2012 Presidential Candidates - Page 2

[jwenting]

Interesting video clip. I didn't know who the hell Ron Paul was or what he looked like until that clip. There's little to disagree with if you're an agnostic/independent, but methinks the Fox Live interviewer had his tongue firmly up the congressman's derriere.

yes, anyone who doesn't agree with your leftist ideas must be a rightwing christian fundamentalist racist radical.
that's exactly the Dhimmycrat Partei official position, after all.

The problem with the US isn't that taxes are too low, far from it.
It's that

1. taxes are way too high, causing people to not invest
2. taxes are way too high, causing people to have no money to spend on goods and services (related to prior of course)
3. people are punished for success through taxes, thus there's no incentive to innovate or excel at your job and gain promotions (and thus higher pay)
4. there are FAR too many bureaucrats doing effectively nothing except pushing paper to "regulate" and "control" meaningless, stifling, laws and regulations (if they're doing anything at all, there's very regular reports about government workers being found to have been at home, with full pay, not doing any work, for over a decade, while technically still having a job to do, before being finally found out and fired (and then often heavily compensated to prevent wrongful termination suits)
5. those regulations often make (even without the skyhigh taxes) investment and starting/expanding businesses impossible or so unattractive people just give up trying and either flee the country to set up shop elsewhere or move their money out and retire

The solution is simple in concept but painful for the bureaucrats (and therefore will never be implemented) and would take some doing to get working, but can be done:

1. reduce the federal bureaucracy (and lower levels too, but fed is worst) by cutting the workforce by 50%
2. make those 50% mostly mid-high level desk jobs, that's where most of the rot is at
3. lower income and corporate taxes to half their current level. Better yet, remove them completely and replace with a 5-10% federal sales tax on everything (which would negate the need for the IRS, which right now requires 30% of the federal tax income to operate. Were I to run a company and my accounting department ate 30% of my revenue, I'd audit it to hell and cut out the crap, why doesn't the fed?).
4. remove the estate tax
5. remove all special tax discounts for anything at all (except maybe healthcare expenses)

[Agilemind]

1. taxes are way too high, causing people to not invest
   USA taxes are much much lower than those in Canada and yet Canada survived the recession much better than the USA and has much lower national debt (after correcting for population).
   
2. taxes are way too high, causing people to have no money to spend on goods and services (related to prior of course)
   People are already spending money they don't have on goods and services (see the estounding personal debt levels and credit card debt), how would cutting their tax increase consumption?
   
3. people are punished for success through taxes, thus there's no incentive to innovate or excel at your job and gain promotions (and thus higher pay)
   I have yet to see a situation where someone turns down a pay raise because they would move to a higher tax bracket if you have example of this please provide them. In general even with higher tax rates increasing your earnings also increases your take home pay (after tax) thus you a still rewarded for success. And why would CEO salaries be so high if those salaries punish them through tax?
   
4. there are FAR too many bureaucrats doing effectively nothing except pushing paper to "regulate" and "control" meaningless, stifling, laws and regulations (if they're doing anything at all, there's very regular reports about government workers being found to have been at home, with full pay, not doing any work, for over a decade, while technically still having a job to do, before being finally found out and fired (and then often heavily compensated to prevent wrongful termination suits)
   You mean like the "regulations" Canada has that protected its banks from the bad loans that caused the recession (the USA got rid of its similar laws earlier in the name of growth and free-markets)? They seem pretty important to me. A re-examination and streamlining may be inorder.
   
5. those regulations often make (even without the skyhigh taxes) investment and starting/expanding businesses impossible or so unattractive people just give up trying and either flee the country to set up shop elsewhere or move their money out and retire
   I have yet to hear reports of economic refugees coming FROM the US I mostly hear about the ones coming TO the US which seem to contradict your point.
   

The solution is simple in concept but painful for the bureaucrats (and therefore will never be implemented) and would take some doing to get working, but can be done:

1. reduce the federal bureaucracy (and lower levels too, but fed is worst) by cutting the workforce by 50%

   Hum... That will greatly increase EI claims and prevent the bureaucracy from getting anything done but with no mondey to do anything anyway .....
   

