I don't think people understand just how bad this can get. If the US Defaults on its debts, there would be people lining up in the streets for soup, except the soup kitchen is closed due to lack of funding. That's how bad it would be.
You say that like its a bad thing. It would open up some eyes to how bad this country have gotten.
I personally have faith that inevitably the government will come up with a plan that both sides at least partially agree on, and start the proper process of passing a plan in one house, sending it to the other to be tweaked, voted on, and sent back, and so on until we end up with a compromised plan that both sides can agree with that will allow all of this to end.
You have more fiath then I do. I have been watching this every day on TV and am horrified at how much hate and anger there is with in the house and senate. These people really dont like each other or what they stand for. I was sure they would come to some agreement, but now I am not so sure. The clock is ticking and it doesnt look good.
The debt ceiling is going to be raised no matter what, its our out of control spending that has to be curbed. The U.S. government and all government overall has grown out of control. People who say don't cut social programs are just not understanding WE CANT KEEP IT UP. These social programs have so many loopholes and people who are scamming the system its unreal. The only things the government should cover is Infrastructure, Military, and Schools. Social Security will not be around when I need it so why should i pay into it? Same with medicare. Its time we started fixing whats wrong with this country. Start taxing individuals who ship our jobs oversees, start REWARDING companies that higher U.S. workers. My family came to the U.S. with nothing, built a successful buisness and worked hard to do it. Its that WORKING HARD that people are tending to forget and its whats bringing this country to ****. The ghetto they came from in the old country makes the ghetto's here look like a country club. Raise the ceiling but start cutting alot of the bs. If people want to get tattoo's they regret removed or study a bee or butterfly look to donations not to the government. ****s getting out of hand fast and it needs to stop now.
First of all, there's been investigations in the past decade of abuses in a few major cities regarding welfare programs - and the rate that they found abusers was a ridiculously low percentage, and they found it actually cost them THREE TIMES AS MUCH to perform the investigations to get them removed from the welfare recipient list.
Yes, for every $3 they spent investigating people, they saved $1 - that to me shows pretty saliently that there can't be that many people abusing the system. After all, most of those positions are $60k/year and with the average welfare payout being $400/mo per person ($5k/yr) that means that the average investigator was finding $20k of abusing people per year - or in other words, FOUR PER YEAR - if a professional takes three months to find someone abusing the system on average there clearly can't be tons out there.
Not really shocking considering there's been two Presidents that have enacted legislation that has tightened up on qualification timeframe and evidence that must be supplied for qualification in the past 30 years. (Was about to say 20 years, but it's been longer since Reagan - man, doesn't feel over 20 years ago when I started voting, but alas time makes a fool of us all)
Secondly, SS is paid for completely without involvement of Federal dollars outside of the SSA employees and other administrative costs - the actual program is self-sufficient with its own fund for the next 15-35 years depending on the source you use - at that point it will become insolvent without Federal involvement. (And yes, if you go far enough back originally SSA employees and the administrative costs were taken out of the SS pay-in that people made - data I've got on when is unclear however, some reads like Carter era, some Nixon)
EVERYBODY SHOULD PAY THE SAME PERCENTAGE OF TAXES. However they don't. The poor pay less and the rich for being successful are taxed MORE. Flat tax = best way. Also that top 2% are the ones who invest and create jobs. The public sector should never look to make jobs, thats the duty of Americans with a dream.
I would tend to agree, or at least that would be better than current things - our system having rampant deductions makes the tax brackets look like they're backwards for many folks net tax percentage. (a little hyperbolic, it really is more of a bell curve if you look at the whole)
You did mean everyone paying the same percentage and getting rid of almost all deductions, right?
money was the worst invention ever, it provides a means for separating equality of humans... humans should work for the betterment of each other, not themselves :/
money was the worst invention ever, it provides a means for separating equality of humans... humans should work for the betterment of each other, not themselves :/
If it wasn't money, it would be the number of goats and gallons of milk and rocking chairs.
