Quote:
Quote:
see here… Tax Havens
I believe he was referring to individuals with off shore accounts, not corporations who have headquarters in tax havens.
Either way, I dont see how these individuals or corporations are cheating. Also, $60,000,000,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to $1,000,0000,000,000.
The budget for 2013 is just shy of $4 Trillion. $60 billion, assuming the Fed could lay hands on all of it, wouldn’t fund the government for a full week. Then what?
drop in the bucket… are you a politician ??? 
seems so many have the attitude, if it won’t fix the WHOLE problem, then it is not worth doing. Is there too much welfare, corp or otherwise ??? YES so lets start with SOMETHING !!! And I won’t talk about my taxes going up, while talking out the other side about the HUGE deficit and how to reduce it 
FWIW… $60B here, $60B there…. $100M there… it will add up, but not as long as the people think it’s not worth doing… 
Something I learned as a young kid, you can walk across this country, but you gotta take the first step or you will never get there… 
Did I mention that we avoided the fiscal cliff by adding $4T deficit spending?
There will be no meaningful spending cuts ever. EVER.
Interesting website. I wonder who does it as it isn’t a government website. I wonder what the difference is between protection and defense is in that pie chart. This is a simple spend less taxes question. The way to get nothing done is to say only that spending cuts work or higher taxes work. The real thing that would work would be if we put many more people to work to pay taxes and reduced spending and maybe ask those people who seemed to get wealthier while everyone else got the pavement to pay a little more. Dave, Just because it is “legal” doesn’t make it right or worth making illegal.
I’d be fine with more revenue AND spending cuts. But like I said, they don’t ever cut spending. They promise to. They say, just be patient, we will down the line. But they never do.
And if you watch closely the spending cuts most politicos (both sides) that they talk about are reductions in the automatic increases in the gov programs…good golly!
BTW…glad to see James jump in on this non-political thread. 
Thank you for allowing a general discourse. 
I am well aware of the budget “cut” shell game.
Quote:
Thank you for allowing a general discourse.
We’re all in this sinking boat together. While we all agree the water level needs to go down sadly we seem to be caught up in an arguement over the color of the bucket that will be used to bail.
For me it isn’t the color of the bailing bucket that matters but the size of the bucket certainly does.
Quote:
For me it isn’t the color of the bailing bucket that matters but the size of the bucket certainly does.
The only thing that matters is if the water level goes down. And it isn’t. The opposite is true despite all the lip service and campaign promises made by both parties.
Again, google “total US unfunded liabilities.” Congress changed their own accounting rules some time ago so they could better hide the mess. 16 Trillion is just the tip of the iceberg.
I did google it, thanks James…. I copied some words that ring so true….. as evidenced by the originator of this post and some of the subsequent responses…
A decade and a half ago, both of us served on President Clinton’s Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, the forerunner to President Obama’s recent National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. In 1994 we predicted that, unless something was done to control runaway entitlement spending, Medicare and Social Security would eventually go bankrupt or confront severe benefit cuts.
Eighteen years later, nothing has been done. Why? The usual reason is that entitlement reform is the third rail of American politics. That explanation presupposes voter demand for entitlements at any cost, even if it means bankrupting the nation.
Maybe they should vote to NOT raise the debt ceiling then and put us in an “artificially” bankrupt state. We’d be in a better position to deal with it than to wait until we are actually bankrupt.
The whole deal really is a chicken and egg thing isn’t it. People don’t want their stuff cut. They vote in legislators who don’t want their cushy job to end. So who is really to blame?
Seems we all need to grow a pair and fix things.
In my opinion, as long as the country is run by someone who can justify giving a raise to the house and/or senate when they can’t pay the bills, and the vast majority of those receiving the raise accept it with open arms, nothing will change. They are too near sighted to ever do anything that really makes any difference with relation to the core problem of spending far outpacing revenue. But, that’s just my personal opinion.
Quote:
That explanation presupposes voter demand for entitlements at any cost, even if it means bankrupting the nation.
Bingo! EVERYONE will be required to suck it up. Balanced does not totally exclude us in the middle class (me.. formally) and lower class (me…now, by income level retirement does that to some of us) . Are you willing? I am…
Got my first 2013 paycheck today. Sweet! Less than 2012! Maybe after I get that 
generous raise in March, I’ll feel better. 
Quote:
I’d be fine with more revenue AND spending cuts. But like I said, they don’t ever cut spending. They promise to. They say, just be patient, we will down the line. But they never do.
You are correct about no cuts.
When the Government talks Budget Cuts, they are only talking about cuts from the PROPOSED BUDGET, NOT from the Previous Years Budget like you and I do with our personal finances.
I.E.: A Budget for 2012 of $9,000,000.000 and the Department requests a 2013 Budget of $11,000,000.00 goes into the proposal. Then Congress gets it and cuts 1% or $110,000.00 to leave a new budget of $10,890,000.00 this is actually considered a CUT by Congress.
See if in speaking to your F.W. about personal finances if you spent $5,000 on fishing & fishing trips last year propose that you want to spend $6,000 this year. When she says no, tell her Ok, I’ll CUT 10% if she would agree to your new budget of $5,400.00 Will she say you cut or increased your budget?
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
