State of the Union

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
So what about the speech?

Now that you’ve gotten your obligatory negative Bush–horrible speaker–blahblahblahbullshit out of the way, anything real to say.

What about the fuel initiatives?

See below.

What about permanent tax relief?

Between the debt and cutting taxes during a war, I don’t think this is going anywhere. Its got to be repaid somehow.

What about The effort to scale back the hatred and work together?

Same old rhetoric from his bullshit “compassionate conservative” days. If he stops pursuing the psychotic neocon agenda, maybe the hatred wouldn’t be there in the first place. However, he has shown that he is a divider, not a uniter. Nice idea. He won’t make it happen. He’s a day late and a millionaire’ tax cut short.

What about entitlement spending?

Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars.

It just seems noone on this board wants to actually talk politics. Talk about potential solutions. It boils down to what party are you, who did you vote for, oh–you must be a frickin’ moron.

No one person or party is going to change the quagmire we are in. We need tough decisions and we need to take a little hit too right this ship. I wish the two parties could find at least 1-2 items they agree on and begin to propose solutions.

As long as people can back it up, I don’t care who they vote for. Each side has valid points, especially in from an economic standpoint. But it seems many times that Republicans want to put all the blame for everything on the Democrats not cooperating. Well of course they’re not cooperating! George II is trying to gut social security! What kind of liberal or leftist agrees with taking away the thing that keeps seniors above the poverty line?

Fuel initiative.

I would love to see hydrogen cars by 2010. Is that pie in the sky? Probably, but if we never set some goals, we are surely never going to move forward with any resolve. Hell with coal and that right now. If we cut our automobile (oil) use in 1/2 over the next 4-5 years how much better off would we be. Wouldn’t hurt our
?supposed? global warming either.

Either Zap or Zeb said once long ago that “Necessity is the mother of invention”. There will be big push for hybrid/hydorgen cars until oil is 1) over 4 dollars a gallon regularly or 2)there is no oil left. That’s it. Bush, being an oilman, is not going to hurt that industry. He would much rather spew the propaganda, then let a future president deal with the shitstorm.

I need an economist to step in on the taxes. We are so over taxed I believe we could live with some permanent relief, but what do we then give up. There is enmough pork around to easily lower taxes and not suffer servicewise.

I don’t mind taxes. Now, I don’t pay property taxes, but I know they are very high (at least in NJ). However, the standard of living is high, so it evens out.

I agree that there are ridiculous pork barrel projects that suck the money out, and that should me moderated. However, that is the congressman’s game. That isn’t going anywhere.

Political partisanship.

Maybe the biggest problem right now. There is no effort to even try and work together. Will the next president be able to bring together the parties or is this the new way. It is so disappointing to hear good solid ideas presented knowing that in no way is anyone really looking to fulfill them.

Let’s go crazy and throw some ideas around. we may not solve anything, but you never know who’s lurking here.

I agree that partisanship is bad. But there are two parties here that differ severly on many issues. I have said many times that they are two sides of the same coin, and I still believe that; the main differences are social issues that will never change.

Yet with someone like Bush, there will be no uniting. And I’m not sure I want untiting, as it will only be under the Republican’s ways that the Democrat’s can “unite”. The best they can do is hope to stop the ridiculous measure that George II puts through. Little more. [/quote]

This really is garbage Irish. It’s a tone like yours that prevents actual discussion and makes it all the easier to fall back on complete rhetoric.

Your answer to everything is strictly anti-Bush. What about the actual innitiative? Yes I know it was a political speech, but didn’t anything get your engine going. NO. Too busy hating to see any type of future until old W gets out of there.

I know you don’t believe this, but Bush being an oilman has nothing to do with it. True, innovation will cost money. This is the crux. But for everyone of you who bitches about Exxon profits, but does nothing about it you’re the biggest hypocrits.

