Obama to GOP: How do you pay for tax cut extensions?

First, you didn't say "everyone who pays taxes got a tax cut" but you said
""in fact Bush cut taxes all across the board for all income groups."

Second, your statement that "everyone who pays taxes got a tax cut" is also not true because tens of millions who pay taxes did not get a tax cut from the Bush tax cuts at all.

In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a"unified budget." This is likewise sometimes described by saying that Social Security was placed "on-budget."

http://www.ssa.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html

 

To me the both statements are the same because who cares about Americans who are not paying their fair share to support the government?

They don't pay income taxes so we can't give them a tax cut anyway.

Your family pet doesn't pay income taxes and Fido didn't get a tax cut either did he?

That's just an accounting sleight of hand trick for reporting purposes designed to confuse the public.

But behind the scenes SS is still a separate program.

If Obama stops collecting payroll taxes then something is going to get shortchanged.

Either the old folks who will see their retirement checks reduced or stopped entirely or some necessary item in the federal budget like infrastructure.

 

Your opinion as to your care in no way makes the false statements true.

Repetitive and previously rebutted.

No worthy of response.

Irrespective, SS taxes are still taxes, and millions who had income did not see a dime in tax relief from the Bush tax cuts.

Or you could do it the Republican way: Cut taxes and just borrow more money.

 

Not so.

The bottom 50% of income do not pay federal income taxes and so are not paying their fair share to support the government.

That was the Republican way in the past.

Buit now Obama and the Democrats want to cut payroll taxes and borrow from the Chinese to cover the hole in the budget they caused.

 

1) That's your opinion.

2) Whether you think they pay their "fair share" is irrelevant to whether you statement:

""in fact Bush cut taxes all across the board for all income groups."

is true of false.

 

I think we will just have to agree to disagree about that.

Bush cut the taxes of every citizen who pays income taxes.

If that leaves out millions of Obama voters so be it.

 

Disagree all you want.

That is generally true.

It leaves out all the people who earned income but didn't pay income taxes, and thus didn't receive a dime in tax relief from the Bush tax cuts, regardless of who they voted for.

 

So what are they complaining about?

They already don't pay income taxes so how can they demand a tax cut?

This is getting a little silly.

 

There hasn't been any indication that there has been a change in the Republicans. How many are calling for major cuts in defense spending with is the single largest expendature related to general taxation?

Remember that Social Security and Medicare are both in the black financially, at least for the time being, as they've collected far more in dedicated taxes to fund them than they've ever spent.

If Republicans were actually serious about eliminating the deficits they'd be demanding tax increases as well as spending cuts. 40% of all expendatures are based on borrowing and that cannot be addressed exclusively by either spending cuts or tax increases. It's going to take both.

 

They could have gotten a cut in FICA taxes.

I never said they were complaining about anything.

I said your statement "in fact Bush cut taxes all across the board for all income groups" is false.

Which it is.

 

I see no need for tax increases.

Spending has gone up so much in the last 10 years that has only grown the government.

More taxes will just be spent on more government.

As for cutting defense who knows what the Republicans would cut if they had control of the government?

We need new leadership in the House and Senate and of course a Republican president but with the influence of the Tea Party I think real spending cuts are going to happen.

 

Was the Simpson-Bowles Commission "serious" about eliminating deficits ?

Did they recommend tax-rate increases ? Or other mechanisms with regard to tax code ?

Did not the Toomey Plan, which was rejected by the Democrats on the Debt Reduction Committee, largely follow the Simpson-Bowles formula ?

Is not the Ryan Plan "serious" about debt reduction ?

What is the "serious" Democrat Plan ?

Thanks.

 

Spending has gone up but tax revenues are proportionately the lowest they've been in 60 years. Less taxes just means more money borrowed by the government.

 

If that is what you believe then you must see how stupid it is for Obama to lower payroll taxes which will increase debt and endanger Social Security that is owed to the old folks.

 

You are correct, Mac.

You notice Obama has not once told us how he intendes to make up for the "shortfall" that will be produced in the Social Security trust fund.

