Simple, Intelligent Things We Need to do on Taxes

Republicans are frequently concerned about deficits and deficit spending. At least they are when there is a Democratic Party President like now. Herwith, 3 easy and intelligent things we could do to help solve this problem.

--Raise the corporate tax rate so they pay the same as small businesses. --Raise the tax rate on the rich so they pay the same as the middle-class. --Remove loopholes and increase enforcement. --Dan Price @DanPriceSeattle

Another Huge "Gift" From President Trump and the Republican Party

Have you seen this yet?

U.S. national debt exceeds $21 trillion 

for first time 

About a year ago, President Trump pledged to eliminate the national debt "over a period of eight years." But for the first time in history, the national debt surpassed $21 trillion this week, according to the U.S. Treasury.

When Mr. Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017, the national debt was $19.9 trillion, according to U.S. Treasury data. Since then, the GOP-led Congress has passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut bill and a two-year spending deal which, together, are expected to drive the deficit and debt further upward. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates annual deficits could top $2.1 trillion per year in the next decade, which would send the national debt soaring even higher.

 
Is fiscal conservatism dead?

Republicans railed against the national debt level under the Obama administration, when it jumped from $10.6 trillion to $19.9 trillion, nearly doubling, but few have been as outspoken about the situation with Republicans controlling Capitol Hill and the White House.

Insane. Insanity. Fiscal insanity and irresponsibility.

They're spending their way to huge debt, after railing about over-spending and debt and deficits for the previous 8 years. 

And for what?

So they could hand over yet more of the nation's wealth to the already-wealthy and corporations with their big "trickle down economics" tax bill they just passed.

Nation and middle- and lower- and working-classes be damned.

Now they're coming after Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

We have GOT to vote these people out.

Link:

GOP tax cut plan would add $1.7 trillion 

to the deficit, CBO projects

Exactly How Bad Is This Republican President's and Congress' Plan for Spending?

After the Republican Party's Congress and President released their tax and spending plans, exactly how bad is it all?

Don't ask Democrats or the Left Wing or "libruls" for their opinion, oh no.

Let's go straight to the heart of the Right Wing:

Heritage Foundation: Republicans are 

“bankrupting the country” 

Yes sir. And it comes from this article:

Alarm bells are ringing on the federal debt

This is the author:

Thomas Binion is the director of Congressional and Executive Branch Relations at The Heritage Foundation.

For those who don't know---who, exactly, is the Heritage Foundation, you ask? Well, here you are:

The Heritage Foundation - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage's policy study Mandate for Leadership.

Here, then, is what Mr. Binion has to say about this latest spending boondoggle by this Republican Congress:

The Bipartisan Budget Act is 652 pages long. The bill increases spending by $386 billion over two years and nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years. It also suspends the debt ceiling until after the next election.

This is a massive and sweeping increase in federal spending. The increase in domestic spending is three times larger than even the increase requested by President Obama in his last budget.

Sure, those pesky Democrats insist this Republican tax plan shovels yet more money to the already-wealthy and corporations---their contributors---as well as taking money from programs that help the middle- and lower-classes (and it's factually true, by the way), but let's not rely on their input or opinion. Let's stick with Right Wingers and Republicans on this.

Even they think this is not just a bad plan but downright dangerous. 

Bankrupting, even.

But hey, Republicans are doing it so it must be okay?

Right?

Not done spending there, however. Mr. Trump also wants to have a parade, we can't forget that.

Trump's military parade could cost as much as $30 million

Link:

CBO: Senate tax plan would increase deficit 

by $1.4T over 10 years

Quote of the day

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadily recovering up to that point — into a severe recession. Slashing government spending in a depressed economy depresses the economy further; austerity should wait until a strong recovery is well under way. Unfortunately, in late 2010 and early 2011, politicians and policy makers in much of the Western world believed that they knew better, that we should focus on deficits, not jobs, even though our economies had barely begun to recover from the slump that followed the financial crisis. And by acting on that anti-Keynesian belief, they ended up proving Keynes right all over again. --Paul Krugman, economist, columnist and writer for The New York Times. Link to original post here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/opinion/keynes-was-right.html?_r=1

Quote of the day

"Remember that in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history, and what did they get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class - things like education and infrastructure; science and technology; Medicare and Social Security. Remember that in those years, thanks to some of the same folks who are running Congress now, we had weak regulation and little oversight, and what did that get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity, and denied care to the patients who were sick. Mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford. A financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy." --President Barack Obama

Two things we need to do, as a nation

Two big  things we need to do as a country, it seems, at minimum are, for once and for all, create a very real energy policy we can all support and get behind for time to come, Left and Right and all political parties.  


