Ok, there are a few typos in this headline. It's $4 trillion, not billion. And the obvious "efecit" typo.
But we're talking $4 trillion over 10 years. The debt is growing by about $1.5 a year, or about $15 in a decade (not accounting for inflation). So even a $4 trillion dollar cut still results in an expansion of $11 trillion to the debt, which is about 175% of today's budget. Where is this money coming from?
But Dagreat1Returns, aren't you genuinely concerned with the huge deficits? The presidents before Obama have increased the debt, and the presidents after him will too (well, except Paul who proposes $1 trillion in cuts today). If our debt doubles over the next 10 years, and we keep pumping money to sustain it, our dollar will become worthless.
It doesn't matter if it's Romney/Gingrich/Santorum or Obama; the government is expanding to unsustainable levels. As long as we live beyond our means, we're doomed to live below our means.
I suppose I see that as the a major problem; that no one is talking about our crushing debt. I don't want to seem like I'm starting a fight, just raising some dialouge.
I don't see the Bush era tax cuts as a problem however. How much should rich people have to pay? 40%? 50%? Any tax for corporations and millionaires are inevitably passed onto the consumer. We can't tax and print money out of this problem much longer.
In fact, I would love to see everyone pay much less in taxes. The government doesn't know how to best spend our money. Only the person who has the money can adequately decide on how to spend it. Eliminate the income tax amongst other taxes. And correspondingly shrink our federal government. The easiest place to start is end all our foreign entanglements and bring our troops home from the Middle East, from Germany, Korea, Japan; everywhere. Then we can end our inane Wars, like the War on Drugs, on Terror, Poverty, et al. Then we can start cutting debilitating bureaucracies and agencies like the TSA, FEMA, departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Interior and Education, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... And finally we can phase out our federal welfare like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
But above all, America once again needs a sound currency. Everything else will fall into place without an elastic money supply.
I apologize if I misunderstood you, but I'm (and fellow Dr. Paul supporters) are advocating to end all foreign conflicts and end foreign aid. If a war must be fought, it needs to be declared by Congress, something they haven't done since WWII. So without having to fund these senseless wars (foreign and domestic), tax cuts can be had all around for everyone.
I grew up in a coastal Florida town where hurricanes were a yearly threat. However, FEMA wasn't formed until 1979; disasters were budgeted and planned for by the state's government (also in other southern and coastal states). But to see the bureaucracy at work, look at how awful Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans was managed. It took days for FEMA to do anything. Had Louisiana not relied on the ineptitude of the Federal Government, they might have had a more efficient disaster relief unit in place. I mean, looked who was picked to run it at the time. Michael Brown, a political science guy with no disaster relief training and head of the Arabian Horse Association.
The same argument goes towards other Departments. I mean, what exactly does the Department of Education do? This wasn't formed until 1979 either, yet our country still produced innovated minds, some of the best mathematicians, doctors, scientists, etc. But the quality of education has declined over the past decades, with America hovering around 15 or so in world rankings. Shouldn't the state of New York and its people be able to decide what standards their students must meet? And not something dictated by a handful of administrators in Washington?
The tax rates you are referring to are the marginal tax rate. Here's a excerpt from an article explaining this:
"So in 1955, for example, when the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent, that was the tax rate owed on a person's income over $300,000. That person would, however, pay 20 percent on the first $2,000 of income; 21 percent on the next $2,000 in income; 24 percent on the next $2,000 and graduated on up to the highest rate. On average, a person making, say, $500,000 would pay substantially less than 90 percent of their income in federal taxes.
In 1952 and 1953, Williams said, when the top income tax rate was 92 percent for income over $300,000, a person would have to make waaaay more than $300,000 to actually end up paying an average of 90 percent of their income."
And I agree with you about trickle down economists not working, but for different reasons. The money the government injects via quantitative easing or through bailouts/stimulus goes where the government is most involved, which would be housing, health care, student loans, etc. Now, the prices of these organizations have artificially been driven up. The corporations and institutions that receive this money benefit the most, because prices have not yet adjusted to the new found money supply. But by the time this money enters circulation to the average Joe, prices have gone up (because of the increase in money supply), but the wages don't catch up accordingly.
Without an elastic money supply, this effect becomes null and void. There's a reason why a central bank in America has failed twice before and will fail again. Privatization works in economics without a central bank. Dr. Paul is quite a viable candidate of the people (not the mainstream media); his youth movement has only grown. He receives more active duty military donations than the other candidates (including our President) and receives more donations from the public sector (jobs that he is proposing to cut) than anyone else. And as he says, rights come to individuals, not groups. When we start separating people into groups, the inequity comes about. Individual liberties, property rights, the Constitution, all are things he supports vehemently and is what we need.
@ Super
Please stop ! You are wasting yur time. You are speaking with the leader of the tax and spend toe tag liberal douchbags on MTO ! This is Obama's number 1 dyykrider in these forums, so all you intelligent debate about spending falls on deaf ears.
If you noticed, the first thing he said was basically an insult with absolutely no response to the issue. Not until you pressed his confused @$$ did he make a dismal attempt at refuting your logic ! And you made it too dam easy ! You did the simple math for him and he still comes at you like yur wrong ??? Hogwash !
@ Dafake1 ReBurns
5 years olds know how to do simple math dumb@ss !
Obama cuts 4 trillion over 5 years
Debt goes up by 1.5 every year.
In 10 years that is 15 trillion.
15 - 4 = 11 trillion ??????????
HOW DOES THAT FIX THE DEFICIT/SPENDING STUPID @$$ !!!!!! IT DOESN'T !
These democratic ingrates believe that the answer to our financial problems is for rich people to give more money to the government ! This is clearly the most @ssanine theory devised by democrats. But the average American is sooo stupid they don't have a clue how wrong this is.
EVEN IF YOU TAXED THE SHYTE OUT OF ALL RICH PEOPLE FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS AT 100% PERCENT OF THEIR INCOME, IT STILL WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH TO FIX OUR FINANCIAL PROBLEMS !
Like I said, I'm not here to start fights, just have honest dialogue. I was a Obama supporter, but became heavily satisfied with how he's been handling our country. Also, like I mentioned before, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. Both parties are to blame. They do the exact same thing; more government, more welfare, more warfare. It's unsustainable.
I believe he is advocating ending our wars for a variety of reasons. Fiscal reasons, Constitutional reasons, and because of his humanitarian outlook. I mean, he got boo'd at one of the recent debates for suggesting that Osama bin Laden be treated as a war criminal and tried like the other domestic and international terrorists. He even said how heavy his heart is for our boys and girls who come home crippled or in a body bag. I can even dig up an interview of his in the '80s talking about if a war is really worth fighting, then the litmus test should be if we're willing to go fight it or send our children to fight it. He's a doctor that's delivered over 4000 babies and he was an Air Force veteran (something the other candidates lack) and is advocating for total withdrawal and peace. Yet he's ostracized. In fact, the only thing I can think of that he flipped flopped on was that he used to be pro death penalty, now he's against it.
I mean, he's not your typical neo-con Republican. Believing the government should be out of the marriage debate altogether, ending the wars, ending the federal drug crimes... He's running on the Republican ticket because the other smaller parties do not get equal air time in our two party system. I wouldn't call his support fringe, as I said, it's growing every day.
But I suppose the crux of our disagreement is that I believe the government to be the cause of the vast majority of problems, not the solution.