How About the Election Results.

[Appliance Stallion]

Seems like most of you have lost your strength to discuss the results. Come on now , we still need to fight for a conservative approach to fixing the budget crisis. They cannot collect enough to keep up with the liberal spending. What do some of you far right activists think ? I am a republican centrist. Seems like common sense needs to prevail.

[Appliance Stallion]

Or is it ? Maybe we can wait until Dec. 21, 2012 to find out ?

[SteadySelling]

• I have a theory on the budget crisis but it has been proved in the past that my theory won’t work. So, for the theory: Have a temporary tax increase on everyone with a deadline for it to end without the option of extending it (similiar to the Bush tax cuts). For every $1 of tax increases find $3-4 of wasteful spending to make real cuts on (not these freezes that are called cuts). Everything needs to be on the table. Do we need an Environmental Protection Agency and a Department of Environmental Protection? Do we need to have prevailing wage on every government job? Can we afford to pay 70% of a persons income for their pension if they only put in 10 years of actual work? Can we afford to pay everyones contraception and the cell phone bills of everyone that is already on the government roll? The list goes on and on – we need safety nets for those who need them but they would be administered much better on a local level than from a government beurocrat.
• You have probably seen the numbers. You can confiscate 100% of the income of the "wealthy" and maybe run the government for a couple months. They are already paying about 90% of the tax so that is up to the rest of us to then cover about 10 months of the government operations.
• The reason it won’t work is the tax increase would go into place and the way our government works the spending cuts would never take effect.

[The Advisor]

• Is there actually a Department of Environmental Protection? I don’t think there is, but I assume that you meant duplicative agencies. I’m a bit weary of consolidations like Homeland Security. Independent agencies (for example Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) are able to keep a continued focus on one thing AT&F, that someone evidently thinks is important. Absorbing that into the FBI for example, might not provide that.
• Social Security: As bare minimum money for the aged, an individual would need to take in enough for better than bare minimum survival.
• Cell Phones, I understand is to help the unemployed get employed. It’s not housing. I know nothing about this program, but wouldn’t you want to keep it if the data showed some sort of success, and perhaps economic success based on, perhaps, the cost of the program vs crime rates, or imprisonment rates, or some sort of improved path from homelessness to homes, familes, and taxes paid? If you gave out a hundred phones to 100 unemployed, and their time unemployed dropped by weeks or months on average, while yes, a small % of the 100 abused their cell phones in some way. Wouldn’t you want to weigh the all the pros and cons of a particular program to understand if the net present value was positive or negative, before you say simply, "FREE CELL PHONES BAD!"
• If the government is paying for men to stand erect and reproduce, it would not be such a bad idea for the government to pay for the other side of the arms race, contraception. Plus the world is better not to have kids their parents didn’t want. Or said another way, wouldn’t you want to help people who can’t afford their children, to not have children they can’t afford? That is a 1000 to 1 investment if ever I heard of one.
• Administered better at a local level? Than Social Security? Not bloody likely.

Everyone should pay the taxes we used to pay, the middle class included, revenues should be gathered in other places (carbon, and import duties). There are plenty of things to cut, but there are many things to add.

[SteadySelling]

• The DEP does exist but on a state level (in many states anyway) and is basically a mirror image of the EPA. Again, something states can handle at the direction of the federal government if that direction is deemed necessary. Now, your question on ATF? I know you threw that out there as bait. Is that thing that "someone evidently thinks is important" gunrunning automatic weapons to drug cartels so they can use them to kill our own border patrol agent? OK, I took the bait.
• Not sure if I understand your Social Security comment. I realize they don’t want to look at that issue for the fiscal cliff because it is "self funded" (the problem with that theory is there is not an actual bank account holding all our social security taxes that were collected). Maybe up the age limit a little and restrict it to people making under $250,000 a year.
• I did do some research on the cell phone thing so I am not sure how you conclude I am simply saying "FREE CELL PHONES BAD". As long as you make 135% or less than poverty level (roughly $31,000 a year for a family of four) and/or qualify for any of the other many programs you qualify. So no, it is not intented to help people get jobs it is so they have a phone in case of an emergency (which is nice I guess, there are a lot of nice things that can be done).
• Not a terrible argument on contraception. However if the Federal Government needs to pay for everything that seems to make sense we are toast.
• Again, sorry I don’t get your Social Security comment here but if it is that state governments couldn’t provide something of this magnitude you are probably correct. The question is can the Federal Government?

Food stamps are another good thing that are out of control. With 47+ million people on food stamps we have more people on food stamps than actually lived in the US when the program was started. I hear you can add up the total population of 24 states (not sure which ones) and you get that number. And before you say I want people to starve just remember the $1M lottery winner that was still collecting food stamps. The program, like most, is corrupt and we cannot afford corruption.

Also, I would be interested on your take on government pensions given to people who only put in 10 years on a government job when the law states they must do 20 for this particular job.

[Cohiba]

Steady,

I used to be a Republican until the Tea Party and Grover Norquist took control and created gridlock. As a centrist Democrat (now), I think some of the following should be considered:

1. Stop providing Social Security to people making over $250K per year. They don’t need it.
2. Raise the age of Social Security to 67 for people born after 1956 (age 55 now). With longer life expectancies, that seems reasonable.
3. Increase the employee contribution on Social Security to continue until earnings exceed $ 250K per year. (People making over $250K wouldn’t collect under my scenario, but everyone else would pay the same percentage of their paycheck until they hit that limit.
4. Let the Bush tax breaks expire on people making over $ 250K.
5. Stop going to war to try and democratize nations that are based upon Theocracy (you can’t have democracy without freedom of religion and you can’t have freedom of religion in a nation run by Theocrats.)
6. Cut the Defense budget. If we stop fighting wars we can’t afford, we can reduce spending.
7. Limit tax deductions, including mortage, charity and Medical to no more than $75,000. (Folks with deductions exceeding that amount fall into the top 2% and are taking mortgage deductions on Hearst Castle).

I’m sure these ideas will fall on deaf ears to most people on the extreme right or extreme left. But, that’s my two cents.

‘m I

[Author]

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