Please show me where Bush wants to gut SS. Forget it. You’re not even thinking for yourself. From now on I’ll just call you Mr. Pelose(sp). Your tone is so negative, you don’t want to work towards any common goals or good, you’d rather bitch about your perception of W than carry on any meaningful conversation about what this country can and should do to move forward.

Get over it dude. Your angry young white boy stance makes you look juvenile. Every single ‘rebuttal’, for lack of a better word, was nothing but rehashed partisan garbage—the exact stuff I said let’s forget and see how we would better ourselves. I guess that was too much comprehension for one day.

Sorry for the blow up, but it just gets me how we can’t even get one post past the original before the same old,sameold just starts up again. Too bad. There sure is plenty to talk about.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars. [/quote]

How much has this war cost us now, by the way? I mean, besides the lives of many of our own people who should be honored for their sacrifice.

Probably the only area in which I support an increase in spending is in research, particularly in the alternative energy area. Not only does it offer the hope of lessening our dependence on foreign oil-- and oil in general-- but if the US is the driving force behind the development of these technologies, it will ultimately benefit when its own companies dominate the field. Look at the wind power industry. Firms from the countries in northern Europe which were early adopters of the technology now dominate the industry. Some techs may cost more in the short run, but in the long run they may pay substantial dividends.

Contrary to the claims of Delay, there’s more than enough pork to cut to pay for this. The problem is that the bulk of the money for tech research tends not to go to Iowa, Alaska or other Republican strongholds.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars.

How much has this war cost us now, by the way? I mean, besides the lives of many of our own people who should be honored for their sacrifice.[/quote]

How many lives has it saved, including the people Sadam would have killed for various reasons? How many more will it save by the spread of democracy throughout that region.

The glass is half full!

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
So what about the speech?

Now that you’ve gotten your obligatory negative Bush–horrible speaker–blahblahblahbullshit out of the way, anything real to say.

What about the fuel initiatives?
What about permanent tax relief?
What about The effort to scale back the hatred and work together?
What about entitlement spending?

It just seems noone on this board wants to actually talk politics. Talk about potential solutions. It boils down to what party are you, who did you vote for, oh–you must be a frickin’ moron.

No one person or party is going to change the quagmire we are in. We need tough decisions and we need to take a little hit too right this ship. I wish the two parties could find at least 1-2 items they agree on and begin to propose solutions.

Fuel initiative.

I would love to see hydrogen cars by 2010. Is that pie in the sky? Probably, but if we never set some goals, we are surely never going to move forward with any resolve. Hell with coal and that right now. If we cut our automobile (oil) use in 1/2 over the next 4-5 years how much better off would we be. Wouldn’t hurt our
?supposed? global warming either.

I need an economist to step in on the taxes. We are so over taxed I believe we could live with some permanent relief, but what do we then give up. There is enmough pork around to easily lower taxes and not suffer servicewise.

Political partisanship.

Maybe the biggest problem right now. There is no effort to even try and work together. Will the next president be able to bring together the parties or is this the new way. It is so disappointing to hear good solid ideas presented knowing that in no way is anyone really looking to fulfill them.

Let’s go crazy and throw some ideas around. we may not solve anything, but you never know who’s lurking here.

[/quote]

First off, thanks for that, I was getting tired of watching the monkeys throw their poo at eachother too.

I am a big fan of the fuel initiative idea, I just think it needs to be elaborated upon and the strucutre of the initiative debated- how can subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives be structured so that we make the most progress in developing PRACTICAL technology for fuel conservation and alternative energy usage.

I have to disagree with your desire to see hydrogen cars on the roads though as hydrogen is a net-negative fuel in that it takes more energy (at least using the methods we now have) to make hydrogen fuel than is actually contained in the fuel itself - so they need to either become more efficient in the production of hydrogen or invest the money elsewhere.

