Us Budget Hits 2.3 Trillion...

[RawAlex]

Bush's version of the budget, 2.3 trillion, tax cuts all over..

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...et_30&printer=1

Most important, a budget deficit that will add $3500 per citizen in debt in the next 5 years.... you don't want to know what that is going to do to your tax bill in about 10 years...

Alex

[Mike AI]

Spending should be cut, especially for PORK! But cutting taxs is needed, not only will it help economy - but cutting taxs actually brings more money into gov't coffers.

[Buff]

We need more government programs with bigger budgets. There's no excuse for the federal budget to be a mere $2.3 trillion -- that means there's still too much wealth in the private sector.

I look forward to the day when we are all government employees with 30 days paid vacation per year, full dental and medical benefits, pensions, and no chance of being fired.

[ulfie]

Tax the shit out of the rich. MikeAI has a bigger house than I do, that's not fair. He has more cars than me, that's not fair either. Why should some dumb southern hick that made good business decisions be better off than I am? That's not America I tell you, he should be forced to donate all his money to people that don't produce anything. That would be fair!!

[cj]

Originally posted by ulfie@Feb 4 2003, 12:04 AM
Tax the shit out of the rich. MikeAI has a bigger house than I do, that's not fair. He has more cars than me, that's not fair either. Why should some dumb southern hick that made good business decisions be better off than I am? That's not America I tell you, he should be forced to donate all his money to people that don't produce anything. That would be fair!!

is this an example of a 'liberal'?

i'm slowly getting this american government system!!

[Peaches]

Originally posted by cj@Feb 4 2003, 01:23 AM
is this an example of a 'liberal'?

i'm slowly getting this american government system!!

Very good, cj! But it's even better when you add "bed wetting" to the liberal label - i.e. Bed Wetting Liberal

Then you would have someone that would give Michael's house to me and his cars to Ulfie......wait a minute.....maybe this Bed Wetting Liberal thing isn't such a bad thing after all!

[ulfie]

cj, why should Mike be successful when millions of Americans are struggling? It's just unfair. His wealth should be confiscated and given to needy people around the world. If we had less greedy bastards like him we could all be living in mud huts and everyone would be happy.

[Peaches]

Originally posted by ulfie@Feb 4 2003, 01:41 AM
If we had less greedy bastards like him

I'm pretty sure his parents were married when he was born

(I need to get to sleep - smartassness is failing....fast.......)

[RawAlex]

Ulfie's humor aside...

Seriously folks, cutting taxes and boosting government spending is a ticking time bomb... all of this forecasting INCLUDES the apparent benefit of cutting taxes.

It isn't to tax Mike more - it is to find a way to make the government spend less!

Canada's budget is balanced, come on now, you claim we aren't as advanced as you are...

Alex

[Diamond Jim]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 4 2003, 01:02 AM
Ulfie's humor aside...

Seriously folks, cutting taxes and boosting government spending is a ticking time bomb... all of this forecasting INCLUDES the apparent benefit of cutting taxes.

It isn't to tax Mike more - it is to find a way to make the government spend less!

Canada's budget is balanced, come on now, you claim we aren't as advanced as you are...

Alex

That's because Canada's budget is about $1.75 U.S.

[PornoDoggy]

Even though hundreds of other government programs would be squeezed, the president projects the deficit will still hit record highs of $304 billion this year and $307 billion in 2004. Over the next five years, deficits would total $1.08 trillion.

Yep ... this is what you get when you replace "tax and spend" Democrats with "don't tax and spend anyway" Republicans.

[RawAlex]

Originally posted by PornoDoggy@Feb 4 2003, 01:57 AM

Yep ... this is what you get when you replace "tax and spend" Democrats with "don't tax and spend anyway" Republicans.

... which leads to the false impression of "tax and spend democrats" because they have to tax people higher later to pay for the republican programs today.

it is a nasty bit of finger pointing, in the end...

Anyway, can you say "1 term president?" I knew you could...

[JR]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 3 2003, 10:02 PM
Ulfie's humor aside...

Seriously folks, cutting taxes and boosting government spending is a ticking time bomb... all of this forecasting INCLUDES the apparent benefit of cutting taxes.

It isn't to tax Mike more - it is to find a way to make the government spend less!

these are the largest flaws in the system in my opinion.

no one is directly accountable for government spending.
there is no incentive to increase effeciency in government.

these are the reasons i support a flat tax. it would force to degree of
effeciency and equality into the system.

but probably cant happen since it would strip the Democrats of their
single greatest weapon... "class warfare"

[Buff]

Of course, we could always go back to having the Congress abide by the Constitution. And while we're at it, maybe we can have the President and the Supreme Court abide by it too. I guess that's too much to ask, though.

I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers envisioned: a bloated federal government which employs more people than any other entity in the world.

[RawAlex]

Originally posted by Buff@Feb 4 2003, 02:34 AM
I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers envisioned: a bloated federal government which employs more people than any other entity in the world.

Which is hundreds of times worse than welfare, in my opinion, because they are overpaid, and for the most part only get in the way - creating more expense, and limiting productivity.

Alex

[JR]

Originally posted by Buff@Feb 3 2003, 11:34 PM

I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers envisioned: a bloated federal government which employs more people than any other entity in the world.

this is what i mean. the US government did not start out like that... but it is in fact a system that is destined to evolve in that direction due to the nature of its design. there are no constraints.

i have not looked at the issue very closely, but it seems on the surface that if there was a flat tax system, there would be no more incentive to look at new sneaky places to impose new and seemingly inconspicuous taxes that having a habit of continuing to increase and compound over time while developing a spending system that is dependent on those taxes making it impossible to reduce them.

