Paul Ryan "OMG"

[NotNow]

"Class warfare" is the pet phrase of the right wing.

Actually it is what President Obama is waging right now, anyone with a brain realizes that he is demonizing the people who are successful and asking them to pay more, to subsidize support for the middle class and poor.  What happened to the "We're all in this together" stump speech from 2008? If we are all in this together, we should all pay for the debt. Not just those who have been more successful.

I look at it fairly simply, if a single person has income of 1 million dollars and pays 15% capital gains on the interest they receive, instead of a W2, they pay $150,000 in taxes. As opposed to a single person who makes $50,000 and is in the 25% tax bracket and pays $12,500 in taxes. So the millionaire is paying more than 10x the taxes as the middle class person. But that is not enough for the President, he wants to tax all revenue at the tax bracket level. Penalize the people who have built success to subsidize the country.

Screw it, just go with a flat tax and we all pay the same. That is the "We're all in this together" solution!

You are delusional if you really believe that. It is fact that a flat tax would be harmful to the poor. It galls so many right wingers when the poor don't pay the same taxes as those who are better off.  When all of you have to try to survive while earning wages that are below the poverty line you may then say what you want. Until then you know nothing of what you speak.

I grew up "poor", or at least what the government would call "poor".   I struggled payday to payday for a large part of my young adult life.  I'm still solidly in the middle class, the working class.  I am a union member and I am labor.  Do I know of what I speak?  Or do I (or anyone else) really need your permission? 

[NotNow]

Avon,
Some guy works his but off and saves up a good nestegg.  He has paid income tax on the income and the interest.  He dies and leaves the money to his kids.  They pay the estate tax.  They invest the money in stocks and bonds.  They pay the income tax on interest.  Why should they pay income tax rates on the success of their business investment?  That investment money has already been taxed.  We (should) want businesses to grow and be successful.  Thus we have a "capital gains" tax.  Our rate for such a tax is high compared to other countries.  Shouldn't we encourage investment?  Are we just envious of that man's children who inherited the fruits of his hard work?  How does that money belong to the government or anyone else?  We don't all start off even.  The government can't make life "fair".  It can only penalize one group of people or favor a group of people.  Either is a mistake.  Rather than fixate on what others have accumulated, I prefer to leave my children both a little money to invest, and the guts and desire to do the same for their children.

[fsquid]

then lobby to get rid of the capital gains tax or dividend tax.  Wouldn't be the smartest thing to do, but that would be a way to do it.

I don't think it should be gotten rid of.  I believe it should be raised to equal the tax rate on a wage or salary.  Why should you be taxed less just because you don't do any actual work?

I meant lobby to raise those rates, shouldn't post before coffee.

You do that, why would people still invest in businesses?    Why wouldn't I take that money and buy state and muni bonds?

[avonjax]

Avon,
Some guy works his but off and saves up a good nestegg.  He has paid income tax on the income and the interest.  He dies and leaves the money to his kids.  They pay the estate tax.  They invest the money in stocks and bonds.  They pay the income tax on interest.  Why should they pay income tax rates on the success of their business investment?  That investment money has already been taxed.  We (should) want businesses to grow and be successful.  Thus we have a "capital gains" tax.  Our rate for such a tax is high compared to other countries.  Shouldn't we encourage investment?  Are we just envious of that man's children who inherited the fruits of his hard work?  How does that money belong to the government or anyone else?  We don't all start off even.  The government can't make life "fair".  It can only penalize one group of people or favor a group of people.  Either is a mistake.  Rather than fixate on what others have accumulated, I prefer to leave my children both a little money to invest, and the guts and desire to do the same for their children.

Under the last president I paid a higher percentage of tax on my hard earned bonuses than many millionaires pay on  their dividend earnings. But you know what. I never complained. I didn't blame the president.
Sometimes due to circumstances beyond our control, guts and desire are just not enough.
Taxes will never be "fair.' But they will always be necessary.
Besides I wasn't speaking directly to you.
Just hope that calamity doesn't befall you. Especially after middle age.
And why do people who are comfortably middle class or better think that they are superior.
At least that's the way it comes across.

[fsquid]

that is because if you bonus is cash, it is considered income.

[NotNow]

I am not trying to sound "superior".  I'm a working guy.  I don't make a lot of money and I have never received a "bonus" in my life.  I'm just telling you how I feel about the subject.  There will always be folks who need help because of some calamity.  But not half the country.  There will always be some that don't achieve as much income for any number of reasons.  And there will always be a few who make gobs of money that can't seem to put three words together coherently.  That's just the way it is.   The jobs and compensation issues must be addressed in this country, but not through government mandate. 