I am not too sure about making the tax cuts permanent as of yet. I think the growing deficit is a much bigger problem. If it is not brought under control and some of the principle begins being paid off, the tax increases that will be necessary when countries stop giving us extensions when debts come due will be crippling to the economy. It’s a trade off between more economic growth now and far less later when debts come due, and less growth now and the supposedly stimulatory effect of lower marginal taxes in the future.

That said, I agree with you that there is way way too much pork in the budget. If this money were put into other parts of the budget or used to pay down the deficit, that would be a beautiful and very beneficial thing. I don’t know how likely this will ever be to happen, short of the line item veto. with all of the political back scratching being exchanged in washington.

It seems the reinstatement of the line item veto would be of great use here in curbing such expendature. One big problem though is much of the pork that is already in the budget is there for many years to come in the form of multi-year programs. Another problem is that using the line item veto could very easily become a political thing, it could become an issue of who’s pork is getting cut this year and who’s is not. I think a provision could easily be written into the line item veto legislation that confined it to fiscal matters, if applied to non-budgetary legislation we could have an all out political holy war given the state of the political parties in the US right now.

It’s a great idea, however, there were no propositions as to how this would be accomplished. It would be great if it happened, but short of some stupid regulation or statute, I really don’t see anything being accomplished in this regard.

I was a little peeved that the president lumped social security in with entitlement spending, but that is a discussion for another day. I don’t think the problem with so-called entitlement spending is that the level of expendature is too high, I think a big part of the problem is the inefficiency of the programs that such spending goes through. If people saw more results, perhaps such spending would not be viewed as such a problem. In my casual observation, when programs are new they work very well, but they become less and less effective and efficient over time. Something should be shook up with respect to these programs, I’m just not sure what exactly yet that shaking up should be.

I hope that was a constructive contribution.

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Professor X wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars.

How much has this war cost us now, by the way? I mean, besides the lives of many of our own people who should be honored for their sacrifice.

How many lives has it saved, including the people Sadam would have killed for various reasons? How many more will it save by the spread of democracy throughout that region.

The glass is half full![/quote]

I agree 100%

The status quo of the middle east was in the best interests of nobody.

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
I need an economist to step in on the taxes. We are so over taxed I believe we could live with some permanent relief, but what do we then give up. There is enmough pork around to easily lower taxes and not suffer servicewise.[/quote]

Where do you want me to start? :slight_smile:

I’ve written hundreds of pages on this subject myself. If you add up the output on this sole subject from the collective minds of Stanford and Berkeley alone, it will be in the several thousands.

I’ll try to summarize it as much as I can…

We need tax reform. In fact, we need to completely throw out the current system and start from scratch – defining as a clear objective to come up with a tax system that follows two basic principles at the same time: produce enough government income to curb the debt while at the same time contributing to stimulate the economy.

Personally, I believe that can be achieved with one major strategy: focusing on income tax – whatever the PRIMARY source of income is, since it would be insane to only tax people who work for a living, i.e, if dividends, or stock (including options), or an inheritance are the primary source of income, we need to tax them as such – and forgetting about everything else (including Sales tax, property tax, etc.).

Why? Because not only that is fair (basically, everyone is taxed for exactly the same thing), it is the least annoying and the easiest to implement and enforce.

In fact, one could simply lump together ALL primary sources of income and apply a lump tax rate (which can be different for different income brackets), after discounting the deductions (like 401(k) contributions and interest paid on your mortgage). Simple as that.

(the reason I mention PRIMARY source of income is because I feel very strongly against double taxation).

There are a lot of details about these ideas, and that’s where the hundreds of pages come in – for example, it is completely absurd to have a limit on the tax-free contributions to 401(k)s.

Of course, where the discussion gets heated is in the fundamental political choices of a) who is going to bear the greatest tax burden (and to what extent) and b) how much money does the government really need.

