Eturnalshift wrote:
Democrats are always screaming about people not paying their fair share, but then they forget that the lower 50% of the country has no tax liability, and that the top 5% pays more than 50% of the total federal income tax revenue. The tax code isn't fair. It takes money from the successful and doesn't even touch those who are less successful. You guys are always screaming that Romney only paid 14% of his income because of the tax code and capital gains. Well, this is a good time to remind you that the Republicans have opened the floor to the ideas of fair/flat taxes and/or consumption taxes.
The successful should pay because the country established the conditions for their success. People who have nothing, or are struggling to get by, are already more than paying their share. The tax code is more than fair - to the very rich.
Flat taxes are not fair, and consumption taxes will blow the economy's feet off because they are grossly regressive.
Prosperity has always been driven by the spending and initiative of the middle class, NOT the rich. Which got the economy rolling, Beemers or V-bugs and Model Ts? Which got the economy rolling, ENIAC or the Apple II? Which got the economy rolling, the Maxim gun or the Winchester? So who should be empowered, the rich or the middle class?
Finally, you conveniently ignore than when the country was doing better, the rich paid more - far more - than they do now. Therefore, high taxes on the rich do not prevent prosperity.
Eturnalshift wrote:
Medicaid and Medicare have been consistently raided by the government and the two entitlements, which are over 40% the federal budget, aren't solvent. To provide coverage for one person, you need five people to work. That is unsustainable and it needs to change. It's also worth mentioning that the changes would push the future beneficiaries into the private market by providing a monetary off-set to the cost, while maintaining the care of those currently receiving care. Trying to find a solution to the problem shows more care than pretending the problem doesn't exist.
How is the private market superior? It sounds to me like you're describing exactly the same thing, healthcare getting paid for, except the fat cats keep more of the expenditure.
Eturnalshift wrote:
If you're over-spending each year and you need to make cuts, why not cut non-essential programs? Could the defense budget get cut? Sure, it could... then again, so could every other program. To answer your question... no, the arts aren't nearly as important as national defense. Sesame Street and Liberal NPR aren't, either.
Cost-benefit. The cost of those programs, and all even remotely like them combined, is infinitesimal. As in less than 1%. The benefit is huge. An educated workforce is a prosperous workforce. Why do you think that India gets call centers?
And the very fact you don't realize this proves the only spoiled person here is you. You think literacy and education are like air and sunlight. No - they are there because of the efforts of others.
Eturnalshift wrote:
Wait, so we can increase spending in nearly every way, and run deficits... but the moment someone decides they might increase spending to the defense (which our spending has been, over the last decade, a low percentage of the budget to what it's historically been) then it's a bad thing? I'm starting to think you don't like Romney because he's an oogie-boogie Mormon.
The world didn't spring into being in 1953 so "historically been" is nonsense. We spend more on defense than the next what, 12 countries, with a combined population and economic capacity of what, five times ours? How is that not too much? Military overspending is a long-term problem we've had the luxury to ignore for generations, and now we can't ignore it anymore.
The very fact the military clique complains about marginal cuts at a time of such dire need just proves what a bunch of self-interested traitors who don't give a shit about this country they are.
Eturnalshift wrote:
Since when were Democrats ever concerned with mathematical possibilities? We know Romney's plan, but don't know Romney's hard numbers yet, so anything at this point is speculation... but hell, I'd trade a proven failure for a potential failure any day. Wouldn't you?
Because we do. Nor does Romney's plan have any chance of working. Just because you don't want to read up about other countries today or what has or hasn't worked in the past doesn't mean these ideas haven't been tried and flunked.
