Basically, a growing number of think tanks and consulting groups, conservative and liberal, are saying that either there needs to be a huge reining in of spending or an increase in taxes -- and even a number of conservative groups are saying that an increase in taxes would be the necessary option.
This is all assuming Bush is re-elected.
If a raise in taxes is the choice chosen by Congress (while the president may suggest, he does not get to decide), what will Bush do? He said "no new taxes, so help me God", which, by my understanding of his professed belief, constitutes an oath.
I see him as having several options:
consider the taxes to be old taxes, reinstated, and thus not violating his oath. At this point what he chooses is no longer on his conscience, whatever it is. This could be particularly hard, depending the type of tax instituted.
sign the bill and consider himself forsworn.
not sign the bill. Congress may manage to pass it over his veto, but this is highly doubtful what with the house of representatives as it is. If it does pass the veto, he'd probably still consider himself okay, as he did what was in his power to stop it. However, if it doesn't, his conscience may still be troubled if he thought the tax cut would have been the best thing. As I doubt he will, this isn't likely to be a problem
If you were Bush, what would you do?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
If I were Bush, I'd hound the interns and make Clinton look like an alter boy. Let the cabinet or my advisor figure everything else out. Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Raise taxes on the middle class in the name of saving the country, while keeping low taxes steady or dropping on the rich in the name of trickle-down economics. It's not as though Bush has ever even pretended to champion anyone but the top 2% of the country -- his sponsors won't mind him raising taxes on the working class.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I don't know what country you live in, but in America even that theoretical "4 million" pay over 12% in federal payroll taxes alone -- which is a higher rate than Bill Gates ever paid -- without even adding in the various state payroll taxes.
And then there is the three trillion in debt that Dubya has run up. Which is a major tax increase for the 99% who will have to pay it back.
posted
This math does not make sense. We have between 282-300 million people in the U.S. What is 2% of 300 million? 6 million people. So the top 2% of the nation would be 6 million people or less. So where is the number 11 million coming from?
Maybe this is new math...
Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
aspectre, except for independent contractors, those people actually pay 7.65% in federal payroll taxes. The other half is paid by businesses. You know, those entities you want to pay more taxes.
posted
New math? How could the number go from 6 million to 11 million if you only consider the 2% to be from the "percentage of taxable citizens? (not dependant minors or invalids) " Shouldn't that number be even smaller than 6 million considering that you are taknig 2% of a smaller number of eligable/takable citizens?
To address the original question... If I would the president I would simply raise taxes and explain that it is a necessary evil. Perhaps even blame it on Al-queda? (sp?) The reality is that all, and I do mean virtually all, politicians make the promise of "no new taxes" or "tax relief for you" because some peole only vote with their pocketbook in mind. Nobody likes to pay them but taxes are a necessary thing. Period. I think that people like to blur the distinction between raising taxes, new taxes and paying taxes at all. If this country needs more money, then taxes have to be adjusted accordingly. As a tax payer, I realize this and am ok with it.
I know hat we don't all agree with where the taxes are coming from or how the money is used however. That question I leave to minds greatter then mine, though I am eager to learn more about it as it has an effect on my voting. But again, it seems to me that peole like to spout off numbers that they hear somewhere and call it fact. both parties are guilty of this. So where can one get an unbiased view? Any suggestions?
Posts: 181 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
While Bush hasn't been the most fiscally responsible, he can't shoulder all of them blame himself. Congress approves the spending, and most of the time, sets the spending.
One only has to look to this year's Omnibus bill and see how laden with pork EVERY spending bill is. It's happened on Bush's watch, but the contributors have been both Republicans and Democrats.
Perhaps rather than just focusing our attention on the Presidential office, we should be looking more closely at those we send from our states to the Senate and the House of Representatives.
It's hard to do that, though. For so many states, their representatives in Congress are as much treasure hunters as they are legislators. Folks like Senator Byrd, Kennedy and a host of others bring back large, valuable packages to their constituents each year, often at the cost of the regular tax payers around the country.
But it's just soooo much more trouble to watch them than to pick one person to blame. Perhaps we should give the president line item veto powers and actually give him the oversight powers we blame him for.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Bush can't shoulder all the blame, but he should should alot of it. I know he doesn't set the policies, but let's be honest: if you're in the same party as the POTUS, and he wants to steer the economy in a direction using certain methods, odds are that you'll vote for it (remember his $300/person tax refunds?).
