Coalition urges tax hikes, entitlement cuts to tame national debt

[alp227]

Source: Wash. Post

A coalition of business leaders, budget experts and former politicians launched a $25 million campaign Tuesday to build political support for a far-reaching plan to raise taxes, cut popular retirement programs and tame the national debt.

With anxiety rising over a major budget mess looming in January, the campaign — dubbed “Fix the Debt” — is founded on the notion that the moment is finally at hand when policymakers will be forced to compromise on an ambitious debt-reduction strategy.

After nearly three years of bipartisan negotiations, the broad outlines of that strategy are clear, the group’s leaders said during a news conference at the National Press Club: Raise more money through a simplified tax code and spend less on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the primary drivers of future borrowing.

“Everyone knows in their hearts and their minds what has to be done,” said former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell (D), who is chairing the group with former New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg (R). The goal of the campaign is to “create a safe environment where it’s not only good policy, but good politics as well.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/coalition-urges-tax-hikes-entitlements-cuts-to-tame-national-debt/2012/07/17/gJQAOwyBsW_story.html

[Skittles]

1. why don't they recommend we cut the war???

assholes

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. millions for futile sham 'wars'

millions for weapons, planes etc.

[Skittles]

10. AND they have the GALL to call themselves FISCAL CONSERVATIVES

[Angry Dragon]

2. tax the wealthy

[RobertEarl]

3. Greedy Bastards

They want to take away from the children and the old and buy more weapons and cause more wars.

The damned idiots don't get that every dollar that is spent on taking care of people goes around and around enriching everyone.

They only care about themselves. I never said this before but its time for it to be said: I hope they rot in hell.

[msongs]

4. it's the Simpson-Bowles commission military welfare scam from 2010, back from the dead nt

[KamaAina]

5. "Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the primary drivers of future borrowing"

They must have those programs confused with the Pentagon war machine.

[grahamhgreen]

6. Tax the rich at the rate of the greatest generation (94%) problem solved.

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. The sons of bitches want to permanently steal the $2.3 trillion surplus that the SS Trust Fund has..

...loaned the Treasury so that the mega-wealthy can have historically unprecedented low tax rates.


This is a bi-partisan frontal assault on what is left of the middle class.


Fuck you, Ed Rendell, you sell-out bastard.

[Mojorabbit]

11. +1000 nt

[Bohunk68]

22. I agree with you.

I've heard Rendell on MSNBC and wondered WTF is with this asshole? He needs a big swift kick to the groin, over and over and over again. Goddamn retard rethuglican in disguise.

[asjr]

26. Has Ed Rendell become a turncoat? the last few times I have heard him

on MSNBC he has sounded like a dour person and really has had nothing to say eventful.

[indepat]

28. MFing sons of bitches at

that.

[Sancho]

8. Cut the military in half..then stop all oil subsidies..then regulate the bankers..then let's talk!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. Bankers are the enemy

[JDPriestly]

13. How many jobs and how much tax revenue will that plan create or stimulate?

Absolutely none.

[woo me with science]

15. Zero, zilch, nada.

It is theft, pure and simple.

[woo me with science]

14. After the election, so we can count on

bipartisan support for this further pillaging of the American people.

[hay rick]

16. You say pillaging, I say looting.

Tastes great.
Less filling.
Tastes great!
Less filling!
TASTES GREAT!!
LESS FILLING!!

[woo me with science]

17. It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping! nt

[HeiressofBickworth]

18. Reminds me of Leona Helmsley

who, famously, said, only the little people pay taxes. I think that is the Repub ultimate goal. The wealthy pay nothing and the 99% pay for everything.

[PSPS]

19. LOL. "A coalition of business leaders, budget experts and former politicians"

Some "coalition" there. When a story has that in the first line, I don't bother to read the rest. I could write it myself from memory.

[99th_Monkey]

20. "..raise taxes, cut popular retirement programs" ???

WTF? "Popular"??? As if having any retirement or
health care security is some kind of fucking FAD? .. like
Dancing with the Stars ratings or something.

Oh and interesting that this doesn't exactly say WHOs taxes
are to be raised, but I have a guess, and that would be the
99%.

[awoke_in_2003]

23. They are going to get...

that SS money eventually. They won't give up. My retirement plan? Die on the job, or take a motorcycle off the Grand Canyon.

[LarryNM]

21. Simplified Tax Code is Propaganda for

a Flat Tax and the removal of exemptions which will raise taxes on low and moderate income people. Solution as simple as years ago when all the deficit spending by neocon/neolib types was not considered important. Stop borrowing from Social Security and remove the maximum income limit for Social Security taxes, stop the destructive foreign adventures, end corporate welfare and bring back higher tax rates on the wealthy. Higher taxes on the wealthy will not only help the deficit and budget, but will leave them with less control over the nation/world. Also, treat all income types the same (interest, dividends, salary, whatever). The problems created and the offered "solutions" are Not by accident.

[bemildred]

24. More right wing babble, same stupid policy prescriptions: "austerity". nt

[L0oniX]

25. Dumb fucks! Good jobs = good tax revenue = ability to reduce debt. Simple ain't it?

It's like they know the jobs are not coming back so they go after the poor, elderly and sick.

[Bradical79]

27. Ughh... I hate it when they claim the "math is simple"

Then they come up with some kind of simply stupid plan that completely ignores the effects of their simple math.

Cuts in any medical programs combine with ever rising medical costs to create larger groups of people who can't afford medical care. Lots of those people will simply receive treatment and be unable to ever pay their bills, then the burden of those unpaid bills get shifted to the rest through rising insurance costs (both for patients and doctors), and even larger medical fees. It's a nasty feedback loop that leaves us much worse off, and is maybe the biggest flaw of our current privatized health care system.

You take away too much from SS benefits, or raise retirement age too much, and you get more older working poor who have to rely on other government programs (increasing costs in that area) or wander the streets homeless. Then they get sick and have to receive some sort of medical care which feeds into the previous loop, or they simple die in the street from sickness or crime creating spending problems for someone else like law enforcement, or the new body government agency that will be in charge of removing all the bodies from our streets. We are already starting to have this problem as many simply can't afford to retire even with social security.

Now here's some simple math...

According to what I'd read on the Fox News website awhile back a universal health care system would likely cost us $1.5 trillion to run. And according to various reports I've seen, we currently spend around $2 trillion on health care with that number estimated to balloon up to around $4 trillion. Seems to me a universal health care system would save at minimum a half billion fairly quickly, and likely much more than that when compared with current trends.

Now when you add in the costs of the Iraq war, and the additional cost of Afghanistan by shifting focus to Iraq, and you have more government spending that was simply flushed down the toilet without even getting into general inefficient and wasteful military spending.

As for taxes, I agree that we need a simplified tax system, but I somehow doubt my idea of simplified and efficient matches theirs.

It doesn't take any particular amount of brilliance to recognize some of the biggest problems with our budget.

[4th law of robotics]

29. Cutting the military budget by 15% would save us about 100 billion per year

and still leave us with the most powerful military on the planet by far.

Granted that won't fix all our problems.

But 100 billion per year forever isn't something to scoff at.

[GeorgeGist]

30. Phuck you Ed.

Social Security and Medicare have nothing to do with today's debt ... except as creditors.

[CBHagman]

31. And this is going to help while GOP members of Congress kiss Grover Norquist's ring?

Okay, maybe not his ring...

Anyway, as long as Republicans have sworn off raising taxes on those with the highest incomes (They're fine with cutting services and putting burdens on the rest of us), this isn't going anywhere.