses they couldn't afford, bought second houses, flipped houses, took equity out of their houses to piss off on large SUVs (thereby distorting the car market), etc.
This encouraged the Contractors. It used to be you found a contractor to build a house the bank decided, based on your financials, to loan you the money to have build. But in the rarefied atmosphere of no-one minding the store, mega-contractors took over. They will buy a 100 acres or more and build speculation houses (spec-houses). And the American people sucked them right up. Being dumb, you could buy one and think it was worth the purchase price. Being greedy, you could buy one with the intention of flipping it.
And now, the chickens have come home to roost. And everyone wants to point fingers. There is plenty of blame to spread around, and I've neglected several miscreants.
And the Tea Party is not intent on wrecking the economy. The economy is already wrecked, now we are only fighting on how to fix it.
Re:Only in America (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So that's why the US wanted her as head of IMF (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not really insightful, anybody knowledgeable enough about economics to be head of the IMF would have come to the same conclusion. In fact I came to that conclusion and I've had very little training in economics. It's one of those the sky is blue observations.
The rates that investors typically demand for their money is related to the perceived risk. Right now that risk is low because investors believe that the US will do whatever it needs to do to keep paying those bonds off. But, if the debt ceiling isn't lifted and or we stop paying our bills that would undoubtedly trigger investors to demand more for their risk.
It takes a certain level of delusion to believe that there is something special about the US which would prevent that from happening if we start defaulting on our debts. And unfortunately, right now US Savings bonds and the like are still the best bonds to invest in, if the GOP has its way, they're likely to not be worth the paper they were printed on.
Re:Both sides are unreasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed in a normal year the GOP would have jumped at that deal, which is because it's a rather extreme deal. I'm not familiar enough to comment on it too much, but the tax increases are pretty minimal and are mostly the result of closing loopholes.
Re:Stop Spending! (Score:5, Insightful)
Raising taxes will only further DECREASE revenue.
That is just an opinion that the vast majority of economists (and educated people) disagree with. Sometimes I wish we could send all the people like you to a separate country, so that you can screw up your own lives without affecting mine. Perhaps the feeling is mutual =). There is no tax, and no government in Somalia. Go for it.
but the wars are not the problem. (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is jumping nearly 25% is expenditures in two years. You can totally remove the defense department and their four wars (there are two air wars, don't forget Sudan) and you would still be half a trillion in the hole.
You want to know what the wars are, they are the distraction to keep people looking over there instead of where they should be looking.
Talking the wealthy cannot fix it, it has been shown you could take all the money earned above 250k and still not come close enough to balancing the budget.
There are three major problems.
1) Entitlement expenditures are too high, we are running out of other peoples money
2) Spending on everything is else is out of control (including and especially defense)
3) Not everyone has to pay taxes as such not everyone feels the pain. Believe me, if the bottom half had to pay in 10 or 20% of their income then perhaps politicians might feel it.
We have President Wall Street - He got in on the backs of Main Street America and then forgot about us - oh, until he needs us again for 2012. Soon as he gets in again you can rest assured he will forget us again. He will get all cozy again with his rich CEO buddies from Google, GE, and anyone else willing to pad his wallet and that of his party. You can bet he already has lined up his millions after he is out.
We are out of other peoples money, its time to realize that the fastest way out is to stop spending so much. The government is stifling the economy through its heavy borrowing and our President is handing over us to his banking buddies. For all the angst people had with Bush Jr being a tool of business they seem to miss that we have that and worse. We have ex-Wall Street insiders running the economic course in our White House!
Re:Several Inconvenient Truths About The Debt Ceil (Score:2, Insightful)
The trouble with your entire argument is that you assume that the only possible way to balance the budget is to cut spending in half. There's another way about equally likely (that is, whelk's-chance-in-a-supernova likely), namely double tax revenue to solve the budget problem.
As far as what taxes to hike, there are a lot of choices: dividends, business profits, FICA for income currently above the cap, capital gains, or upper end of the income tax range. All of those have historically low tax rates, and have done better than ok in the last few years.
