Do you agree with cutting social security or medicare?

[Kuya]

I've heard for a while about how there's a push to cut social services because of the need to reduce the deficit. Apparently there is some fiscal responsability summit where Pete Peterson is involved. I can't help but note that with the bailouts and enormous military spending, what some are aiming to cut is social services, and to top it off, there is some irony in this summit, take this for example:

Peter Peterson has been the recipient of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars through the fund manager's tax break. This tax break, which is also known as the "carried interest tax deduction" allows managers of hedge and equity funds to pay tax on their earnings at the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, instead of having it taxed as normal income. As a result, Peterson paid a lower tax rate on much of his earnings than tens of millions of people working as school teachers, fire fighters, and other middle income jobs.

Peterson not only collected the money himself, he came to Washington in 2007 to lobby Congress when it debated ending the tax break. He apparently wanted to make sure that his friends would still be able to benefit from this tax break even after he had retired.

A milionaire who lobbied for tax cuts is talking about the need to reduce the defecit by cutting services that largely benefit the middle and lower class. Heh.

Anyway, what are your opinions, is the deficit that important right now? Are there other priorities? Do you think social security or medicare should be cut or do you think there are other places cuts can be made?

[Plow]

No, we should cut welfare programs!

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

As indicated in your post, the rich rarely pay taxes because of special interest lobbying, tax shelters, and teams of accountants hiding or writing off income. There should be a salary cap enforced on the top 5% of earners in this country with excess income being taxed 100%.

There should be an elite task force akin to the FBI or CIA whose sole purpose is to police these top earners outside of and in conjunction with the IRS. This task force should also have a corporations division that will police financial departments of the top 25% of earners of corporations in the same manner to ensure they are paying taxes properly.

Private business should be encouraged through a massive government effort and ad campaign, also through a federally funded non-profit that goes around to small business and preaches the benefits of remaining private and / or becoming co-ops.

The only programs that should be cut are programs that directly and indirectly subsidize for-profit corporations with a minimum of 250 employees.

The top two ideas should be maintained for 20 years and then voted on / restructured every 20 years to balance out the budget, or in times of extreme surplus / deficit.

I am not j/k. Not one single person on this forum would be negatively effected if this was implemented so I will enjoy the copious speculation of poor people giving rebuttals for the wealthy elite.

[Cadsuane]

No, and minus 20 marks for priming the survey

[Plow]

I am not j/k. Not one single person on this forum would be negatively effected if this was implemented so I will enjoy the copious speculation of poor people giving rebuttals for the wealthy elite.

I don't think you realize how well off some of the people around here are.

There's more than a couple that are able to spend endless hours doing nothing because they earned it.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

I don't think you realize how well off some of the people around here are.

There's more than a couple that are able to spend endless hours doing nothing because they earned it.

Not top 5% well off, nice try.

[Cadsuane]

As indicated in your post, the rich rarely pay taxes because of special interest lobbying, tax shelters, and teams of accountants hiding or writing off income. There should be a salary cap enforced on the top 5% of earners in this country with excess income being taxed 100%.

There should be an elite task force akin to the FBI or CIA whose sole purpose is to police these top earners outside of and in conjunction with the IRS. This task force should also have a corporations division that will police financial departments of the top 25% of earners of corporations in the same manner to ensure they are paying taxes properly.

Private business should be encouraged through a massive government effort and ad campaign, also through a federally funded non-profit that goes around to small business and preaches the benefits of remaining private and / or becoming co-ops.

The only programs that should be cut are programs that directly and indirectly subsidize for-profit corporations with a minimum of 250 employees.

The top two ideas should be maintained for 20 years and then voted on / restructured every 20 years to balance out the budget, or in times of extreme surplus / deficit.

I am not j/k. Not one single person on this forum would be negatively effected if this was implemented so I will enjoy the copious speculation of poor people giving rebuttals for the wealthy elite.

100% tax Disincentivizes high wage earners, same effect as capping wages since those wages above the cap would never be paid and that tax would never be collected, subsequently increases unemployment (maybe only negligibly, depends where the cap is set). Also of dubious fiscal benefit to the public to so heavily exploit a very small demographic, smells more like class warfare and vindication of the proletariat.

Other stuff, no opinion.

[Stumblingdrunk]

smells more like class warfare and vindication of the proletariat.

Other stuff, no opinion.

I don't understand why people want to tax the rich when killing them would accomplish much more.

[Kuya]

I would argue and agree with Marx's analysis that there is always class warfare. (not that i'm agreeing with what finesse is proposing).

[Plow]

Not top 5% well off, nice try.

ROFL... top 5% is not that high.

