Let's Take a Hike...thoughts?
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1


Fairly interesting article. I wasnt aware of this Ryan guys proposal until I read this article.

Fairly interesting yes. I'm not much impressed by Krugman. His doctrinaire liberalism does nothing for me. This was they guy who excoriated Bush for his spending but then did a 180 when his buddy O get's in office and claims he's gonna spend our way out of catastrophe.

The necessity for a tax increase however I agree with, no matter where you are coming from.

- Peter.

I doubt that Krugman did such a clear 180. The economic conditions faced by Obama are nothing like those faced by Bush. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

It was in fact a straight 180. He was screaming about the deficit under Bush and then decided to ignore it once his buddy got in office. Remember the crash didn't happen under O, it started under B but he was just as opposed to Bush's TARP crap as he was to his previous spending. Only when the dems got back into office did he decide to contradict what he'd been saying previously.

- Peter.

That guy is full of BS

yes it is an Opinion (a bad one)

Please enlighten me on economic 101.
 

I do not like to pay more tax than is necessary but I would not mind to pay my fair share of tax to balance the budget.

For the life of me, I just do not understand how tax cut could balance the budget. If this was the case, shouldn't the budget be BALANCED in the Reagon era, failing that, in Bush era? We need to cut spending and raise tax - similar to a household to cut outgoing and increase incoming. Which part of that our politicians don't understand?

The theory is that cutting taxes puts more money in peoples pockets thus enabling them to spend more and so stimulate the economy, also that it will enable business to invest more and create more jobs.

Unfortunately that ignores the structural change that has occurred over the last couple of decades with so many jobs being offshored so that it doesn't matter if people have some more money to spend or business to invest as those jobs wont be returning and so the economy will not beniffet therefrom in the way these folks assume.

The flip side of that of course is that massive tax increases will also probably not have the desired effect as once the tax burden becomes too much business will contract, fail, increase their moves offshore etc.

It's a difficutl balancing act which so far neither side seems capable of acknowleding.

- Peter.

So, in your opinion, the level of appropriate government spending has nothing to do with prevailing economic conditions?I ain't buying any of that unless you have quotes.

There have been proposals before, that the "Boomers" make the sacrifice, just as "the Greatest Generation" did before, and pay down the debt by paying more taxes, but not necessarily more income tax, since they're entering their golden years. The logical place to pay is in the estate tax.

That sounds like a logical proposal but really this whole thing is just a game for the politicians, the truth is their isn't really a crises but they have to jump the American people from crises to crises. Their is the potential for a problem down the road, but its very obvious how to fix it and only a very silly person would think the country would just march itself off the financial cliff with 10 years of warning, come on.


The truth of the matter is the economy is improving, and as it improves tax revenue will increase. Spending will also decrease thanks to our pulling out of these middle east wars in the next few years, and the government unwinding aid programs from the recession.

What will happen when they get serious is they will raise taxes slightly probably by letting the Bush era tax cuts expire, and they will cut spending. This will balance the budget. People will scream bloody murder as they always do because that's human nature.

The truth of the matter as correctly pointed out in this article is among 1st world countries we do have a very low tax rate, and the tax rate has been dropping for a long time. We just like every other country just got nailed with a nasty recession which required government spending, with a couple of wars on top of it. Every other developed country is in the same boat, and will correct themselves in the next 2-4 years.

Bush's spending prior to '08 was money down the toilet: Iraq in large part and the french kiss to Big Pharma. O's spending has been infrastructure jump start and economy rescue. Bush inherited a swimming economy and ran it into the ground.

Gov spending went ballistic under Reagan and there is no end in sight. All these pirates are funded by the same lobbyists who legally bribe them. If you think there is anyone representing the voter's interests you aren't paying attention.

What would be the effect of raising the tax rate by, say 1/2 a point (across the board)? I don't think I would notice so much in my paychecks. Is this a ludacris idea?

Quick and simple:
1. Balance the budget based on the previous years revenue.

2. Abolish "personal income tax" period end of story. By doing that all these rediculos tax dedustions would go away:kids,interest on a home mortgage, head of household,earned income credit(which is an oxymoron due to the fact to qualify you cant earn much income)

3. Establish a national sales tax. By doing that everyone that buys anything will be paying their "fair" share. So the lower end of the scale pays a small percentage (kind of like now the bottom 50% pays no federal income tax) where as the upper end pays the most based on what they buy. 7% of a million dollar home is 10 times 7% of a $100k home.

4. Revamp the military, close overseas bases that have outlived their usefulness. IE: Ramstien,Korea,Japan,Okinawa. Stop meddling in other countries civil affairs. If there is a dictator that kills his own people? Tough ***** leave us out of it.