2. make those 50% mostly mid-high level desk jobs, that's where most of the rot is at

   I'd love to know how you know that.
   

3. lower income and corporate taxes to half their current level. Better yet, remove them completely and replace with a 5-10% federal sales tax on everything (which would negate the need for the IRS, which right now requires 30% of the federal tax income to operate. Were I to run a company and my accounting department ate 30% of my revenue, I'd audit it to hell and cut out the crap, why doesn't the fed?).

   Who would enforce the sales tax if not a version of the IRS?
   

4. remove the estate tax

   Don't know what that will do other than create a birth-right aristocracy.
   

5. remove all special tax discounts for anything at all (except maybe healthcare expenses)

   That could be good, simplify taxes so you can reduce the size of the IRS and bring in more revenue.
   

I agree it is good that Ron Paul is willing to accept the current situation but accepting the problem is just the first step to fixing it and I don't think his plan will actually fix it.

PS Gotta love how the FOX guy immediately backed away from any topic where Ron Paul doesn't agree with FOX's policy/propaganda LOL. Why don't they start their own FOX political party and get it over with?

I got the feeling that the Republican policy of not adopting higher taxation was due to ultra-right wing tendencies. So Ron's policy of doing nothing (was that the gist of what he was saying??) will steer the USA out of its biggest 'financial situation'. Defaulting on debts isn't important I think he said.

So will the government become bankrupt, or whatever term is used for this? Will states get their fed handout? If not, who pays the wages of public servants like teachers, binmen, police force etc?

[Ancient Dragon]

The US fed government is not going to go bankrupt. It will still pay bills, such as social security, military and federal service employees, as money becomes available. I heard on radio just yesterday that social security is not in trouble because it owns a couple trillion dollars in US government treasury bills which, if pressed for money, they can cash.

It will still pay bills, such as social security, military and federal service employees, as money becomes available

What does "as money becomes available" mean? That would scare the ... out of me.
So let me get this right. The USA isn't in any financial difficulties nor in any debt because it has a couple of trillion $ it can cash?

[Ancient Dragon]

The feds get money all the time from different sources, such as taxes. People and corporations in USA frequently make tax payments monthly instead of annually, so the cash flow into the treasury is never constant or predictable (at least not for us normal folks). Its probably predictable for those who constantly study those things. Even if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling it doesn't mean they can't pay any bills, it just means some bills may be paid late, others will still be paid on time.

>>The USA isn't in any financial difficulties nor in any debt because it has a couple of trillion $ it can cash?

That's not what I said. I said the Social Security Fund is not in any financial crises at the moment. SS checks will be mailed out as normal in August.

[almostbob]

They are treasury bills
to cash em ,, money from the government, which hasnt got any money

[Ancient Dragon]

Here is a list of the current investments. I misstated that they were T bills.

[Agilemind]

Still once cashed those investments are gone so that is not sustainable for more than a couple of months.

Our radio said that Medicare, Medicaid, Pensions, Social Security (and a couple other social programs) + Interest payments will use up all the cash inflow so things like prisons, schools, police, the pentagon, the FBI, etc... won't get paid.

[Ancient Dragon]

At this point we don't know what will and what will not get paid. What should NOT get paid are all members of Congress, the Senate and the President. Those should be the first to go. Let them starve until they get this mess straightened out.

At this point we don't know what will and what will not get paid. What should NOT get paid are all members of Congress, the Senate and the President. Those should be the first to go. Let them starve until they get this mess straightened out.

Well said, however that will not be the reality of it will it?

[pseudorandom21]

Well for one the CIA is actually pretty expendable. How about $40 billion annually for things like better education?

Our intelligence agencies have failed us miserably despite their $40 billion annual budget. They failed to prevent 9/11. They provided Bush with false WMD information which led to the Iraq war. This in turn has accounted for almost a MILLION Iraqi deaths and over 4000 deaths of our troops along with hundreds of thousands injured and disabled.

from: http://www.bradfitzpatrick.com/weblog/455/romney-laughs-at-ron-paul-cia-fbi-irs/

Still won't be the reality will it? CIA won't be disbanded. Where's all this money coming from to pay for essential services? The G is paying itself???