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I the only one that is starting to think this default thing might not be so bad? We've tried bailouts, the banks said "thanks" and promptly foreclosed, we bailed out the ultracorps like GE who said "thanks!" and promptly sent the jobs to India, meanwhile the government is building new aircraft carriers and pissing money into the F35 black hole like the cold war was scheduled to restart next Tuesday and Americans are living in tents because they can't find work. Did I miss anything?
Maybe if we default we won't be able to keep borrowing money, imports will fall off the face of the planet, and we might actually have to start manufacturing things again? Just a thought. But so far we have done everything the bankers wanted and while they got a couple more yachts it certainly hasn't helped this country out, if anything their trickling on the American people has made things MUCH worse.
I really am starting to wonder if it is time for the fall, if it is time for our own Arab spring. it is obvious the elected officials will no longer listen to or obey the will of the people, not on the three wars killing our kids, not on the border leaking like a sieve, not on H1-Bs when there are 100 Americans or more applying for every job, not on anything anymore. maybe it is time for this system to go away and a new one to replace it, one that listens to the people. Because frankly I don't see how we can continue down this path without almost certain full scale class war.
The US won't default on the national debt, even if no deal is reached before the debt ceiling cap is reached, unless the President ignores his Constitutional duties and orders it to not be paid. The US Government will receive something close to $2.6 trillion dollars in revenue for 2012. The interest on the debt is something like $450 billion including SS/Medicare debt interest. This still leaves $2.15 trillion to run the rest of government for a year after making the debt-interest payment in full.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt [wikipedia.org]
The economy could be kicked into overdrive and revenues to the Treasury increased immensely. Just remove the big-government, central-command-and-control, high-tax/high regulation, nanny-state yoke from around the neck of entrepreneurs and small/medium-sized small businesses. Lower or eliminate capital gains taxes, particularly those associated with small business and start-up investment and financing. Simplify and lower corporate tax rates.
It's really not rocket science. The economy and employment will shoot up, and revenues to the Treasury will actually increase. The whole concept can be summed up with a twist on an old Joe Walsh album title:
"The Taxer You Regulate, The Unemployeder You Get."
It's basic capitalist economy first-principles. Government creates no wealth or jobs, it can only remove wealth and jobs from the private sector. JFK understood it when he dramatically lowered taxes. It was the solution to the depression of 1920-21. Never heard of it? That's because although severe, it was brief.
From Wikipedia: "President Harding's laissez-faire economic policies during the 1920-21 recession, combined with a coordinated aggressive policy of rapid government downsizing, had a direct influence (mostly through intentional non-influence) on the rapid and widespread private-sector recovery."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_19 [wikipedia.org]...
It's not like there are no previous successful examples of how to encourage private-sector growth and higher employment percentages, and raising average standards of living for everyone. The problem is that doing those things doesn't result in the ability to increase politicians' (of either/both parties) and their cronies' (both political and business) wealth and power over the people and guarantee them a career feeding at the taxpaye
Re:Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Our poor and lower middle class don't pay tax at all.
Except for state and local income taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and excise taxes, many of which are regressive taxes that have disproportionate effects on the poor, rather than the rich. And also federal income tax, which isn't nearly so avoidable as you think.
But hell -- I'd be happy to shoulder a higher tax burden if we were also soaking the rich and if we were using that tax revenue in a better fashion. We don't need to waste money on our incompetent military (not good for much other than blowing crap up, letting situations degrade, and keeping the USSR from taking over Europe), but we could sure use a good single-payer healthcare system.
bailout was not the only alternative for lehman (Score:4, Insightful)
just because she didnt want to let lehman fail doesnt mean she necessarily wanted to bail it out.
there are other ways to do it. when ordinary banks fail the FDIC takes them over, puts a few people in prison, pays off some creditors, winds it down, and keeps things going in an orderly fashion.
