How would you fix the United States' budget problem?

[Tahar Joblis]

Spend a lot of money on "shovel-ready" public works programs. Raise taxes on the wealthier types, including taxes on unearned income and the various traditional dodges. Close some corporate tax loopholes. Start building a universal health care system for people to opt into.

Nothing really radical, just basic sensible things.

[Laissez-Faire]

Spend a lot of money on "shovel-ready" public works programs.

More spending, yay.

Raise taxes on the wealthier types

Not enough revenues even if it would help anything.

Close some corporate tax loopholes

But is it going to be followed by tax cuts? Probably not. Nominal increase in revenues.

Start building a universal health care system for people to opt into.

And the deficit just went out of the ballpark.

[AiliailiA]

2. bring about a flat Proportional tax of 20% on every one.

No, no, no, nonononono. Just because something is fair on paper doesn't mean it's fair in real life. The utility of 20% is vastly different between someone who makes 40000, the median, and someone who makes 500,000.

Marginal utility. It's the best justification for progressive taxes (or at least, the simplest justification).

You'd probably do more to persuade the poster you're replying to, if you'd spent all the words of your reply on this one point.

I invite you to say some more: flat taxes are not fair taxes because ...

[Disserbia]

No more war, desolve congress until the idiots leave.

[AiliailiA]

Start building a universal health care system for people to opt into.

And the deficit just went out of the ballpark.

The words "start" and "opt into" seem to have escaped your notice.

[Parpolitic Citizens]

70+ for professions that allow it. And I'd assume something similar to others who are laid off, considering said trucker is 60.

Are we going to pretend that age discrimination doesn't exist.

I said coverage, not funding. Although, to be honest, they should fall hand in hand to a degree.

What coverage though. Most of the cost comes from the last year of life.

Who the hell would want to put that in your drinking water? No one sane if they want to avoid lawsuits out the rear end. If anything, government supports industry putting that in your water, whether directly or indirectly, with subsidies and other market intervention.

Fracking companies use benzene and other carcinogenic chemicals.

eliminate 'non-violent crimes' from the Federal legal portfolio

Financial fraud is liability to those who were cheated. Did I say "blast every court in the nation to the heavens?"

Sue his ass until he goes bankrupt. Government has no role in the matter. It's a damage between private parties.

This imperative that government should "act for the collective betterment" is the damaging one.

So there should be no jail time for people who commit fraud? What's the incentive for them to stop then? They can just declare bankruptcy and , change their name, and start scamming other people.

If it didn't, I'd make the cuts tolerably more severe, and I might move to the extent of eliminating Departments.

- Homeland Security
- Agriculture
- Commerce
- Housing and Urban Development

Choose from the list. Starting with Homeland Security.

Those agencies are meaningless. About 70% of the budget goes to Medicare, Social Security, Defense spending and interest off the debt. Secondly, large corporations are just as coercive as the government. You say sue , but what if they have billions of dollars at their disposal. They can simply keep you in court until you go broke with an army of blue chip lawyers.

[Divair]

And the deficit just went out of the ballpark.

The words "start" and "opt into" seem to have escaped your notice.

Not to mention this would streamline Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, and whatever else the USA uses in this huge clusterfuck.

[AiliailiA]

No more war, desolve congress until the idiots leave.

It's starting to dawn on me, that maybe this is some kind of joke thread.

Yup, voters have been trying to solve Congress for centuries now. Try a different tack: desolve Congress

[Parpolitic Citizens]

No, no, no, nonononono. Just because something is fair on paper doesn't mean it's fair in real life. The utility of 20% is vastly different between someone who makes 40000, the median, and someone who makes 500,000.

Marginal utility. It's the best justification for progressive taxes (or at least, the simplest justification).

You'd probably do more to persuade the poster you're replying to, if you'd spent all the words of your reply on this one point.

I invite you to say some more: flat taxes are not fair taxes because ...

We're a consumption based economy. More and more of the money is being concentrated into groups of people who do not consume. Meanwhile the people who do consume are using debt. The transference of money from Rich to everyone else is fairly reasonable.

[Laissez-Faire]

70+ for professions that allow it. And I'd assume something similar to others who are laid off, considering said trucker is 60.

Are we going to pretend that age discrimination doesn't exist.

It doesn't. Because to a policy maker, a 60 year old should be no different than an 18 year old in unemployment. If 7- is the issue, do away with retirement altogether, because 'it's too discriminatory'.

I said coverage, not funding. Although, to be honest, they should fall hand in hand to a degree.

What coverage though. Most of the cost comes from the last year of life.

I think I specified Medicare Part D and onwards in there somewhere.

Who the hell would want to put that in your drinking water? No one sane if they want to avoid lawsuits out the rear end. If anything, government supports industry putting that in your water, whether directly or indirectly, with subsidies and other market intervention.

Fracking companies use benzene and other carcinogenic chemicals.

Good for them, and the've had the government to run to them.

So there should be no jail time for people who commit fraud?

Nope.

What's the incentive for them to stop then?

Compensatory and punitive damages. And to a lesser extent, reputation.

They can just declare bankruptcy and , change their name, and start scamming other people.

And then they will be liable again and again. Not the path to prosperity, to be honest.

Why should government intervene in the damages to private citizens, when it's not in the public interest?

Those agencies are meaningless. About 70% of the budget goes to Medicare, Social Security, Defense spending and interest off the debt.

