America is now paying more for interest on debt than defense

Our tax code was less compromised back then. Its much larger today, due in no small part to all the loopholes and exemptions that the people you want to tax more use to avoid taxation altogether. You aint gonna fix it by raising their taxes. Any percent of 0 is still 0.

 

Obviously we need to get rid of the loop holes. Those who advocate a flat tax clandestinely acknowledge that income tax deductions are economically unnecessary. We need a steeply progressive tax system with no deductions.

 

Any system that is simple will be better. Most people (who arent obscenely rich) pay more than they legally have to simply because the only way to find all possible loopholes is to hire the big accounting firms (who often wrote them for congress to approve without much looking at them). A 'fair' tax system is one that everyone can understand without hiring expensive professionals.

The real problem is- how to do that? Its not like the stupid lazy leeches in congress are going to suddenly start reading and comprehending the 10,000 page omnibus bills that often include various additions to the tax code creating more loopholes. For one they're stupid and lazy, but also their campaigns on dependent on the people who tend to benefit from the loopholes.

Until that gets sorted out, raising taxes will not improve anything. It'll just increase the burden on those already shouldering all of the burden and make it that much harder for us to compete with those that are loopholed and exempted.

 

Agreed. Two endless wars with tax cuts did not help.

W being elected was the beginning of the fall. Ever since Clinton, no other president has had the gutz to reign in the military and raise taxes.

 

I said at the time that the main reason to be hesitant about the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was the cost.
That's something most of the American public at the time did not appreciate or truly comprehend. Even half the Democrats at the time did not seem to view cost as one of the biggest issues.

Only some of those on the Left and conservative Libertarians like Ron Paul seemed to point out the cost of the war as a huge issue.