The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of it's forms - greed for life, for money, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed - you mark my words - will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you. - Gordon Gekko
I think it is funny that W cut taxes and now he says SS is bankrupt. Huh, I wonder if anybody is going to connect the dots? Isn't that akin to stealing a lady's purse and then saying, see that's why you shouldn't trust mankind?
It's incredibly entertaining to see the liberals automatically assume that cutting taxes is a decrease in revenues for the government. I would like for each of you liberals to do some research on the Laffer Curve and come back to me and prove to all of us how you are such an expert on where the US currently stands on this curve that you can confidently say that the increase in economic growth (and hence the tax base) does not more than offset the amount of taxes that have been cut. Thanks in advance.
I'm familiar with the laffer curve, and know that the line has been crossed. I'm also familiar with case studies. Reagan cut taxes, and grew the deficit, but eventually Reagan had to raise taxes as well. W's father also had to eventually raise taxes, and his failure to do so caused the debt to rise even more. Under Clinton the economy boomed even with a tax cut, and the economy grew. Now if you want to say that W's tax cuts had an effect on the great growth of the economy(hence the tax base) that may or may not be exactly accurate. I think they tax cuts did have some positive short term effect. However there was not positive job growth, which is what would create new tax payers and really increase our tax base. Furthermore it isn't just that Bush cut taxes, it is that he cut taxes AND spent like a drunken sailor. Those two never add up. But we are talking actual economics here. Bush is the person who set the definition that if a program isn't solvent it is bankrupt. It is by Bush's own definition that every other program in the govt. is bankrupt.
So what you're saying is that you're not sure where we are on the Laffer Curve. Thank you. Cutting through your rhetoric and "actual economics", as you call it, I didn't see a single number included in your analysis. Anybody else want to take a shot?
I think it is incredibly entertaing to see conservatives try to justify this president's actions with academic principles when his own strategy is to dumb down every argument to it's simplest form so us commoners can understand. So in a true Bush style quote, I still think it is funny how W cuts taxes and now says we don't have enough money to fund SS.
Know I'm saying that we've passed the line on the Laffer curve where we receive a benefit from the action of cutting taxes. Your welcome. If you'd like actual numbers here are plenty. The White House will project that this year’s federal deficit will hit $427 billion, a senior administration official said Tuesday, a record partly driven by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6862777/ As President George W. Bush gears up for his reelection bid, is the economic glass half empty or half full? Certainly it's easy for political partisans to put either a negative or positive spin on the latest statistics. There are 1.1 million fewer jobs than there were at the beginning of 2001, when Bush took office.http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_36/b3898026_mz001.htm In FY04 the U. S. Government spent $322 Billion of your money on interest payments* to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion. For FY2005, the total is already $120 Billion. http://www.federalbudget.com/ You do understand that interest payment, is money that we taxpayers pay, and get zero services in return for, right? The more deficit spending in our budget, the more the debt and interest will rise. That is 322 Billion dollars in 2004 that tax payers paid and got nothing back. No jobs, no education, salaries, programs, road improvement, military equipment etc. There isn't any more wasteful spending by govt. than that interest payment. No program for single mothers, healthcare, S.S., military spending, etc. None of it is as wasteful as that. Taxes have to be taken in in order to pay that debt down and reduce those interest payments.
Indirectly, yes? We all know the government borrows against SS every year. The government has a vested interest to keep SS solvent for that very reason. They play all of their little accounting tricks that we'll probably never know about. When it comes down to it, the basic question still burns for me. How can we afford to give everybody a $300 tax break and then shortly thereafter, complain that there isn't enough money to fund SS? You try to spin that any way you want...but on the surface...it just stinks!!! W said that money is better served in our own hands than in the government's. However social security IS my OWN money and we are in jeapardy of not getting it all back when we retire. Put that damn collective $300 into SS and don't borrow against it anymore. That alone probably would have solved our "crisis." I don't know if this would have solved it or not...but we have until 2042 to find a solution...I'm sure we can do better than W's proposed plan which undermines the whole system. ...oh...and quit starting multi-billion dollar wars for no particular reason that drives up the defecit. Minor detail there.
W's proposed restructuring has nothing to do about saving SS and everything to do with pork for the financial services industries. (See Iraq and WMD for W's history of not marketing the truth). We all might as well admit this now, so there will be no confusion later.
When the crisis hits is no time to start working on it, but I don't really think that is what you meant... The $300 "tax cut" was symbolic. I agree that it would have been better applied to a national financial problem rather than to some 100,000,000 Visa bills-- now there's pork in the financial industry!
Income Tax and SS Tax are UNRELATED, cutting income tax does not steal from SS. People get your facts right.
You bought the hype. FICA and FIT go into the same general spending account. The SS "trust" fund is an UNFUNDED trust, which exists are paper only.
Neah, what I meant was cutting income tax doesn't steal from SS tax. SS is calculated separately from income tax. So while I paid less income tax last year, I paid the same amount of SS tax.
All taxes go into the same spending account. All spending comes out of that account, including SS checks. Cutting income taxes reduced the revenue, but did not reduce spending. Thus, the SS checks went out as expected. The fact that we are running a deficit means that the mythical SS trust fund monies (or better said the unspent SS taxes for the year) have been spent. This what was meant by "stealing from SS".
I think we are arguing semantics here, I am pointing out that SS tax is NOT cut along with the income tax. Running a deficit is a seprate issue. Single account or multiple account or single account with multiple sub accounts, these are just accounting methods. The important fact is the source of the cash flow, and the source of SS tax are not cut by the income tax cuts. (you would have a better argument for SS tax loss from loss of jobs) (You analogy would mean anytime we have a deficit big or small, we are stealing from SS. Which means anytime a president dem or republic is in office that has a deficit, could be caused by normal economic cycles, you could accuse him of 'stealing from SS'). Our deficit are largely financed by borrowing (i.e. US treasuries), not from SS Tax.
If you beleive that, I have some swamp land for sale. Look, fact of the matter is: 1. SS is NOT a new issue. 2. W gave tax cuts when that money could have been used for SS if he was so worried about it...but he clearly wasn't. 3. Now he says there isn't enough money. You justify it in your mind how you want. But fact is all the money goes into and out of the same government. If we know monies are short in one area, is it okay to give refunds? Clearly his priorities aren't on preserving this system for Americans!!! If it were, he had the money in his pocket to fix it but he chose to run on a short-sighted popularity move that limited his flexibility to reapportion money where it is truely needed.