That was the point of my first post, and I'd move onwards if that wasn't enough to patch in all the holes.

Secondly, large corporations are just as coercive as the government. You say sue , but what if they have billions of dollars at their disposal. They can simply keep you in court until you go broke with an army of blue chip lawyers.

And how is government going to help the private citizens in any way? If people are bad and negative and going to abuse people despite their own interests not to, they are going to do it with or without government's 'punishment'.

[Laissez-Faire]

And the deficit just went out of the ballpark.

The words "start" and "opt into" seem to have escaped your notice.

No, they didn't. It's actually worse, considering a larger program will be created for a smaller pool.

[Laissez-Faire]

The words "start" and "opt into" seem to have escaped your notice.

Not to mention this would streamline Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, and whatever else the USA uses in this huge clusterfuck.

The way to streamline it is to do away with them and have the rightful private market do it. Unfortunately, due to the past imperatives of 'government will save us', this 'clusterfuck' as you call it exists.

Let's not dig the hole deeper and see how far we can challenge economics and fiscal sanity.

[Kazarogkai]

Also to help American workers and also possibly increase tax revenue we should increase the minimum wage to say maybe 20 dollars an hour but also to compensate businesses we should increase the working hours from 8 hours a day to 10 hours a day.

[AiliailiA]

The words "start" and "opt into" seem to have escaped your notice.

Not to mention this would streamline Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, and whatever else the USA uses in this huge clusterfuck.

"Obamacare" is mostly a regulation of the existing private insurance industry. It does include new spending (an extension of Medicaid, really).

We don't usually get much saving by "streamlining". If you take two programs that were structured differently (Medicare "sorry for taxing you but you'll get it all back, honest" and Medicaid "we're just going to pay this out because it's the right thing to do") and combine them, costs to government may actually go up.

[Divair]

Not to mention this would streamline Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, and whatever else the USA uses in this huge clusterfuck.

The way to streamline it is to do away with them and have the rightful private market do it. Unfortunately, due to the past imperatives of 'government will save us', this 'clusterfuck' as you call it exists.

Let's not dig the hole deeper and see how far we can challenge economics and fiscal sanity.

Private healthcare?

No.

[Laissez-Faire]

The way to streamline it is to do away with them and have the rightful private market do it. Unfortunately, due to the past imperatives of 'government will save us', this 'clusterfuck' as you call it exists.

Let's not dig the hole deeper and see how far we can challenge economics and fiscal sanity.

Private healthcare?

No.

It works, until government tries to enforce mandates in it.

[AiliailiA]

Also to help American workers and also possibly increase tax revenue we should increase the minimum wage to say maybe 20 dollars an hour but also to compensate businesses we should increase the working hours from 8 hours a day to 10 hours a day.

Double the minimum wage?

How about, instead: keep the minimum wage where it is or increase it modestly, and enforce it?

Radical idea I know. Scandinavian shit.

[Divair]

Private healthcare?

No.

It works, until government tries to enforce mandates in it.

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heal ... th_systems

[Laissez-Faire]

It works, until government tries to enforce mandates in it.

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heal ... th_systems

The entire point of that was that the USA doesn't have fully private healthcare. The problem is government in healthcare in a private healthcare economy.

[Kazarogkai]

No, no, no, nonononono. Just because something is fair on paper doesn't mean it's fair in real life. The utility of 20% is vastly different between someone who makes 40000, the median, and someone who makes 500,000.

Marginal utility. It's the best justification for progressive taxes (or at least, the simplest justification).

You'd probably do more to persuade the poster you're replying to, if you'd spent all the words of your reply on this one point.

I invite you to say some more: flat taxes are not fair taxes because ...

Sorry but I'm not going to punish somebody just because they are successful in life if a man who came from the ghetto dirt poor but with hard work and determination worked there way up to the top I'm not going to punish them for that just because they are successful, so go cry in a ditch somewhere else you bleeding heart leftist.

[Divair]

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heal ... th_systems

The entire point of that was that the USA doesn't have fully private healthcare. The problem is government in healthcare in a private healthcare economy.

Go look at the top 20 or so healthcare systems.

Most, if not all, are universal.


Private doesn't work.

[Laissez-Faire]

The entire point of that was that the USA doesn't have fully private healthcare. The problem is government in healthcare in a private healthcare economy.

Go look at the top 20 or so healthcare systems.

Most, if not all, are universal.


Private doesn't work.

Show me where a country has a fully private and developed healthcare infrastructure.

[AiliailiA]

Private healthcare?

No.

It works, until government tries to enforce mandates in it.

It works, providing the government system covers everyone who doesn't buy private (eg, the UK) or ... actually, what you just said. Government sets a standard which all insurers must meet (eg, the Netherlands)

[Divair]

Go look at the top 20 or so healthcare systems.

Most, if not all, are universal.


Private doesn't work.

Show me where a country has a fully private and developed healthcare infrastructure.

You're making the claim a private system is better. You provide the proof.

[AiliailiA]

Go look at the top 20 or so healthcare systems.

Most, if not all, are universal.


Private doesn't work.

Show me where a country has a fully private and developed healthcare infrastructure.

Haha, exactly.

"It would be perfect, if it existed. The reason it doesn't exist is tha damn government offering competing services. Government sucks at business. No fair that business has to compete with government. Read Atlas Shrugged, it will change your world"