Pang, why don't you believe me that the Tea in Tea Party is not an acronym? :p

I thought it stood for Taxed Enough Already?

although I expect it went down like this:
Billionaire: "we must find a name for this movement which will invoke images of casting away the shackles of a massive tyrannical government... like the Boston Tea Party"
MultiMillionaire: "how about the Tea Party?"
Billionaire: "a little on the nose, isn't it? Although it was about taxes..."
MultiMillionaire: "fluff, I'm taxed enough already"
*lightbulb*

meanwhile, in the Misty Mountains:
Karl Rove: "precious... precious..."

liiiiightbulb

lol Pang

increase taxes on the middle class

o.0

If we dramatically increase the taxes on the poor they'll be incentivized to stop being poor. Problems solved.

I'm not even going to read the previous comments and just offer the easy solutions:
1) Free trade agreements.
2) Overhaul tax system and eliminate some write-offs, but use the money in short run for a payroll tax cut for two years for new hires.
3) Open natural resource treasure troves (yes, drilling as previously mentioned).

...by killing the rich and taking what 'belonged' to the rich.

Trumper, free trade agreements do not work because we have too much Gov. regulation. Think, just in shipping alone all the extra cost we have of our drivers having to keep loggs, all the safety and emissions standards we have to meet? In other countries they do not have any of this crap. It makes it cost huge amounts more to ship anything here in the US. The same type of regulation follows suit for all the other industrys in America. I do believe our workers are as productive or more than anywhere else, but how can they compete with all these added on costs our government gives them? Thats why Free Trade agreements really mean LARGER TRADE DEFICITS.

... free trade agreements don't work for america because America doesn't have a manufacturing-based economy anymore and needs its natural resources for itself... so what are you going to export? That doesn't necessarily disagree with deerhunter's point, but I don't think government regulation is the issue.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I've seen it is that when the US signs onto a free trade agreement, it's about opening up markets for US companies to go in and work in that country and for the easier import of goods into the US. Since labour is way cheaper in those markets, the manufacturing jobs go there and Americans are able to end up with cheaper products on their shelves. This spurs growth through consumption, which is obviously not sustainable.

So long as the US remains a consumer-focused economy with a growing class divide, free trade agreements are just going to keep making that divide grow. The two areas where the US is still ahead of most of the world is information technology -- despite all those outsourcing worries of the early 2000s -- and military technology. Once the information technology advantage is gone, the house of cards will continue to collapse. That leaves them with a great military but not a lot else... I think that's the same kind of situation that happened with Japan in the 1930's.

Anyway, the way to fix the economy is simple: actually have a government that works and can think long term, rather than nearly paralyzing the country/economy over every piece of legislation that may or may not make it to the house/senate floor. The American political system, while great in the 18th century and advantageous through the 19th and to some degrees the 20th century, is not suited to the fast-paced world of today.

It's a corrupt system which tries to sell itself as representative of the people. It's been watered down by special interests, lobbyists and fear mongers over the last 50-60 years, making your tax, economic and social policies look like a package of swiss cheese. No one wants to govern, just maintain power. That's no way to run a country, let alone "the best country on earth".

DH, transportation and environmental regulation in the US pales in comparison to Europe and the Pacific rim. Allowing cracked out truck drivers to drive 100 hours a week and factories to dump methyl-ethyl death out the back door won't make our economy better, it will make us Nigeria.

Did anyone else think of Bill Murray's house in Zombieland when they read that? :-)

skipping tons of stuff but having read detmers and the other guys post.
not only does it take years.

drilling on the scale your talking about costs fortunes.
especially to be commecial your looking at 10's of billions of dollars in a time of fiscal austerity that wont return anything for at least 2-3 years. and take along time before making profits

The US needs to realize that its manufacturing sector using human labour is essentially forfeit with all the free trade agreements.

If America wants those jobs back, they should throw money at manufacturing using robotics & automation; robots are always more expensive to start, but pay themselves off over the long term.

Which brings us back to the short-term view of american corporate and government society at large. One of the first things that needs to be fixed is the massive deficit: as Warren Buffet has said, 1 or 2 percentage points of GDP deficit is fine, but it's near 10% or something now, which is insane; that means both spending cuts (get out of iraq perhaps?) and more taxes.



