Maintaining current entitlement levels = the middle class paying a lot more tax

[Torie]

Here is the article that explicates it all. It speaks for itself. The numbers are the numbers. Moving the top marginal fed tax rate to 39.6% will "close" about 7% of the fiscal hole or something. That leaves 93% to go. Want the rich to close it all? Well the marginal rates will need to go up to close to 80%, which ain't happening.

In the meantime, most of the cost cuts being talked about for entitlements involve just slashing payments to health care providers, so that they cannot even cover their costs of delivering the services, and that is even before thinking about how it will cannabalize the infrastruture of medical services, and research going forward. In short, such cost cuts are ludicrous and  not sustainable - in a word "ersatz" - totally ersatz. It is services that must be cut. Or the middle class will have to ante up. Period.

[King]

I don't think anybody is arguing this.  The problem comes with slashing entitlements too much, which is what the Republicans no tax on anyone policy causes.

[The Professor]

I would suggest taxing the poor. They aren't going anywhere. On a farm, a farmer gets rid of his rotten crops first by taxing them. If the poor or rotten crops get taxed and die, that would reduce unemployment as well.

[Torie]

I don't think anybody is arguing this.  The problem comes with slashing entitlements too much, which is what the Republicans no tax on anyone policy causes.

So far, the Obama administration has done little or nothing to suggest serious entitlement reform. Slashing payments to health care providers while expecting them to provide the same level of services is not serious. It's a scam, just like it was when there was this ersatz slashing to meet the reconciliation rules to push through Obamacare. Everybody knew it was bogus, as pointed out by the CBO - again and again - and by almost every other credible analysis of this matter. It's insulting to our intelligence really.

[memphis]

Obama has offered to cut entitlements. The amount the GOP will raise taxes even to close the loopholes richers exploit to avoid taxes? ZERO

[All Along The Watchtower]

You know, a lot of those tax cuts to the wealthy that Bush passed were not exactly 'income" tax cuts...

[memphis]

Look, nearly everybody may have to pay a little more, but it's money well spent for everybody but the owners. As I told you in an earlier thread, I'd much rather pay $1,000 extra in taxes than $10,000 in extra healthcare costs. Who wouldn't? Nearly everybody pays less under a tax hike reform plan than under a cut benefit plan. As for the richers, they can get over it.

[anvi]

I, for one, as a member of the middle-class, think middle-class tax rates should go up.  They should go back up to Clinton levels, if not somewhat higher.  Maybe it's reasonable to keep tax rates at current levels until at least the worst years of the recession pass, but they do have to go up and go up for everyone.  One of the really wayward practices of the Obama administration has been exactly the pursuit of continuing the Bush tax cuts on the middle-class while pushing the top 2.5% up to 39%.  Again, short term policy is one thing, but in principle, it's quite ruinous for the budget.  Those people know how to play politics, but they sure as hell can't do math.  When Clinton was faced with offering the tax cut he vowed to the middle class and dealing with the budget in '93, he looked at the numbers, did the math, and reneged on the middle-class tax cut.  It worked well, not only did no one keel over, but everyone did better.  Now, I've lived in countries where the middle-class pay a lot more than they do now, or would ever be expected to, in the U.S., and, while nobody likes being taxed, they have more security in the end, and they know it; so, the money they have, they use more discerningly, and they do fine.  Nudging middle-class tax rates up some is not going to kill anybody here; it might force them to budget their money a little more, not run up the credit card so much on stupid toy or clothing purchases or not make a house investment that was a bad idea in the first place, but, beyond that, it will offer them more security than their employers are willing to give them anymore.

And, with U.S. government health care spending, you can either do one of two things (ration care or pay providers less), or you can do some of both, which, again, is one facet of how it's approached in most other places.  But the real elephant in the room that's not being talked about in this present battle is how to curtail health care cost inflation.  And that's an arena, again, where loyalists on both sides have to slay some sacred cows.  

But, with both sides stuck in reverse, and pushing one another to make false choices, we'll get nowhere, both quickly and broke.  

[bullmoose88]

14-15T in postponed taxation accumulated these last 3-4 decades...unless someone has a creative way to really grow the pie...taxes have to go up...the only question is how to do so in a manner that disturbs people and the economy the least.

[courts]

I don't think anybody is arguing this.  The problem comes with slashing entitlements too much, which is what the Republicans no tax on anyone policy causes.

