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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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| It would eliminate all tax expenditures except the Child Credit and EITC, lower the marginal rates, and reinstate capital gains and dividends as ordinary income. |
That would go a long way in making the tax code more fair for wage earners. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 5:15 am Post subject: |
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I'm not really sure why the commission is including Social Security in the debt study unless it is because the fiscal radicals want to take the opportunity to damage the system.
Since the Baby Boom went from 1945 to 1960 (15 years) and the first ones could retire this year at full benefits (and some retired 2 years ago at partial benefits), and the system is paid up until 2037 (27 more years from today), I don't really see what the panic is about. A relative handful of us will be alive into our 80's.
The population in 1960 was around 180 million. It's above 300 million now. Nearly double. The problem seems to be that the 5 cent Hershey's bar now costs what, about 50 cents? About 10 times as much. I don't remember ever having the opportunity to vote on these conditions. What ever happened to the 5% savings account at my friendly local neighborhood bank?
If they want to raise the retirement age, I am open to the discussion, but someone needs to take into consideration that a waitress who is on her feet all day and a construction worker hoisting big heavy objects around are not in the same category as a lawyer sitting with his feet up on his desk smoking his smuggled Cuban cigar. That reality needs to be considered in the 'final solution'. Aside from the sheer physical exertion of jobs, attention needs to be paid to the fact that we don't all age at the same rate. There are parts of your body you don't even know you have until they mysteriously start aching and twinging. It isn't just the bottom line that needs to be considered here. There is the reality of the end of life.
The first place to look to save money is our array of military committments and purchases--not only the weapons systems that the military never asked for, but also the deployment of troops to various and sundry countries. Why are we guarding the Mediterranean, for example? Yes, I understand the right wing is paranoid. It's just that I don't see why I should have to survive on catfood just so they can have $14 billion more in nuclear weapons when we can vaporize everyone on earth with the old-fashioned nukes. Dead is dead, after all.
Actually, I find it depressing to see that the topic of the day is saving money in an economic downturn. Not surprising is that the issue is screwing the unemployed to save money while borrowing money to finance a tax cut for the wealthy. France, 1789 comes to mind. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 8:26 am Post subject: |
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http://cnsnews.com/news/article/actual-federal-expenditures-topped-1-tri
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/the-real-u-s-national-security-budget/
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Add it all together and the grand total for the known national security budget of the United States is:
$1,219.2 billion. (That�s more than $1.2 trillion.) |
http://abcnews.go.com/US/bill-gates-education-microsoft-founder-schools-teaching-teachers/story?id=13051251
Bill Gates:
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"It's riddled with gimmicks," Mr. Gates said of the "tricks" states use to balance their budgets. Citing moves such as selling state assets and deferring payments, he said some methods are "so blatant and extreme," that "Enron would blush," referring to the energy company that collapsed a decade ago amid an accounting scandal.
The biggest concerns nationwide, he said, are the growing cost of state-funded health-care programs and public workers' health-care coverage, as well as the way states account for their pension funding. Those obligations threaten the ability to invest in education, Mr. Gates said.
"It is an increasingly difficult picture even assuming the economy does quite well," Mr. Gates said of the costs. |
http://www.businessinsider.com/gates-states-accounting-would-make-enron-blush-2011-3#ixzz1FeHZznea
Muni's:
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2011/03/02/dr-doom-adds-to-muni-scare/
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| A new report from the research firm headed by New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who is credited for predicting the housing bust and subsequent financial crisis, is saying debt defaults of local and state government could rise 650% in 2011. In all, Roubini is predicting that $100 billion in municipal bonds could go bad during the next five years. Last year, defaults in local and state debt totaled just $2.65 billion. And that apparently was the good news. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:32 am Post subject: |
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http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/03/how-general-electic-avoids-paying-taxes/36088/
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In a jaw-dropping expos� in The New York Times, David Kocieniewski explains how General Electric, the country's largest corporation, has managed to accumulate $26 billion in the last five years while not just paying zero taxes but receiving a net tax benefit of $4.1 billion from the IRS. The author dives deep into the company's regulatory filings and interviews a number of tax law and policy experts. Below, we've pulled out from the multi-page report the various schemes and tactics the corporation uses to keep exploiting the tax system. It's worth reading in full here.
-Lobbying The company spent more than $200 million in the last ten years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. One of its major lobbying coups includes the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act, which allowed it to "defer taxes on overseas profits from leasing planes to airlines." That law saved the company more than $1 billion just three years after it was enacted.
