archer wrote:
PrintSmith wrote: You say you understand the numbers because you are an accountant but I see no logical thread that runs through your comments here.
You don't see the logical thread because you won't actually read what I post.....you already have decided you know what I am saying, and you don't. I am all for a balanced budget....I have posted that over, and over, and over again......but no one really reads it. We need to balance the budget first, then work on paying down the debt.....if we are serious about paying down the national debt AND balancing our budget we need to use all the tools at our disposal.....both to cut spending and to increase revenue. What we do in the short term, to kick start the process, is not necessarily what we will do long term to keep from over spending and to keep our debt under control.
So what are you proposing here, how much of the national yearly production should we be confiscating for use by the wannabe national government? Balancing the budget first means trimming/raising an additional 33% to the amount of the current revenue. We can't simply slow down the percentage by which the spending increases every year, we have to actually reduce the amount of money that is spent from year to year by this wannabe national government to have any chance at all of bringing the budget into something resembling balance before our great great grandchildren reach our age.
Obama wanted $3.8 Trillion for 2012 (on revenues of $2.1 Trillion), and projects a federal budget of $5.6 Trillion for 2021 ten years from now, a nearly 50% increase in the federal budget in a decade. In order for that figure to be even 20% of the yearly national production, an amount I consider obscene, would require the nation's economy to be $28 Trillion dollars a year, double what it is right now. I think a snowball stands a better chance of surviving hell than the economy does of doubling in value in the next decade, how about you?
Think $400 Billion a year in spending reductions is even going to make a dent in that? It's actually less than $400 Billion a year average because our illustrious chief executive has, for some reason, started using a dozen years instead of a decade. What is the value of the punishment that Obama keeps insisting on from the richest 2% of the nation that have hundreds of thousands, if not millions and billions, of dollars he has determined they don't need? For the sake of the discussion I'm willing to give him credit for every dollar that he attributes being lost to the current tax rate even though we both know that if he gets his wish the result will be somewhere around 60% to 75% of that number since raising the tax will result in people changing their behavior to avoid paying the tax. What is it archer, $90 Billion or so a year that Obama contend is lost by keeping the tax rates as they are on the wealthiest 2%? We'll add in his $3 Billion lost to accelerated depreciation for private jets, that gets us to $93 Billion. Big oil tax "loopholes"? Another $4 Billion, so we're up to $97 Billion. That is less than 10% of the $1500 Billion annual deficit. How many other taxes do you want to raise and by how much archer? Think you can come up with an additional $1400 Billion in revenue without destroying any hope of changing our current economic condition?
From 1889 to 2009 the US economy grew at an average rate of 3.4%. You're the accountant archer, tell me what, under the best of circumstances, we could expect our national GDP to be in 2021 given a starting point of $14 Trillion. It isn't anywhere near $28 Trillion, I can guarantee you that. Figure it again for the latest 20 year average of 2.5%, and once more for the last 10 year average of 1.7%. Next figure out the percentage of those numbers represented by a wannabe national government budget of $5.6 Trillion dollars.
Using the 1.7% rate we come up with an annual economy of $16.57 Trillion dollars in 2021, which a $5.6 Trillion wannabe national government budget comes out being 33.8% of. Over one dollar in every three to support a wannabe national government. Not all local, state and federal governments, only the wannabe national one.
archer wrote: The Republicans want to use a hatchet on our spending....right now....without any thought to the repercussions. They don't seem to care if what they are doing is good or bad for the economy, they just want to make a good showing for the Tea Party and will worry about consequences later.
I disagree - they worry about what the consequences will be if we don't do it now. Continuing to fail to address the problem in the 30 years since Reagan has only made the situation worse, and will continue to make it far worse in the future than it is right now.
archer wrote: Right now I would like to see our congress cut what spending they can, those things they know....the economists know, will not topple our fragile economy..raise the debt ceiling so we don't end up paying higher interest on our debt than we already do... and increase our taxes in some areas, yes the wealthiest 1%, yes close corporate loopholes, yes the capitol gains tax should go up.....and yes, the ceiling for SS should be raised. Long term, we need to redo our tax code.......and restructure our entitlement programs.....we also need to actually HAVE a budget....if ya ain't got a budget how do you know how much you can spend?
