Fiscal Cliff Primer….

[no_such_reality]

Woohoo!

[poorgradstudent]

Funny, that doesn’t look anything like Grover Norquist driving that car.

All the Republicans have to say to fix the “problem” is “we will compromise and work with you and allow some taxes to go up.” The stock market would celebrate and soar. Our deficit could be fixed almost completely. Too bad Boehner likes playing chicken and holding the country hostage. Hopefully McConnell will do an end around on him and cut a deal.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=UCGal]
We hear how Social Security is broke… yet they cut the employee contributions by 2% to stimulate the economy. We need to stop that. How do you fix Social Security while simultaneously cutting the revenue to pay for it? Obviously the goal is to eliminate it – but no one will say so. Raise the SS deductions back to their previous levels – and raise the annual income threshold. Do the COLA fix to reduce the increase to SS each year. That’s a good start.[/quote]
Social Security is not “broke”.
The government has been borrowing from SS for years to pay for things like unfinanced wars. Really, the government owes SS, not the other way around.

[CA renter]

[quote=UCGal]We are told how concerned our politicians are about the debt and deficit.
– the fiscal “cliff”, unaltered, reduces both significantly.

So folks talking about the dire nature of the debt/deficit should be FOR the fiscal “cliff”.

If you care about your children and grandchildren, you should care about burdening them with debt. Even if it means adjusting revenues to well below Reagan levels – back to Clinton levels.

We hear how Social Security is broke… yet they cut the employee contributions by 2% to stimulate the economy. We need to stop that. How do you fix Social Security while simultaneously cutting the revenue to pay for it? Obviously the goal is to eliminate it – but no one will say so. Raise the SS deductions back to their previous levels – and raise the annual income threshold. Do the COLA fix to reduce the increase to SS each year. That’s a good start.

Folks – this is math. You can’t fix the budget with just cuts. You can’t fix the budget with just taxes. The sequestration (fiscal cliff) combines both. I say lets go over that cliff… Yes, I personally will pay more taxes and yes, I personally will see services I enjoy cut. But it’s not nearly as dire as kicking the can forever.[/quote]

Agree 100% with everything you’ve said here, UCGal. Great post.

[CA renter]

[quote=flu]

Our politicians love to vilify rich people and anyone else. They love to get people all stirred up over political ideologies. That way they don’t have to deal with reality. They don’t have to cut entitlement programs, they don’t have to raise taxes for everyone, they don’t have to make cuts in public sectors, they don’t have made educational cuts. And everyone has their own self-interest to preserve what’s theirs. That’s the way it goes.

[/quote]

You keep repeating this nonsense as if saying it often enough will make it true. Unions have given/lost far more than “the rich” are being asked to give, even if all of the tax increases being bandied about pass.

Almost all of the cuts in recent years have been in government spending. Public sector workers have taken furloughs, pay cuts, benefit cuts, and have taken on more and more work as their budgets get cut.

In California, Governor Brown’s reforms have dramatically increased employee pension contributions, retirement ages, etc., and many employers have already moved to a two/multi-tier hybrid pension plan.

Additionally, all sales tax increases, license fees, etc. will take a much larger portion of the income of poor and working people than it will of “the rich” who are the biggest whiners around.

Stop spouting your lies, and quit whining about tiny tax increases that will barely affect your lifestyle.

Stop asking for everyone else to give so that you don’t have to. WHAT HAVE **YOU** GIVEN UP to make this state and country a better place for us and our children?

[dumbrenter]

[quote=poorgradstudent][quote=UCGal]
We hear how Social Security is broke… yet they cut the employee contributions by 2% to stimulate the economy. We need to stop that. How do you fix Social Security while simultaneously cutting the revenue to pay for it? Obviously the goal is to eliminate it – but no one will say so. Raise the SS deductions back to their previous levels – and raise the annual income threshold. Do the COLA fix to reduce the increase to SS each year. That’s a good start.[/quote]
Social Security is not “broke”.
The government has been borrowing from SS for years to pay for things like unfinanced wars. Really, the government owes SS, not the other way around.[/quote]

Maybe going over the fiscal cliff will be the best thing ever to happen to this country.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=UCGal]
Folks – this is math. You can’t fix the budget with just cuts. You can’t fix the budget with just taxes. The sequestration (fiscal cliff) combines both. I say lets go over that cliff… Yes, I personally will pay more taxes and yes, I personally will see services I enjoy cut. But it’s not nearly as dire as kicking the can forever.[/quote]

Actually, we can fix it with just cuts.

We could fix it with just tax increases too.

We may not like the macro-economic impacts of those two extremes though as it be like a meth-addict going cold turkey. With a trillion dollar of excess spending in a $15 Trillion dollar economy, cutting a trillion will have shock waves. Similarly, taxing a trillion out will have similar shockwaves.

But overall, slashing services, reducing defense, ending the wars, decreasing social security and expiring the Bush/Obama extended tax cuts are all needed.

Or more simply, let the fiscal cliff happen.

Honestly, the fiscal cliff is probably the best compromise solution the congress is going to come up with today. Both sides have what they think is a gun to the other sides head, which probably means it’s pretty good as all the sacred cows are going to get gored.

[livinincali]

[quote=no_such_reality]
Honestly, the fiscal cliff is probably the best compromise solution the congress is going to come up with today. Both sides have what they think is a gun to the other sides head, which probably means it’s pretty good as all the sacred cows are going to get gored.[/quote]

All the sacred cows should get gored. Why play favorites. Obviously the biggest problem and fastest growing problem is health care. On the current growth rate it will eat up all of the budget in the next 15 years and it 30 years it would eat up the entire GDP of the country. Social security can probably be indexed to life span and means tested. Defense should probably be reduced by at least 25% and more likely 50% but you could make an argument that some defense spending in R&D is actually a productive activity for the economy.

[spdrun]

How about financing R&D directly instead of making the excuse that it’s for “national defense”. There shouldn’t be a need to kowtow to the anti-science people.

[UCGal]

Or they could implement Simpson Bowles.
A majority of the committee voted for it – but it needed 60% to be sent automatically to congress. Our former Veep candidate, Paul Ryan, was on the committee and voted against it, btw.

Talk about spreading the pain – Simpson Bowles did that.

[Author]

Posts