Our tax codes are larger in volume that the entire civil, criminal AND tax laws of most countries other countries in the world.

i personally have nothing against taxes. i think that the current tax system offers plenty of means to minimize tax liability for those who are inclined to do so. but it freaks me out a little to know that there are so little controls on taxes and how money is spent and used or that money is well managed and spent wisely... all while creating a larger and increasingly inefficiencient government .

Bill Gates remarked in Business @ the Speed of Thought that the federal rules on hiring and firing of government employees is more than 2000 pounds of paper.

i am not found of blindly funding others ingorance and inefficiency. i always thought it a bit ironic that a government bent on embracing free markets and capitalism knowing that competition promotes better prices, service and quality is the same government that cant do enough to be wasteful.

[Almighty Colin]

I think tax cuts are not the best idea right now. While economic incentive tax cuts can work, I would think they don't work all the time. Philosophical points about what is fair or not aside for a moment, I think supply-side economics works under some conditions and not under others. If we knew when and how, well, someone would have a Nobel for that.

One cannot budget the current budget with a supply side approach. One can only balance the future budget that way. That may or may not work. We guess. We don't know.

Blaming or crediting one party or another for a budget that is in the red or black makes no sense. It's completely futile. No one ever wins those debates because there is no one clear responsible party. Give credit to the president or congress? Place blame on the president or congress?

Take 1999 for example. Democrats say "Look, our president balanced the budget!". Republicans say "Look, our congressmen passed a balanced budget!". What really happened? Republicans wanted a 1% cut in the budget. Clinton wanted less. They settled on a .38% cut. Now, who to credit? How about both?! Congress and the president acted at the same time to provide a balanced budget. For once.

Now, I think one could blame the Republicans for the current budget. There are no Democrats to blame. To me, it makes sense to balance the budget now and not later. Of course, supply side tax cuts might work too but by the time they would ripple through the economy no one would know for sure that is what happened.

Thre are so many variables that determine the course of a large-scale economy. These debates will never end because of that.

[Peaches]

From Boortz:

ECONOMIC IDIOCY
Oh boy, aren’t the Democrats having just a wonderful time slamming Bush’s budget and his tax cut proposals. Yeah, I know .. I have problems with Bush’s budget too. The difference is, I’m honest about it. The Democrats aren’t. And there’s another difference: I want the economy to improve. The Democrats don’t; at least not until after the 2004 elections. To Democrats economic recovery and jobs for the jobless can damn well wait until they route the evil Republicans from those House and Senate seats that rightfully belong to Democrats .. not to mention the White House.

Anyway … back to the Democrats. They’re lying about the proposed Bush budget … and they’re getting away with it.

There are two principal areas where the Democrats are playing fast and loose with the truth. One is on the impact of the Bush tax cuts on the American economy and government revenues, and the other is on the size of the deficit.

Before we get into the details, let it be said that politicians couldn’t get away with their lies and half-truths about the effects of tax cuts and deficits if it were not for the fact that most Americans are economic imbeciles. Dare we blame this on our wonderful system of government education? How do you expect someone who can’t read a simple apartment lease or balance a checkbook to understand the most basic of economic principles?

We’ve talked about the effect of tax cuts before. Simply stated, every time there is a major tax cut revenues to the government increase. The reason is simple. When the profit from a certain activity increases, people have a tendency to increase that activity. If a taxpayer’s profit for each hour of work increases that taxpayer will be encouraged to work more hours. If the profits realized from a certain business activity increase, look for that business activity to increase. As the work hours and business activities increase not only do the profits from those activities increase, but so, too, does the total amount of taxes paid! Look, this is all so simple that almost any government high school graduate should be able to grasp it.

Secondly, the size of the deficit. To hear the Democrats describe it, the projected deficit under the Bush Budget is the biggest, most devastating deficit in the history of this country. This morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution is referring to the Bush deficit as a “record.” The truth is, it just ain’t so.

Consider your own family budget. Let’s say that your monthly bills exceed your monthly income by $200. You’re running a $200 per month deficit. That amounts to $2,400 a year. Now that’s pretty serious, isn’t it?

The truth is you can’t judge the seriousness of the situation until you have more figures. The best way to judge the seriousness of this deficit is to find out just how big it is in terms of a percentage of your total monthly or annual spending. If your entire budget is $1,000 a month or $12,000 a year, then you have a bit of a problem. Your deficit is $2,400 a year, or 20% of your budget. Not good. But what if your monthly budget is, say, $7,400, or $88,800 a year. Now your $200 deficit would amount, in percentage terms, to a deficit of 2.7% of your monthly or annual. That doesn’t sound quite as bad, does it? That, my friends, in terms of percentage, is the very deficit that is projected in the Bush budget.

Now --- is this deficit a bank buster? Is this an all-time high? Hardly. Here’s a handy little chart for you. It shows the year, the amount of the budget deficit, and the percentage of the total budget represented by that deficit.

Year Amount of Deficit Percentage of Total Federal Budget
2004 $307 Billion 2.7%
1992 $290 Billion 4.7%
1983 $207 Billion 6.0%

Do you see what I see? The proposed Bush deficit that the Democrats are describing as “huge” is actually about one-half of the deficit of the 1990’s and less than one-half the deficit of the ‘80’s. Where’s the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s elusive “record” deficit? Try 1983!

Now … we wiped out that 1992 deficit not with tax increases but with the incredible technology dot com economic expansion. We killed off a 4.7% deficit. How hard can it be to eliminate a 2.7% deficit with a little economic expansion?

Yes, I have problems with the Bush budget. It’s way too large. It’s just sad that such vast numbers of Americans are so ignorant of basic economic principles and history that they can’t understand that tax cuts increase economic activity and tax revenues, and that the true measure of a deficit is in its percentage of the total budget.

[Torone]

Originally posted by Diamond Jim+Feb 4 2003, 01:17 AM-->