There's too many things we'd gain from this:  We could get out of the Middle East and all their wars and tribal fighting which we need to do so badly; we could, hopefully, stop hemorrhaging money to that same region; we could get into clean, renewable energy which will be so important for the next century and, finally, we could also hopefully pollute far less than we do now, whether we choose to believe in global warming or not.


The second big thing we need to do as a nation is come up with a way to phase out the United States Postal Service.  From the news today:


U.S. postal service says default possible, billions lost


WASHINGTON – The Postal Service is continuing to hemorrhage money, reporting a loss Tuesday of more than $2 billion over the first three months of the year and warning it could be forced to default on federal payments.

The agency says the $2.2 billion loss covers Jan. 1 to March 31, 2011 — sharply higher than the net loss of $1.6 billion for the same period last year. The post office also said it will have reached its borrowing limit, set by Congress, of $15 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

Unless Congress intervenes, the Postal Service said, the agency won't have the cash for certain payment to the government, such as billions for a trust fund to provide health care benefits for future retirees.

Total mail volume, about 41 billion pieces, was down 3.1 percent for the January to March period, compared to the same time a year earlier, the Postal Service said. A modest increase in revenue from standard mail wasn't enough to offset the revenue loss from fewer pieces of first-class mail.

In the last three years, the agency has cut over 130,000 jobs. And it's making more cuts, with the elimination of about 7,500 administrative jobs in regional offices.

And before you get hot under the collar about "our tax dollars being wasted", know this:

The Postal Service does not receive tax money for its operations.

We know virtually everything is going digital, what with our computers.  We need a good plan to transfer the USPS from the behemoth it is to phasing it out.  

It won't be easy and it won't be pretty but how much more handwriting on the wall do we need?

Next up:  Universal health care.


I'm not holding my breath.

How desperate it's getting out there

This is, as I mention above, how bad things are getting out there:

Alabama's largest county is set to release 80 percent of its staff, due to low tax coffers, as it faces possible bankruptcy. Maybe you caught this on NPR this evening, as I did, on your way home from the office.

"Alabama's largest county, Jefferson County, is in financial turmoil. It can't make its payroll and plans to furlough two-thirds of its workers, about 1,400 people, on Friday."

"At the county courthouse in downtown Birmingham this week, residents waited in long lines for hours to take care of business before the cuts take effect."

This is really fairly stunning.

It isn't like we're talking Florida or Nevada or California, where we've known for a long time there were awful budget deficits that had to be dealt with.

The reason isn't just the worst downturn in the economy in 70 years, however, and that's the key here.

"Commissioner Bobby Humphryes says the problem stems from a court ruling that struck down Jefferson County's occupational tax, taking away about a quarter of the county's budget."

This ruling, on top of this economy, makes for a really horrible situation for Jefferson County, Alabama and its citizens.

Then, at the same time, news is out that Arizona is considering selling its state capital, to raise money.

While it's clearly a desperate move on the legislator's part, if they can make their plan work, I have to hand it to them. Check this out:

"...officials hope to sell the properties and then lease them back over several years before assuming ownership again."

That's genius.

Like I said, if they can pull off selling the capital, getting millions of dollars for it and then buying it back and have it work well, that is one incredibly clever plan.

Sure, it's born out of desperation but it's surely brilliant.

That is, if they can pull it off.

Link to stories:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/arizona-may-sell-state-capitol-building.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111341720

2 pieces of good budget news

President Obama announced today that he thinks Congress should put back into effect "pay as you go" provisions into our budget laws.

Boy is this overdue.

I wrote about this what? A year or more ago?

The Republicans, of all people--the ones who said they were for small government and small government spending (yeah, right)--took "pay as you go" out of our laws during---when else?--the George W. Bush/Republican rule years.

"Pay as you go" means, as you may already know, that our government wasn't supposed to create anything it was to spend money on unless it had a source the money was to come from.

Want some new school program, Senator?

No problem. Tell us where the money is coming from and you may get it.

And it can come from a new tax--if you can get it to pass--or from closing down some other program or whatever but the final result of this is that THEY COULD NOT FURTHER DEFICIT SPEND.

And it was a great idea, this "pay-go" as it was called.

Doesn't it seem logical?

It's how you and I have to live, isn't it?

Nearly unbelievably, the Republicans did away with it. They just couldn't spend enough money, as it turns out.

The other bit of good budget news today is that some of the banks who took money from the government earlier this year have been cleared to pay it back. As it turns out, it comes to around $68 billion--one-third of the total amount given out.

Great news, indeed.

If this keeps up, with banks returning money to the government and President Obama setting us up for more responsible and, hopefully, less government spending, the Republicans have likely set themselves up to be irrelevant for the next few decades, at least.

Here's hoping.

Links:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Calls-for-Restoring-Statutory-Pay-As-You-Go-Requirements/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/09/obama.paygo/index.html?section=cnn_latest