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- I don't understand why people think $16 trillion is so much for a nation to owe.
Americans owe FIFTY EIGHT trillion on credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and student debt, nearly quadruple the national debt, yet no one is suggesting we stop buying homes, cars, educations, or using credit cards. Nor should we. Doing those things would damage the economy, same as suddenly paying off the national debt with huge spending cuts.
Every payment is made on time, in fact, Treasury bills are one of the safest investments in the world. So I wish Mac the Forlorn would finally retire and let the living run the world. - Reply to this comment
- I would add slightly to Mr. McConnell's statement slightly, amending it only to say "Democrats [both in and out of the press]have a voracious appetite for more [federal]taxes. IMO any statement that involves our nation's chief party without always mentioning or factoring in the party's heavy hitter is to ignore the elephant in our living room and to short change the party's central player.
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- This is either a case of short memories or confusion over the word voracious.
True, the Social Security tax has now returned to pre-recession levels and it feels like a tax hike... but just take a step back and look at the big picture. The temporary tax break most important to middle class Americans has expired while the temporary tax break for the wealthiest Americans was made permanent. What exactly is voracious about that?
Lest you say that those earning over $400k got hit hard, let me remind you that they got a 20% temporary break (35 to 15)under Bush, then gave back 5% (15 to 20) in order to make it permanent... Not a bad 10 year run if you ask me. Tack on the 3.8% Obamacare tax for the wealthy, and increase the top marginal tax rate from 35% to 39.6% and those earning over $400k are still coming out ahead by locking in that permanent 20% rate on the passive income that they earn before they even get out of bed in the morning.
It's good to be the king. - Reply to this comment
- Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, wrote:
"Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects; first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or, more properly, to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and, secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign."
Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper 12:
"The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury."
So why isn't Sen. McConnell looking for other sources of revenue? What about the $600 trillion OTC derivatives market? and the $4 trillion-a-day foreign exchange derivative market? Swiss Bank's American operations conduct about $1 trillion-a-day in sales—why isn't that also considered a tax source?
A proportional rate tax on the movement of those moneys would certainly deal with the deficit issue. Is capitalism too offensive to McConnell? Are the values of our founders beyond the grasp of McConnell to understand? - Reply to this comment
- This position is utter nonsense. The "fiscal cliff" deal was not the last word on revenues - far from it, considering we are still short about $500 BILLION A YEAR from the historical average revenues. Clearly an expanding economy will help a great deal, and taxes should be kept as low AS POSSIBLE, but that doesn't mean we can (or should) rule more revenues off the table for a real solution to the deficit.
It makes more sense (although is still wrong) if you consider "tax expenditures" - meaning credits and deductions - as "spending". With more than $100 BILLION being spent every year on corporate welfare, and another $60B being added from the fiscal cliff deal, we can cut a lot of this spending - possibly all. The same is true for tax shelters and deductions on the wealthy - there is more there that needs to happen.
Of course we also have to significantly cut spending. Defense spending as well as other spending. And we need the "sequester cuts" to become real cuts, because that $110B per year needs to come out. While revenues are stil far below where they need to be (about 16% of GDP instead of 20%) spending is also far ABOVE where it needs to be (at 24% of GDP instead of about 20%). So Republicsns are right that we have to have major reductions in spending over time - but to say "no more revenues ever" is just conservative nonsense, and is only being pushed because Republicsns want to end Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and will never get their insane wishes if revenge back to normal. - Reply to this comment
- Unless McConnell has the balls to be blamed for entitlement cuts, then he can't really gripe about taxes going up.
Ifhe wasn't such a coward, a weak agreement needed have taken place andwe would be now a week into the "cliff" and could in a NON URGENT MANNER be discussing whether the taxation and cuts of the cliff are enoughor not enough AND rationally legislate from theposition ofthe cliff in place.
As it is the agreement essentially did nothing for the budget situation and NOTHING stimulative either. It was the biggest bipartisan agreement for the status quo I have ever seen.
I guess that's what we deserve. There was $6B spent on the Federal elections that did the same: Status Quo. - Reply to this comment
- I really do not have any respect for Mr. McConnell. He doesn't do anything until his hands are put to the fire, and even then it is a minimum. The Democrats do have an appetite for more taxes, as they should. There is every reason in the world to revise the tax codes, and we should do that, appetite or no appetite. It is rather obvious that no one holds the view that they are too strict or parsimonious. That's odd, isn't it in and of itself. Everybody knows that the tax codes benefit the wealthy and are long over due for revision. So what is this man talking about. He's in his own little Republican world, where their flat earth thinking reigns in everything from the economy to women.
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- Democrat's better keep a healthy appetite for taxes because all republican's want to do is cut programs for the poor but protect defense spending. So, if republican's want to cut some defense spending then something can be worked out if the don't then we need to stay with raising taxes. Keep in mind that McConnell is the same guy who main focus for 4 years was to make this Black President a one term President, McConnell failed and will continue to fail until he realizes that this Black President is a very, very smart man and is always looking out for the best interest of American's particularly the middle class.
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- McConell, Boehner and the rest of the TParty GOP are nothing more than stale old gas bags...go ahead and NOT pay the national debt when it's due... a day or two later, when the stock markets have taken a 3,000 point dump, the GOP will not only immediately pay the bills, but fall yet another step deeper into irrelevance.
By the way, the Tparty has been around a lot longer than most people believe...to learn the roots of these intollerant, bigoted, anti-government neo-nutballs, check out the movie 'Django' and you'll learn all about how the so-called movement began. - Reply to this comment
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