Why the Federal Budget can NEVER BE BALANCED

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by waverunner234

About "AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM"

- 1 in every 100 people resides in prison. No other country can match that.
- 50% of people pay no income tax. Why? Because they are so poor they can't afford it.
- We are such a free country that I can't even paint my own condo yellow if I want it.
- If I fuck my neighbor girl and give her some money to get by, I go to prison.

If you really want to live free, you have to go to the so-called nanny states in Europe.

You won't find it in America

But of course really stupid people like WW believe in this country where only one thing counts:
Do you have money? You can have everything, if not, you're fucked.

Rank . .Country . . . . . . Disposable . . . Gross . . . . . .Year

1. . . . .United States . . . . $23,776 . . . . $28,664. . . . 2004 . BEA Personal Cash Income*

7. . . . . Netherlands. . . . . $14,393 . . . . $24,162 . . . . 2000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ersonal_income




. . . . .Country . . . . . . Disposable . . . Gross . . . . . .Year

. . . . .United States . . . . $31,410 . . . . $42,028. . . . 2005 dollars
http://www.worldsalaries.org/usa.shtml

. . . . . Netherlands. . . . . $20,616 . . . . $34,746 . . . . 2005 dollars
http://www.worldsalaries.org/netherlands.shtml

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

American exceptionalism is a concept that has been eroded over the years by corrupt politicians seeking power and using taxpayer money to buy votes. As Constituted, there has never been, or ever will be again, I suspect, a country like the United States of America.

It is also a fact that those other "better" countries would not be what they are if it weren't for the US. The US provides a buffer from the onslaught of tyranny that has at various times tried to take over the globe. We are getting to the point where that buffer will no longer exist, and those other "better" countries will no longer have the protection they need from the US to remain the way they are.

A world without a free America will look much more like China or the former Soviet Union than it will look like Norway, Sweden or some of those "better" countries. That is why it is so important that we turn things around here, that we renew our commitment to liberty, limited government and the Constitution.

America needs to quit this this rush toward fascism, needs to quit protecting the ultra-rich from market competition, needs to quit allowing a central bank to manipulate our currency for the benefit of world bankers rather than the people of the US, we need to quit meddling in the affairs of foreign countries where we have no interest at stake, and we need to quit taxing people for being productive.

Do you have any idea how much our prison population would decrease if we did just one thing? That is, end this stupid war on drugs? This is partly what's wrong with America. We start a war on drugs - guess what? Drugs win. We start a war on poverty - guess what? Poverty wins. It's insane, but it is all about the concentration of power in the hands of the few, at the expense of the many. We no longer have a "government of the people, by the people and for the people." It's all in the hands of a few power corrupted individuals.

America is the problem right now. What we do will affect the entire world, even those "better" countries. If we fail, we all go down. If we succeed, and turn things around, the world will rise once again. It's up to us. It doesn't matter what Russia, China, Iran, Israel or India does. It is all up to us. We have to get this right.

We have to.

We have been the world's police force since WWII. It's been incredibly expensive. If some other country, like say Canada, had been doing the job for the last 66 years, we probably wouldn't be bankrupt.

It's not like the rest of the world loves us for doing the job of keeping evil at bay. I think Teddy Roosevelt's speech in Paris in 1910 defends America's reputation better than anything else I've ever read.

From the speech, "Citizenship in a Republic"

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

[waverunner234]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Rank . .Country . . . . . . Disposable . . . Gross . . . . . .Year

1. . . . .United States . . . . $23,776 . . . . $28,664. . . . 2004 . BEA Personal Cash Income*

7. . . . . Netherlands. . . . . $14,393 . . . . $24,162 . . . . 2000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ersonal_income




. . . . .Country . . . . . . Disposable . . . Gross . . . . . .Year

. . . . .United States . . . . $31,410 . . . . $42,028. . . . 2005 dollars
http://www.worldsalaries.org/usa.shtml

. . . . . Netherlands. . . . . $20,616 . . . . $34,746 . . . . 2005 dollars
http://www.worldsalaries.org/netherlands.shtml

There is NO WAY you can compare these figures.

To name just one thing: the cost of health care in the Netherlands is less than 20% of what it is here.
And of course it is there for everyone.

There is no EIC, no need for.
Everyone can support a family with just 1 parent working for minimum wage (which is Euro 9.33 or almost $12 per hour).

