The BEST Question Ever:Who can answer it?

Because it's code for Raising Taxes.Bush as did Reagan Raised revenues
but not by secretly employing phrases that mimic what's to take place.
Slashing Taxes as President Harding did allows more money for citizens to
spend in the economy.Or for Business to spend on R & D or equipment.
All Raising taxes does is allows some Bureaucrat to spend as some other
higher up the chain of command Bureaucrat decides it needs to go.
That is why seldom if ever does Congress record a Surplus as Clinton did for
one quarter under the auspice and management of a new Republican majority
in the house who forced his hand on balancing a budget.
Congress spends money faster than it ever comes in.
In fact,it is good that Congress doesn't have the necessary revenues to
operate.Maybe that way some stupid Dept. or Agency like the Department
of Energy could go belly up.

 

Good point. We should change the top rate to 70% like Kennedy did. That would solve a big chunk of the problem.

 

That Republican majority sure showed what deficit hawks they were when they got one of their own in the WH.

 

It won't shrink. As the population grows, as the economy grows, as all the options grow, the government will grow. The only way to shrink the government would be to shrink all of those things.

 

I am real. I'm not paying 50-60% of my paycheck to the federal Government to take care of strangers. I'll find ways to evade taxes first. I'll work under the table. I'm not going to be a tax slave to the seniors of western society.

 

You do realize that dreaming about a fabricated 70% top rate is fantasy, right?

No one pays 70%; no one has ever paid 70%.

 

What was the bottom rate then Iriemon?

I know during your favorite "golden age" of American Tax slavery(91% marginal rates), the bottom rate was 22%.

Are you willing to inflict a 22% tax on the poor in America as well?

Because it's (*)(*)(*)(*) (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up to demand people pay 91% while most everyone else pays nothing.

That destroys incentive to even bother doing jobs that could end up paying taxes. We'll be like Greece where tax evasion has become an art form or we'll be like China, where despite death penalties, people are laundering money out of the nation and then fleeing.

 

Ah...

So who made the ludicrous suggestion that the size of government would ever go down?

Has that ever happened? Really?

 

No one pays 35% now either. What's your point?

 

Yeah, I think the Bush tax cuts should be repealed completely and have said so from the beginning which was a big reason why I supported Clinton over Obama.

Yet somehow, the economy in the 1950s and 1960 did far better while reducing the debt.

Just doesn't square with the conservative mantra, does it?

 

One of the rare things where we (sorta) agree.

You know as well as I do in 1950's and 1960's we had a basic monopoly on world production as everyone else was still cleaning up the ruins of world war II or an undeveloped backwater. There is your "somehow".

 

A GOOD QUESTION: If you can’t cut back the government bureaucracy in good times (because there is enough tax money and we have “unmet needs,” etc.) and you can’t cut it in bad times (because we have to preserve those jobs as “stimulus’) when does the government stop growing?

THE OBVIOUS ANSWER: We will cut back government programs when there are no more "unmet needs" as determined by elected representatives at all levels of government. However, to the extent that population growth determines needs, a growing body of unmet needs is to be expected. The growth and size of government is best measured in terms of government spending compared to GDP (previously called GNP). This measure in presently lower than it has been during certain periods in the past. Claims of imminent National bankruptcy are grossly exaggerated! The size of government and government spending, large or small, will continue to be fixed by a majority of voters. A minority of voters that cry "big government" in lieu of "programs I don't like" will in the future (as in the past) learn to live with programs they don't like. Such is the nature of Democracy.

 

Well, the predicament we have with the tax rate is to find the money rate in the Laffer Curve.

I personally think that the rate is somewhere around the 40 or 50% rate. I support a tax raise on the rich, but not a huge tax rate of 70% or more. Remember that the 50s and 60s saw the result of the economic injection that World War II made.

Also, saying that an obscenely high tax rate on the rich will result in economic prosperity is bogus. The tax rate on the rich was very high during the Great Depression. Correlation does not always mean causation.

 

The higher tax rate didn't cause a problem with growth then.

 

They never stop growing. This is the same problem with regulatory agencies. Congress passes a law and the regulators get an ignition key for the growth engine...the switch has no off. The folk hired are there and employed simply to write regulation...day in, day out...forever.

Eventually even the best goal, the finest legislation, is destroyed by regulating the idea into eternity.

 

The federal government has been growing since day 1 of the Republic. It will never stop growing and never stop expanding. The states can briefly shrink its powers, but in the end, the federal government will continue to grow. Think of the struggle between the federal government and states as a balloon, and you will understand my point.

 

The government should shrink and grow proportionally to the economy and the needs of the nation. As it is right now, expanded government spending is part of the means of disguising our economic decline while production is moved out of the country, leading the way towards a global police state. It's all part of the design.

 

You are aware that revenues are sort of tied to the economy. In good times we raise a lot and in bad times less. The answer is not to squeeze more golden eggs from the evil rich but to live within our means. There is simply not enough money out there to steal enough from the rich.

Why should government be excluded from hard times?

 

Tax cuts do not cause deficits, spending over revenues does.

 

The problem is not with a government that has grown with population but a government that has grown beyond population.

 

It should never be stopped. It should be owned and operated by "private" interests....a capitalist venture....a Wall street spin of the slot machine. Let's achieve that goal. Vote republican in 2012. Ensure our death for the sake of a few billionaires.

That it?

 

Then the government just spends more. Throwing money at an issue does nothing.

 

You can always cut the gouvernement, like most large coorporations it has an ever increasing bureaucracy and waste.

Cut this off once in a while can seriously trim the gouvernement back.

A society also should ask himself constantly wether or not the gouvernement should do what it is doing.

 

It is amazing that people think that way. It is also a wonder taht some business owners want near free labor. Lets all just be honest and say that as long as it benefits (ME) it should be free. If everyone, who is human without some form of self control, believes this and they are obvously the majority, we end up with wellfare poor, and wellfare business. Who pays for it? The honest wise people of course.

 

You did hit, accidentally, on a liberal problem. Liberals, such as you, believe that people are inherently bad and must be controlled by the government. I believe the government is inherently bad and must be controlled by the people. The government is, in my opinion, out of control.

And actually, I don't think any business owners want free labor. Business owners know nothing is free. Now, if the government is going to pay for the labor they might go for it but that isn't really free.