Fuck its silent in here.......

[Gilgamesh]

The title of the piece says it all.  There is so much RIGHT in here I don't know where to begin.  I'll try, though:

There are many people who say "Tax the Rich!" as if it's some sort of mantra.  But the top 1% of households (which earn $300k and up) is roughly 1.5 million households.  If we taxed all of their income (that is, a 100% tax rate) we couldn't close the budget deficit.  But we wouldn't collect any of the money either if we did that, because nobody works for free - you'd have a lot of people earning $299,000 and then going home.  What's worse is that the extra income they wouldn't earn also wouldn't get spent.  When tax rates change so does behavior.
...
We cannot fix the problems we have in this country with our federal budget without addressing entitlements.  It doesn't matter if people want to ignore entitlements or not - they must be addressed in order to balance the budget, and we must move away from people sucking on Federal transfer payments.

This isn't optional folks.  We have made promises we cannot keep.  They're mathematically-impossible to keep, irrespective of what we want to do.  We are left with accepting this and making the necessary adjustments or having them imposed upon us by the market in a disorderly fashion.

The entire scam currently defined as "health insurance" must cease and be prosecuted as the felony it should be.

So - single payer then?

Also, has anyone proposed taxing 100% of someone's income? Nice work taking down that strawman, Karl.

I don't think anyone has suggested that deficits can be closed solely by taxing the wealthy. If they have, they're dumb. But dismissing any sort of tax increase with a wave of the hand strikes me as equally dumb.

I think some kind of tax increase is coming, whether it's on consumption or some kind vice, but the main thrust of the article is right.  At no point in this country's history, even when the rates were as high as 70%, did revenue exceed 25%.  There is going to have to be some kind of grand bargain made to close the budget deficit, absent a strong external factor.

[morpheus]

The title of the piece says it all.  There is so much RIGHT stuff that coincides with my own views in here I don't know where to begin.  I'll try, though:

OK'd.

My views = simple math.  Do you have an actual counterargument, with, like, numbers?  Some scenario in which interest expense doesn't double, or entitlement spending doesn't grow to even more ridiculous size, or some way that you can tax more than 100% of someone's income?  Or are you just stickpoking me?  (I guess these are not mutually exclusive.)

[Quality Start Machine]

The title of the piece says it all.  There is so much RIGHT in here I don't know where to begin.  I'll try, though:

There are many people who say "Tax the Rich!" as if it's some sort of mantra.  But the top 1% of households (which earn $300k and up) is roughly 1.5 million households.  If we taxed all of their income (that is, a 100% tax rate) we couldn't close the budget deficit.  But we wouldn't collect any of the money either if we did that, because nobody works for free - you'd have a lot of people earning $299,000 and then going home.  What's worse is that the extra income they wouldn't earn also wouldn't get spent.  When tax rates change so does behavior.
...
We cannot fix the problems we have in this country with our federal budget without addressing entitlements.  It doesn't matter if people want to ignore entitlements or not - they must be addressed in order to balance the budget, and we must move away from people sucking on Federal transfer payments.

This isn't optional folks.  We have made promises we cannot keep.  They're mathematically-impossible to keep, irrespective of what we want to do.  We are left with accepting this and making the necessary adjustments or having them imposed upon us by the market in a disorderly fashion.

The entire scam currently defined as "health insurance" must cease and be prosecuted as the felony it should be.

So - single payer then?

Also, has anyone proposed taxing 100% of someone's income? Nice work taking down that strawman, Karl.

I don't think anyone has suggested that deficits can be closed solely by taxing the wealthy. If they have, they're dumb. But dismissing any sort of tax increase with a wave of the hand strikes me as equally dumb.

I think some kind of tax increase is coming, whether it's on consumption or some kind vice, but the main thrust of the article is right.  At no point in this country's history, even when the rates were as high as 70%, did revenue exceed 25%.  There is going to have to be some kind of grand bargain made to close the budget deficit, absent a strong external factor.