The latter also means that as critical as tax reform is, lowering government waste is even more critical. Note the use of “waste”: I don’t care how much money the government needs AS LONG AS it is applied on INVESTMENT, i.e., it provides some kind of return, be it by stimulating the economy or increasing quality of life. If money is coming out of my gross income, I expect it to be used for investing, not burned. Burning billions of dollars in order to keep lobbies happy is just plain unethical, and spending more billions of dollars “fighting tyranny” and “spreading democracy” – which is not an end in itself, but rather a means that can have completely unpredictable consequences – just plain stupid, unless he knows about unlimited sources of government income AND people willing to give their lives to “fight tyranny” thousands of miles away.

Basically, I find Bush’s track record on tax policies exceptionally bad, and have no illusion that his legacy will be remotely positive on that respect. He seems not only have no idea of what he’s doing in regards to taxes – adopting policies that are designed to keep his friends happy, rather than purposively achieve any benefit for the country as a whole – he seems to keep forgetting that conservatives are supposed to believe in smaller government and lowering government expense.

At least that is the story they try to sell us during election campaigns.

But, in fact, the only times he has consulted with economists has been in finding creative ways to INCREASE government expense with the lowest possible interest rate (i.e., paying the lowest possible yield on our bonds).

He’s like a shopping addict looking for new credit cards to dump the cost of his addiction into – rather than just cutting them up and living according to his means.

His “spend and forget” attitude has become abundantly obvious with New Orleans, where he has spent billions of dollars but just about completely forgotten about the subject these days.

Money doesn’t land in the right place by itself. You need to drive it there. If you don’t, it will land in some shady character’s pockets and rapidly find its way to some offshore account.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
He really is a horrendus public speaker. Not that it really matters, but I always figured he’d be better at it by now.[/quote]

I don’t agree. Public speaches are his forte.

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Professor X wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars.

How much has this war cost us now, by the way? I mean, besides the lives of many of our own people who should be honored for their sacrifice.

How many lives has it saved, including the people Sadam would have killed for various reasons? How many more will it save by the spread of democracy throughout that region.

The glass is half full!

I agree 100%

The status quo of the middle east was in the best interests of nobody.[/quote]

Did either of you two cheerleaders answer the question? I asked how much it cost, not for your opinion of whether it was needed. I could have written that opinion for you without your input. It isn’t like you all are unpredictable.

[quote]hspder wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
I need an economist to step in on the taxes. We are so over taxed I believe we could live with some permanent relief, but what do we then give up. There is enmough pork around to easily lower taxes and not suffer servicewise.

Where do you want me to start? :slight_smile:

I’ve written hundreds of pages on this subject myself. If you add up the output on this sole subject from the collective minds of Stanford and Berkeley alone, it will be in the several thousands.

I’ll try to summarize it as much as I can…

We need tax reform. In fact, we need to completely throw out the current system and start from scratch – defining as a clear objective to come up with a tax system that follows two basic principles at the same time: produce enough government income to curb the debt while at the same time contributing to stimulate the economy.

Personally, I believe that can be achieved with one major strategy: focusing on income tax – whatever the PRIMARY source of income is, since it would be insane to only tax people who work for a living, i.e, if dividends, or stock (including options), or an inheritance are the primary source of income, we need to tax them as such – and forgetting about everything else (including Sales tax, property tax, etc.).

Why? Because not only that is fair (basically, everyone is taxed for exactly the same thing), it is the least annoying and the easiest to implement and enforce.

In fact, one could simply lump together ALL primary sources of income and apply a lump tax rate (which can be different for different income brackets), after discounting the deductions (like 401(k) contributions and interest paid on your mortgage). Simple as that.

(the reason I mention PRIMARY source of income is because I feel very strongly against double taxation).

There are a lot of details about these ideas, and that’s where the hundreds of pages come in – for example, it is completely absurd to have a limit on the tax-free contributions to 401(k)s.

Of course, where the discussion gets heated is in the fundamental political choices of a) who is going to bear the greatest tax burden (and to what extent) and b) how much money does the government really need.