The Republican idea that we can fix our problems right now is incredibly stupid. We need a plan, and that plan can't be crafted in a week, or a month, or probably a year......the Democrats idea that this will fix itself is also incredibly stupid, do nothing and it only gets worse. Unless, and until, the two parties decide that we have a national crisis that requires them to work together on a comprehensive plan, we are going down, fast. It's kinda like going to war in Iraq without a plan to win the war, without a plan to pay for the war, without any idea what we are getting into. It was disastrous in war......the same mentality will be disastrous for our nations economy and it's people.
The Republicans are not even close to suggesting we fix it right now, this very instant. There is not a single proposal out there from the Republicans that suggests we trim $1.5 Trillion from the current budget for 2012. Cut, Cap and Balance is not a proposal to fix the problem "right now". Your assertion to the contrary is nothing more, and nothing less, than more demagogic diarrhea. The Republicans are insisting we
start fixing the current spending problem the wannabe national government has now rather than wait until the end of Obama's hoped for second term to start addressing it. The current problem is not revenue driven, it is spending driven. We can't hope to begin to raise the national tax burden an additional 50% to 100% to fix the problem, the actual amount that the federal government spends has to decrease, not increase, for the next few years. We can't go another 2 years racking up $1.5+ Trillion in deficit spending, it simply can't happen. We can't go another 2 years racking up $1 Trillion dollar deficits either. We might not be able to go another 2 years racking up $500 Billion a year deficits. Give Obama every tax increase he is seeking and we are talking about what, maybe $150 Billion a year? Add in the $400 Billion a year represented by his "record (or was it historic?) level of spending cuts" and we're down to
only a $1 Trillion annual deficit. You think that has any chance of saving our national credit rating? I don't.
We need more than a budget archer, we need a maximum percentage of the national production to which the wannabe national government is going to have access to, we have to take away the power it has consolidated into itself over the last 100 years. Obama wants 25%, that is simply ridiculous, but it is where we are currently at. Let's have the economists consult their ouija boards and come up with the projected economy for 2012 and limit the wanna be national government to 23% of that, 21% the next year, 19% the following year, 17% for 3 or 4 years after that, 15% for a couple more and finally 13% where it stays as the maximum percentage of national production the wannabe national government can collect from the national production unless Congress actually issues a declaration of war. That gives the wannabe national government plenty of time to wean itself off of deficit spending and to figure out how to cut their budget to stay within their allotted percentage. If they want/need more, they go to the people and ask for it, with a 75% affirmative vote of the states necessary before they can exceed it. A decade from now their spending will be chained to a maximum percentage of the national production. That is all they will get, not one Roosevelt dime more. Then we can start applying the excess money the current taxes collect in excess of what the wannabe national government is allowed to spend and start paying down the principle amount on the debt. When that gets paid off a century from now the taxes collected in excess of this percentage are returned to the people and the tax rates lowered such that any future collection excesses are kept to a bare minimum.
Not a balanced budget amendment, an amendment that limits the take of the federal government to a maximum percentage of the national output. Limit the power, limit the reach, by limiting the budget to a set percentage of the national production. We've been far too long living under a government that believes there are no limits to its authority or power and it is high time we remind them that we, not they, are the ones with the limitless amount of authority and power. We remind them of that by taking their power away from them. The executive, legislative and judicial branches of this wannabe national government have proven over the last 100 years that they will continue to consolidate all powers of governance unto themselves if we let them. These branches of government, all 3 of them, have proven that they are more interested in accumulating power than in attending to their primary task of protecting the general welfare of the states that belong to the union. Having proven that to us already by their actions it is time for us to remind them, at the ballot box, that all power of governance rests with us, not them. We retain the absolute right to alter or abolish this government, and they have clearly shown that we need to exercise our right to alter it. If there was any doubt remaining, the current circus show should have removed it entirely.