[avonjax]

that is because if you bonus is cash, it is considered income.

I realize that. All I'm saying is when I did earn a bonus it was taxed at a much higher rate.

[avonjax]

I am not trying to sound "superior".  I'm a working guy.  I don't make a lot of money and I have never received a "bonus" in my life.  I'm just telling you how I feel about the subject.  There will always be folks who need help because of some calamity.  But not half the country.  There will always be some that don't achieve as much income for any number of reasons.  And there will always be a few who make gobs of money that can't seem to put three words together coherently.  That's just the way it is.   The jobs and compensation issues must be addressed in this country, but not through government mandate. 

Half the country is not getting government assistance. A tremendous amount of people are not paying income tax because of their annual earnings. For example year before last I earned less than $15,000 dollars, so no I paid no taxes. But I did pay taxes on everything other than food and drugs that I purchased. And I did pay into Medicare and SS. 
I was earning 5 times that 6 years ago. But I still don't blame the government or the president because I couldn't get a job.
Keep in mind that middle aged people are in dire straits when they lose their jobs.
NOBODY wants to hire you because of 1. Your age   2. Most companies big and small don't want to invest in an employee that doesn't have a long term future with their company.
No matter how educated you are or how hard you work, how you come to work everyday and come on time they still don't want to hire you.
And believe me after a couple of YEARS of unemployment you are willing to take anything, but "anything" is not willing to take you.
Fortunately for me I had saved a lot of money and tightened my belt, but the money still ran out.
But millions live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes it's their fault sometimes not, and if they get caught in long term unemployment, or god forbid have a catastrophic illness or accident, where are they to turn?
Sorry we don't live in the dark ages when people lived to 40.
If that were the case we could just let them die.
But we live in a country where a CEO of a major corporation can make $140,000,000 while laying off employees and moving jobs overseas.
It's irrational when the pay rate of CEO's has increased 127+% in the last 10 years, yet the unemployment rate is as high as it is. And the pay scale of the average worker has decreased.
Are these guys really "entitled" to such lavish wages?
Did they do anything to earn that kind of money?
The reality is NO!
Did the bankers still get huge paychecks even as their institutions had to be bailed out for horrific mismanagement?
Absolutely.
I'm not directing this at you, but people apparently feel entitled, rich and poor.
And back to class warfare. The real class warfare is against the poor and the middle class not the rich.
Again as I have stated many times I blame greed for many of the economic problems we face.
Some politicians try to blame SS, Medicare and Welfare for the financial woes of this country. But they refuse to consider any kind of tax hike, (even a small one) or cutting one dime from defense spending to help alleviate the problem.
Sorry I just can't accept that.

[mtraininjax]

The jobs and compensation issues must be addressed in this country, but not through government mandate.

Amen brother +1! I need the government telling women they are going to hell if they abort a fetus, after all, we live in a socialist world, so why not have the government in a woman's uterus. One thing I do not agree with Republicans or Catholics on, now way, not gonna happen. Choice is a good thing.

Avonjax - You really need to re-read Aldous Huxley's classic book, "Brave New World", in which the vast majority of the population is unified under the World State, an eternally peaceful, stable global society in which goods and resources are plentiful (because the population is permanently limited to no more than two billion people) and everyone is happy. Essentially utopia, a fantasyland for dreamers.

I am here to bring you back to reality. Unemployment benefits for 99 weeks? Are you kidding me? Of course there is  the Food Stamp program where 1 in 7 Americans is on Food Stamps. Gingrich called Obama, the Food Stamp President, and here he wants to increase the food stamp rolls, which are fraught with fraud. 

http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/25/news/economy/food-stamps-ads/index.htm

[BridgeTroll]

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/whats-really-ryan-budget

What's Really in the Ryan Budget

by Daniel J. Mitchell


This article appeared in the The Wall Street Journal on August 16, 2012.



Thanks to several years of fiscal restraint during the 1990s, the burden of federal spending dropped to 18.2% of gross domestic product by the time Bill Clinton left office. The federal budget today consumes more than 24% of economic output, a one-third increase since 2001 in the share of the U.S. economy allocated by politics rather than market forces. That makes the Republican House budget, which would reverse this trend, extremely important for the economic health of the country.

Both political parties deserve blame for the spending spree that's put America in a fiscal ditch. President George W. Bush was a big spender and President Obama has compounded the damage with his stimulus spending and other programs.