The latter also means that as critical as tax reform is, lowering government waste is even more critical. Note the use of “waste”: I don’t care how much money the government needs AS LONG AS it is applied on INVESTMENT, i.e., it provides some kind of return, be it by stimulating the economy or increasing quality of life. If money is coming out of my gross income, I expect it to be used for investing, not burned. Burning billions of dollars in order to keep lobbies happy is just plain unethical, and spending more billions of dollars “fighting tyranny” and “spreading democracy” – which is not an end in itself, but rather a means that can have completely unpredictable consequences – just plain stupid, unless he knows about unlimited sources of government income AND people willing to give their lives to “fight tyranny” thousands of miles away.

Basically, I find Bush’s track record on tax policies exceptionally bad, and have no illusion that his legacy will be remotely positive on that respect. He seems not only have no idea of what he’s doing in regards to taxes – adopting policies that are designed to keep his friends happy, rather than purposively achieve any benefit for the country as a whole – he seems to keep forgetting that conservatives are supposed to believe in smaller government and lowering government expense.

At least that is the story they try to sell us during election campaigns.

But, in fact, the only times he has consulted with economists has been in finding creative ways to INCREASE government expense with the lowest possible interest rate (i.e., paying the lowest possible yield on our bonds).

He’s like a shopping addict looking for new credit cards to dump the cost of his addiction into – rather than just cutting them up and living according to his means.

His “spend and forget” attitude has become abundantly obvious with New Orleans, where he has spent billions of dollars but just about completely forgotten about the subject these days.

Money doesn’t land in the right place by itself. You need to drive it there. If you don’t, it will land in some shady character’s pockets and rapidly find its way to some offshore account.
[/quote]

I hoped that would bring you in.

Nice points, though I would really like to go in depth with you wrt only one tax, that being income. This, though, is a poor forum for such a discusiion. For simplicity, would you simply figure out gov’t needs-quantify current overall tax burden-and then adjust for previous pork? I realize the UNsimpleness of that statement/equation, but I have not heard of this before.

I agree the first and foremost need is finding out what the gov’t NEEDS to operate efficiently. I also realiize the impossibility of such a statement.

This has been a concern of mine in the past 3 years or so. There has been no fiscal responsiblity at all. Great, cut taxes, but then there has to be some type of stop gate on the spending. There has been none. Your analogy was spot on.

One question. If you hate double taxation–how does that fit in to you wanting to tax inheritance.

thank you

[quote]Professor X wrote:
bigflamer wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Professor X wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars.

How much has this war cost us now, by the way? I mean, besides the lives of many of our own people who should be honored for their sacrifice.

How many lives has it saved, including the people Sadam would have killed for various reasons? How many more will it save by the spread of democracy throughout that region.

The glass is half full!

I agree 100%

The status quo of the middle east was in the best interests of nobody.

Did either of you two cheerleaders answer the question? I asked how much it cost, not for your opinion of whether it was needed. I could have written that opinion for you without your input. It isn’t like you all are unpredictable.[/quote]

I am fairly certain you know the answer lies in the 200+billion range. And I suppose this is your answer to all of our woes. wow, how unpredictable of YOU.

Shhh! Y’all are funding my retirement…

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Professor X wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars.

How much has this war cost us now, by the way? I mean, besides the lives of many of our own people who should be honored for their sacrifice.

How many lives has it saved, including the people Sadam would have killed for various reasons? How many more will it save by the spread of democracy throughout that region.

The glass is half full![/quote]

Yes, the whole “democracy” thing sure is going well in Palestine.

[quote]Wreckless wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
He really is a horrendus public speaker. Not that it really matters, but I always figured he’d be better at it by now.

I don’t agree. Public speaches are his forte.[/quote]

Joke, right?

