US Fiscal cliff explained

But isn't the idea of tax cut's to generate more sales through the flow on effect's?, How is that to be achieved if so much of the country is not given a helping hand while a small minority get the hand but cant exactly buy up all the products to generate the growth.

While some cut's may be required for the wealthy the poor and middle income need it more, With out the poor or middle income then the 'wealthy' lose there customer's, No customers then no economic improvement.

 

I would agree with most middle income taxpayers. Most of the poor do not pay income tax, just FICA and Medicare, so tax cuts for them is irrelevant unless they are in the group that actually gets money refunded despite paying nothing in. Many of the poor actually get money back even though they pay no income tax in because of certain low income tax credits. 46% of taxpayers paid no Federal Income Tax, 18% of Taxpayers paid no Federal Taxes at all including FICA and Medicare, but 10% of the 18% are the elderly on Social Security and really shouldn't be paying any taxes. Seven percent of the remaining 8% received their money from non-work related sources (alimony, child support, etc.) so were due no payroll taxes, but had a small enough income or sufficient exemptions to be liable for no income taxes as well.

 

The rich don't pay taxes; their taxes are passed to the poor and middle income as higher costs for products and services. In the US, the "rich" are defined as anyone making over 250K a year which are in effect, business owners and professionals. All taxes, no matter where you levy them, fall on the poor and middle class.

 

A hidden tax is still a tax.

 

Another great post KTK! We should make you an honorary yank and send you to Washington. Although it sounds like a great plan, and how usmcprice explained earlier, it just wouldn't really work here. In the US of A there is a rather large portion of the population who gets paid not to work, so the term "income taxes" is alien in concept to them. They would not see any more entitlements than they are feel that they are entitled to already and would scream bloody murder to have the system tweaked as to continue their "social entrepreneurship" as it was before.

 

Most of these "explainations" have been wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. First the "debt ceiling" has been in place since it was first proposed as a way to help pay for expenses as we entered WW1 actively, and needed a "tool" which would allow the treasury department to sell Liberty Bonds without calling congress back to session for each one.

Since then, until 2011 not a single one has been rejected when called for. Ron Reagan raised it more times than any other president, and while there were always "symbolic" votes by the opposition party, it always passed. It isn't like giving out new credit cards for future spending, this is to pay for bills already passed and not future spending. This is pay your damned bills Congress, you passed the funding, now pay the bills.

At this PBS program on Obama's first term, at about the forty minute mark you can see the rejection of the "Grand Plan" by Boehner that he and Obama had agreed to, then the proposal of the plan that was so bad everybody hated it, and surely in the 500 plus days between its acceptance and it going into effect somethings would get done and the nasties would be avoided. Nobody in the House did anything to move toward fixing this. The House passed over thirty bills to repeal the Affordable Care act, and a few on Abortion restrictions, and 60+ on naming public buildings, and commemorative coins. This past House made Truman's "Do Nothing" Congress look like a house afire.

Goto:

Video: Inside Obama's Presidency | Watch FRONTLINE Online | PBS Video

 

Name somebody that gets paid not to work, I dare you unless you are speaking of unemployment insurance which they paid into at the state level. The extension of unemployment insurance still requires people to look for work and prove they are doing so. Jobs that pay a living wage are getting hard to find, especially in "right to work" states. You take what you can get.

Welfare reform, or Work-fare has been in place since Clinton reformed the system, and only waivers are given to states if they improve the move from welfare to work by at least 20%. Your non-existent "welfare queen" of Reagan myth isn't, there are limits on how long a person can stay in the system, there are limits to how many children can be funded, they aren't paid to do nothing.

SNAP has been abused in the recent past, especially when the Great Recession hit, New York State passed a law that if you got one dollar in LIEAP help, you were automatically eligible for Food help. That was far too off base and created all kinds of abuse. Many people don't pay federal income taxes because the only jobs they can find are so low income they don't make enough to be eligible for taxation. Sometimes two of these jobs don't bring in enough money to be taxable at the federal level. They still pay their payroll taxes to fund SSA, they still pay sales taxes in almost every state, they still pay state taxes in most cases.

To compare the revenue/spending issue to a family budget is ludicrous. It would only make sense, of a sort if the family sat down and said, ok I'm not going to take that pay raise, but you (spouse) are going to quit you job, and we are going to take out a second mortgage to pay our bills as our income (revenue) falls. That has been what has been going on in the US since the "tax and spend" concept (taxes in, funding out), since Reagan tuned us into a "borrow and spend" nation, when the first deficit to reach a trillion dollars occurred. We almost got it under control with Clinton's tax rate, and started to show budget surpluses in the last three years of his term. Then come two unfunded wars, an unfunded Medicare Part D (which could be fixed), and two sets of Bush tax cuts. Less in, more out. Borrowing was the only solution, and the deficit just grew and grew.

 

Yes I am speaking of those on permanent welfare, food stamps, free cell phones, government subsidized housing and the rest of the "gimme" programs of LBJs Great Society failure. It has been tweaked a bit, but there are plenty who get paid not to work. Call it what you want, the end result is the same. They might not be paid not to work officially as you say, but they sure don't go to work and get paid. Ever. It goes on here and will continue to go on forever it seems. The system might work in Montana, but not in other portions of the country. I have to work for my money. I don't like to work so others don't have to. There's no problem in taking care of those who can't take care of themselves, but not those who are able and not willing to do for themselves.

