Conservatives want to raise taxes and kill SS and Medicare

Damocles said:
I do not support a national sales tax, at all. What will happen: Nat Sales tax passes, they "abolish" income taxes... "after five years", every five years they extend that deadline on a partisan vote where it is argued that nobody is paying "their fair share"... we wind up with a sales tax and an income tax and our taxation burden is over 70% of our income.

No. Just. No.

I do not believe that they would "get rid of the IRS"... I do not believe them at all. I do not trust them, they overspend income constantly and call themselves fiscally conservative based on no evidence whatsoever.

Do not take this to mean I would vote for a Democrat, because they would do this, spike the football, and consider it a great day, don't pretend to even try to be fiscally conservative, and outspend the fricking insane Republicans. So, no to them too.
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Taxes are pretty complex, and the answer would lie in the middle. As with everything.

The Kansas experiment is probably the most recent Right Wing tax fail that went overboard in its elimination of virtually all taxation.

It did NOT end well.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
 
Flash said:
The Fair Tax proposal includes a monthly rebate based on family size and income. That should refund most of the sales taxes spent by low income families.

It replaces income, payroll, estate, and gift taxes and begins at 23% (arguably 30%).

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/25
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I don't see how that can possibly fund Social Security/Medicare? Especially given the rebates you mentioned.

Even low income employees pay app. 8.5% in FICA. Of course, the employers would be free of the burden as well.
 
archives said:
They do demogogue it, just like conservatives do the same with taxes and crime, but it isn't all wrong, entitlements is on the list of freedom caucus list, and the budget wonks back to Ryan are big on replacing SS with funding private accounts
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Oh...that would have worked out great in '08, and during the trump virus market crash
 
Flash said:
The "getting rid of Social Security" is a frequent scare tactic by liberals on JPP. Both sides always use exaggerate predictions--Social Security and Medicare, red wave, depression, communism, authoritarian, Nazi, investigations that will convict Trump and Biden......

A 30% sales tax would be pretty drastic although it is largely offset by the monthly rebate and not having income tax and payroll tax deducted from paychecks. It is still a bad idea, but much less dramatic than posters would like us to think.
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Most states have a sales tax as well.

What exactly do they plan to do about that?
 
Flash said:
No items are exempt including food. Like any bill, the completed version will be very different than the original. But, it has no chance of passing. The Fair Tax idea has been floating around for years.
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Yes. Much like 'Medicare for all'.

The idea hasn't been floating around. The terms have, with no real language to make either a viable plan.
 
Flash said:
Republicans don't want to end SS

The Fair Tax is not so regressive since lower income receive all their taxes back with the rebate. I'm not supporting it, just trying to explain.

Privatization would be a better way to handle SS but that is difficult to do today. Workers would have a bigger retirement, could leave that money to their family, and the government would not be stuck with that big expenditure. But today's workers can't put that money into a retirement account because it is needed to pay current benefits.

How would you pay for the shortfall (30%) in SS benefits when the surplus is gone (about 2037)?
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Do you force workers to put that money aside? Right now, employees double their investment at the moment they pay FICA.

The SS disability is killing Social Security. I think retirement would be solvent.
 
Concart said:
Privatization would be a disaster. Investment is gambling, and very few people are good at it. It is a recipe for fraud and abuse, and for most people, they will lose their collective asses. Opposed in every possible way imaginable. Privatization ends Social Security. And yes, that's what Republicans want to do. When they tell you that, you need to believe them.

Close the gap by raising the limit and imposing the tax again after a certain income level is reached. Reduce benefits for the wealthiest individuals. Potentially raise the retirement age to reflect increased life expectancy for those who reach retirement age. SS will still be able to pay 77% of current benefits beginning in 2034 even with no changes. That means the shortfall is not 30%, it's 23%.j
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The best answer is always the one that would never get done.

You might remember me discussing this on the other board, years before anyone knew who Bernie Sanders is (outside of Vt). He once mentioned this ploy to fund free college, but it seemed to disappear

If they would impose a $.25 fee on every Wall St. transaction, it would probably fund everything in this nation. Virtually all brokerage houses did away with the standard $7/trade fee.

A $.25 fee would not even be noticed. With billions of high speed trades being conducted every evening, that's quite a bit of revenue.
 
Flash said:
The S&P 500 is not risky in the long-run. Take any year after about 1950 and ten years later it has gained. It goes up and down, but still results in a larger lump sum than would pay more than SS averaging about 10% a year. You don't have to be good at it to buy an index fund. Keep the money in that fund after retirement and it continues to grow even after withdrawing living expenses.

The latest trustee report says by 2035 the system will be able to prove 80% of benefits, so only a 20% shortfall.

The Republicans had a majority in House and Senate and president on several occasions. If they have wanted to end those programs so long why didn't they attempt it? Bush did not try to end SS. They did not end or reduce spending in any program.
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Assuming you buy an S&P fund/ETF and reinvest the interest/dividends.