With all of the talk about taxation, I think that the main source of resentment in this whole ordeal is the tax breaks to the rich, which the Republicans want to keep without any questions and incidentally, most of them are wealthy so take that as you will. Though at this point I think everyone is going to have take a tax increase weather we like it or not, I just feel that the rich's taxes should be brought in line with the rest of us. Its truly sad when a billionaire is required to pay numerically fewer taxes than his normally paid secretary under our tax laws (this was said in a tv interview on the tax system by Warren Buffet).
I also don't think that anything will change in Washington, until they successfully destroy the US with their blundering. I think its rather sad when they are asked questions on tv about something and they start talking about something completely unrelated and can't even give their views on the topic, which I have seen the most from republicans lately and especially the the tea party people. Things like this make me feel like we might as well send a bunch of four year-olds to Washington for all the good they are going to do, and I think they would act about the same. I also think that the process is being held up by the republican's my way or the high way attitude, at least the democrats are trying to compromise.
Finally, if we want things to change, we really need to curb government waste. I know I have family that works around the government, and they see things like where a shop will need 1 new vice and someone will buy 100 of them at double price and maybe 5 end up getting used and the rest thrown out(this is an actual example in case your wondering). I'm sure things like this aren't uncommon in our government else ware. I guess I can't really say how much we loose to this, but there is no way stopping stuff like this can be bad.
I guess I should say that I don't really claim any party loyalty, just find the current crop of republican's actions highly distasteful.
With all of the talk about taxation, I think that the main source of resentment in this whole ordeal is the tax breaks to the rich, which the Republicans want to keep without any questions and incidentally, most of them are wealthy so take that as you will. Though at this point I think everyone is going to have take a tax increase weather we like it or not, I just feel that the rich's taxes should be brought in line with the rest of us. Its truly sad when a billionaire is required to pay numerically fewer taxes than his normally paid secretary under our tax laws (this was said in a tv interview on the tax system by Warren Buffet).
I also don't think that anything will change in Washington, until they successfully destroy the US with their blundering. I think its rather sad when they are asked questions on tv about something and they start talking about something completely unrelated and can't even give their views on the topic, which I have seen the most from republicans lately and especially the the tea party people. Things like this make me feel like we might as well send a bunch of four year-olds to Washington for all the good they are going to do, and I think they would act about the same. I also think that the process is being held up by the republican's my way or the high way attitude, at least the democrats are trying to compromise.
Finally, if we want things to change, we really need to curb government waste. I know I have family that works around the government, and they see things like where a shop will need 1 new vice and someone will buy 100 of them at double price and maybe 5 end up getting used and the rest thrown out(this is an actual example in case your wondering). I'm sure things like this aren't uncommon in our government else ware. I guess I can't really say how much we loose to this, but there is no way stopping stuff like this can be bad.
I guess I should say that I don't really claim any party loyalty, just find the current crop of republican's actions highly distasteful.
Here's the thing, in my opinion. If the average person is in debt, advice for them would be to cut back on anything they could, and increase income if possible, and pay their bills. The Tea Party is all about cutting back, but not at all for increasing income, except their own. You'll note that not one of them is working for free(so far as I have been able to find), despite how much they hate tax dollars. We've been in trouble since before the Bush tax cuts, and we're in worse trouble now. They have to go. And we might all have to see an increase as well, as you said. I like knowing the EPA is trying to stop BP and Halliburton from fraking natural gas up the street from me(but has a tough time thanks to Cheney's cool rules that allow them to bypass laws no other energy producers can). I like knowing that we have some form of healthcare for people, even if it needs massive upgrades. Government isn't inherently bad. Neither are taxes.
Because conservative bias is a far, far worse thing. Liberal bias doesn't, statistically speaking, make people stupid. Conservative bias (or at least Fox's version of it) does.
It's rough. The debate in the other forum has turned into an out-and-out slugfest.
I agree there should be revenues, spending cuts, and the President should have the power to raise the ceiling untill after the next election.
There do seem to be people who would rather gut entitlements than pay a penny more in taxes (I'm not saying all those who side with the Tea Party feel this, but from my discussions with people, most of those who side with the Repubs over this seem to share this sentiment), who think the Debt Ceiling is brinksmanship and nothing will happen on August 2nd, and who think it's been the Republicans who have been doing all the compromising because they have submitted bills, while the Dems who have conceded almost every single one of their points are the ones at fault.