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Did either of you two cheerleaders answer the question? I asked how much it cost, not for your opinion of whether it was needed. I could have written that opinion for you without your input. It isn’t like you all are unpredictable.[/quote]

Yea…the funny thing about the Internet (as you well know) is that you get to read opinions that you don’t like. Whether you can predict them or not is irrelevant ,(which is similar to most of your political opinions).

As if any one of us couldn’t predict that you would disagree with President Bush on Iraq.

{b] HELLO ANYONE HOME? [/b] (knocking on Prof’s head)

Wake up my man!

You really are a freaking riot. No seriously don’t ever change…

[quote]BigPaul wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
So what about the speech?

Now that you’ve gotten your obligatory negative Bush–horrible speaker–blahblahblahbullshit out of the way, anything real to say.

What about the fuel initiatives?
What about permanent tax relief?
What about The effort to scale back the hatred and work together?
What about entitlement spending?

It just seems noone on this board wants to actually talk politics. Talk about potential solutions. It boils down to what party are you, who did you vote for, oh–you must be a frickin’ moron.

No one person or party is going to change the quagmire we are in. We need tough decisions and we need to take a little hit too right this ship. I wish the two parties could find at least 1-2 items they agree on and begin to propose solutions.

Fuel initiative.

I would love to see hydrogen cars by 2010. Is that pie in the sky? Probably, but if we never set some goals, we are surely never going to move forward with any resolve. Hell with coal and that right now. If we cut our automobile (oil) use in 1/2 over the next 4-5 years how much better off would we be. Wouldn’t hurt our
?supposed? global warming either.

I need an economist to step in on the taxes. We are so over taxed I believe we could live with some permanent relief, but what do we then give up. There is enmough pork around to easily lower taxes and not suffer servicewise.

Political partisanship.

Maybe the biggest problem right now. There is no effort to even try and work together. Will the next president be able to bring together the parties or is this the new way. It is so disappointing to hear good solid ideas presented knowing that in no way is anyone really looking to fulfill them.

Let’s go crazy and throw some ideas around. we may not solve anything, but you never know who’s lurking here.

First off, thanks for that, I was getting tired of watching the monkeys throw their poo at eachother too.

What about the fuel initiatives?

I am a big fan of the fuel initiative idea, I just think it needs to be elaborated upon and the strucutre of the initiative debated- how can subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives be structured so that we make the most progress in developing PRACTICAL technology for fuel conservation and alternative energy usage.

I have to disagree with your desire to see hydrogen cars on the roads though as hydrogen is a net-negative fuel in that it takes more energy (at least using the methods we now have) to make hydrogen fuel than is actually contained in the fuel itself - so they need to either become more efficient in the production of hydrogen or invest the money elsewhere.

What about permanent tax relief?

I am not too sure about making the tax cuts permanent as of yet. I think the growing deficit is a much bigger problem. If it is not brought under control and some of the principle begins being paid off, the tax increases that will be necessary when countries stop giving us extensions when debts come due will be crippling to the economy. It’s a trade off between more economic growth now and far less later when debts come due, and less growth now and the supposedly stimulatory effect of lower marginal taxes in the future.

That said, I agree with you that there is way way too much pork in the budget. If this money were put into other parts of the budget or used to pay down the deficit, that would be a beautiful and very beneficial thing. I don’t know how likely this will ever be to happen, short of the line item veto. with all of the political back scratching being exchanged in washington.

It seems the reinstatement of the line item veto would be of great use here in curbing such expendature. One big problem though is much of the pork that is already in the budget is there for many years to come in the form of multi-year programs. Another problem is that using the line item veto could very easily become a political thing, it could become an issue of who’s pork is getting cut this year and who’s is not. I think a provision could easily be written into the line item veto legislation that confined it to fiscal matters, if applied to non-budgetary legislation we could have an all out political holy war given the state of the political parties in the US right now.

What about The effort to scale back the hatred and work together?