But the era of bipartisan big government may have come to an end. Largely thanks to Rep. Paul Ryan and the fiscal blueprint he prepared as chairman of the House Budget Committee earlier this year, the GOP has begun climbing back on the wagon of fiscal sobriety and has shown at least some willingness to restrain the growth of government.

Policy makers should focus on reducing the burden of government spending as a share of GDP â€" leaving more resources in the private economy.

The Ryan budget has generated considerable controversy in Washington, and it will become even more of an issue now that Mr. Ryan is Mitt Romney's running mate. So it's an appropriate time to analyze the plan and consider what it would mean for America.

The most important headline about the Ryan budget is that it limits the growth rate of federal spending, with outlays increasing by an average of 3.1% annually over the next 10 years. If spending is left on autopilot, by contrast, it would grow by 4.3% (or nearly 39% faster). If President Obama is re-elected, the burden of spending presumably will climb more rapidly.

This comes as a surprise to many people since the press is filled with stories about the Ryan budget imposing trillions of dollars of "savage" and "draconian" spending cuts. All of these stories, however, are based on Washington's misleading budget process that automatically assumes an ever-expanding government. The 4.3% "base line" increase is the benchmark for measuring "cuts" â€" even though spending is rising rather than falling, and it's only the rate of spending growth that is being slowed.

Even limiting spending so it grows by 3.1% per year, as Mr. Ryan proposes, quickly leads to less red ink. This is because federal tax revenues are projected by the House Budget Committee to increase 6.6% annually over the next 10 years if the House budget is approved (and this assumes the Bush tax cuts are made permanent). Since revenues would climb more than twice as fast as spending, the deficit would drop to about 1% of gross domestic product by the end of the 10-year budget window.

To balance the budget within 10 years would require that outlays grow by about 2% each year. Spending in the Ryan budget means the federal budget reaches balance in 2040. There are many who would prefer that the deficit come down more quickly, but from a jobs and growth perspective, it isn't the deficit that matters.

Rather, what matters for prosperity and living standards is the degree to which labor and capital are used productively. This is why policy makers should focus on reducing the burden of government spending as a share of GDP â€" leaving more resources in the private economy.

The simple way of making this happen is to follow what I've been calling the golden rule of good fiscal policy: The private sector should grow faster than the government. This is what happens with the Ryan budget. The Congressional Budget Office expects nominal economic output (before inflation) to grow about 5% each year over the next decade. So if federal spending grows 3.1% annually, the burden of federal spending slowly shrinks as a share of GDP.

According to the House Budget Committee, the federal budget would consume slightly less than 20% of economic output if the Ryan budget remained in place for 10 years. This would be remarkable progress considering that the federal government is now consuming 24% of GDP vs. Mr. Clinton's 18.2% in 2001. If Paul Ryan's policies are social Darwinism, as Mr. Obama and his allies allege, one can only speculate where Bill Clinton ranks in their estimation.

Spending restraint also creates more leeway for good tax policy. Regardless of what you think about deficits, the political reality is that it is difficult to lower tax rates if government borrowing remains at high or rising levels. If deficit spending continues at current levels, then higher tax rates are almost sure to follow. And higher tax rates can't create an environment conducive to more investment and jobs.

The Ryan budget avoids this unpleasant outcome by addressing the problem of excessive government spending. This makes it possible to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax-rate reductions. It also clears the way for other pro-growth reforms, such as Gov. Romney's proposed across-the-board 20% income tax cut, a more competitive 25% corporate tax rate, and less double-taxation of dividends and capital gains.

One of the best features of the Ryan budget is that he reforms the two big health entitlements instead of simply trying to save money. Medicaid gets block-granted to the states, building on the success of welfare reform in the 1990s. And Medicare is modernized by creating a premium-support option for people retiring in 2022 and beyond.

This is much better than the traditional Beltway approach of trying to save money with price controls on health-care providers and means testing on health-care consumers. Price controls are notoriously ineffective â€" because health-care providers adapt by ordering more tests and procedures â€" and politically unsustainable due to lobbying pressure. Means testing imposes an indirect penalty on people who save and invest during their working years. That should be a nonstarter for a political party that seeks to encourage productive behavior and discourage dependency.

But good entitlement policy also is a godsend for taxpayers, particularly in the long run. Without reform, the burden of federal spending will jump to 35% of GDP by 2040, compared to 18.75% of output under the Ryan budget.

Assuming the GOP ticket prevails in November, Mitt Romney will make the big decisions on fiscal policy. But there is no escaping the fiscal math. If Mr. Romney intends to keep his no-tax-hike promise, he has to restrain the growth of spending. This doesn't mean he has to go with every detail of the Ryan budget â€" but it's certainly a good place to start.

