Cheers mate!
Ive already picked my running mate...
SpoiledJuice.com - Serve Some Embarrassment
wait that's doctored right? sorry if i'm slow but ya its got to be.
While I suspect that you and I are on differing ends of the political spectrum and that our votes are likely to cancel this Nov. It is refreshing to have civil discourse. We aren't that far apart in some respects.
On spending... agreed. Too much spending. You would look to cut defense first, I might look elsewhere if prioritizing but we agree that the gov. is too hungry to spend our hard earned cash. My solution would be to:
1. Unilaterally cut all programs/department budgets 5% (certainly there is that much waste without having to even look hard. All companies accumulate dead-wood over time and need to prune.)
2. Require each department to then do the heavy lifting of specifically finding and additional 5% to reduce or eliminate.
3. Identify duplicative and unnecessary departments/programs to eliminate. (here's where you and I may differ. From a fiscal perspective, I am a strict constitutionalist. The federal gov. IMO exists only to provide those services that would not be provided by the states, localities, or private industry. ex. defense, interstate highways, international treaties, legitimate welfare for the handicapped and limited others on a short-term basis...) The goal would be to eliminate another 10% of the remaining total gov. spend withing 3 years.
My goal for tax relief would not be to provide tax relief to just low-income earners. I think it is a misconception that tax relief always benefits just one economic stratum. You make the case to provide tax relief to low-income earners by raising the taxes of others. That would not be my goal. I feel all tax-paying Americans should receive tax relief. Why must tax relief for one stratum come at the expense of another?
The tax code is way too complex, antiquated, and is covered with the fingerprints of special interests. I have ideas for scrapping that too (www.fairtax.org being my fav.) but that's tangential. But let's say low-income individuals pay an effective tax rate of 15% and high-earners pay 25%. The fairest method of distributing tax relief would be a reduction of an across-the-board 10% to where low-payers pay 13.5% and high-payers pay 22.5%. That's fair and it maintains a graduated tax structure which seems so important to some (I disagree with that too by the way but I am trying to compromise here.) Any other way of distributing tax relief is income redistribution. You can argue that the effective rates for different strata should be different but I suggest that we not complicate tax relief for our legislators. That should be a separate discussion from tax relief. One should receive tax relief based on how much tax one pays in the first place.
with my post, i wasn't saying that cuts had to come at the expense of others, i was just trying to provide a context while keeping the total revenue the same. the only point i was trying to make is that by cutting taxes on the poor, you can provide significant relief to the poor with only a negligible strain on the rich, and still maintain the same amount of income. with your scenario of a 10% cut across the board, the 10% cut from the poor will barely lose the government any revenue, but because the upper levels contribute the most to the tax system, and you're lowering their taxes by even more, the government will lose tremendous revenue off that.
i understand you believe that the government spends too much as it is, but i think that in terms of policy, it makes more sense for the rich to have a substantially higher tax burden (more graduated than our system would be my preference), just because they can meet that burden very easily with little change in their lifestyle, which is definitely not the case for lower incomes. think about it, in virginia, if you make less than around 8000 dollars a year, you're not taxed at all. that means people who make 10,000 dollars a year, which won't cover food in many parts of virginia, you're still paying money in taxes! the benefit to the government from those taxes is next to nothing, but it still harms people earning low incomes.
i think the fundamental difference in our opinions exists with how we view opportunity in the United States. i find it funny that a lot of people consider liberals to be idealists, because i think we're much more cynical in this area. Conservatives tend to view america as the true land of opportunity, where anyone with a will can make it. Liberals tend to take on the more cynical move that advancement isn't always possible, and as i see the system is completely designed to keep the rich in power, with college tuitions making expensive universities a distant dream for working and middle class families, even though these schools are the ones that breed the leaders of tomorrow. Personally, although my family isn't all that wealthy compared to other families around us, i consider myself extremely fortunate because i've never had to worry about food being on the table, and i sincerely believe that the opportunities that i've been given are largely never available to those less fortunate.
with this difference, its really just a matter of opinion, and from what i've seen, its an opinion thats nearly impossible to change. i've gotten in many a debate about whether there truly is a "way" whereever there is a will, and i think that often times people overlook the cultural differences between rich and poor areas, and the effects that those differences have on mindset. at any rate, we're not going to agree on taxation for the rich, you seem to believe that since the rich pay the most, they should receive the most relief, which in many ways is a valid argument, i just think that from a practical standpoint giving the rich tax relief makes very little sense.
on the subject of cutting government spending, i agree with you that there is a great deal of unnecessary spending, but that spending which mostly goes towards supporting our complex bureaucracy, one which employs many people. also, the majority of people employed by said bureaucracy aren't those that are making excessive amounts of money, but rather those simply trying to earn a living. trying to fix this system would leave very many people jobless. because of this, i think the main area where spending needs to be cut is government contracting. military contractors, school contractors, all of them make tonnes of money because those spending the government's money don't spend it like it is their own. there is a chance however, that if their budget's were cut, they'd simply lower the results of their spending. instead i think enforcing accountability is more important, instead of dismantling the bureaucracy we need to dismantle the entitlement system, where connections are more important than ability to complete your job.