of course, since Lehman was an "investment bank" (not an ordinary bank) in the US, the FDIC, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Fed did not technically have legal jurisdiction over it.
letting lehman just go bankrupt caused a lot of problems. institutions who had money saved there in europe couldnt get their savings out. also investors in lehman, like the "good as money" money market funds started losing value, which caused a mass panic and helped the credit markets seize up, which meant that ordinary business activity, like mcdonalds payroll, was threatened. it was like one of the last dominos to start the global run on the global financial system in sept 2008.
if i understand it correctly, she probably would have wanted us to 'go cowboy' on Lehman, and do something like have the FDIC take it over, even though it wasn't technically under FDIC jursidiction. in Paulsons book he talks about how he is continually hamstrung by what is allowable legally for him to do as treasury secretary. he is always worried about doing whats legal.
however, technically, we had no right to invade Iraq, to writetap american citizens, to set up secret prisons and torture POWs. why couldnt we bend the rules in this case? i think thats where she might have been coming from.
Re:Cheap theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, for fuck's sake - listen up closely; I'll say this again.
Ready? SOCIAL SECURITY HAS A $2.5 TRILLION SURPLUS. IT'S NOT A FUCKING PROBLEM AND WE HAVE DECADES TO IMPROVE IT.
Blatantly False (Score:4, Insightful)
Rich people pay above 30%.
False. Rich people don't make money from wages. They make money from investments, dividends, and bond interest. That's why the super rich pay almost no tax (and why C-levels get paid in stock as opposed to salary). In the US we tax income from work, but we do not tax income from wealth.
We tax all forms of income, including investments, and then sometimes we'll slap taxes on top of those taxes. You've never heard of capital gains taxes? We often tax wealth twice. First we'll tax corporate profits, and then we tax those same profits in the hands of private shareholders. When corporations get away with not paying taxes... GE is a good example here... it's because they've made crony capitalism deals with the government, often getting huge tax credits for things like "green initiatives". This is why I want an across the board flat tax on all first time income. Not only will everyone, rich and poor, have skin in the game, it'll stop the insane practice of Congress using taxation to shape consumer behavior to their political liking.
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:1, Insightful)
Ugh, republican, yes?
No, American. I don't care much for either major US political party.
"Rational Libertarian" or "Pragmatic Libertarian" might describe my views best.
why is your answer to EVERYTHING give the rich people more money?
That's because it's not "my answer to everything". I simply don't care whether one is rich or poor, government should only be confiscating by threat of force the minimum needed to fulfill only those things it is mandated by the Constitution to do, and no more.
Wealth redistribution under threat of force is not, and has never been, in all the many times it's been tried throughout history, a successful social engineering tool or financial vehicle for running a country.
Ya know what? We've TRIED THAT for going on 30 fricking years now?
No, it's not been tried since the '30s. There's only been Progressive policies to a greater or lesser extent since the New Deal, and doubled-down on with the Great Society.
If anything taxes on the top 5% should be HIGHER not lower!
Class warfare is what you're buying into. It's a favorite way for Socialist/Communist revolutionary factions to stir up rage & violence in preparation for a coup or government overthrow. No country or society that has engaged in class warfare and wealth redistribution has enjoyed a vibrant, growing economy nor a society where personal freedom has any real meaning.
What we have now is more than half the population pays no Federal income tax at all, while voting to raise taxes on the productive minority to pay for the non-tax-paying, non-producing majority's wants and desires. It's economic slavery. At some point, however, that strategy runs out of "rich" to confiscate wealth from. Then what?
Unfortunately for the redistributors, wealth & capital is portable and goes where economic conditions are best. That's why all the jobs and investment capital are leaving.
Then everybody will be equal...equally poor, miserable, and starving. Welcome to hairyfeet's world.
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:0, Insightful)
Yeah, I dunno, Hitler (oops, Godwin's) used this very same tactic to stir up revolution and he definately wasn't a socialist or a commie.
