United States' problems

In times like this, Are we entitled to all that we have?

Should we get rid of medicare?
Should we get rid of unemployment benefits?
We are in considereate debt. A debt that is larger than any other debt in U.S. history. Should we start getting rid of some of these programs?

 

I was talking to a friend about this last night. In essence, no. If you want to benefit the economy, cut taxes on payroll that businesses pay to create better wages. This would mean limiting unemployment to six months: No more extensions, no exceptions. Allow the hiring of alien immigrants with clean records. You'll have better, higher-paying positions for citizens without small and medium sized businesses being overburdened. Raise taxes for large corporates and put that money into education/vocational training, specifically the Work Investment Act which is managed by the state.

 

Taking away medicare and employment benefits won't improve the country...not unless you're a fool or some dumb-ass shit.

Those programs aren't the problem.

 

I am just looking for solutions to the debt that we have. Some people argue that the "free" market system is not working for us. Mostly because other countries do not participate in it. China places large tarrifs on our exports. The chinese and indians do not have benefits such as americans. This sort of gives an edge on employment for them. any suggestions on what we could do to solve the debt is much appreciated.

 

Are you saying hiring illegal immigrants or just legal? What about those who have no jobs? Why not place them in the section of the immigrants you talked about? Some businesses might point out large taxes on them will make them hire less. Why would you place taxes if that could happen? I am not saying this is a bad idea. I just would like an answer to that.

 

I'm favoring hiring illegal immigrants. Like it or not, they're the backbone of our manual labor forces.

I'd like to see more monitoring of major corporations, and if you designate where they can cut funding, it stops hiring problems. I'm not speaking of tax increases for the small and medium businesses. I'm talking about the big boys. Corporate bonuses should be the first things on the chopping block, not new hire and training.

 

We could end both wars, bring our guys & gals back home, and save a ridiculous amount of money.

 

The major corporations proved in the 90s that even when their profits are soaring, they will lay off & fire workers just to make another buck. They are trying to hold America hostage with this "tax us & we won't hire people/will fire people" crap. If the hostage taker has already proven he'll kill hostages no matter what you do, it makes no sense to continue to negotiate on his terms.

Tax the rich. Just do it. The upper echelons of our society are less taxed today than ever before. In other countries, taxes are higher but so is quality of life, and people are employed. Daddy Warbucks can take the hit. Tax him.

 

We can't get rid of medicare. The elderly would be without health insurance. Their health insurance bills are still high even WITH medicare.

Rep added. Tax the hell out of the rich and make it harder for them to pay less in taxes with all of the write-offs they have.

 

Now this is my kind of thread. Trying to find solutions instead of bitching.
I don't think taxing bigger companies more will help unemployment or other social programs. Like Chi said they have proven that they won't employ more people even if given tax breaks they'll just keep firing and laying people off to improve their bottom line so they can improve their stock value. If we wanted to control unemployment we as consumers need to stop supporting companies that shit on their workers. There has to be a balance between profits and human decency. Companies that rely completely on American coonsumership won't hire Americans and outsource like crazy. The same countries that they get their cheap labor from will never consume at the rate that we do or for as much so we as consumers should stop buying shit from Walmart stop buying shit from Verizon because they treat their employees like shit. We have to start relying on ourselves and not on the government because the politicians are all bought and paid for. When's the last time you felt like your interests were truly being represented?

And to answer the orginal question we can get out of debt by producing more than we consume. We need to be innovators again. We were at our best when we invented the car and the airplane. We were producing a technology that everyone wanted. We need to get to there.

 

Agreed on Medicare, cant get rid of it, but it desperately needs an overhaul and to become A LOT more efficient.

Disagree somewhat on raising taxes on the rich, a better way to spur growth is to give incentive to those who are financially capable of creating more companies/jobs/opportunities that benefit all. All raising taxes on the successful and wealthy does is force them to harbor their wealth offshore, and it proves to be a dis-incentive to taking risks, working hard and creating wealth for themselves and others, and it creates ever more increasing 'creative' liberties being taken by CPA's to try to protect said wealth which contributes to fraud.