 

Because we are in a large Recession still. Because unemployment and underemployment are high. Because the labor force is lower as a percent than it has been in 30 years. Because government is so much more of a portion of GDP than ever before. Because half of all American households pay no federal income tax.

 

Well, I don't know what the final budget for 2012 is but if we used the Obama Budget proposal for 2012 as an example it reflected a $1.1 trillion deficit. Below are all of the discretionary spending items in that budget based upon Wikipedia (whether totally accurate or not).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

So there would have to be $1.1 trillion cut from this spending leaving only $244 billion remaining if there are no other reductions in spending and no tax increases. So what would we spend that $244 billion on?

Of note there is some "mandatory spending" but Social Security and Medicare can't be cut because they're fully funded based upon dedicated FICA/Payroll taxes and actually have a net surplus. Medicaid can't be cut because that is a contractual partnership between the Federal government and the States and is a State run program that is actually Constitutional. We have unemployment benefits but we certainly don't want to cut that as it would drive millions of households into bankruptcy. There's interest on the national debt (which is increasing daily) and it has to be paid. There are other mandatory spending requirements and they can't be cut.

Now please explain how the US government can function with only $244 billion to spend on all of it's general expendatures that are funded by general taxation.

Either we cut a lot of this spending and also increase taxes or our government is going to grossly undefunded like it is today.

 

Accounted for in a lower GDP.

Because unemployment and underemployment are high. [/quote]

Accounted for in a lower GDP.

Accounted for in a lower GDP.

Because government is so much more of a portion of GDP than ever before.

 

That's obvious. Cut benefits by 25% but that won't need to happen under Obama as Social Security/Medicare still has about $2 trillion in reserve so it will happen in the future unless the FICA/Payroll taxes are increased by 33%. Either way it just makes a bad program worse but it is not causing any deficit spending today or in the near future. It does need to be addressed though and the longer we wait the more it's going to cost.

Personally I advocate privatizing Social Security but that would increase government spending by over a trillion dollars a year but only for the near future. Eventually that expendature would begin to decrease and eventually disappear completely. To transition to a privatized Social Security program would require an increase in personal income taxes for about 5-10 years unrelated to any other spending or taxes.

 

One approach is to freeze spending across the board and over time - estimated to be about 10 years - the budget will naturally balance as the economy grows and spending does not.

Another idea is to freeze spending and then cut every program across the board by an equal amount of perhaps 2% each year.

That balances the budget much faster,

Either is far more sensible than raising taxes to feed the beast instead of starving it.

 

I like how Obama suggests that we have to "pay" for tax cuts...as if tax cuts are the problem and not big government spending. His idea is that the government owns our property and that it costs government money to let us keep more of it. Just like a true Communist.

 

Not just Ubama, but liberals here. We have to pay Government out of our left pocket for whatever they let us keep in our right.

Liberals think this is "fair".

(*)(*)(*)(*) them all. Parasites.

 

Actually the problem isn't related to the taxes we pay and the government services they pay for. It's the government services and expendatures which are not funded with by taxation. Both Democrats and Republicans, with only rare exceptions, have a long history of supporting deficit spending which can be documented by the votes to increase the national debt.

If a person supports either Democrats or Republicans they are generally supporting deficit spending and an increase in the national debt. Partisanship related to this, unless it is condemning both Republicans and Democrats, is merely the pot calling the kettle black.

 

Not all Democrats and Republicans are deficit spenders though. I think it's more of a neo-con and liberal thing, rather than a Republican and Democrat thing.

 

This requirement to "pay" for tax cuts reminds me of a classic negotiation trick.

Say you're looking at buying a house. You look for something they obviously care about, like a nice, shiny bass boat. When negotiation time comes, you work the seller down abotu as far as you can. Then you say, "I'll pay that price, but only if you throw in that boat." When the seller naturally says no, you state, "If I'm not getting the boat, you're going to have to come down more in the price." The boat was never part of the deal, but the shady buyer added it to trick the seller into giving up more.

The same thing is going on here. The government was never getting that money in the first place. Obama arbitrarily decided to claim that the government was getting the extra money from the taxes and is trying to force the republicans to come up with money that was never part of the deal in the first place.