For all of you who think there's no money to fund social programs, watch this: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G49q6uPcwY8"]The Story of Broke (2011) - YouTube[/ame]
If only broke were the only problem. We're far worse than broke. We are in debt to a level that will bring us down economically.
A debt that could be fixed by removing oil and unnecessary subsidies along with raising the top rate income tax and capital gains tax.
Well cutting important programs is not the answer unless it were accompanied with raised top rate taxes. If it were up to me, I'd put 'em back up to 90% like they were before Reagan. Rich people still got to be rich back then, but everyone else got their fair share of the economy. Reagan began the corruption movement.
Citation? edit: I realize you are probably going to say it's frmo the video, normally I don't watch youtube videos, because I have no way to know if the data/source is credible at all, but I'll make exception in this case. You are grossly overestimating how much we spend on oil subsidies, remember the four biggest spending items on the budget are, medicare/medicaid, social security, the military, and interest on the debt. I'm also willing to bet you are overestimating how much tax revenue we can get out of the top group. Undoubtedly, rolling back the Bush tax cuts will help, but I still think we'd need to do another big spending cut too. We also have the highest GDP of any nation on earth. When you take account debt to GDP ratio, we aren't in terrible shape. We've got a few decades before we face major problems.
back then nobody paid the top rate as there were so many loopholes, otherwise who in their right mind would work if you owe the government 80% of your income?
you are making the classic mistake many unsophisticated people make....you are just looking at debt to GDP ( which is very high mind you). You have to look closer. For example Japan has a higher debt to GDP but also has huge trade surpluses and over 1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. The US on the otherhand has also a trade deficit and add to that virtually no foreign exchange reserves. Now ontop of that bleak picture the US spends about 40 cents of every dollar on borrowed money, and that is with super low interest rates. These are all recipies for dissaster.
Whatever, you think all our problems can be solved with a one sentence solution? What a crock of (*)(*)(*)(*)! I tell you what. When the top rate was 90% as you want it to be.. the bottom rate was 22% So tell me child.. what percentage should the lowest tax bracket be if those over 250k a year have to pay 90% of their income to Big Government?
So what was the effective rate then and after the Reagan tax cuts? What is it now? Where has it fallen the most and why?
She looked into it, and all we need to cure what ails us is a centrally planned economy. I wonder if that has ever worked anywhere else?
You need to examine how long places like Japan has lasted with a gdp to debt ratio. Add in the fact that U.S. currency is the reserve currency of the world, and we likely can leverage ourselves even more (note: there is a difference between can and should).
I'm not sure I agree. One on hand, I'm not exactly, the "yay tax everyone more" crowd. Taxes are bad and we need to avoid them, especially income and payrolls taxes. However, we use public goods and services all the time and forget about them. I currently get some subsidized loans from the government for school. So technically, my salary, isn't completely "my money." No one exists in a vacuum.
as I must of said 50 times on these boards......Japan is unique in the fact that at least they have huge trade surpluses and a huge foreign exhabge reserve of about 1 trillion....add to this is the fact that japan borrows from its own people so can tax a portion of those expenses back to the government! To compare japan to the US is to compare apples to oranges!
No, we can compare with Greece because one day real soon the T-Bill is going to go tits up on the bond market.
if interest rates ever do rise then watch out......there is no way the US can afford the 1 trillion per annum interst payments on the debt!
No the only difference is that we have the largest economy in the world that everybody wants to invest in via T-bills, and Greece doesn't. Only a market evangelist confused t-bills with printing money. That's why austerity is so stupid.
Yeah, chicken little, keep hoping. Yields at historic lows; cash from around the world (especially Europe) beating down the Treasury's door to by the safest security on the planet; an economy recovering without massive cuts. It's like conservatives are totally dissociated from economic reality.
LOL if you think central banks buy treasuries because they love the .25 % interest then you are clueless LOL! Central banks buy treasuries in order to peg their currency .....even the canadian government said last year that they were forced to buy treasuries to stop the CDN dollar from rising too quickly.....not because they wanted to throw away money LOL! Who in their right minds would invest in a bankrupt nation and get a pitiful amount of interest to boot?
