2002 vs 2012
- Thread starter Dammy
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Interesting. I'd love to see the sources. And I'd love to see military spending in there.
Consider Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya/#? would be in the DoD budget, it's huge. Everything is going to be needed to be slashed to get the budget balanced by cutting $1,000B out of it over a short period of time.
Indeed. That one is definitely an elephant in the room.
I'm kind of surprised the energy conservation budget has gone up as much as it has, but still, at 9.4bn it's a drop in the bucket in comparison. (And probably a very smart drop, as the country desperately needs an energy policy. Personally, I'd prefer pushing nuclear rather than wind, solar, etc... But I'll take whatever we can get.)
Some of these are very predictable, and should have been planned for. Federal Employee Retirement should have been obvious.
And things like the increases in Food Stamps, Medicaid, and Unemployment have all been a direct result of the family income going down while real inflation in things like energy and food have greatly increased prices.
It is telling that GDP has gone up while family income has gone down. Yet people are still insisting the 0.001%'ers need more assistance. Someone's not sharing the full picture, here.
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It is telling that GDP has gone up while family income has gone down. Yet people are still insisting the 0.001%'ers need more assistance. Someone's not sharing the full picture, here.
Lets look at NY then, they upped their millionaire tax rate. What happened? They got less revenue from the increase millionaire tax because of two things, people lost money and are no longer millionaires and the true million/billionaires left the state for places like Florida which doesn't have a personal income tax. My point is if you penalize something with taxes, you get less of it. You raise taxes on the 0.001%, they will laugh as they already have moved their money to Asia. America is no longer the only game in town and it's high time people realize the only way to make it attractive for people to invest in America again is to significantly lower taxes. If you want to chase even more money and jobs overseas, by all means, bring back FDR's draconian tax rates (well, there were major loopholes to hide your money from taxes, it just had to be favorable to FDR's agenda) and see the misery it will cause.
Or can you name me one country that found in the long term prosperity by taxing their way to it?
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What has happened with retirement funds is the same story whether you are talking about the public sector or the private sector. Companies and employees negotiated that employers would pay into retirement funds. Instead they spent the money (on bonuses for the bosses or just on other stuff) and when the bill comes due they they just say - gosh, we can't afford it, and renege. What are you going to do. They have all the money so you can't exactly afford to sue them for breaching the contract.
The scam works the same for "private" retirement funds. Someone puts out a big pot. All the marks ... I mean customers ... put their money in the pot. The guy empties the pot into his own pocket and when the customers come back after they have retired he just shrugs and says "the market" - because that explains everything.
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"Investment" is the problem. When someone "invests" in you that puts you into debt and asking for more investment is asking for more debt. Billionaires investing and getting richer and investing more feels like a good thing at first, just like the first week of a credit card bender can feel great - but it can't last. Instead of billionaires investing what the world needs is billionaires spending.
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Well, I'm not an economics major, but there are only two ways you can have a GDP up and a personal income down, right? Either you have more new people than GDP growth, or you have someone removing money from the system. And I agree, it's the 0.001%'ers moving money outside the US. That's a problem. A big one.
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@Dammy,
This was a 10 year look and it's very clear that the 'naughts' were a decade of slipping American family wealth. And it's actually a 30+ year trend.
Jump back to 1979 and we find 9% of the nation's wealth funneling to the top 1%
Look to 2010 and we find nearly 21% of the nation's wealth funneling to the top 1%
The top 1% who made about 40x the salary of the average worker is now making over 200x the salary of the American worker.
Clearly a rising tide can be made to NOT rise all boats. The fact is the middle-class and lower-class Americans have a smaller part of the pie to split up. I think it's also telling that our rate of private unionization is now about equivalent to that when the Big Deal began. Looks to me that Republicans undid the Big Deal. Not so surprisingly the nation is standing at a similar precipace to that it crossed prior ot the Big Deal being passed.
Simply put the Majority of American families won't get better until we return the economic distribution to a more equitable state. Obama 08-12 was too much of a centrist to allow that to happen. And certainly Mitt ain't going to fix anything. IMO Obama is our best chance this fall for change. As he can't run in 2016 he can make moves that might otherwise kill a political career.
This was a 10 year look and it's very clear that the 'naughts' were a decade of slipping American family wealth. And it's actually a 30+ year trend.
Jump back to 1979 and we find 9% of the nation's wealth funneling to the top 1%
Look to 2010 and we find nearly 21% of the nation's wealth funneling to the top 1%
The top 1% who made about 40x the salary of the average worker is now making over 200x the salary of the American worker.
Clearly a rising tide can be made to NOT rise all boats. The fact is the middle-class and lower-class Americans have a smaller part of the pie to split up. I think it's also telling that our rate of private unionization is now about equivalent to that when the Big Deal began. Looks to me that Republicans undid the Big Deal. Not so surprisingly the nation is standing at a similar precipace to that it crossed prior ot the Big Deal being passed.
Simply put the Majority of American families won't get better until we return the economic distribution to a more equitable state. Obama 08-12 was too much of a centrist to allow that to happen. And certainly Mitt ain't going to fix anything. IMO Obama is our best chance this fall for change. As he can't run in 2016 he can make moves that might otherwise kill a political career.
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Wrong, so very wrong. The federal government should be protecting our borders and nothing else.
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The Federal government should protect the borders, the sanctity of home, your personal liberty and your economic security. When robbers are ranging through the system pocketing all the money they need to be rooted out - they destroy the ability of ordinary people to participate in a vibrant free market.
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If that's all the federal government did, the state governments would take over where the feds leave off. You're talking jurisdiction, I'm talking overall value.
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Alexander Hamilton, the first treasurer of the USA would disagree. As he and George Washington setup quite a bit that do more than that such as laying duties on imports, the management of finances, establishing economic policies, supervising banks, and enforcing tax laws.
Not so surprisingly one of the things established in this first government was the ability to investigate and prosecute Tax Evaders. Doh! Something you wished the government didn't do in the 'IRS Will Have Stalinist Powers Under New Law' thread.
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Bigger problem is they have been doing it for decades and there isn't much left in the US. Then again, so has the US Government:
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No, there is more to DC's obligations, like giving the people a secure money system that is backed by commodities vs debt and basic financial laws to protect the consumers, and providing court systems for consumers being injured by products or services can get a fair trial and seek damages. Nothing I've just mention can justify a nearly $4T budget.
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Except there were not income or corporate profit taxation back then. Back then, they were not too keen on having a federal standing army.
Problem is easily solved by eliminating corp and personal income and payroll taxes and just use a Fair Tax. Fair Tax system could easily be modified to allow tax breaks for given areas of economic suffering. Nice thing about it, even the black market money would be eventually taxed while promoting personal savings. If the US Dollar is worth anything by that point in time, which I doubt.
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Far better for the states to pickup the regulation duties then the feds. State elected officials still fear the individual voter's ire.
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they did have corporate taxes. Remember the history of the Wiskey rebellion?
Another thing they did was borrow to fight the British. Washington started the whole idea of deficit spending.
I'm old enough to know that reality is often different from the hypotheticals. You wanted a new wonderful tax system and before it even got off the ground you are manipulating it. I think the near 30% rate this requires is a deal killer. The money handlers who control the purse strings will laugh you out of their offices if you tell them paying 30% on purchasing investments.