Imagine if they cut off tax exempt status to politically active religious organizations or cut off Federal subsidies to people or individuals who rechannel it into political organizations?

We'd all be farting through silk.

[morpheus]

The title of the piece says it all.  There is so much RIGHT in here I don't know where to begin.  I'll try, though:

There are many people who say "Tax the Rich!" as if it's some sort of mantra.  But the top 1% of households (which earn $300k and up) is roughly 1.5 million households.  If we taxed all of their income (that is, a 100% tax rate) we couldn't close the budget deficit.  But we wouldn't collect any of the money either if we did that, because nobody works for free - you'd have a lot of people earning $299,000 and then going home.  What's worse is that the extra income they wouldn't earn also wouldn't get spent.  When tax rates change so does behavior.
...
We cannot fix the problems we have in this country with our federal budget without addressing entitlements.  It doesn't matter if people want to ignore entitlements or not - they must be addressed in order to balance the budget, and we must move away from people sucking on Federal transfer payments.

This isn't optional folks.  We have made promises we cannot keep.  They're mathematically-impossible to keep, irrespective of what we want to do.  We are left with accepting this and making the necessary adjustments or having them imposed upon us by the market in a disorderly fashion.

The entire scam currently defined as "health insurance" must cease and be prosecuted as the felony it should be.

So - single payer then?

Also, has anyone proposed taxing 100% of someone's income? Nice work taking down that strawman, Karl.

I don't think anyone has suggested that deficits can be closed solely by taxing the wealthy. If they have, they're dumb. But dismissing any sort of tax increase with a wave of the hand strikes me as equally dumb.

I think some kind of tax increase is coming, whether it's on consumption or some kind vice, but the main thrust of the article is right.  At no point in this country's history, even when the rates were as high as 70%, did revenue exceed 25%.  There is going to have to be some kind of grand bargain made to close the budget deficit, absent a strong external factor.

Gil makes a very good point - that tax revenues higher than 25% of GDP just aren't going to happen.  My main point, and the article's main point, is that spending is *the* problem that needs to be addressed.  Piddling with tax policy is not going to solve anything (unless we're suggesting growing GDP through a flatter, less-loopholed, clearer income tax so that tax revenue can grow without increasing its bite size out of GDP).  Spending has to come down.

[Eli]

Or are you just stickpoking me?  (I guess these are not mutually exclusive.)

I don't do much else nowadays.

[morpheus]

Or are you just stickpoking me?  (I guess these are not mutually exclusive.)

I don't do much else nowadays.

You got me. 

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Fucking assholes.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Spending has to come down.

Sure. Who's gonna vote for that?  No one, not even Tea Partiers.

In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was "unacceptable'' to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security "unacceptable."

[Gilgamesh]

Spending has to come down.

Sure. Who's gonna vote for that?  No one, not even Tea Partiers.

In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was "unacceptable'' to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security "unacceptable."

If only Social Security were this nation's most pressing fiscal problem...

[flannj]

Fucking assholes.

`

That made me sick to my stomach.

[Bort]

Fucking assholes.

`

That made me sick to my stomach.

Horrifying.

[Internet Apex]

Fucking assholes.

`

That made me sick to my stomach.

Horrifying.

What a bunch of Chads.

[Gilgamesh]

Fucking assholes.

`

That made me sick to my stomach.

Horrifying.

What a bunch of Chads.

God bless America.

[morpheus]

Spending has to come down.

Sure. Who's gonna vote for that?  No one, not even Tea Partiers.

In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was "unacceptable'' to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security "unacceptable."

Sooner or later we're just going to have to elect people who want to serve, I guess. 

[morpheus]

Spending has to come down.

Sure. Who's gonna vote for that?  No one, not even Tea Partiers.

In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was "unacceptable'' to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security "unacceptable."

Sooner or later we're just going to have to elect people who want to serve, I guess. 

DPD.  I think this quote that is sometimes attributed to Alexander Tytler seems relevant.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.