I do not include unemployment because at least those drawing "rocking chair money" worked to qualify for it. Eventually it will run out and they will have to go to work somewhere. When I mustered out of the Army in 1980 I drew $110.00 a week for 5 months before it ran out. I didn't know I qualified for it until I went to the VA office and they told me then. I also got a free dental check up too while I was there. None of it was really wasn't free. I paid into the system while I was on active duty. I worked odd jobs before getting a job at a gas station (full serve!) before taking a pay cut by getting hired on with the state police early in 1982. The early 80s was a tough time in Louisiana, the oil bust came to town in the same bus as the recession of the early 80s. There were some work to be found, but you had to get out there early and look for it. Lots of my buddies went out of state to work and my younger brother joined the army three months after I got out. I had enough of that army stuff and besides, my Mom's cooking was much better than the chow in the mess hall.

Louisiana is a right to work state. I don't believe that you should have to belong to a union just to work. Unions have outlived their usefulness for the most part I believe. I'm not anti-union, just not pro-union. If you want to belong to one and pay dues just to work then fine. If you want to work without having to pay dues that's fine too. And no free money.

 

There are several factors that you failed to mention Clint.
1.) The Senate (Democratic controlled) has not passed a budget since April 29, 2009, something that is supposed to be done annually.
2.) The House has sent numerous budgets to the Senate during that time, but the Senate has rejected them.
3.) The reason the "debt ceiling" has become an issue is that Washington is continuing spending money without passing a budget. Just appropriate here and appropriate there, no hard choices to make. Congress agreed during the original "debt ceiling" fight to provide a budget that would include spending cuts in order to curb the out of control deficit. No one has take that seriously.
4.) Back in 2006 Senator Obama and Senator Harry Reid opposed increasing the debt ceiling. Listen to their arguments then and explain how the situation now is any different except maybe worse.
Obama Vote's Against Raising Debt Ceiling in 2006 - YouTube

 

That is simply because no acceptable budget plan has come to the Senate to be voted upon, the party out of the Administration routinely votes against raising the debt limit, it is a symbolic vote of no consequence and has always been thus. If a the Administration is Republican, a certain number of the Democrats will cast a vote against it. If the House would forward a workable budget instead of those destructive plans like the two Ryan sent to the Senate, perhaps one might have made the grade. If they weren't blocked in committee when the Senate tried to modify them, they simple got tabled. Send a responsible budget proposal out of the House and it might stand a chance.

 

So the answer is to not pass any budget, just raise the debt ceiling? I wouldn't vote for that.

 

Back in 2006 we had statesmen who would compromise and they agreed in both house and senate that our bills would be paid....as this represented money already spent in the budget. We are in the same predicament today only we have a house that will not compromise to pay for budget already spent. The only way our system works is with compromise.....until something originating in the House can gain a significant amount of votes in the SENATE it remains obstructionist and not compromise. You have to propose something that a majority will vote for to get something done......this is true no matter what the number of democrats or republicans in each group. If they are designing legislation that no one will vote for.......they are strictly obstructionist defeating our constitutional process. Any time our representatives in government gather to obstruct they do damage to the full faith and credit of the United States. If they want to build a budget the same thing is true.....you have to propose legislation that a majority will support in both houses.....if you are only going to please the people in your house or your senate you are obstructionist and not being a statesman. Our constitution can only go forward with that mode it was designed under and that is "Compromise". Remember the constitution could only be passed with a "3/5 compromise" and that was splitting people to actually get it passed at a ratio of 3 to 5 they they agreed upon it to go forward.

I find it surprising how many people choose to misunderstand our process, make excuses for those hypocrites who harbor expensive defense contracts that are not even wanted by the Pentagon to provide "Stimulus" to their own states and then carry on to act like they are stopping excess spending with their actions in the house. They were formally chastised in the past for their many "earmarks" favoring their own areas and now place a halo over their own head as if they had never wasted our tax money. We can all be ashamed of the behavior but none of us can create an excuse for the failure to use "compromise" as a solution to end the gridlock. Our system will continue to be a failure at solving our budget woes with the lack of compromise and things may even get worse as time goes by until we elect true statesmen who will work to solve both party's problems. I am sad for what has gone on and I fear those who have sacrificed the most for our freedoms will end up suffering the most from the failure of politicians to handle the responsibilities of our government. That would be the soldiers serving and their families and the many veterans that have served and their families as well. Mark my words those will be the worst casualties from this failure to compromise. Lousy as we may be in our party line of thought......they deserve better than this.

 

That's no rant Lou. It was well thought out, written and presented. Well taken too. I figure that I got the same non-union work ethic from my dad and on up the line. No union people in our family, from both sides come to think of it. Of course dirt and dairy farmers, plumbers, mechanics, pool hall and saloon operators, soldiers/sailors and heathens (my great uncle was a small-time gangster in the 20s and early 30s) were never really prime candidates for unionization. The police here aren't unionized either, so none of that interests me. I don't think that there are too many places where union and non-union people work here, but I could be wrong. There are plenty of union plants and non-union plants up and down the river that seem to work fine. Plenty of mom & pop shops too. That's the ones that I really want to see left alone, the small shops.

 

That's why KTK should run for President.

 

I would be a terrible president, I would bring in a law that states every household must have a gun and a pet.

KTK