You didn’t think there was a free lunch did you? Some of us have been saying this for months, do you believe us now?
The Hill: Tax increases may be necessary to rein in $12 trillion in federal debt, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Monday.
Hoyer emphasized the need to reform Social Security and Medicare, but he also made it clear that raising taxes will have to be on the table.
“No one likes raising revenue, and understandably so,” Hoyer said in an address at the Brookings Institution. “But if you’re going to buy, you need to pay.
“If need be, I am hopeful that both parties will agree to look at revenues as part of the solution — not as a gateway to higher spending, but as part of a compromise that cuts spending and balances the budget,” he added.
Hoyer, a voice for centrists in the House leadership, said reining in record debt requires a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
Speaking of that record debt, China owns more of it than the federal government is letting on. The big spending Democrats are going to need to raise a lot of revenue just to keep up with the interest payments. Add in all the new entitlements they’re promising, and I expect we’ll be facing some steep tax hikes. But yeah, let’s just keep bashing Senator Jim Bunning for trying to pay for something.
Via Weasel Zippers
I am a staunch conservative who strongly believes in lower taxes to grow the economy.
However.
At 12 trillion and counting and a deficit of 1.6 trillion….who here really believes we can BALANCE the budget and PAY DOWN the debt without raising income thru taxation?
If you got ideas Im all ears because right now the number one threat in this country is an OUT OF CONTROL government who is spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave who found out hes dying tomorrow.
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I second that Doomed. I’m starting to prefer tax and spend Democrats to borrow and spend Republicans. Although I’d prefer a 3rd party promoting less spending.
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I am advocating Taxing and SAVING….cutting expenditures and working on balancing the budget including paying down the debt.
I am in favor of a national VAT of 3 percent designed for and solely for paying down the debt. Start with the highest paying bonds first.
I advocate a New savings instrument designed much like the Victory bond of WW2 used to pay off any and all foreign investors. Debt is not bad as long as its debt we owe ourselves but if we start letting debt to foreign powers then we are diminished.
We must raise the social security tax even if its 2 or 3 percent. We must raise the premiums for Medicare even if its 10 bucks a month.
America is in a recession…..recessions are the economy borrowing to the MAX and then…….and then they have to pay back what they owe.
Its time to pay back what we owe. Taxing and spending which is exactly what the Democrats want to do right now does one very SERIOUS thing…..they want to tax but then they want to spend that money on healthcare or another entitlement…….doing so reduces our ability to deal with the debt and the deficits.
It is wrong…we CANNOT AFFORD the healthcare that the Dems want to throw at us…..we can however enact some health care reforms that DOES bring down costs WITHOUT adding new taxation and MORE COSTS to the US treasury.
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Raise Taxes
Raise Taxes
What ever happened to:
Reduce Spending?
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Thank you, Sam!
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Reduce spending is great……what cha gonna reduce?
Heres where I climb off the GOP bandwagon.
What cha gonna reduce that will CUT 1.6 trillion in budget shorfalls?
How about The entire military budget. That will still put us 1 trillion short.
How about all of Welfare, food stamps. Now were 900 billion short.
All of the Department of Education….now were 800 billion short.
I think or hope you get my point here….WE have been borrowing to pay for all this stuff for WAAAAYYY too long and its now become enourmously entrenched. In bad times we just have to borrow more…..like now.
In good times we borrowed less.
1.6 trillion…..Ill ask the same question that the democrats/liberals/progressives ask the GOP……whatcha gonna cut that will reduce the deficit by 1.6 trillion dollars?
Remember this recession started with the BUSH tax cuts in place and NO raises in taxes that caused this recession.
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When Bush cut taxes revenues increased. The problem is, he didn’t cut spending. Had he cut spending and applied the increased revenue to the debt we’d be in better shape. The entitlement Ponzi schemes have to be phased out. In all fairness to Bush, he did try to do that but he was blocked by Congress. Public employee unions need to be phased out. We can’t afford these entitlements.
I’d do a much better job at managing my retirement funds than the government has done.
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once again though I agree with everything you said, it still does not address the real problem.
There is roughly 600 billion in discretionary spending in our budget….cut that to the bone and you wont touch the deficits.
Even in a roaring economy we ran deficits and we went to war and cut taxes all in the same year. Now I dont want to rehash the Bush years but I have to side with my liberal bretheren on this issue.
Raising taxes are inevitable. The question is will we raise them to pay for OBAMA’s monsterous health care entitlement program which will INDEED BANKRUPT THIS NATION.
Or will we raise taxes and do the hard thing and pay down the debt and balance the budget along with budgetary cuts?
The GOP has no solutions and that Is why they will fail once they take over the senate and house again…Cut taxes and borrow till we drop but by golly the economy will roar along for a few years……again..till it goes belly up.
The GOP has no Solutions…and the Democrats durn sure dont…..the problem for the GOP is they will be put back into power because they are not Democrats…….not because they have any answers.
I realize I sound like some cranky liberal but my idealogy is transcended by the national crisis facing us with this monsterous debt that is going up like Mt. Saint Helens.
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Sheesh Doomed, I don’t know where to start. Government is too large and that’s what driving us to an economic and civil disaster. It’s gonna have to be really strong, tough love, but spending on entitlements, and discretionary items needs to be slashed so dramatically that it somewhat relieves and mitigates tax increases which we all know are the “easy” way out but only makes us spin our wheels. We have the option to “inflate” our way out of it which may come to pass; that is paying off the debt of ours that other countries have purchased in somewhat “worthless” (inflated) dollars. This would come at great pain to the normal American and would be a consumer nightmare. It’s difficult to save when taxes increase. Business and individual taxpayers have sacrificed enough of their productivity while government and the political elite spend like insane counterfeiters only to entrench their power and insure reelection. We do have other options. As a country we need to produce goods and services to sell to other nations. This income can help pay off debt. Starting with the manufacturing base, that sector needs to have critical and massive tax relief and credit to insure their survivability if nothing more than for our national security needs and as a substantial counter weight to our massive trade deficit. I know the dollar is weak at this point and our products are relatively attractive now to foreign buyers, but we need not go to work for nothing being paid in weakened dollars used mainly intra nationally on the international stage, so perhaps the Fed should consider burning much more money which removes some liquidity, strengthens worth and has a stifling effect on inflation. Secondly, we have massive natural energy resources that can be tapped to place for sale on the open global market. That can help in a couple if not more ways, one being reducing the grip OPEC and speculators have on the volatile energy market and secondly driving down prices that essentially reduce price that is basically a “tax” on the American end user. China and India will be huge energy consumers in the very near future and they are not near as efficient in energy use as us. Through lucrative national leasing contracts to private energy companies we can pay down a substantial amount of debt without driving prices to the basement. We did purchase Alaska for a reason and we need to implement the plan. As I’m sure you’re aware of Doomed, there are many variables, but additional taxation IMHO gets us nowhere fast especially for the short run. New sources of natural capital make the pie bigger and can accomplish the same with far less pain in not depending on the confiscated productivity of the American workers bodily BTUs.
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