[finehoe]

Thanks to several years of fiscal restraint during the 1990s

Uh, no, thanks to the revenue increases enacted by Clinton in 1993.

[finehoe]

Romney vows to boost national debt by $716 billion, no one blinks
By David Lauter
August 17, 2012, 9:01 a.m.

Before the presidential campaign hurtles off to the next skirmish, take a moment to notice what happened this week: Mitt Romney vowed to increase the national debt by $716 billion, and no one so much as blinked.

Romney's handling of the $716 billion in Medicare cost cuts comes close to being a perfect example of why federal spending so seldom gets cut â€" everyone favors restraining government spending in theory, but voters seldom love it in practice.

To recap: As part of the Obama health reform law, Congress voted to reduce payments to certain hospitals, insurance companies and other healthcare providers by about $716 billion over the next 10 years. The law directed the money to help pay for expanded prescription drug coverage for seniors â€" eliminating the so-called doughnut hole â€" and to help cover younger Americans who do not have insurance at their jobs.

When Rep. Paul D. Ryan, Romney’s choice as his running mate, drafted his budget plan, he included repeal of Obama’s health law. But he kept those Medicare cost cuts and applied the savings to reducing the federal deficit. Why wouldn’t he, after all? Ryan was trying to close a huge budget gap, and here was a rare case in which Congress had already agreed to a spending restraint that was relatively non-controversial -- the hospitals and provider groups had agreed to the cuts, and they would not reduce benefits to Medicare patients.

But Ryan’s decision â€" logical though it may have been in the budget context â€" blunted a Republican attack on Obama for “raiding” Medicare. So on Wednesday, Romney made clear that he would eliminate the Medicare savings, and Ryan fell into line.

The move would mean Medicare’s main trust fund would run out of money in just four years, rather than 12 under Obama’s plan. And because Romney did not offer any new revenue to cover the $716 billion cost, nor any offsetting reductions, the price tag would simply be added to the national credit card â€" worsening the “prairie fire of debt” that Romney decried in a speech this spring.

How much is $716 billion? It’s equal to half of all the money that Congress agreed to cut last summer after a two-month standoff over the national debt.

Needless to say, both sides indulge in this sort of thing during a campaign year. This week, Obama was in Iowa, pledging support for a wind-energy tax credit that’s popular with Iowa farmers. But the tax credit costs a bit over $1 billion a year, roughly one-seventieth of Romney’s Medicare move.

Whether Romney’s move helps him win the election remains to be seen â€" it’s too early to know who is winning the campaign battle over Medicare. But if he does win, this week’s decision will make his governing tasks $716 billion harder.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-vows-to-boost-national-debt-by-716-billion-no-one-blinks-20120817,0,3372935.story

[BridgeTroll]

Thanks to several years of fiscal restraint during the 1990s

Uh, no, thanks to the revenue increases enacted by Clinton in 1993.

Awesome!  is that your only objection??  How about this?

The most important headline about the Ryan budget is that it limits the growth rate of federal spending, with outlays increasing by an average of 3.1% annually over the next 10 years. If spending is left on autopilot, by contrast, it would grow by 4.3% (or nearly 39% faster). If President Obama is re-elected, the burden of spending presumably will climb more rapidly.

This comes as a surprise to many people since the press is filled with stories about the Ryan budget imposing trillions of dollars of "savage" and "draconian" spending cuts. All of these stories, however, are based on Washington's misleading budget process that automatically assumes an ever-expanding government. The 4.3% "base line" increase is the benchmark for measuring "cuts" â€" even though spending is rising rather than falling, and it's only the rate of spending growth that is being slowed.

[Gators312]

Romney vows to boost national debt by $716 billion, no one blinks
By David Lauter
August 17, 2012, 9:01 a.m.

To recap: As part of the Obama health reform law, Congress voted to reduce payments to certain hospitals, insurance companies and other healthcare providers by about $716 billion over the next 10 years. The law directed the money to help pay for expanded prescription drug coverage for seniors â€" eliminating the so-called doughnut hole â€" and to help cover younger Americans who do not have insurance at their jobs.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-vows-to-boost-national-debt-by-716-billion-no-one-blinks-20120817,0,3372935.story

Does anyone know which section of the law this it excerpted from?

I don't understand, if you cut $716B from hospitals, etc. but then apply it to expanded coverage for Seniors and uninsured how is that a cut in Medicare? 

I guess I have a too simplistic idea of how this works?

[Midway ®]

Its not.

In the sane and normal universe, it would be called a reallocation for greater efficiency.

In the Romneyverse, its a cut.