I don't like to play the blame game or point fingers, but it looks like one side desperately wants to deal, and the other side has to keep coming up with new demands to avoid dealing, and find the whole situation terribly sad.
I'm sorry, but destroying the world economy is NOT worth it. It's the equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
1) The world economy should not be our problem. Just like every other problem the world looks to us to solve when it should be them figuring things out.
2) If it takes a massive collapse to open some eyes across the world, I would gladly take it.
3) We cant keep pushing the economy problems off to the next generation or the one after that. I would much rather step up and take one on the chin for the future of the country/world.
4) If everyone in the world feels the effects maybe it will straighten out more then just the American economy. A huge plus in my book for letting things crumble and rebuilding from the ashes.
I know alot of people dont agree with me, but the facts are as a nation we have become stagnant and have so much in-fighting with in the parties let alone agaisnt each other we get little done. The politicians of this country dont care about everyone, they care about the top end. Those whos pockets they firmly sit in. Just look at those who have the faith that the house and senate will come up with an 11th hour solution. This is not the way to run a country. It should have never gotten this far.
Vincente Fox was on Piers Morgan last week, talking about how he hoped Mexico would switch to a Parliamentary system which encouraged more political parties and more consensus.
I know that would never fly in the US, but it might be interesting if you had more major political parties. I think it would be interesting if the Tea Party had to split and form its own party.
Since no previous Congress can tell a future Congress what to do, since Congress already passed a budget earlier in the year that required us going passed the debt limit, the President should just ignore the debt limit and implement the budget that Congress already passed.
Since no previous Congress can tell a future Congress what to do, since Congress already passed a budget earlier in the year that required us going passed the debt limit, the President should just ignore the debt limit and implement the budget that Congress already passed.
Its a catch 22, if the president goes ahead and implements the budget plan without raising the debt limit the fed has to print more money devaluing our dollar. If the fed doesnt print money then we get inflation backlash. Granted even if he does raise the debt limit our money still gets devalued. Any way you cut it the county is in for a real rough time.
I want to make one comment after hearing it more than a few times that the president should just be able to do all of these things himself and bypass congress.
The current structure of our government is there for a reason. There are checks and balances between the 3 parts of the government. Executive (president et all), Judicial (Supreme Court et all), and Legislative (The two houses of congress).
In this case, if you allow the Executive branch to be able to bypass congress for too many things, then, well, you end up with a dictatorship, or something close to it, which isnt what we want. And it should be noted that with all of the Czars or whatever they are actually called for various aspects of governmental regulation and such that deal directly with the president, the president allready has a lot more of the pie that he should given the way the split is supposed to work. You really have to be careful about such things is all Im saying.
If Congress cannot agree on a plan, then we'll just have to make due with what money we are bringing in (only spending what we have, hrmm, what a concept) until a plan that congress as a whole can agree on, and the president can sign and then continue on. This same sort of thing happenned in the 90's when Clinton was in office, and the government had a partial shutdown for a short while, and the world and our economy certainly didnt end. We arent going to default on our debt given that we bring in close to 10x the amount that the debt payments are that we need to cover to avoid such a default and thus would be the first thing to be paid, and then the rest would be prioritized as best as possible until a deal could be reached.
If we as individuals have too much debt, and are spending more than we can afford, then we find ways to cut our spending so we can live within our means. The same will inevitably need to be true of our government, and in the end its likely going to require a lot of cutting in federal spending, some of which people arent going to like but will have to live with in order to ensure the future solvency of our nation, and the tax code will have to be thoroughly gone through and many deductions likely axed (both for individuals, and businesses) in order to help find ways to bring up revenues without specifically having to raise tax rates. The combination of which, one would hope, would be enough to at least get into the ballpark of being able to come up with a balanced budget and then if/when the economy is able to continue to recover, the additional revenues from more people working/spending/etc might even allow us to start spending down the debt at some point.