Hitler was a National Socialist. A Socialist country desires to spread Socialism worldwide. A National Socialist country just wants to conquer and rule over other countries and doesn't particularly care how they run things as long as they do what they're told.
You're just afraid of equality because it's the antithesis of wealth. There's nothing wrong with earning your keep and getting paid according to your job, but once you no longer have to work you're about as productive and useful to society as the poor slob begging in the streets.
Equality of wealth means everyone is equally poor. Why should anyone do more than they absolutely have to if doing more doesn't improve one's lot?
That idea has been tried over and over throughout history and all over the world, and has failed *every single time* it's been tried. Yet, somehow, people think that *this* time, it will turn out differently. That's one of the textbook definitions of insanity.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't associate those of us paleoconservative and libertarian Republicans with the standard crony capitalism big government neocon Republicans that have hijacked the party. Hell, Democrats are just as guilty of crony capitalism if not moreso, they just have a different stable of bedfellows to sell us out to.
We paleoconservatives and libertarians would rather reduce government to the minimum workable size and thus reduce or remove the ability of corporations to use corruption to get ahead at the expense of the American people, regardless of if the corruption is at the hands of Republicans or Democrats.
Personally, I have no problem raising taxes on the upper crust that holds most of the wealth. We'll never pay off the debt unless we milk the people who have made billions gaming the system for everything they have. The issue is that the Democrats tend to want to fuck over the small business owners too, who more often than not report the earnings of their businesses on their own personal tax returns. Raising taxes on them will hurt the economy significantly. Raising taxes on CEOs, bankers, brokers, athletes, and entertainers who make millions of dollars for doing nothing productive will not. You can't just set fire to the yard to kill a few overgrown weeds.
Of course unlike the other free marketeers who are in the pocket of various industries, I'm not worried about jobs being shipped overseas if we raise taxes, because back before the government instituted the income tax most of the government's income was from tariffs. If we would just impose tariffs on imports from places that don't have the same wage and safety standards that we do and make it more expensive to ship shit in from China and India, the jobs will return, and I don't mean $8/hr jobs that you can't reliably live on.
Furthermore, taxes wouldn't be as necessary if the government would stop spending money on things that aren't its business. People didn't need medical insurance before the government got into the business and allowed hospitals to jack prices through the roof since they knew full well that the Feds would pay anything they were charged. Or do you really think that market forces require hospitals to charge you $90 for the same aspirin that you can get for $0.04 at the local drug store? Even the private insurance companies wouldn't stand for such shenanigans if the government wasn't competing with them using our tax dollars.
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:4, Insightful)
And we could return to Clinton's tax rates, which were as obviously consistent with a growing economy as Bush's (ie. current) tax rates have been consistent with a collapsing economy.
Clinton had an economy artificially buoyed by the dot-com bubble. When this collapsed, Bush allowed a property bubble to take its place. Neither economy was supported by actual production, both were propped up by wild speculation.
Re:The same threats from banks... in 2008. (Score:3, Insightful)
Socialism has worked well in big parts of Europe for longer than your country has been around.
I'm not well versed in history, but I thought Europe was mainly controlled by monarchy when the US was founded. Which parts of Europe had socialist governments in 1788?
You're just afraid of equality because it's the antithesis of wealth. There's nothing wrong with earning your keep and getting paid according to your job, but once you no longer have to work you're about as productive and useful to society as the poor slob begging in the streets.
If I make something I should own it. Justice demands it. So if I build a house, it should be my house. If my neighbour works harder than me and builds a better house, we no longer have equality but we do have justice. If he continues to work while I am enjoying relaxing and entertaining in my house and builds another house the inequality is greater, but still just. Now if another neighbour doesn't want to build a house, perhaps because he plans to move cities in a few years, he can pay rent to the first neighbour. If he continues to build houses, the inequality continues to increase but with no injustice to anyone. Eventually the rent will enable him to retire. That his greater productivity obligates him to donate his work to "society" is incomprehensible to me.
Equality of opportunity is good, equality of outcome is gross injustice.