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by waverunner234

There is NO WAY you can compare these figures.

To name just one thing: the cost of health care in the Netherlands is less than 20% of what it is here.

And disposable income in the U.S. is 30% higher than in the Netherlands. Do you you want compare fuel costs?

[waverunner234]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

And disposable income in the U.S. is 30% higher than in the Netherlands. Do you you want compare fuel costs?

Also a comparison that doesn't say shit unless you take the quality of public transportation in it.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by waverunner234

Also a comparison that doesn't say shit unless you take the quality of public transportation in it.

Whether you've noticed it or not, many Americans prefer private transportation to public transportation so that they can live their lives by their personal schedules: not the schedule posted for them by bureaucrats.

BTW:



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-.../2602623/posts

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/10/...n-of-home.html

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/pe...home-ownership

[IIFFOFRDB]

Originally Posted by joe bloe

He's implementing the Cloward-Piven strategy.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/g...asp?grpid=7522

Nice read, joe...thanks

[IIFFOFRDB]

Thanks eccie for the ignore list.

[CuteOldGuy]

Wow, Joe! Thanks for that link.

From the article:

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands.

It's happening, just like they said it would. We're in trouble, friends.

[waverunner234]

Is a house that belongs to the bank home ownership?
Or is it bank ownership? Or second mortgage ownership?

Be real, not even 10% of Americans own their home.

[CuteOldGuy]

Since every state assesses a property tax, one could argue that no one owns their home. You always have to pay protection money to the government.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by waverunner234

Is a house that belongs to the bank home ownership?
Or is it bank ownership? Or second mortgage ownership?

Be real, not even 10% of Americans own their home.

Couldn't help but notice how you conspicuously failed to provide a citation to support your POV.


@ COG: As Franklin said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

[Texas Contrarian]

Despite the thread title, it would actually be fairly easy to balance the budget. All we would have to do is enact a VAT and ratchet the rate up to as high a level as we need. Of course, that would virtually guarantee that we would have very slow growth for many years to come, but adding a VAT and raising income taxes as well, if necessary, would balance the budget.

That's the predicament we're in, having increased government spending at a very rapid rate for almost a decade. Anyone who actually thinks we're going to significantly cut federal spending is kidding himself. The best we can hope for is that its growth rate slows to a level much lower than the average over the last ten years.

Of course, when politicians find out what a money machine the consumption tax is, they'll find an excuse to spend even more on vote-buying schemes like politically-motivated "stimulus" programs, expensive entitlement expansions, and crony-capitalist boondoggles. That's what's happened in many European countries where governments seem to believe that their ability to continually enact tax increases gives them a license to spend trainloads of money.

We should learn a lesson from all this, but I'm afraid that we probably won't.

In the meantime, our political "leaders" will probably just hope that the appetite for perpetual U.S. treasury debt issuance at record low interest rates is virtually unlimited, and that any gap can be filled by sufficient quantities of money-printing and debt monetization.

What could possibly go wrong with sound economic plans like those?

[Dawgs]

The Fair Tax yes--Hell no to a VAT

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Despite the thread title, it would actually be fairly easy to balance the budget. All we would have to do is enact a VAT and ratchet the rate up to as high a level as we need. Of course, that would virtually guarantee that we would have very slow growth for many years to come, but adding a VAT and raising income taxes as well, if necessary, would balance the budget.

That's the predicament we're in, having increased government spending at a very rapid rate for almost a decade. Anyone who actually thinks we're going to significantly cut federal spending is kidding himself. The best we can hope for is that its growth rate slows to a level much lower than the average over the last ten years.

Of course, when politicians find out what a money machine the consumption tax is, they'll find an excuse to spend even more on vote-buying schemes like politically-motivated "stimulus" programs, expensive entitlement expansions, and crony-capitalist boondoggles. That's what's happened in many European countries where governments seem to believe that their ability to continually enact tax increases gives them a license to spend trainloads of money.

We should learn a lesson from all this, but I'm afraid that we probably won't.

In the meantime, our political "leaders" will probably just hope that the appetite for perpetual U.S. treasury debt issuance at record low interest rates is virtually unlimited, and that any gap can be filled by sufficient quantities of money-printing and debt monetization.

What could possibly go wrong with sound economic plans like those?

Haven't they had the VAT in Europe for years? It doesn't seem to be working too well.