Well, the House passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling today, and the senate is set to vote on it tomorrow at noon, and obama has allready endorsed it, so with any luck by 1pm tomorrow, we should have this all behind us, and we can move on, with only having to worry about the rating agencies coming out and downgrading us, since they were rather clear that they were looking for at least 4 trillion in cuts with such a plan over 10 years, and the current deal calls for 2.4 trillion in cuts.
Anyhow, figured I would pass on the information.
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You say that like its a bad thing. It would open up some eyes to how bad this country have gotten.
You have more fiath then I do. I have been watching this every day on TV and am horrified at how much hate and anger there is with in the house and senate. These people really dont like each other or what they stand for. I was sure they would come to some agreement, but now I am not so sure. The clock is ticking and it doesnt look good.
First of all, there's been investigations in the past decade of abuses in a few major cities regarding welfare programs - and the rate that they found abusers was a ridiculously low percentage, and they found it actually cost them THREE TIMES AS MUCH to perform the investigations to get them removed from the welfare recipient list.
Yes, for every $3 they spent investigating people, they saved $1 - that to me shows pretty saliently that there can't be that many people abusing the system. After all, most of those positions are $60k/year and with the average welfare payout being $400/mo per person ($5k/yr) that means that the average investigator was finding $20k of abusing people per year - or in other words, FOUR PER YEAR - if a professional takes three months to find someone abusing the system on average there clearly can't be tons out there.
Not really shocking considering there's been two Presidents that have enacted legislation that has tightened up on qualification timeframe and evidence that must be supplied for qualification in the past 30 years. (Was about to say 20 years, but it's been longer since Reagan - man, doesn't feel over 20 years ago when I started voting, but alas time makes a fool of us all)
Secondly, SS is paid for completely without involvement of Federal dollars outside of the SSA employees and other administrative costs - the actual program is self-sufficient with its own fund for the next 15-35 years depending on the source you use - at that point it will become insolvent without Federal involvement. (And yes, if you go far enough back originally SSA employees and the administrative costs were taken out of the SS pay-in that people made - data I've got on when is unclear however, some reads like Carter era, some Nixon)
I would tend to agree, or at least that would be better than current things - our system having rampant deductions makes the tax brackets look like they're backwards for many folks net tax percentage. (a little hyperbolic, it really is more of a bell curve if you look at the whole)
You did mean everyone paying the same percentage and getting rid of almost all deductions, right?
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
If it wasn't money, it would be the number of goats and gallons of milk and rocking chairs.
I also don't think that anything will change in Washington, until they successfully destroy the US with their blundering. I think its rather sad when they are asked questions on tv about something and they start talking about something completely unrelated and can't even give their views on the topic, which I have seen the most from republicans lately and especially the the tea party people. Things like this make me feel like we might as well send a bunch of four year-olds to Washington for all the good they are going to do, and I think they would act about the same. I also think that the process is being held up by the republican's my way or the high way attitude, at least the democrats are trying to compromise.
Finally, if we want things to change, we really need to curb government waste. I know I have family that works around the government, and they see things like where a shop will need 1 new vice and someone will buy 100 of them at double price and maybe 5 end up getting used and the rest thrown out(this is an actual example in case your wondering). I'm sure things like this aren't uncommon in our government else ware. I guess I can't really say how much we loose to this, but there is no way stopping stuff like this can be bad.
I guess I should say that I don't really claim any party loyalty, just find the current crop of republican's actions highly distasteful.
UWRasputin DreamweaverUW
UWBSen TripletsUWB
Here's the thing, in my opinion. If the average person is in debt, advice for them would be to cut back on anything they could, and increase income if possible, and pay their bills. The Tea Party is all about cutting back, but not at all for increasing income, except their own. You'll note that not one of them is working for free(so far as I have been able to find), despite how much they hate tax dollars. We've been in trouble since before the Bush tax cuts, and we're in worse trouble now. They have to go. And we might all have to see an increase as well, as you said. I like knowing the EPA is trying to stop BP and Halliburton from fraking natural gas up the street from me(but has a tough time thanks to Cheney's cool rules that allow them to bypass laws no other energy producers can). I like knowing that we have some form of healthcare for people, even if it needs massive upgrades. Government isn't inherently bad. Neither are taxes.