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Again I don't know what country you live in, Dagonee. In the US, workers have to generate the income for businesses to have money to pay taxes. Requiring a business take the money from workers, then turning it over to government is still tax on the worker irrespective of whether the tax payment is credited to the worker or the business.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I live in the U.S., where I have done payroll for a small business. I was not referring to the fact that the employer withholds the taxes.
This is really a simple concept. FICA and Medicare ("federal payroll taxes") are deducted from an employee's paycheck at the rate I cited above.
The employer pays an additional payroll tax exactly equal to that paid by the employee.
For example, if you make $50,000 per year, you will have $3,825 deducted from your paycheck for FICA and Medicare. This is 7.65%.
The employer will pay an additional $3,825. This is not deducted from your salary, it's paid by the employer.
Workers might "generate income," but so does working capital. I mean, according to your analysis, any tax paid by a corporation would be coming from the workers. Which makes your earlier complaint about alternative minimum taxes not only wrong but non-sensical according to your own rationale.
posted
So tax cuts for 2% of the population (whose rates are still higher than everyone else's) matters a whole lot. And a comparable number of people exempted from income tax doesn't matter at all?
Posts: 1458 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I don't put any stock in promises offered by politicans. I take the "I'll believe it when I see it" road and tend to vote more on my stances on the issues. Whether Bush forswears himself is not of interest to me, what steps he takes to better the state of the economy, is.
Posts: 118 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote: Have to cut all the unneccesary evil social programs.
Bye-bye Social Security. Bye-Bye Medicaide. Bye-Bye EPA. Bye-Bye Housing. Bye-Bye help to the poor, the sick, the unworthy.
If he could actually do that, he would be one of the greatest presidents in our history. But that is not possible, especially when he is adding to medicaid and the dept. of education.
Posts: 859 | Registered: Oct 2003
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If he could actually do that, he would be one of the greatest presidents in our history. But that is not possible, especially when he is adding to medicaid and the dept. of education.
How is adding to the Dept of education wrong? And the EPA- I don't think they do enough as it is. Of course, if we cut the EPA, it won't matter if we cut the social programs or not, when the air becomes unbreathable and the water undrinkable.
And Robespieere, I must ask- have you ever been poor? Hungry? I have been. I would have starved as a child if it weren't for worthless social programs. Truly, I ask you to volunteer at a food bank or shelter, and then tell me you feel the same way.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I believe the appropriate saying is "It's better to break an evil oath than to keep it."
Considering I already am struggling to have the money to pay my taxes (I ought to have a deduction in there somewhere, but I can't find it), I'm extraordinarily reluctant to want taxes raised on anyone, but if it has to happen, I'm willing to starve for the good of others, I suppose.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
The taxpaying public is way too fickle for Bush to be able to reverse himself before the election. Look what happened to his father. The fact that his name is Bush and he's got such a hate machine built up against him already, no way.
After the election? If he wins, I do hope he finds some way to balance the budget, probably a compromise between scaling back his tax-reduction goals and reducing spending.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:And Robespieere, I must ask- have you ever been poor? Hungry? I have been
This has no relevance to anything, and even if Robespoeere is the richest person in the world, that would still not invalidate his opinion. That fact that WIC (or an equivilent) kept you alive is wonderful, but not of any importance to this discussion.
Yeah the water will be undrinkable and the air smog filled literaly moments after any cuts are made to the EPA. The EPA doesn't need to be any larger than it already is. The EPA tramples on property rights as it is, giving them more money will on increase it. Not that the EPA doesn't do anything good, but more is not always better.
Posts: 1458 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
This has no relevance to anything, and even if Robespoeere is the richest person in the world, that would still not invalidate his opinion. That fact that WIC (or an equivilent) kept you alive is wonderful, but not of any importance to this discussion.
~~~My point there was, that no-one who has been poor or who has worked with the poor would say that eliminating social programs is a good thing. For this very reason, I think servive in a food bank, shelter, etc should be a requiremnt to get a diploma.
Yeah the water will be undrinkable and the air smog filled literaly moments after any cuts are made to the EPA. The EPA doesn't need to be any larger than it already is. The EPA tramples on property rights as it is, giving them more money will on increase it. Not that the EPA doesn't do anything good, but more is not always better.
~~~Respectfully, I disagree. I beleive maintaining a planet we can all live on takes precedence over any person's right or convenience. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Rob, I'm guessing this is the scenario you're proposing; stop me if I'm wrong.