It’s a great idea, however, there were no propositions as to how this would be accomplished. It would be great if it happened, but short of some stupid regulation or statute, I really don’t see anything being accomplished in this regard.

What about entitlement spending?

I was a little peeved that the president lumped social security in with entitlement spending, but that is a discussion for another day. I don’t think the problem with so-called entitlement spending is that the level of expendature is too high, I think a big part of the problem is the inefficiency of the programs that such spending goes through. If people saw more results, perhaps such spending would not be viewed as such a problem. In my casual observation, when programs are new they work very well, but they become less and less effective and efficient over time. Something should be shook up with respect to these programs, I’m just not sure what exactly yet that shaking up should be.

I hope that was a constructive contribution.[/quote]

It was and I thank you.

I am interested in your explanation of hydrogen and its use as a fuel source.
What type of energy is consumed in the making of it. If it’s not oil, then that is still a plus, no? It is being used in< I believe, Greenland or somewhere over there, how’s it working? I’m only talking about lessening our reliance on others for fuel, not so much the fuel efficiency. Though obviously cost and all those factors are very important and must be taken into consideration. My understanding is we don’t need much. Let’s say we get 10-20% down the line from corn and cut grass or whatever that was he briefly mentioned. Now 10-20 from hydrogen. That’s a quarter to a half in 5 years or so. Is this possible?

I like the line item veto. I don’t know how to keep it from being political though. Damn shame, cause there is potential there. The pork is staggering and the tag alongs on each bill just continue to drag us down.
The system needs a complete overhaul. But asking the fox to change the combination to the hen house is truly asking for the impossible.

Medicare, medicade are just a joke of a system. We spend 2x per average of any other industrialized society for far less care. I agree that the idea behind the system is ok, but the system has been allowed to get very inefficient. I don’t see a big problem with ss. I think it actually is easily? fixed. What would you think of ?retaxing? those above let’s say 250-300,000. Let them contribute extra. Isn’t that part of the original idea of such a program. That the wealthier help take care of those that need help. Also we need to stop borrowing against the fund.

Sorry my thoughts are divided here, I’m painting train engines on the Thomas dvd with my 4 year old so if this is scattered my apologies.

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Professor X wrote:

Did either of you two cheerleaders answer the question? I asked how much it cost, not for your opinion of whether it was needed. I could have written that opinion for you without your input. It isn’t like you all are unpredictable.

Yea…the funny thing about the Internet (as you well know) is that you get to read opinions that you don’t like. Whether you can predict them or not is irrelevant ,(which is similar to most of your political opinions).

As if any one of us couldn’t predict that you would disagree with President Bush on Iraq.

{b] HELLO ANYONE HOME? [/b] (knocking on Prof’s head)

Wake up my man!

You really are a freaking riot. No seriously don’t ever change…[/quote]

Great response ZEB!
This guy is as predictable as my Timex.
He can’t help himself.

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
For simplicity, would you simply figure out gov’t needs-quantify current overall tax burden-and then adjust for previous pork? I realize the UNsimpleness of that statement/equation, but I have not heard of this before.[/quote]

I’m not completely sure I understand what you are suggesting – can you elaborate a bit (especially the pork part? :-)).

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
I agree the first and foremost need is finding out what the gov’t NEEDS to operate efficiently. I also realiize the impossibility of such a statement.[/quote]

It is not impossible. It requires a lot of work, and not only extremely careful and realistic budgeting but also very strong measures to make sure the money doesn’t go into the wrong pockets. Hard, very hard – but not impossible. I’d even be happy with something resembling an attempt at it.

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
One question. If you hate double taxation–how does that fit in to you wanting to tax inheritance.[/quote]

Well, first, if contributions to 401(k) plans are not taxed, nor possibly the income from the investments, and that money, when made available to the retiree, is again not taxed – or is taxed at a lower rate, to avoid him/her being below the poverty line – there will be a gap there, i.e., a portion of gross income that was never taxed. And while that is important to, again, keep retirees above the poverty line, if they die and the money is inherited, the people who inherit the money should be able to afford to pay the missing tax.