What happens to the millions of people who are retiring in the year of a crash? '08 left quite a few elderly having to return to work. Covid was almost as bad.
 
Flash said:
It doesn't have to be that complicated. Just as people must pay the 6.2% SS tax matched by their employer, that money would still be paid and go into approved mutual funds of the S&P 500 index fund. That is like a 401(k) or 403(b) currently used. People don't decide what to invest in aside from perhaps choosing the mutual fund family.

The government is not playing in the market other than sending the contributions to the designated fund. Or, to eliminate all risks, have those contributions purchase treasury bonds. Everything about that is better than the current system. The problem is we can't let people contribute to those accounts because their contributions are needed for current benefits. This system is used by many state, school, city and private employers.
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Christie destroyed the NJ pension fund in part by funneling countless millions to his campaign donor hedge funds.
 
LV426 said:
Maybe try telling that to all the Conservatives who got PPP funds forgiven despite not paying a single cent back.
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Or hedge fund yuppies who got Xmas bonuses in '08 because 'only they know where all of those garbage notes went'.
 
archives said:
Again, if "socialism doesn't work," "capitalism never needs bailing out," why is it then a part of every economy of every nation in the world? And why did America dating back to the 19th Century, if not earlier, incorporate it in its economy?
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Unless someone quotes him, I don't see his nonsense.

I would ask him though:

What is it called when the Fed pumps billions into the Stock Market during Covid?
 
Into the Night said:
Yes you did. Don't lie. Anyone that wants to can go look at your post.

You forgot it again. Learn what 'fact' means. Buzzword fallacy. 'Fact' does not mean 'proof' nor 'Universal Truth'.

And you just forgot it again.

Socialism doesn't work. Communism doesn't work.

No, they will simply leave...and take their marbles with them. That means jobs go away. Factories go away. All that economy goes away. The only thing left will be crime and poverty.
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Your post is rambling incoherence that boils down to letting the uber rich off taxes or they will leave. AKA cowardice.
 
Damocles said:
I do not support a national sales tax, at all. What will happen: Nat Sales tax passes, they "abolish" income taxes... "after five years", every five years they extend that deadline on a partisan vote where it is argued that nobody is paying "their fair share"... we wind up with a sales tax and an income tax and our taxation burden is over 70% of our income.

No. Just. No.

I do not believe that they would "get rid of the IRS"... I do not believe them at all. I do not trust them, they overspend income constantly and call themselves fiscally conservative based on no evidence whatsoever.

Do not take this to mean I would vote for a Democrat, because they would do this, spike the football, and consider it a great day, don't pretend to even try to be fiscally conservative, and outspend the fricking insane Republicans. So, no to them too.
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The last 3 Democratic Presidents, starting with Clinton, have all reduced the deficits their Conservative predecessors left them.
 
LV426 said:
The last 3 Democratic Presidents, starting with Clinton, have all reduced the deficits their Conservative predecessors left them.
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Which changes nothing of what I said. Raising taxes is a good day for Democrats. And pretending that emergency spending levels dropping (not back to preceding levels) after the emergency is over is actively dropping deficits because they are responsible is absurd. I get that the deficit dropped under Biden, it was because congress stopped spending at the emergency levels for Covid...

Anyway, we are off in the weeds.

At least the republicans normally try to keep my tax bill down, raising taxes is something to celebrate for Democrats as they tell us that we "need to pay our fair share"...

Oddly every time Obama said my taxes would not go up (I do not make over the amount he said they would not go up) they went up. They dropped under Trump, then went back up again under Biden though he too promised that nobody who made less than a certain amount (I do) would have their taxes go up by "one dime"...
 
archives said:
Again, if "socialism doesn't work," "capitalism never needs bailing out," why is it then a part of every economy of every nation in the world? And why did America dating back to the 19th Century, if not earlier, incorporate it in its economy?
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It IS part of the economy in every nation in the world. Capitalism exists in every nation. So does socialism. America was built on capitalism...yes from the day of it's founding. From the day colonies first started appearing. Even the indians had capitalism.
 
Damocles said:
Which changes nothing of what I said. Raising taxes is a good day for Democrats. And pretending that emergency spending levels dropping (not back to preceding levels) after the emergency is over is actively dropping deficits because they are responsible is absurd. I get that the deficit dropped under Biden, it was because congress stopped spending at the emergency levels for Covid
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Most of the debt Trump added was before COVID, you realize...

Trump increased the deficit every single year he was President before COVID:

2017: $665B deficit
2018: $779B deficit
2019: $983B deficit.

So before COVID, Trump had grown the deficit by 50%.

So it wasn't emergency spending like you're trying to make the excuse...it was quite frankly Conservatism failing AGAIN that caused this shit to happen.

And as far as the emergency spending goes, had you, Trump, and all your Nazi pals not called COVID a hoax, there wouldn't have needed to be ANY COVID spending.

But you couldn't control yourself, and neither could your Nazi pals.

So the emergency spending was only needed because you all fucked up so badly.
 
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