Government regulations create inefficiencies in businesses, which then pass on the costs created to the consumers and the laborers rather than to the CEO and stockholders. The more government regulation, the higher the prices and the lower the wages, and prosperity goes down.
Remove the regulations and businesses will raise pay and lower prices so that more people can buy their products, and prosperity increases. In the short term, some of the poor still suffer, but in the medium to long term nearly everyone becomes the equivalent of our middle to upper-class.
It makes a kind of intuitive sense, although I really think it's too simplistic--there are too many other factors involved. Still, I'm not sure other people are catching the theoretical prosperity bit--they think you would like all the poor people to just starve to death and go away.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:My point there was, that no-one who has been poor or who has worked with the poor would say that eliminating social programs is a good thing. For this very reason, I think servive in a food bank, shelter, etc should be a requiremnt to get a diploma.
Actually, this isn't true - I know lots of people who regularly volunteer in such places and believe social programs need to be cut drastically. It's a question of the means as well as the desired ends. I'm not a "cut all social programs" kind of guy, but we do need to frankly ask ourselves if the programs we're implementing are actually helpful.
quote:Respectfully, I disagree. I beleive maintaining a planet we can all live on takes precedence over any person's right or convenience.
Again, it's a question of means and ends. For example, there are serious studies that have found one of the reasons environmental damage (both contamination of the environment and waste of resources) stems from the lack of property rights in these resources.
Basically, if the costs of environmental waste and contamination could be adequately allocated to their source, then remediation and prevention measures would become economically preferable. Granting people rights of private action to protect common resources would help discourage circumvention efforts.
posted
Why even bother debating cutting social programs when we can just cut billions from the military budget?
I mean, not only do we not need all the stuff the military buys, it actually endangers us by tempting our leaders to invade people just because we can, and by provoking terrorism. It's an easy win-win (except for military contractors like Halliburton - which have won enough already.)
quote:SO you'd prefer if Iraq controlled Kuwait and possibly Saudi Arabia?
Wow, how could I have missed that Iraq controlled Kuwait and possibly Saudi Arabia just before the recent invasion?!
Posts: 1045 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Oh, wait, no it didn't. You do remember that little conflict over a decade ago, don't you? The one where Iraq invaded another country? And we used our miltary to kick them out of that country?
Or did that slip your mind in your futile little attempt to be clever.
I usually like your posts. I may not agree, but I do learn to understand a certain way of thinking, and why it may make sense to someone.
When it comes to justifying "defense" spending with the need to invade Iraq though, I think it is utterly important not to muddle up the facts, and I thought I had to call you on that one.
This thread here, I thought, was about the current president, not about his father. If you want to talk about the other Gulf war, do it elsewhere, but don't forget the situation that led to that war, and how easily it could have been avoided.
The situation now is different, even though the real reasons for sending US troops over there may be similar. Throwing in an off-handed comment like yours above is misleading, mildly said. I just got a little embarrassed in your stead, is all, because usually, your style is better than that.
Posts: 1045 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Thanks for the kind words. Take a look at the post directly above mine. It says we don't need as large a military budget as we have. My pointing out an instance in the recent, but not immediate past, where there was an unexpected need for military force is directly relevant to that post.
The fact that we had good military equipment minimized loss of life in that conflict. It did so even more in the more recent conflict. But since the justification for the first conflict was much less morally ambiguous, I chose that one.
It's an example of why military preparedness can be a good thing. Certainly it's open for refuatation, especially as to how much is enough. But, given the content and depth of the post that prompted it, I thought it was a proportional response. If Tres wants to expand the discussion, I'd love to. If he wants to leave it at the brief salvos we've fired, I'm fine with that, too.
But my comment was absolutely relevant to the portion of the discussion it was aimed at.
I wouldn't have posted at all if it weren't for the Haliburton crack.
posted
Dagonee, My main problem is, I am not at all sure that "the justification for the first conflict was much less morally ambiguous", as you said. Here's a site that gives a quick summary of some things to keep in mind: http://www.ithaca.edu/politics/gagnon/talks/us-iraq.htm
The following is from that source:
quote:1990
Between July 18 and August 1 (the day before the invasion), the Bush Administration approved $4.8 million in advanced technology sales to Iraq's weapons ministry and to weapons labs that were known to have worked on biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
So when US ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam the US did not have an official position on disputes between Arab countries, is it any wonder that he thought the US would look the other way when he invaded Kuwait? After this close and very supportive relationship with the Republican administrations throughout the 1980s?