Remember the top 5% of earners already pay over HALF of ALL taxes, how much more do you want them to pay?

http://www.american.com/archive/200...zine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes

 

:smt038

 

Expecting consumers to be more intelligent and responsible is a great idea, but someone has to educate consumers. After educating them, you also have to get them interested in human rights and the state of their own country enough to say, "I'm going to make lifestyle changes." It's a noble idea, but that's pretty tricky to get that started.

 

I'm always curious as to what that really means. I read the article you posted twice, and it just gives a lot of percentages. It doesn't give hard numbers. It doesn't tell how much in tax revenue is earned each year, and it doesn't tell what income level the top 5% of earners are in. It sounds like an unfair statistic, but if you start thinking about the fact that the top tax bracket in 2009 was 35%, how much are these top 5% of earners really paying? Most of them will have high deductions and will be invested in activities that generate a loss in order to offset other income. They won't be paying 35% on all of their income. Let's say that a person has a $100 million in taxable income (excluding any capital gains.) If they are filing married filing jointly, their tax liability will be $34,970,519.50. If they have any capital gains, it will be less than that because the maximum capital gain rate is 20%. Now, let's say that another family has $250,000 in taxable income (excluding any capital gains.) Their tax liability is $60,321. The first taxpayer is paying 34% in taxes and the second taxpayer is paying 24% in taxes. That's really not that much of a difference percentage wise when you consider the large difference in their income levels. Using these two taxpayers, I could say that the larger earner is paying 99% of the taxes. In truth, he is, but in reality, he's not paying in any more than his fair share of taxes for the amount that he's earned in comparison with a middle class taxpayer.

 

Excellent questions and analysis, I believe this link does a better job clarifying http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

 

Thanks for the compliment and the link, Loki. I'll have to look at it when I have more time to do my analysis on it. I do agree that a small percentage of people pay the bulk of the taxes, but I think the thing that has to be considered is the fact there is a cap on the percentage that they will have to pay. As of 2009, it was 35%. When you talk about someone paying in $500 million in taxes, you have to consider that their taxable income would have to be almost $1.5 billion. It's rather easy for the top 5% of the earners to pay over half the taxes because they are making so much more money than the average person. I was just making the point that saying that 5% of the earners pay over half of all taxes sounds awful because they are just paying their share on what they have earned. I'll just say that I'm not ready to get my tissue out for them just yet.

 

I can agree with your overall sentiment here, although the potential changes to capital gains currently being bandied about Washington could raise that 35% tax rate much higher. My point is that it sounds good and feels good to the average wage earner to simply say "tax the rich more" without really thinking through the after affects of doing so. History tells us that the rich are not just going to willingly pay more, they are going to look for ways, both legal and illegal to keep the government from draining more of what they feel is their hard earned net worth. Such decisions can have far reaching affects to our economy.

 

I agree, Loki. People are always looking for a way out of paying taxes. You would be amazed at some of the things that I'm asked about during tax season in order to reduce liability. I've been told that I'm too conservative, but I don't have a problem with that. If I'm not liberal enough, then they need to find another CPA. I won't compromise my ethics and my name so they can save a few dollars. Also, I wasn't promoting raising taxes. I was just trying to elaborate that even though the statement about who pays the taxes is true that it doesn't mean that it is unfair as of this point in time. I didn't want anyone to get a bleeding heart for the rich man's tax liability.

 

Fuck outta here.

I grew up in a Union home...we have no use or love for SCABS.

The fact that our labor force is filled with these scabs from mexico is not a blessing but a curse...for anybody not a rich white boy or a mexican illegal.

If illegal immigration is such a good idea...mexico should STOP DEPORTING ILLEGALS from their southern border and let them settle BY THE UNCOUNTED MILLIONS and give them all free education...health-care..and birth-right citizenship...like we do for their illegal peasantry.

Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.


Having an open border is killing our middle-class and turning the Country into a greasy SWEAT SHOP.

 

I have to agree to an extent. They're also clogging up our ERs because they can't get health care and ERs can't turn anyone away.

Illegals are a huge problem that is affecting many areas of our lives....

I'm not keen on them being able to stick around. If they want to become citizens, more power to them...but working under the table and sending money back to their impoverished families in other countries?? I'm not too thrilled about that.