Help me understand this....

[A+]

First. Calm down, breathe. Relax.
So house Republicans are fighting over keeping the Bush tax rates for top earners because we shouldn't tax the super wealthy a little more than the rest of us, so they would rather raise the debt limit and cut programs like Medicare and S.S.? Is this right?

[sc281]

Look up the tax rates. High earners already pay more.

[Baron Von Crowder]

Yeah. People not working won't be paying into ss.

[Geor!]

Reversing the Bush tax cuts will pump an additional $80-90b dollars into the government for a year. That's enough money for the government to spend in just a bit over a week. The Republicans are holding out for spending/entitlement cuts which the President is not willing to cede. The Republicans are at a catch-22. Either they cave and give the President the tax increase with nary a single cut in spending and PISS OFF their base, or they don't cave and let the fucker fall the fuck off of the cliff (like needs to happen) and get blamed by the Dems and our worthless fucking president for being the sole purpose that the economy tanked again.

They'll cave. They always do. Always, they kowtow to the Democrats. I don't know why, but they fucking do.

[Broncojohnny]

As Geor said, it is a red herring. Raising taxes on the rich does essentially nothing.

Basically what needs to happen from only a revenue point is view is we need to go over the cliff and just take the tax increases. That would probably be best and that is the only politically acceptable way (blame Republicans) to raise taxes on the middle class and the poor who need to start "paying their fair share".

On the flip side of the coin, spending needs to be reduced dramatically even after the tax increases. Social security and Medicare are going to bankrupt this country because the payments simply can't be sustained.

Furthermore, the government can't increase taxes enough to fund what it spends right now. It is spending 25% of GDP. Raising taxes doesn't work because it hurts the economy and people change their habits to avoid paying taxes. Historically the government can't really collect more than 20% of GDP as taxes no matter what it does.

The politicians just have to figure out who and what to blame all of this on. They know what I said above is true and eventually what I said has to happen, it is an economic certainty. They are just trying to assign blame so they can be re-elected. In the short term this means we are probably going to get a recession coming our way. Huge amounts of inflation or a debt/currency crisis will follow in a few years, those are the only way out of the national debt.

[Forever_frost]

First. Calm down, breathe. Relax.
So house Republicans are fighting over keeping the Bush tax rates for top earners because we shouldn't tax the super wealthy a little more than the rest of us, so they would rather raise the debt limit and cut programs like Medicare and S.S.? Is this right?

Close. Obama doesn't want any cuts and has demanded 1.6 trillion in new taxes as well as increasing spending. Even if they collected 100% of every dime over 250k from everyone in the country, they couldn't even fund the government for a year at this point. What he's playing at is class warfare and playing to the democrat base and the OWS idiots that the rich need to be punished with higher taxes (for a majority of the life of the Republic we had zero taxes), the same people who already fund 90% of the federal budget.

If Republicans blink, he gets his increase in taxes AND spending. If they hold to their guns, Obama gets to blame Republicans for the fiscal cliff and the cuts AND he gets to chop the military budget to hell. It's win-win for him

[A+]

I'm gonna go ahead and go back to my Christmas music. I don't even want to start thinking about this shit much less spend hours reading shit. Maybe after finals. Sorry for opening the can of worms. Geez....whataya gonna do?

[BradM]

I'm gonna go ahead and go back to my Christmas music. I don't even want to start thinking about this shit much less spend hours reading shit. Maybe after finals. Sorry for opening the can of worms. Geez....whataya gonna do?

Don't stick your head back in the sand... bro

[Couver]

I just wish there would be a dedicated push to identifying Medicare fraud and a way to cut off the illegals using our medical system for free. THAT would save a ton right there. But god forbid we alienate a huge voting base.