Value-added: the tax increase that may fly

[one...two...tree 2,762]

You could start by setting Federal Government salaries to prevailing wage or lower. Things have changed quite a bit, from just 20 years ago, when a GS employee would give his left nut to be paid WG. I would put benefits commensurate with industry averages, and eliminate the right of public employees to organize. Then, I would double the amount of inter-agency audits, and pay the individual auditors bonuses for every government position, procurement, and program, that is shown to be redundant, or unnecessary, and could be eliminated.

Can you give an example? One of my brothers recently was hired by the U.S. Forest Service. He was working for the state before that. I have no idea what his salary is, but as far as I know, he has no union representing him.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Ok, but in real terms, what do you suppose that would mean? For example, how many veterans services would suffer because of the cuts?

Pain would be felt across the board as well, no doubt of that. But as ###### said if we could just eleminate the waste and redundancy the pain would be minimized. You have to see that if we do nothing we are heading the way of Greece. In 10 years our debt service will be our biggest expenditure. It isn't going to be much longer and we will lose our AA credit rating. If that happens and we crash how big do you think the pain will be then? Sure taxing the ####### out of the rich seems like a good thing to do but even the rich doesn't have enough money to dig us out of the hole we are in.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Can you give an example? One of my brothers recently was hired by the U.S. Forest Service. He was working for the state before that. I have no idea what his salary is, but as far as I know, he has no union representing him.

There is a Coast Guard Training Center that is being kept open at Two Rock, California, that could be eliminated today. As a matter of fact, it has been BRACC'd twice, and recommended for closure both times. Yet, it sits there, getting less and less use, and the taxpayers continue to pay to keep it open to appease only the 6th Congressional District's Lynn Woolsey, and whatever scheme the local treehuggers have for the area. Matter of fact, they recently installed an automated concrete barrier, in case the mostly empty reservation is ever attacked by a terrorist with a truck bomb.

[DEDixon 39]

Where do you want to cut spending?

i don't really know. it seems it would have to be an across the board type thing.

if you had a relative who had a lot of CC debt, came to you, asked for a consolidation loan, your fear would have to be that your relative would charge the CCs up again. you would probably want your relative to cut all CCs in half.

i think a lot of people feel the same way toward the govt. they don't want to give anything extra, because they don't trust it will go toward paying down the deficit, but instead allow the status quo to be maintained.

many people would probably give into a huge tax to pay down the deficit if they were assured the govt wouldn't continue charging on the CC at the same time.

[scandal 951]

i think we need a law that outlaws a deficit when growth is positive. this is the only way to control the pols (repubs and dems). one exception to the law would be to finance war - we have to be able to borrow to protect ourselves.

as it is, if we spend too much when the economy is good, when bad times hit, we have to triple deficits to keep everyone from suffering too much. we should balance the budget in good time so in bad times we are simply doing what is expected by borrowing.

We have just such a law. Congress passed pay-go in Feb and it was signed into law by Obama. No sooner did that happen, and they immediately decided that job creation spending and extending unemployment benefits were a "worthy" reason to bypass pay-go. That's the problem with these kinds of "exceptions" - every year and every situation turns into an exception. I like the idea of pay-go in principle, but when we have a spineless Congress it's pretty much meaningless.

[luckytxn 2,264]

Roll back the Federal Government to the year 2000 levels and then we could abolish the IRS right now. No personal income tax means more money for discretionary spending. More spending then more production. More production then more jobs. More jobs then more of everything.

More taxes then less money in everyones hands. Less money then less spending. Anyone else see the logic?

[Dan J 277]

Roll back the Federal Government to the year 2000 levels and then we could abolish the IRS right now. No personal income tax means more money for discretionary spending. More spending then more production. More production then more jobs. More jobs then more of everything.

More taxes then less money in everyones hands. Less money then less spending. Anyone else see the logic?

Unless you do something to encourage job growth here. More production mostly means more job growth in China, not the US. Mostly the upper middle class and wealthy would benefit, everyone else would be degraded to the level of a worker in China.

[luckytxn 2,264]

Unless you do something to encourage job growth here. More production mostly means more job growth in China, not the US. Mostly the upper middle class and wealthy would benefit, everyone else would be degraded to the level of a worker in China.

Guess everyone believes China produces everything we consume. The U.S. actually is the largest producer by far than everyone. China is getting up there but has a long way to go to even get to our level of production. China does produce a lot of ####### for us. Their quality control is a joke but it is cheap.

[SMR 368]

I love this little nugget of truth...

Mike Huckabee was touting a similar tax idea back when he was running for president.

I still do think a VAT or national sales tax is a good idea and most conservatives agree. The difference is not in addition to income taxes but instead of them.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

We need a tax that's inversely proportional to a persons IQ.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Americans are somewhat less passive than their northern neighbours generally--and Canadians certainly did not like imposition of GST in 1990 (all except two of the MP's who had voted FOR it were "pink-slipped" 3 years later); ergo, I don't think it would have a smooth flight.

[mawilson 2,133]

One of main reasons why we had such a large Middle Class in the 50's was because of our progressive tax policies discouraged companies paying out lofty sums of money to their top executives. Now we have a huge disparity between the rich and poor in this country and the free market capitalists tell the working class its simply their fault for not working hard enough.

Our tax policies are *extremely* progressive. The top 5% are already paying 60%

of ALL taxes collected in this country. The bottom 48% are paying *NO* income

taxes; in fact, they are getting paid. How much more do you want to penalize success?

[Danno 1,228]

Why assume we need to create a new tax, Healthcare will soon be less of a burden, we can apply those savings toward the deficit.

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

Our tax policies are *extremely* progressive. The top 5% are already paying 60%

of ALL taxes collected in this country. The bottom 48% are paying *NO* income

taxes; in fact, they are getting paid. How much more do you want to penalize success?

everyone should pay their "fair share" - i.e. a flat tax.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Why assume we need to create a new tax, Healthcare will soon be less of a burden, we can apply those savings toward the deficit.

We have to raise money to pay for all those brand new SEIU workers.