A 1% Spending Cut Is Six Times As Effective as the "Buffett Rule" - Polidicks

[QUOTE=thisispain;35551352]oh come on the National Review isn't even trying anymore.[/QUOTE] Since when did they try?

[QUOTE=Pace.;35551009]thats cause it sounds like buffet bro[/QUOTE] No it's because of Buffett-Einstein sandwiches, they are sandwiches that have a half on on each side of a wormhole, meaning you can have the same sandwich in two different times and places.

[QUOTE=Drsalvador;35553000]Couldn't he reduce military funding? I mean christ.[/QUOTE] Okay, so this is a totally fucking awesome robot thing that kills shit. It's costs $200 million for one. *next year* No, that's way out of date. We have this new military robot that costs $400 mil a pop

Nation Review, obviously Conservative, is missing the long picture here. The Buffett rule isn't about reducing national debt on it's own, it's about equalizing the wealth and enabling the lower/middle classes to spend money to get out of a recession. [QUOTE=MBB;35551162]So it's a pointless symbolic move, essentially punishing the rich. Whatever floats your boat man, but I'm pretty sure that a couple months ago you guys were all championing it as the solution to all our problems.[/QUOTE] "Punishing" the rich by making them pay their fair share. There's no reason why people making over $1 million a year should be paying less taxes than middle and lower income households. That's not progressive at all. For the record I hadn't even heard of the Buffet rule before today. No one on the left nor on Facepunch has extolled it as the "solution to all our problems". [QUOTE=MBB;35551224]Wow, just wow. I support progressive taxation, calm down. What I don't support is a meaningless increase in the capital gains rate that will only hurt investment.[/QUOTE] It will hurt investment? It was higher during the Clinton years when we had economic prosperity. [QUOTE=MBB;35551243]The poor don't even pay taxes, that's why I'm not fighting for lower taxes on them. 48% of Americans don't pay income taxes. I support keeping taxation the way it is for the upper and lower classes and then dropping the rate for the middle class. [editline]13th April 2012[/editline] The Buffet Rule is about capital gains though, which is the same rate for everyone. You're raising taxes on all investments, including the lower class' investments.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=MBB;35551243]The poor don't even pay taxes, that's why I'm not fighting for lower taxes on them. 48% of Americans don't pay income taxes. I support keeping taxation the way it is for the upper and lower classes and then dropping the rate for the middle class.[/QUOTE] The working poor don't pay federal income taxes but they pay on average higher FICA and sales tax than the rich. This "48% of Americans are freeloaders" crap coming from the far right was proven to be nothing but bullshit wordplay months ago please stop parroting it. [QUOTE=MBB;35551243]The Buffet Rule is about capital gains though, which is the same rate for everyone. You're raising taxes on all investments, including the lower class' investments. You seem to think that wealthy people pay less in taxes than the rest of people. This is false, the top income tax bracket is already at 38%. The Buffet Rule raises the capital gains tax rate, which applies to all investors, no matter how rich they are.[/QUOTE] Nope, it's only on investors who make $1 million a year. And most of these investors (81%) make their income from capital gains, not income taxes. [QUOTE=MBB;35551192]I don't understand why we need to punish investors any more than we already do. Ideally investments shouldn't even be taxed because they are already taxed when the money originally reaches the investor and to tax the returns would be taxing the same money twice.[/QUOTE] Haha we punish investors? How? With our significantly less market regulation? With less taxes? [editline]13th April 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Funcoot;35550961]You're not going to be able to put a dent in the deficit without raising taxes. You would have to cut nearly everything to reduce the deficit. That isn't to say cuts aren't beneficial. We're going through hard times, taxes are going to go up, and certain cuts need to be made. People need to stop fishing for excuses as to why we don't need to raise taxes on the upper tiers. I don't think they should be astronomical, but there is no reason for them to be as low as they are at times like this. Republicans are very guilty of being misleading on this subject. Even my economics professor who was an extreme conservative who wanted to impeach Obama says that if someone tells you they're going to reduce the national debt and cut taxes, they're a damned liar. And you can't reduce the national debt without eliminating the budget deficit.[/QUOTE] Exactly right. I'm glad someone here understands basic economics, because it sure ain't OP.

[QUOTE]In other words, asking every federal agency and department to get by with 99 percent of what it received last year would generate six times the savings of the Buffett Rule.[/QUOTE] This is [I]so[/I] much easier said than done. There's a reason why agencies and departments of government are hated so much, they are seemingly impossible to downsize or abolish. They are wasteful and are more loyal to themselves than the country or their political party. Heck a political science class I took even had an entire chapter/section on departments/agencies, and how difficult they are to deal with. The ironic part of this is the fact that that conservative site brought this up, when Bush made yet another (very criticized) department, the Department of Homeland Security, something even some guy on the same station as [I]Rush Limbaugh[/I] heavily criticized and had disdain for.

I don't see how higher gas prices is an overall problem. The raising prices is just something that shows how the US hasn't built up a working public transit system well enough. I feel sad for people relying on their car without a lot of money, but the US should make themselves less dependable on what's going on in the middle east.

[QUOTE=Funcoot;35550961]You're not going to be able to put a dent in the deficit without raising taxes. You would have to cut nearly everything to reduce the deficit. That isn't to say cuts aren't beneficial. We're going through hard times, taxes are going to go up, and certain cuts need to be made. People need to stop fishing for excuses as to why we don't need to raise taxes on the upper tiers. I don't think they should be astronomical, but there is no reason for them to be as low as they are at times like this. Republicans are very guilty of being misleading on this subject. Even my economics professor who was an extreme conservative who wanted to impeach Obama says that if someone tells you they're going to reduce the national debt and cut taxes, they're a damned liar. And you can't reduce the national debt without eliminating the budget deficit.[/QUOTE] The thing is that we need to increase federal spending in an economic recession. The government needs to get the people money so they can spend it. When that happens, the economy can pick up again. Austerity measures never work and have never worked. The government needs to ensure that people get jobs, then when the economy picks up again, the government can relax a bit.

[QUOTE=Earthen;35555019]The thing is that we need to increase federal spending in an economic recession. The government needs to get the people money so they can spend it. When that happens, the economy can pick up again. Austerity measures never work and have never worked. The government needs to ensure that people get jobs, then when the economy picks up again, the government can relax a bit.[/QUOTE] The problem is, stimulus packages cost money and they only shrink unemployment rates for a very short period of time. In addition, most jobs generated by the Federal government at times like these do not last more than a year, as funding is gradually withdrawn and cities run out of work. As much as some FP members would hate to admit it, our economy does depend on the success of the private sector. If the private sector is crumbling, things are going to go to shit, no matter what the government does. Am I saying the Federal government shouldn't create some jobs? No. I'm just saying we can't depend on the Federal government at the end of the day to give us a job. They should honestly spend more time fixing the market rather than creating federal jobs that won't be there a year from now, but that is just my opinion.