-Greasing Palms When GE needed to change Rep. Charlie Rangel's mind about support for a key tax break, it awarded $11 million to various schools in Rangel's district. Afterward, Rangel, who then headed the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, pledged his support for the tax provision. He says the donation had no effect on his decision. Rangel has also been under intense scrutiny recently for ethics violations unrelated to GE.
-Anointing Tax Kings At many of its major manufacturing facilities across the world, GE has elevated the role of tax strategist to an executive decision-making post. The company's tax department has expanded to 975 employees.
-A Culture of Tax Avoidance The company's mission statement urges employees to "evenly" divide their time between obeying the law and "looking to exploit opportunities to reduce tax.�
-Leasing and Lending Abroad In the late '90s GE won passage of a tax provision known as "active financing" allowing it to "avoid taxes on lending income from abroad," that in turn gave the company an array of tax credits and write-offs used to offset taxes on its U.S. operations.
-Cutting Its Domestic Work Force "Since 2002, the company has eliminated a fifth of its work force in the United States while increasing overseas employment," writes the Times. "In that time, G.E.�s accumulated offshore profits have risen to $92 billion from $15 billion." |
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:15 am Post subject: |
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To be honest, mises, I think the solution is to cut corporate taxes and raise taxes somewhat on individual incomes over $100,000 and moreso on individual incomes over $250,000.
Whenever a system has corporate taxes its begging for tax breaks, and tax breaks are the largest form of corporate welfare. So kill it. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:21 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
To be honest, mises, I think the solution is to cut corporate taxes and raise taxes somewhat on individual incomes over $100,000 and moreso on individual incomes over $250,000.
Whenever a system has corporate taxes its begging for tax breaks, and tax breaks are the largest form of corporate welfare. So kill it. |
Tax away unearned income. Dividends, interest, rents, gains on speculation. Why tax labour? The classical economists sought a low cost economy that rewarded labour and removed rents and unnecessary costs (tollbooths and monopolies).
This is another unscalable wall. Without campaign finance reform this will not be fixed. The tollbooths will be erected everywhere and speculators will ensure they are favored. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 5:38 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
To be honest, mises, I think the solution is to cut corporate taxes and raise taxes somewhat on individual incomes over $100,000 and moreso on individual incomes over $250,000.
Whenever a system has corporate taxes its begging for tax breaks, and tax breaks are the largest form of corporate welfare. So kill it. |
Tax away unearned income. Dividends, interest, rents, gains on speculation. Why tax labour? The classical economists sought a low cost economy that rewarded labour and removed rents and unnecessary costs (tollbooths and monopolies). |
We tax labor out of fairness. Someone making $200,000 can better afford to pay a somewhat larger chunk of their income than someone making $20,000. Besides, if you tax only unearned income, the private equity people and the career corporate elite will just shift their income back from stock compensation over to salaries. Bowles-Simpson would unify earned and unearned income rates. Right now, US tax policy favors unearned income.
But I agree the US needs to move more towards Europe's tax scheme: lower corporate taxes and higher consumption taxes. The US will have the highest corporate taxes in the developed world come April (when Japan lowers its rates). The head of Cisco was on 60 Minutes last night begging for a level playing field. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:33 am Post subject: |
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The Empire won't die
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| But there isn't even much enthusiasm among fiscal hawks for forcing the Pentagon and its army of contractors and Beltway Bandits to give up some of their hefty gains over the last decade. Cuts on the order of 10 or 15 percent would still leave military spending at the end of this decade higher, in real, inflation-adjusted terms, than it was in 2000. The mere prospect strikes terror in the hearts of inveterate hawks. As my Cato colleague Tad DeHaven pointed out yesterday, the Republican's "YouCut" web site manages to identify a paltry few hundred million dollars in potential savings from the Pentagon's bloated budget. The release of this laughably meager (and obviously half-hearted) attempt at fiscal discipline is made only more risible by the near-simultaneous release of a GAO study documenting, yet again, the massive waste and mismanagement that is rampant in weapons procurement. Among the GAO's key findings: "�half of DOD�s major defense acquisition programs do not meet cost performance goals" and "80 percent of programs have experienced an increase in unit costs from initial estimates." |
This would damage Republicans . . . if the Obama Democrats would actually dare push to cut military spending. |
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