Political Ramblings

[Q9]

All this talk about taxes is saddening. You're all missing the painfully obvious solution:

Cut spending.

Cut all foreign aid, get rid of the Departments of Energy, Commerce, Education, Interior, and HUD, get rid of the TSA, stop subsidies (corporate welfare), and bring our soldiers home as a starting point. While we're at it, we ought to get the Navy back to patrolling trade routes and guarding the coasts while ending the federal war on drugs.

Good starting point in my opinion.

 

[hemet dennis]

All this talk about taxes is saddening. You're all missing the painfully obvious solution:

Cut spending.

Cut all foreign aid, get rid of the Departments of Energy, Commerce, Education, Interior, and HUD, get rid of the TSA, stop subsidies (corporate welfare), and bring our soldiers home as a starting point. While we're at it, we ought to get the Navy back to patrolling trade routes and guarding the coasts while ending the federal war on drugs.

Good starting point in my opinion.

When you have almost half the people paying no income taxes do they really care how the money is spent ? When you have more people paying the bills then you have more people asking what their paying for.

Or as I like to say "when you have some skin in the game you care more about the game"

 

[thaiturkey]

All this talk about taxes is saddening. You're all missing the painfully obvious solution:

Cut spending.

Cut all foreign aid, get rid of the Departments of Energy, Commerce, Education, Interior, and HUD, get rid of the TSA, stop subsidies (corporate welfare), and bring our soldiers home as a starting point. While we're at it, we ought to get the Navy back to patrolling trade routes and guarding the coasts while ending the federal war on drugs.

Good starting point in my opinion.

Surely, during a recession, spending is one way to stimulate an economy. At least, that's what some economists are now saying. Spend on capital projects that create work, for example. Once people are earning, they will spend more and get the wheels turning faster.

Cuts mat appear to save money but can deepen a recession. I agree with getting military out of foreign countries in principle but it isn't that easy economically. The troops require arms, food and other supplies. Bring them home and those industries are damaged. And what would you do with the troops who come home? Spend more money on feeding and housing them as unemployed people or leave them to starve in the streets in the interests of the cuts?

Cutting foreign aid isn't as easy as it sounds. Much of it is tied into trade agreements which benefit the donors and those benefits would be lost.

I can't comment on the government departments that you mention but I would guess that they have some useful functions even if they may be inefficient in performing them.

So, a good starting point would be capital projects that create work. This was a keynote of the recent Westminster Budget.

 

[chickened]

like Norway?  They all seem pretty happy the couple times I've been there.

Pigs are happy in their pig pens too

 

[thaiturkey]

Pigs are happy in their pig pens too

Quite wealthy pigs on average in the case of Norway.

 

[chickened]

That's a fair point. If society believes that it's OK for people easily to get hold of AR15s, then society must share the blame for the consequences.

Society pulls the trigger? That is a hoot

 

[rufus]

Rufus, you make the oddest of statements.

A great deal of surplus wealth is salted out of the countries where it's accumulated to offshore tax havens via dodgy banks and shell companies. Capital invested in businesses at home isn't taxed in most countries. Don't get the two things confused. Even socialists understand the difference between invested capital and cash in tax havens.

Money is never idle. It is invested no matter where it is put. It must earn a return equal to or greater than the inflation rate. It is taxed twice, first as corporate income and then again when dispersed as dividends. Investors get hit twice. Capital flees from excessive taxation and regulation to less excessive tax situations. That is what created the need for offshore tax havens.

 

[rufus]

Let's watch and see what happens to France in the next few years.

 

[thaiturkey]

Society pulls the trigger? That is a hoot

Think about it instead of reacting in the same old way. If society allows dangerous weapons, it must share responsibility for the consequences. Surely, that's not a concept that's completely beyond your grasp.

 

[hemet dennis]

Money is never idle. It is invested no matter where it is put. It must earn a return equal to or greater than the inflation rate. It is taxed twice, first as corporate income and then again when dispersed as dividends. Investors get hit twice. Capital flees from excessive taxation and regulation to less excessive tax situations. That is what created the need for offshore tax havens.

Well someone gets it.