We all know about the Gulf War. But I want to bring in one more piece of history here, from after the Gulf War.
Dick Cheney, before becoming Vice President, was CEO of Halliburton Corp. from 1995 until August 2000, when he retired with a $34 million retirement package.
According to the Financial Times of London, Halliburton in that time period sold $23.8 million of oil industry equipment and services to Iraq, to help rebuild its war-damaged oil production infrastructure. For political reasons, Halliburton used subsidiaries to hide this. [4]
More recently, the Washington Post on June 23, 2001, reported that figure was actually $73 million.
The head of the subsidiary said he is certain Cheney knew about these sales.
Halliburton did more business with Saddam Hussein than any other US company.
Asked about this by journalists by ABC News in August 2000, Cheney lied and said "I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal." [5]
posted
The point is, one country invading another is the textbook case for interventionist war. There was a broad international coalition, including most arab nations. There was a lot less conflict over it.
Taking no position on disputes between arab nations is not the same as looking the other way while one butchers the other.
posted
Yes, I see your point. Intervention sounds reasonable, if not honorable, if put this way.
It all depends on the assumptions that go into a statement like this. I could just as well play devil's advocate and say something like:
"Creating a cause for war (or at least failing to prevent it when there is a chance) is the textbook case for (neo)colonialistic expansion whenever global power structures undergo a major shift, and a newly powerful country wants a more 'adequate' piece of the big cake."
In and after both Gulf wars, the huge profits of American corporations (not of the majority of taxpayers) at least suggest that some aspects of the latter view may actually play a role, don't you think?
Don't you find it the least bit bothersome that a considerable part of the American taxpayers' money spent during and after such military campaigns has an odd way of turning up in the pockets of a few corporate friends of the ruling dynasty?
posted
Besides Iraq, haven't we been involved in wars in any number of other countries? I haven't heard any complaints from Democrats about our involvement in Somalia or Bosnia except that we didn't do enough, and one of the most common arguments I hear that we shouldn't have gone back to Iraq is that it forced us to ignore other conflicts like the one in Haiti. (Sounds like an argument for a bigger military to me.)
The fact is that international goodwill is fleeting and fickle, as recent events have demonstrated. The last thing we can afford is to become dependent on other countries--or, God help us, the UN--for military action.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:SO you'd prefer if Iraq controlled Kuwait and possibly Saudi Arabia?
Oh, come on now. Do you really think Iraq could have beaten us at even 1/4th of our military budget - when combined with the forces of all our other allies? As it was, we smashed them without even barely taking any casualties.
Show me a war where we are actually pushed somewhere near our limits and we can talk about needing the military we have. But don't point to wars where we massively overwhelmed the opposition in a matter of weeks and claim we would have lost the war if we cut the military budget 10, 20, or even 30 percent.
The ability to overwhelmingly win any war they want, without the need of allies, barely taking any casualties, is by no means a necessity - it's an extreme luxury. It's also a dangerous luxury - the sort of luxury that spreads fear and hatred into all those who might believe that nation would attack them, and the sort of luxury that might delude said nation into thinking they should be judge, jury, and executioner for all the world. It's not the sort of thing old people should be losing their benefits, or children losing their education, or poor people going hungry for.
quote:Oh, come on now. Do you really think Iraq could have beaten us at even 1/4th of our military budget - when combined with the forces of all our other allies? As it was, we smashed them without even barely taking any casualties.
And part of the reason we too so few casualities was our investment in advanced weaponry and training.
quote:Show me a war where we are actually pushed somewhere near our limits and we can talk about needing the military we have. But don't point to wars where we massively overwhelmed the opposition in a matter of weeks and claim we would have lost the war if we cut the military budget 10, 20, or even 30 percent.
Naysayers before the war were telling us to expect 10,000 casualties - including lots of former high-ranking brass. We massively overwhelmed them because we invested in that capability. There are minimum expenditures for maintaining all the expertise our military has. I am not an expert on alignment of forces, but jsut saying, "We kicked their ass easily, so we could have spent less money" doesn't cut it.
posted
I agree, and if someone wants to propose specific realignments of forces that would be one thing. But blanket calls for cut to the budget seem dangerous without some very careful analysis.
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