I'm sorry, but destroying the world economy is NOT worth it. It's the equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
#2. Dungeon Keeper Ami; Proving that sometimes the best Villians are the ones who used to be Heros.
#3. Ow, My Sanity: There are things man was not meant to love.
I agree there should be revenues, spending cuts, and the President should have the power to raise the ceiling untill after the next election.
There do seem to be people who would rather gut entitlements than pay a penny more in taxes (I'm not saying all those who side with the Tea Party feel this, but from my discussions with people, most of those who side with the Repubs over this seem to share this sentiment), who think the Debt Ceiling is brinksmanship and nothing will happen on August 2nd, and who think it's been the Republicans who have been doing all the compromising because they have submitted bills, while the Dems who have conceded almost every single one of their points are the ones at fault.
I don't like to play the blame game or point fingers, but it looks like one side desperately wants to deal, and the other side has to keep coming up with new demands to avoid dealing, and find the whole situation terribly sad.
1) The world economy should not be our problem. Just like every other problem the world looks to us to solve when it should be them figuring things out.
2) If it takes a massive collapse to open some eyes across the world, I would gladly take it.
3) We cant keep pushing the economy problems off to the next generation or the one after that. I would much rather step up and take one on the chin for the future of the country/world.
4) If everyone in the world feels the effects maybe it will straighten out more then just the American economy. A huge plus in my book for letting things crumble and rebuilding from the ashes.
I know alot of people dont agree with me, but the facts are as a nation we have become stagnant and have so much in-fighting with in the parties let alone agaisnt each other we get little done. The politicians of this country dont care about everyone, they care about the top end. Those whos pockets they firmly sit in. Just look at those who have the faith that the house and senate will come up with an 11th hour solution. This is not the way to run a country. It should have never gotten this far.
I know that would never fly in the US, but it might be interesting if you had more major political parties. I think it would be interesting if the Tea Party had to split and form its own party.
Its a catch 22, if the president goes ahead and implements the budget plan without raising the debt limit the fed has to print more money devaluing our dollar. If the fed doesnt print money then we get inflation backlash. Granted even if he does raise the debt limit our money still gets devalued. Any way you cut it the county is in for a real rough time.
The current structure of our government is there for a reason. There are checks and balances between the 3 parts of the government. Executive (president et all), Judicial (Supreme Court et all), and Legislative (The two houses of congress).
In this case, if you allow the Executive branch to be able to bypass congress for too many things, then, well, you end up with a dictatorship, or something close to it, which isnt what we want. And it should be noted that with all of the Czars or whatever they are actually called for various aspects of governmental regulation and such that deal directly with the president, the president allready has a lot more of the pie that he should given the way the split is supposed to work. You really have to be careful about such things is all Im saying.
If Congress cannot agree on a plan, then we'll just have to make due with what money we are bringing in (only spending what we have, hrmm, what a concept) until a plan that congress as a whole can agree on, and the president can sign and then continue on. This same sort of thing happenned in the 90's when Clinton was in office, and the government had a partial shutdown for a short while, and the world and our economy certainly didnt end. We arent going to default on our debt given that we bring in close to 10x the amount that the debt payments are that we need to cover to avoid such a default and thus would be the first thing to be paid, and then the rest would be prioritized as best as possible until a deal could be reached.
If we as individuals have too much debt, and are spending more than we can afford, then we find ways to cut our spending so we can live within our means. The same will inevitably need to be true of our government, and in the end its likely going to require a lot of cutting in federal spending, some of which people arent going to like but will have to live with in order to ensure the future solvency of our nation, and the tax code will have to be thoroughly gone through and many deductions likely axed (both for individuals, and businesses) in order to help find ways to bring up revenues without specifically having to raise tax rates. The combination of which, one would hope, would be enough to at least get into the ballpark of being able to come up with a balanced budget and then if/when the economy is able to continue to recover, the additional revenues from more people working/spending/etc might even allow us to start spending down the debt at some point.
Anyhow, figured I would pass on the information.