[VernonDozier]

Quote from Wikipedia, the Gold Standard of all sources :icon_cheesygrin:

A federal government shutdown causes a large number of civilian federal employees to be furloughed. Military personnel are not furloughed, but may not be paid as scheduled.[3][4]

The exact details of which government functions would stop during a shutdown is determined by the Office of Management and Budget.[5] However, some specific aspects have applied to all shutdowns in the past. Among these is the closure of national parks and passport offices.[6] "Emergency personnel" continue to be employed, including the military, border agents, doctors and nurses working in federal hospitals, and air traffic controllers.[7] Members of Congress continue to be paid, because their pay cannot be altered except by direct law.[8] Mail delivery is not affected as it is self-funded.[9]

Shutdowns in the past have also affected the Washington, D.C. municipal government, putting a stop to utilities such as garbage collection.

There you have it. "Essential" services continue, the people providing them just don't get paid for doing it, or at least they'll get paid when we get around to it. As to Ancient Dragon's proposal, clearly Congress has thought of that sentiment. Apparently the only ones who can decide whether and how much Congress deserves to be paid is Congress. Well, and presumably us. All we have to do is just vote the bums out and they'll stop getting a paycheck. But they'll still get one hell of a sweet pension.

This has never worked for me in my personal life. I've never been able to declare an employee "essential" and thus force them to work for me for free. The second they find out they're "essential", I have to pay them MORE money, not less. It didn't go over too well with the PG & E guy either when I told him electricity was essential to me but I couldn't pay him.

This is a pretty important issue AFAIK. So Paul says "don't worry", while Obama is flipping his wig about it. Is that right?

[Ancient Dragon]

There isn't much that the President can do to get a bill on his desk for him to sign. Its all up to the members of congress to make that happen.

There isn't much that the President can do to get a bill on his desk for him to sign. Its all up to the members of congress to make that happen.

Sure, I get that, but from what I gather, they won't do so, so he's flipping his wig.

[VernonDozier]

>> Sure, I get that, but from what I gather, they won't do so, so he's flipping his wig.

Obama doesn't flip his wig. He's way too cool under pressure. "No Drama Obama". He's just using the bully pulpit to express exasperation with the Republicans in Congress so that the American public knows who to blame if Congress doesn't put something in front of him to sign at all or if they put something in front of him that he doesn't feel he CAN sign. But there's no way he's a basketcase behind the scenes, ripping his hair out agaonizing over his predicament. He's expressing anger because he decided that in his prior altercations he was too mellow and his political base wanted him more fired up.

[jwenting]

The US fed government is not going to go bankrupt. It will still pay bills, such as social security, military and federal service employees, as money becomes available. I heard on radio just yesterday that social security is not in trouble because it owns a couple trillion dollars in US government treasury bills which, if pressed for money, they can cash.

Well, those treasury bills are worthless if the dollar tanks. Or rather the dollars you get for them will be :)
The federal reserve of course can just open up the printing presses again, as they've done several times since Obama took power (QE1, QE2, they're now talking about QE3 to do just that). This will of course cause the value of the dollar against foreign currency to plummet, but will allow the government to pay the current dollar amount of those treasury bills.
Don't you love fiat currency, where there's nothing of value to back it?

Never mind that imports will become increasingly expensive for consumers and companies alike, that's only good (in the short term) to drive people to buy local products (of course in the mid term it's going to end up isolating the country as noone can trade with it).

I don't envision Americans having to take shopping bags full of dollar bills to the supermarket to get their groceries soon, but those wallets will have to get thicker.

Well at least it'll be good place to go on holiday. I'll get about $20 to £1!

[pseudorandom21]

Well at least it'll be good place to go on holiday. I'll get about $20 to £1!

Nahh we'll elect Ron Paul and everything will be fine.