So far, the Obama administration has done little or nothing to suggest serious entitlement reform. Slashing payments to health care providers while expecting them to provide the same level of services is not serious. It's a scam, just like it was when there was this ersatz slashing to meet the reconciliation rules to push through Obamacare. Everybody knew it was bogus, as pointed out by the CBO - again and again - and by almost every other credible analysis of this matter. It's insulting to our intelligence really.

Watching the Very Serious And Brilliant President Obama smirking while explaining that seniors 'might not' get a social security check in the mail (while the Pentagon asks for $5 billion more for the not-war in Libya) was embarrassing infuriating enough Torie. I could express my feelings more so but that would be redundant since you and other sane people have done so already in great detail, and I already have enough death points.

[opebo]

70% is the reasonable top rate, Torie, tried and true and tested by american experience.  80% would be fine too, and not materially different in terms of the economy (high top tax rates don't effect the economy), but really unnecessary as the high growth caused by a Keynesian/redistributionist bottom-up economic model would more than do away with any remaining deficit.

[Gustaf]

70% is the reasonable top rate, Torie, tried and true and tested by american experience.  80% would be fine too, and not materially different in terms of the economy (high top tax rates don't effect the economy), but really unnecessary as the high growth caused by a Keynesian/redistributionist bottom-up economic model would more than do away with any remaining deficit.

lol

[opebo]

70% is the reasonable top rate, Torie, tried and true and tested by american experience.  80% would be fine too, and not materially different in terms of the economy (high top tax rates don't effect the economy), but really unnecessary as the high growth caused by a Keynesian/redistributionist bottom-up economic model would more than do away with any remaining deficit.

lol

It is all proven by history friend.  Everything's been downhill since the foolhardy neo-liberal experiment.

[CatoMinor]

70% is the reasonable top rate, Torie, tried and true and tested by american experience.  80% would be fine too, and not materially different in terms of the economy (high top tax rates don't effect the economy), but really unnecessary as the high growth caused by a Keynesian/redistributionist bottom-up economic model would more than do away with any remaining deficit.

George Harrison would like to have word with you

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzLry3ABpV0

[Gustaf]

70% is the reasonable top rate, Torie, tried and true and tested by american experience.  80% would be fine too, and not materially different in terms of the economy (high top tax rates don't effect the economy), but really unnecessary as the high growth caused by a Keynesian/redistributionist bottom-up economic model would more than do away with any remaining deficit.

lol

It is all proven by history friend.  Everything's been downhill since the foolhardy neo-liberal experiment.

I guess that might be the case for members of the owner-class like you. The population of the world is of course, bigger, freer, richer and happier now than at any other time in human history.

I suppose exploiting poor women might have become a little harder though, if that's what you're after.

[opebo]

It is all proven by history friend.  Everything's been downhill since the foolhardy neo-liberal experiment.

...The population of the world is of course, bigger, freer, richer and happier now than at any other time in human history.

Of what possible relevance could the well being of 'the population of the world' be to a discussion of American domestic policy?

I say 'Mr. Smith is worse off', and you say 'The Chinaman is better off'.  Who cares?

[Gustaf]

It is all proven by history friend.  Everything's been downhill since the foolhardy neo-liberal experiment.

...The population of the world is of course, bigger, freer, richer and happier now than at any other time in human history.

Of what possible relevance could the well being of 'the population of the world' be to a discussion of American domestic policy?

I say 'Mr. Smith is worse off', and you say 'The Chinaman is better off'.  Who cares?

I didn't know you were such an American nationalist. I thought you more of a man of the world than a staunch defender of "the Bad Place". I guess you have a point that preserving privilege has been harder during the neo-liberal experiment.

(of course, America is better off as well, but that's a whole other debate)

[opebo]

I didn't know you were such an American nationalist. I thought you more of a man of the world than a staunch defender of "the Bad Place". I guess you have a point that preserving privilege has been harder during the neo-liberal experiment.

(of course, America is better off as well, but that's a whole other debate)

It has nothing to do with my own preferences, Gustaf.  It is simply a matter of interests.  Of course, everyone except the rich are worse off in the ways that matter (power), but that's a whole other debate, as you say.

Your neo-liberalism is simply the implementation of maximum privilege for the most concentrated elite possible.