Why scaring grandma won't work

LadyJazzer wrote: Since I reject your bullsh*t "wannabe national government" and "confiscate"... Have a nice day.

:rofl rofllol Run run away when you hav no defense or answer rofllol !! I love it!

Negotiations are going well. Watch Obama leave his last meeting!

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She wouldn't answer the question regardless of the way it is worded Viking, neither will any of the other self labeled progressives in the forum. Include an out for times of declared war, national emergency and every other loophole and they still wouldn't answer it.

All I know is that the problems we have had for the entirely of my life in this regard will continue unabated unless and until we actually force them to live within a certain allowance of the national production and require a dedicated tax be levied on every citizen to pay for any amount in excess of that percentage. That's the only way we can prevent the government located in DC from continuing to gorge itself on the fruits of the labor of the citizens of the states that belong to the union. The spending addiction of the consolidationists in DC is completely out of control and needs to have some measure of outside restraint imposed upon it because, just like any other addiction, the only time an addiction is addressed is after the addicted hits rock bottom.

I think we should be somewhere in the range of 15% to 20% with some variation allowed for some of the loopholes you mentioned. One thing to consider is that as technology and trade grow, infrastructure has to grow with it unless we want to start ceding control of our highways, bridges, and any other infrastructure that is common. This might cause this ratio to change somewhat.

15% is the absolute maximum I would think should be permitted for "normal" periods of time and I would prefer to see it capped at 13%. Right now times are not "normal" and the loopholes would likely come into play to a certain extent, but 25%? The government has historically realized revenues of between 16% and 17% since the end of WWII regardless of tax rates, regardless of economic conditions. In order to have a chance at paying back some of the principle amount of the debt, the cap on annual expenditures by the government in DC would have to be below this historical number, which is where I come up with the 13% figure. Under small national emergencies, such as that left in the wake of Katrina, there would be enough of a buffer between spending and revenue to address the emergency without actually adding to the debt. The payment of principle would be less, but we would still be filling the hole in instead of digging it deeper. Your proposed levels keeps us perpetually walking a tightrope between revenue and spending, which is why I think it is too high even at the lowest level you indicated. We take the next dozen years to wean the government in DC down to that level, reducing their maximum 1% a year over that period, so that they, and we, have a little time to plan for the change, but knowing that the limit was coming down over that period would be enough to remove the current uncertainty that is stagnating the national economy. It might even stimulate the expansion enough that Obama's presumption of 5% annual growth, currently nothing more than a pipe dream, has a chance of making him look like a seer instead of a fool.

How do you propose trimming federal spending to these levels? Cutting Social Security doesn't fly - it doesn't add to the federal deficit.

Social Security is on a path to only being able to pay 75% of current benefits regardless of whether or not it is adding to the deficit currently TM. And that statement isn't really true given that the "trust fund" that Social Security is currently drawing from to meet its obligations contains nothing more than notes issued by the Dept of Treasury, which the federal government has to borrow money in order to redeem at this point. You did see the news items a few months back that told all of us that Social Security was now paying out more than it was taking in, right? You also noted that it was a full 7 years in advance of when the "experts" predicted that would happen?

Social Security, in my lifetime mind you, has doubled both the tax rates and the amount of income subject to the privilege to be employed/have employee taxes that, in theory, are supposed to fund the program. Shall we double both yet again to ensure that the benefits don't have to be reduced to 75% of the current version of the promise the federal government can't keep? No matter how you slice it, the program will perpetually remain a money pit because FDR bottomed it on a foundation built for political profit and nothing else. No fiscally sane person who hoped to have a perpetual fund to provide what it is supposed to provide would set it up as both a defined benefit program and concurrently a pay as you go program. Look at the defined benefit pension programs out there - all of them, public and private. There is not a single one of them that is fully funded, they are all facing future unfunded liabilities - including Social Security which has a future unfunded liability north of $15 Trillion and a phantom trust fund that is supposed to be worth a little in excess of $2 Trillion.

Social Security may not, at least via the government's own accounting rules, be adding to the deficit at this point, but neither is it fiscally on sound ground. Despite a 12.4% tax on the first $105K each and every citizen in each and every state earns each and every year, plus an administration fee taken out of the general fund to the tune of $10 Billion a year, the program is incapable of keeping the (false) promises made to the people who paid into that fund for the 40+ years they were part of the workforce. Each and every person who is currently receiving benefits and each and every person who is currently paying the privilege taxes would have been much better off devoting that money to purchasing an annuity payable when they turn 65 years of age than they were to hand that money over to the wannabe national government. Even taking all the money collected from the tax and dividing it equally among all those who paid taxes to purchase that annuity in their name would have ensured them a much greater amount of security in their post working years than the current program does.

But of course the can of problems has been kicked down the road until we have reached the point where the Boomers are starting to retire and the number of retirees will result in a 2 taxpayer to one beneficiary ratio instead of fixing the problems when the ratio was closer to 7:1 as the Boomers were entering the workforce. IMNTBHO, those who are currently retired, as well as all of the Boomers, should only be getting 75% of the promised benefits starting right now as a penalty for not fixing it when they had the opportunity to do so. Penalizing their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren with higher tax rates and higher amounts of income subject to the tax for their own oversight and laziness seems somehow immoral to me, how about you?

As to the rest of it, where the spending should be cut that isn't related to programs funded by their own privilege to be employed/have employee taxes is the rest of the social welfare programs the federal government should never have gotten themselves involved in to begin with. The individual welfare of the citizens living in the states that belong to the union are the problem of the state in which they are citizens, not all of the citizens of all of the states that belong to the union. It is precisely this overreach in an attempt to become a national government instead of a federal one that has burdened all of the citizens in all of the states with a $14 Trillion and counting public debt that they are responsible for. That does mean that the citizens of Colorado will have to step up to provide for their fellow Colorado citizens when the federal subsidies end, but I think each state is more capable of tailoring to the needs of their own citizens who are in need than a one size fits all national program is.

That's the plan TM - a return to coordinate powers of government envisioned when the Constitution was proposed and ratified by the citizens of the free and independent states that wanted to form a more perfect union amongst themselves for the benefit of themselves and their posterity. Consolidating all governance into a single entity has always been, and remains, a very bad idea - which is why this nation was established and organized according to a brand new concept of self governance - coordinate governments that were each responsible for a limited amount of governance instead of a single government responsible for all of it. The further we travel from that initial revolutionary vision, the further the nation sinks into the exact same corruption that inevitably results when power is consolidated into a single entity. Monopolies are always a bad idea TM, especially a monopoly of a single government.

I'm PrintSmith, and I approved this ad... (and all the tiresome rhetoric in it...)

Anyone want to go in with me on a fund to send PrintSmith back to school to learn how to summarize?

But it gave him another opportunity to use "wannabe national government" in a sentence!