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Date Posted: 06:05:45 08/13/11 Sat
Author: Greg
Subject: Re: Well, you have a couple choices
In reply to: Paul Davis 's message, "Well, you have a couple choices" on 06:26:04 08/11/11 Thu

>
>The Federal govt could quit supporting the states
>altogether, cut the military by half, cut disability
>and medicaid and stop the SSA COLA increases. They'd
>also have to drop the USACE support of the Mississippi
>and let the states worry about it, stop most dam and
>flood controls too. Drop all disaster relief. And
>quit giving money to agriculture.
>
>OFC, if they do all that, the economy will crash, but
>the budget will be balanced without raising taxes.
>Plus, there'll be a lot of floods and shipping will go
>to hell in a haycart, but it seems to be what the Tea
>Party wants to see happen.
>
>OTOH, they could raise taxes to the level of GDP that
>they are running as outlay. Given three wars (or 2
>and a half) it's actually quite low, only 23% for
>Federal spending. They are taking in about 15% of GDP
>in taxes and fees and etc., so that's quite a gap.
>Trouble is, 30 odd years of Republicans saying over
>and over "if you reduce taxes, you increase govt
>income" seems to have a large number of people
>convinced that this is true, even though history shows
>it's not and that tax cuts generally do not stimulate
>the economy in any real sense - at least not at the
>levels of taxation present in the US since the 80's.
>
>We need a dose of realism in govt, and we ain't
>getting it.
>
>
>>Curious to see where we land. I think over the last
>>few years we have been given plenty of warning to
>>change course and fix things but those in charge are
>>ignoring the things that they are doing that
>>exacerbates the other things that are going on that is
>>causing the economy to go belly up


Some of the sarcasm concerning spending cuts is justified, but denying that the government is spending more than it's taking in, and continuing to ask the people to pay for it with first making a real effort to reign in that spending is ludicrous.

It may come about that taxes will have to be increased. At the very least there should be a serious look at subsidies, various loopholes in the tax structure, and certainly in entitlements.

BTW, a lot of the "flood control" measures in the Mississippi Delta region contributed to the massive flooding of New Orleans during Katrina.

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