The Democratic Party blames the Republicans for the nation's economic ills. The Republican Party blames the Democrats for the nation's economic ills. In truth, they both have been feeding at the public trough for so long they don't know how to stop. Personally, I favor a flat tax that doesn't start until $20,000 is earned with a sliding scale of one percent hikes from 10% to 17% based on earnings ranges, regardless of corporate or personal. Then provide the president with a line item veto which can be endorsed or canceled by a triumverate of the Senate majority leader, the Speaker of the House and the Vice President (or some form of limited, elected legislative panel). Yes, porkbarrel hogs like Robert Byrd of West Virginia would howl, but the country would save millions in studies of whether blackberry jam is better than boisenberry. Then I would require government agencies and charities to spend 85% of the monies granted to them on the people they are designed to help and 15% on salaries and administration. Otherwise, the charity would face maximum tax on all income regardless of size and the offending government agency would be eliminated altogether. If government agencies (local, state or federal) duplicated efforts, all would be combined into one agency. Agencies like schools would be put under one state administration rather than the dozens upon dozens of unequal school districts we now have. This would help distribute school monies equally. Also, it's foolish to pay each school district administrator $150K annually when we only need do it once. The same goes for the colleges, and if some die so be it. If its harder to get into college because there are fewer slots, then the kids will start working harder to learn. Right now, every college kid passes lest the teacher gets a reprimand. Next I would eliminate all the corporate and personal tax shelters and subsidies so that the flat tax could work its magic. And that's only a start.
I was wondering if we were going to engage you or if you were just going to ignore the thread (CASE CLOSED, remember). I always understood that the government pretty much got the same rate no matter what the discount rate was set at. Can you provide anything to back up your assertion that the government is getting a vastly lower interest rate now as opposed to a few years ago? The truly absurd part is that you (and the administration) actually think that we buy your crap about using debt to finance this shortfall. This is not a shortfall, this is a financially irresponsible binge by our elected officials. We are giving money to rich people who do very little to stimulate the economy, just like when Reagan did it. Bush I raised taxes to help get us out of the recession started by Reagan (part of the reason he was not reelected, read my lips) and it even started to work before he left office. Clinton continued along without lowering taxes and reigned through the most prosperous period in our history. Bush II gives us a Reagan tax cut on steroids and the economy tanks as a result. I may not know as much about economic theory as you do, but it looks like you are the one without an understanding of history. Theories are all well and good but when you look at the way reality works, it does not back up your claims.
Sorry, I had a different understanding. I believe that the rate the government gets is not as volatile as the discount rate as the government's rate is lower. Is that correct?
Our debt will be over $7.5 trillion dollars as of next year. That is $150 billion per year in interest payments if the debt is held at 2%. $150 billion per year that could go to not cutting pay and benefits to the military, giving government employees the raises they deserve, or tax cuts. No matter what you try to claim, paying down debt is good economic policy. The only exception to that would be if we were using low interest debt to pay off higher interest debt. Instead, we are using debt to pay dividends to the rich.
LOL. Isn't it a bit off when wasting $150 billion per year on interest just doesn't sound like a whole lot of money. I just can't help but think of all the good that money could do in our pockets rather than being thrown down a pit year after year.