Second – and more importantly – there’s life insurance. I believe life insurance premiums should come out pre-tax, but if the person dies, that has to be taxed accordingly, albeit only AFTER any debt of the deceased is paid off.

One of the most complicated things with tax law is to close every single loophole. Actually the fact that there is such an abundance of loopholes right now that the need arises to start from scratch, with a clear focus.

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Professor X wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Cutting social security? He’d love to get rid of it, which I am firmly against. Medicare? Medicaid?

Don’t talk to me about all this shit when we are financing an unnecessary war where billions upon billions are being spent. Free the Iraqis? Rather than put the money back into social security? Isn’t money that is put into social security put back into the economy by seniors anyway?

Maybe he should’ve thought of all this shit before he ran the debt up with tax cuts and foriegn wars.

How much has this war cost us now, by the way? I mean, besides the lives of many of our own people who should be honored for their sacrifice.

How many lives has it saved, including the people Sadam would have killed for various reasons? How many more will it save by the spread of democracy throughout that region.

The glass is half full![/quote]

I say, get some of Abraham Lincoln’s DNA, clone him, and set that ugly fucker loose on America.

That guy got some shit straightened out.

CR

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
I am interested in your explanation of hydrogen and its use as a fuel source.
What type of energy is consumed in the making of it. If it’s not oil, then that is still a plus, no? It is being used in< I believe, Greenland or somewhere over there, how’s it working? I’m only talking about lessening our reliance on others for fuel, not so much the fuel efficiency. Though obviously cost and all those factors are very important and must be taken into consideration. My understanding is we don’t need much. Let’s say we get 10-20% down the line from corn and cut grass or whatever that was he briefly mentioned. Now 10-20 from hydrogen. That’s a quarter to a half in 5 years or so. Is this possible?
[/quote]
I believe that most any type of energy can be used in making hydrogen fuel, and I very much agree with you that it would be a great improvement over reliance upon foreign oil. I just threw the net negative energy comment in for all of those who think hydrogen is the fix for everything, I think it will be a feasible alternative so long as other energy cost remain low enough. The real fix is going to be increasing the energy efficiency of our activities and vehicles (ex: there is not enough land in the US to grow enough corn or other such crops to support our gasoline consumption if today’s cars were converted to ethanol today).

To my knowledge Greenland is phasing in hydrogen with some decent success. I think a great deal of their ability to do so, which may not be so transferable to the US is that Greenlanders are more spatially concentrated than populations in other parts of the world. Another factor that may be difficult to implement in the US is that Greenland provides a good deal of subsidization for the use and implementation of hydrogen technology. I would imagine that the timeframe in which the US is able to phase in hydrogen and other alternative energy use to a great deal depends on the populace’s willingness to subsidize this shift, and the stranglehold of energy lobies on government.

Couldn’t agree more, these are the things that keep me up at night.

One problem with the comparison of our healthcare programs to those of other countries is the level of subsidization, especially for drugs differs. Similarly, most of these countries have nationalized healthcare systems, which creates both fairly predictable markets (from a managerial point of view), and economies of scale that are not seen in medicare and medicade.

I’ve actually been doing research on social security reform for the last year and a half or so, there is no single fix for the system, there are a number of good fixes, the one we implement should, however, be based upon the risks and rewards the american public is willing to accept, as well as the minimum standards for provision that they want met. As far as taxing those above a certain income level goes, it would work fine to mantain the existing system (but this would only require a tax increase of about 1.7% generally applied to all taxpayers too), I am not sure what the political feasibility of this would be, the issue of political feasibility is actually what I am presently looking into. I am, however, very keen on the notion of taxing all sources of primary income as hspder mentioned above, I didn’t get too much exposure to this idea in my undergrad study though as my economics department was very neo-liberal.