I think CEO's & C*O's should be paid with shares released to them on a time-release trust fund sort of idea -- 5 years after they start getting 5% of the fund each year for the 20 years after that (5*20 = 100), so that their vested interest extends out to the 25 year mark. (excluding a base salary of some sort perhaps).


And investment should be pushed towards longer term investment through regulation and taxes, rather than the quarterly share price.

That's your spending cut? Getting out of Iraq? I highly doubt the American people are going to accept a 1.5 trillion dollar tax hike that would be required after we save 5 billion per year by getting out of Iraq. That will require MASSIVE across the board tax increases.

Phasing out Social Security is the best way to get the deficit under control.

I'm not super familiar with social security, but is it just a flat amount they take and then a flat amount that they give you or is it based on how much you worked, how long your worked, etc?

the Canadian pension plan makes sense in that way... you get back what you pay into it based on a credit system (I think... I'm not actually super familiar with CPP either) so you get more back if you pay more in :p

Then you would all be poor!

You get what you pay for and right now the US is looking like one big Walmart. Soon China is going to be using Americans for cheap labor.

heh the getting out of iraq was only one part

perhaps like verseilles, make iraq pay for the US war costs? =D lol jk

also, 5B seems *really* low for operations in iraq.

There are 50m American seniors with $16k in spending per capita. Defense spending is 25% of the 3.7 trillion US outlay. Debt interest payments are 6.5%. Even if you drop the $815b in SS payments to seniors, there is still $492b in medical coverage for senior that will just balloon, unless you suggest killing off America's retirees. Even without that you are $600b short of a balanced budget and no where near reducing the debt.

I would introduce a 5% goods and servicing sales tax for debt reduction (legistated to reduce the net national debt, maximum 50% used to make regular interest/debt rollover payments).

I would push for a fully integrated NATO armed forces with each country mandated to 5% government outlay to be in the defense sector. I would slash the head count of the military and invest in mechanisation, keeping only the elite specialists. A few examples: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...happens-turn-guns-us.html

I would raise the retirement age 1 year every 2, reaching 70 in 2020. Increasing payments into the system by age (say +0.4% for every decade under 70), would dull the shock of the aging population and give the economy time to grow in relative size to outlays.

I'd slash other various discretionary spending for a total of 30% reduction ($1.2 trillion) and then do a +15% across the board tax increase (so 5% income tax becomes 5.75%) for $330b and a balanced budget at $2.5 trillion.

One tax reform that could work: flat 35% tax for personal, corporate, capital gains &etc, no loopholes, $100k exemption (ie you don't get taxed on the first $100k income)

that would probably solve things pretty nicely

Qz: what you suggest is pretty much the definition of a regressive tax though.

H4: yes, definitely; i'd prefer progressive, but this would at least be something the right would be more inclined to go along with, as they seem to hate tax brackets. Just letting the middle class & below be exempt from the start would simplify things.

the fed loans money to banks? why we got to pay interest payments?
just nuke everyone that we owe money to... call it an energy dispursement initiative. EDI. Education Defines Ignorance. if they're so dang smart, and run the country, why do we owe so much money? because they're crack addict whore victims....

Agreed

Here is the results of tax hikes:

http://www.illinoispolicy.org/...le.asp?ArticleSource=4362

LOLOL@ that link's graph


Look at the scales

look at the timeframes

i call BS!

Pirates vs global warming!

... the scale is 50,000 jobs and the time frame is monthly. How would you rather do it? Or do you not think 50,000 jobs is substantial for a state of 12 million people?

Interestingly enough, in a related article they go on to blame it on the hostile business environment, not just the tax hikes. Seems to me they're twisting fact to fit opinions rather than vice versa?

Qz the right wouldn't agree with that . right now the real rich are paying @ 15% and thats after deductions, almost all the large corps pay under 25%. And if it got implementated the would just devalue our currency so that 100K bought a loaf of bread

heh well the exemption would have to be inflation adjusted yearly

Oceana, a 35% tax burden would not devalue the currency significantly. Look at some of the highest taxed countries in the world: Denmark, Germany, Sweden, UK. Devaluation is in the US' favour anyway.