Numbers don't get crazy until top 1%.

I'm top 5% in value, and I'm nowhere close to some of these people.

My parents are top 2%.

[Kuya]

I am going to go ahead and quote some incendiary leftist article since that's what i wanted to do anyway:

http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy...ifice_open2010

This is the where the Village metaphor really hits home. Mrs. Greenspan and the rest of the Beltway insiders have all convinced themselves that their little village represents Real America. So when someone suggests that "entitlements" have to be cut for the common good, that seems like something that nobody should really squeal too much about since they don't know a single soul who will be even slightly inconvenienced by such a thing. S.S. is chump change to these people, not even really worth collecting (but just try to take it from them).

Now, repealing their tax breaks -- that's the kind of sacrifice no self-respecting Real American should ever stand for

These rich bastards are telling people who work hard their whole lives that they have to "sacrifice" their meager public pension to refill the Treasury that these same rich bastards have looted --- and which they continue to refuse to help replenish, despite the fact they are still swallowing fire hoses full of money. This, after the middle class in this country just suffered the biggest loss of wealth since the Great Depression as a result of these riverboat gamblers playing with the economy like it was their favorite Baccarat table in Monte Carlo. Chutzpah doesn't even begin to describe it. Sociopathy is more like it.

If they can't do the right thing, the least they could do is slither off into the darkness to count their winnings. Instead, these arrogant jerks are out there lecturing everyone about "sacrifice" while they buy off every government official in town to make sure they aren't among those who have to heed that call.

Sometimes a bath of rhetoric can be just the right thing.

[Cadsuane]

I am going to go ahead and quote some incendiary leftist article since that's what i wanted to do anyway:

Sometimes a bath of rhetoric can be just the right thing.

lol

[Plow]

Fuck, this is depressing, lol @ thinking top 5% is rare around here, I guarantee there's top 1% around at this point, anything over 200k is top 1.5%. I thought the top 2% was still higher than that lol.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

ROFL... top 5% is not that high.

Numbers don't get crazy until top 1%.

I'm top 5% in value, and I'm nowhere close to some of these people.

My parents are top 2%.

You're right I had my numbers weird, 5% is like upper middle class. It shouldn't be based off of a percent it should be a flat dollar cap including stock options and holdings.

[Kuya]

If we were to discuss what might reasonably happen, i think it's fair to say that there isn't going to be any military spending cuts, and that they might aim for social security because i doubt they would go after medicare, and yet because apparently a large amount of tea partiers seem to have/rely on social security/medicare, even that might be difficult. There would have to be some major deficit scaring campaign in order to cut social security, or at least, that's what i think.

[jmc]

I don't understand why people want to tax the rich when killing them would accomplish much more.

Because then some family member will get the money, and start the process all over again for years to come!

[Cadsuane]

You know what, fuck you guys, I'm sick of talking about everything through the lens of libhruls vs. cons Americana rhetorical horse shit.

Here:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...676634,00.html

Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit.

Greeks aren't very welcome in the Rue Alphones Weicker in Luxembourg. It's home to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. The number crunchers there are deeply annoyed with Athens. Investigative reports state that important data "cannot be confirmed" or has been requested but "not received."

Creative accounting took priority when it came to totting up government debt.Since 1999, the Maastricht rules threaten to slap hefty fines on euro member countries that exceed the budget deficit limit of three percent of gross domestic product. Total government debt mustn't exceed 60 percent.

I would bring up some shit from the diario de noticias too but alas, they don't translate to english.

Alright, go.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

If we were to discuss what might reasonably happen, i think it's fair to say that there isn't going to be any military spending cuts, and that they might aim for social security because i doubt they would go after medicare, and yet because apparently a large amount of tea partiers seem to have/rely on social security/medicare, even that might be difficult. There would have to be some major deficit scaring campaign in order to cut social security, or at least, that's what i think.

Bro, did you pay attention to what happened when Bush suggested, suggested putting Social Security into privately managed markets? People flipped shit. SSN is going nowhere, this bullshit is coming up conveniently enough to outrage people more than they are about the Goldman shit.

[Stumblingdrunk]

Because then some family member will get the money, and start the process all over again for years to come!

well duh, thats why you kill them too

[Kuya]

You know what, fuck you guys, I'm sick of talking about everything through the lens of libhruls vs. cons Americana rhetorical horse shit.

Here:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...676634,00.html



I would bring up some shit from the diario de noticias too but alas, they don't translate to english.

Alright, go.

I don't know what you want us to talk about here, because my instinct is to focus on Goldman and bitch about how well connected they are. And dangerous. In fact, i previously made a thread specifically to bitch about Goldman.