Finally, a realistic budget plan

[Malicious Wraith]

Ron Paul will cut @#(!.

[Camaro]

Ron Paul 2012!

Actually Ron needs to be VP, cause hes is too old for Pres.

[Jimen]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ May 1 2011, 09:36 PM) agreed all politicians in the last 50 years or so have never been serious about cutting anything. Reagan was one of the worst, btw.

as for spending cuts after the election, sorry to see you are buying into the bull@#(!

I didn't say "spending cuts after the election", I said "several of the people proposing that budget have been in Congress for 20+ years so it's silly to think that they wouldn't expect be there ten years from now"! The current record for "longest amount of time spent in the House" is something like 46 years!

[takingarms1]

QUOTE I didn't say "spending cuts after the election",[/quote]

QUOTE ( @ May 1 2011, 08:03 PM) The spending cuts will come after the election.[/quote]

O rly?

[FreeBeer]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ May 1 2011, 07:55 PM) Also it really annoys me that during this particular administration, the president has said all this bull@#(! about balancing the budget while simultaneously spending more each and every year and then promising to spend less later. I hope no one is actually buying the bull@#(! he's trying to sell on that issue.

We (Canada) kinda went through that nonsense a while back. Aside from the political issues and pet programs, etc., the real issue is the political will to balance the budget as a priority. Canada in the 80's and early nineties always saw political parties paying lip-service to the idea of a balanced budget. But it wasn't until there was a party that was dead serious about it that things changed. Even though they were only in Opposition (with the other party with a safe majority), the Opposition party was able to force the issue. "Oh @#(! - these guys are serious and they've managed to awake the voters on the point." So we started to get the Federal government to actually run a surplus and start paying down the debt. (Which allowed us to weather the financial crisis quite nicely, thank you very much, because the governments debt load had decreased so much.)

So the lesson to learn here is that at least one party with sufficient enough voice has to be truly committed and serious about it. Otherwise they're just going to be paying lip-service to the idea and will keep re-arranging the deck chairs to make people think "things are different this time around".

[Makida]

Okay, I'm still not clear on how significant the government's actions actually were to us weathering the recession well (compared to other countries).

Also I don't know enough to argue in-depth, but at a glance it seems slightly suspicious to give an opposition party (that you appear to like) practically *all* the credit for balancing the budget back then.

[FreeBeer]

QUOTE (girlyboy @ May 2 2011, 04:12 PM) Also I don't know enough to argue in-depth, but at a glance it seems slightly suspicious to give an opposition party (that you appear to like) practically *all* the credit for balancing the budget back then.

Yep - I liked them specifically because of what they were able to do with regards to balanced budgets. You do make a valid point - ultimately the party in power had to present a balanced budget but until someone was actually serious about it, they were free to play the kinds of games that had gone on before (and still go on in the US, or so it would seem). Chretien was a Trudeau-era Liberal (the ones who created the spiraling deficits to begin with) and had no intention whatsoever to balance the budget. His power base in fact was dependent upon doling out the bread and circuses. Martin (the finance minister at the time) was just a lackey for the old money classes (primarily) from Quebec. He couldn't give a rat's ass about balancing the budget either as long as his bettors were getting what they wanted. (Hell, his Canada Steamship Lines doesn't even have a shipped registered in Canada to avoid the taxes, despite the fact they tend to ply only Canadian waters.)

The Reform Party, despite its noobishness, literally embarrassed the Liberals into running balanced budgets. They made it such that the Liberals could never justify running continuing deficits. The Mulrooney Conservatives (which the Reform Party replaced) had the same outlook towards budgets as did the Liberals. They both were *wink wink* to balancing the budget.

[mcwarren4]

QUOTE (cashto @ May 1 2011, 02:55 AM) I remember when the US used to have a 91% marginal rate tax rate. Wanna know what we called this nightmare communist decade? The 50s. That's right, quite possibly the most productive decade the US ever had.

"You can't tax the rich, they create jobs" is something billionaire hedge fund managers say to avoid paying taxes as they go on their merry way wrecking the economy.

Interesting little tidbit of the time that we had a 91% marginal tax rate....

First you need to adjust all of that for inflation. To adjust for 1950 dollars you need to multiply by 8.27. In order to be taxed at the top rate you would have to be making $1.6 million today. What's really interesting is that even if you only made the equivalent of $40,000 today, you were taxed at 26%. Even if you earned as little as $100, you paid 20%. Whenever someone wants to propose a solution where everyone shares the burden we can talk. If its just asking the rich to pay more I'm not listening.

And lastly, I stopped reading the article right about here...

QUOTE The conservative Economist magazine...[/quote]

That's.... lol...

[Bard]

QUOTE The conservative Economist magazine...[/quote]

[mcwarren4]

I know, it gives you some perspective as to how far out on the left Rolling Stone is doesn't it?