How would you solve the budget?

[Nitro Express]

There is one so called famous person who should have all their money and toys taken from them for polluting the earth with cheese and noise.

[GO-SPURS-GO]

Actually, celebrities pay taxes. They are juicy targets of the IRS if they don't. Government agencies love to bust celebrities. The DEA put Thomas Chong in prison when it was his son who was making and selling bongs. The SEC threw Martha Stewart in jail when major Wall Street criminals do zero time. The rich pay taxes, the wealthy don't. It's the people who own major shares of stock in companies like Comcast who don't pay any taxes. The celebrities who work for a Comcast owned network pay their taxes or they get fined or go to jail.

Uh, okay… well then I’ll tax the shit out of the wealthy too! Hell I didn’t even know there was a difference between the two?

I know rich people like Tom Cruise and Puff Daddy pay taxes; I just don’t think they pay enough. If you have enough money to splurge on a $16,000 stroller the means absolutely nothing to the kid, then that says you have way to much money and you need help spending that money, so why not feed some hungry kids instead?

[sadaist]

I know rich people like Tom Cruise and Puff Daddy pay taxes; I just don’t think they pay enough. If you have enough money to splurge on a $16,000 stroller the means absolutely nothing to the kid, then that says you have way to much money and you need help spending that money, so why not feed some hungry kids instead?

I could not disagree more. He pays his taxes. If he makes enough money after that to be able to afford things we view as unnecessary, so be it. I have a $350 grill outside hooked up to the houses main gas line. To people who make even less than me that might seem excessive. Why buy a $350 grill when I could get one for $100 and give the extra $250 to the needy?

Where does it stop? We can't & shouldn't tell people how much is enough or too much. We can't tell people what they can or can't spend their money on. It's not charity if we are forced to give.

[BigBadBrian]

technically, it wouldn't. nothing says that churches must be immune from taxation. the government has to be careful about clear and unbiased rules to make sure that it does not favor one religion over another. but there's nothing that says the government can't change the non-profit laws and levy a corporate income tax against all religions operating in the country.

Sure it would violate the Constitutuon. I'm quite confident any sane court would rule that way. Establishing taxes on a church is interfering with the operation of the churches. While I'm glad kwame is one liberal who realizes the phrase "seperation of church and state" isn't a phrase directly from the Constitution (How long have I been arguing that one? It comes from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists) it would theoretically violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Most churches are registered as non-profits. Are we going to tax the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the United Way, the American Cancer Society, and the Salvation Army also?

Besides, the theoretical taxing of churches would allow:

->Government subsidies to churches.
->Lobbyists on Capital hill for Churches.
->A say in Congress for churches on how your tax dollars are spent.
->Churches to donate to politicians and political parties.
->Churches and pastors to outright endorse political candidates and suggest to their members who they should vote for (already being done on both sides of the aisle but done very low key).

Those are just a few.

It's a slippery slope I don't think most people, particularly liberals, want to start sliding on for the relatively low revenue it would provide.

[sadaist]

There is talk now of legalizing & taxing online gaming. I'm 100% for this. The problem is when the new revenue comes in, the politicians eyes will light up and a ton of new things will be funded. Then when the money dries up someday, they won't cut any of the programs.

[hideyoursheep]

Fun facts:
In 1981, Reagan significantly reduced the maximum tax rate, which affected the highest income earners, and lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%; in 1986 he further reduced the rate to 28%. As a result of all this, the budget deficit and federal debt increased considerably: debt grew from 33.3% of GDP in 1980 to 51.9% at the end of 1988 and the deficit increased from 2.7% in 1980 to more than double in 1983, when it reached 6%; in 1984, 1985 and 1986 it was around 5%. In order to cover new federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion.



So how did the Clinton administration wind up with a surplus?

They raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 % of Americans, while cutting taxes for 15 million of the lowest income Americans, at the same time reducing government spending.

It cost many Democratic congressmen their jobs, and the Republicans who replaced them in '96 went right to work on the surplus and never looked back.

IT CAN be done, if congress, or the President had any balls.

[ELVIS]

There never was a surplus...

[hideyoursheep]

There never was a surplus...

Then why did the REPOblicans declare the surplus "too big" at the time?

"...Republicans proposed to dissipate the surplus through tax cuts. Clinton insisted on saving the surplus, vetoing their plan, though Republicans ultimately succeeded when Clinton left office and was replaced by a Republican who shared their tax cuts uber alles ideology. "

[hideyoursheep]

There never was an Elvis....

[ELVIS]

Clinton ran deficits throught all 8 years of his term, and one can go to the US Treasury Department and looking through the history of the total outstanding debt through Clintons term.

Every year Clinton was in office, the total national debt continued to climb.

How Clinton managed to claim a surplus was that while the general operating budgets ran deficits but Clinton borrowed from numerous off budget funds to make the on budget fund a surplus.

For example, in 2000, Clinton claimed a $230B surplus, but Clinton borrowed
$152.3B from Social Security
$30.9B from Civil Service Retirement Fund
$18.5B from Federal Supplementary Medical insurance Trust Fund
$15.0B from Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund
$9.0B from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund
$8.2B from Military Retirement Fund
$3.8B from Transportation Trust Funds
$1.8B from Employee Life Insurance & Retirement fund
$7.0B from others

Total borrowed from off budget funds $246.5B, meaning that his $230B surplus is actually a $16.5B deficit.
($246.5B borrowed - $230B claimed surplus = $16.5B actual deficit).

[hideyoursheep]

Then why did the REPOblicans declare the surplus "too big" at the time?

"...Republicans proposed to dissipate the surplus through tax cuts. Clinton insisted on saving the surplus, vetoing their plan, though Republicans ultimately succeeded when Clinton left office and was replaced by a Republican who shared their tax cuts uber alles ideology. "

One more time..

[hideyoursheep]

So...your saying the rpublicans wanted to spend money the US didn't have?

Shocking.


Not really.

Or ...you get your information from someone else who is trying to re-write history.

Shocking.

[ELVIS]

Fiscal Year - Year Ending - National Debt - Deficit

FY1994 09/30/1994 $4.692749 trillion $281.26 billion
FY1995 09/29/1995 $4.973982 trillion $281.23 billion
FY1996 09/30/1996 $5.224810 trillion $250.83 billion
FY1997 09/30/1997 $5.413146 trillion $188.34 billion
FY1998 09/30/1998 $5.526193 trillion $113.05 billion
FY1999 09/30/1999 $5.656270 trillion $130.08 billion
FY2000 09/29/2000 $5.674178 trillion $17.91 billion
FY2001 09/28/2001 $5.807463 trillion $133.29 billion

[hideyoursheep]

So where's the surplus the GOP wanted to reduce, Elvis?

[ELVIS]

So...your saying the rpublicans wanted to spend money the US didn't have?

Shocking.


Not really.

Or ...you get your information from someone else who is trying to re-write history.

Shocking.

I'm not saying anything. Dumbocrats and Republicons both lie...

Look up Clinton Surplus for yourself and stop spewing the crap you heard somewhere...