We Are Not Collecting Enough Taxes. And Still The Debt Rises; Despite Strong Economy.

Phantasmal said:
Why aren’t you?
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Because I overpay my taxes on purpose by not taking deductions I could legally take because I am publicly-spirited (or too lazy to keep track of my mileage) and don't feel is its proper to claim the home-office when people are starving in the streets (or know claiming that is like VIP Admission into Club Audit). I also do not deduct any of my charitable donations because Elvis said to do so makes it not really charity (I think it was Elvis. If not him then some other bloated dead celebrity who died before I was born).
 
Kacper said:
Because I overpay my taxes on purpose by not taking deductions I could legally take because I am publicly-spirited (or too lazy to keep track of my mileage) and don't feel is its proper to claim the home-office when people are starving in the streets (or know claiming that is like VIP Admission into Club Audit). I also do not deduct any of my charitable donations because Elvis said to do so makes it not really charity (I think it was Elvis. If not him then some other bloated dead celebrity who died before I was born).
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You aren’t special, we do the same thing, I also did it for my home business. We don’t claim our charitable contributions, either. I didn’t take most of my home office deductions, either.
 
Phantasmal said:
You aren’t special, we do the same thing, I also did it for my home business. We don’t claim our charitable contributions, either. I didn’t take most of my home office deductions, either.
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I never said I was special. I am just too lazy to keep track of the crap. My bookkeeper about strokes every time I show up with a mismatched box of receipts, checks, bank statements, and whatever random collection of papers I decided to throw in just in case they are important because they happened to be where I dump important things usually. There is a reason I use a payroll company to do my payrolls and have a bookkeeper behind them and a CPA behind both. They especially love when I scribble illegible notes and telephone numbers across receipts that have nothing to do with what the receipt was for. Keeping track of me finances for them takes the mad skills of a PBS British murder mystery investigator....and a high tolerance for cat pee because one of our cats likes to pee on paper for some reason.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello DonaldvoTrumpovich,



And this is why you think taxes can be slashed?

Let's do a little math. They stole $21 million. There are 326 million people in the US. 21/326 = .06

From your example, the US budget could afford a tax cut of 6 cents per year per citizen if there had been a system in place which would have prevented this kind of fraud.

Don't spend all six cents in one place...
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Have you always had a problem with reading comprehension? The Corley sisters was just one example. Their shipping costs on their invoices were 100 times what they should be and it went unnoticed by the Pentagon for 10 years. The point is, if two old sisters from South Carolina can embezzle $21 million from the Pentagon, what do you think large defense contractors can do.

You really are quite naive if you don't think fraud in the billions is happening every year. Why doesn't the government do more about it? Because they don't need to. The govt. employees will still get paid (and more than their comparable private industry counterparts). If the well runs dry, their jobs won't be in jeopardy. What do you think will happen? Just raise taxes to bring in more revenue.

You're one of the few people in America who thinks more government and more taxes is the answer to America's problems. Thank God you're in the minority. And you desperately need to take a course on debating. Your arguments are of the Strawman variety. You veer off course during a conversation and change the argument to suit your point. A cowardly way to debate.
 
sear said:
" Cut defense spending by 20%. " DT #132

Which deployments,
which procurements
which missions would you "cut" to achieve this "20%"?
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Afghanistan (including all the constructing projects which are incomplete, never built, etc.)
Iraq
Paying the NFL for opening patriotic ceremonies
Weapons projects passed by Congress the DOD did not request
 
Flash said:
Afghanistan (including all the constructing projects which are incomplete, never built, etc.)
Iraq
Paying the NFL for opening patriotic ceremonies
Weapons projects passed by Congress the DOD did not request
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What about the Natural Gas Station the US built in Afghanistan, even though there are zero natural gas vehicles in all of Afghanistan.
Only our incompetent, corrupt, wasteful government could come up with a scheme so backward, insane and ridiculous.

Pentagon spent $43m on 'world's most expensive gas station' in Afghanistan
Department of Defense used taxpayers’ money from 2011 to 2014 to show compressed natural gas could be used in cars but abandoned operation in March
Reuters in Washington

Petrol station in Sheberghan, Afghanistan that cost American taxpayers $43m.

The US Department of Defense spent nearly $43m on a gas station in northern Afghanistan and has been unable to explain why it cost so much, according to a congressionally mandated inspector.

The Pentagon “charged the American taxpayers $43m for what is likely to be the world’s most expensive gas station”, said John Sopko, head of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) on Monday. The amount was spent between 2011 and 2014 on construction and initial implementation of the station.

The gas station in Sheberghan opened in 2012 and was created to show that compressed natural gas could be used in Afghanistan in cars effectively.

However, the taskforce behind the project closed operations in March and for that reason, according to the report, the Department of Defense said it did not possess “the personnel expertise to address these questions”.

“Frankly, I find it both shocking and incredible that (the Defense Department) asserts that it no longer has any knowledge,” the report said. It added that the taskforce reported directly to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and was an $800m program.

The report found that a compressed natural gas filling station in neighboring Pakistan costs no more than $500,000 to construct. That would make the gas station in Afghanistan more than 140 times more expensive.

A Defense Department spokesman said the Pentagon continues to provide access to documents to Sigar through a reading room.

“Further, we have offered to assist Sigar in locating and contacting any former TFBSO (Task Force for Business and Stability Operations) personnel they wish to interview,” said Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Sowers.

Nearly $110bn has been appropriated in Washington for reconstruction in Afghanistan since 2002, when US forces drove the Taliban from power for harboring militants from al-Qaida, which carried out the September 11 attacks.
 
"We should all do our part to help address the debt. I am agreeable to a 100% tax on all netflix memberships. That will add like $1.5 billion to the kitty. Now, someone else's turn..... " K #136
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Make all toilets coin-operated.
 
You may ignore me in propaganda
With your clever, twisted lies,
You may distract with false claims
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my need for responsibility upset you?
Why are you beset with greed?
’Cause I see your profits from oil wells
And ignoring environmental need.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like sea level rising high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to explode the deficit?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I protest your dirty oil wells
Drilled in my own backyard.

You may inflate me with your tax cuts,
You may pretend with feigned surprise,
You may ignore me with your selfishness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my presence upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I shoot up like a rocket
On it's way to the skies?

Out of the towers of oligarch shame
I rise
With indifference, the underadvantaged, rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind all sense of reason and math
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s a clouded thorny path
I rise
Leaving the young with a burden to their grave,
Despite your roots in oppression of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

I am the debt.

(With all respect to Maya Angelou)
 
Hello Kacper,

Kacper said:
Then why aren't you voluntarily donating money to pay down the national debt? https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/23779454/
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Suggesting that individuals should come forward and pay extra money to run the country is not an effective method to reduce the federal debt.

I have no doubt some people do that, and others don't worry about nitpicking every cent away from the government, with every deduction they can find, when they do pay their required taxes. It is not enough.

We can't reduce spending enough, either.

The only way we are going to begin paying down our debt is to raise taxes on the rich. The super-rich can easily absorb huge tax increases without impacting their lifestyle at all. Most the the very rich can as well. (Say, the top 20% of earners) From there on down, nobody else can do that. Increasing their taxes will impact their lifestyles. That's why the answer is raising taxes on the rich.

We need more revenue.

$907 Trillion. That is how much less revenue we will collect this year than what we spend to keep it all going. And the figure is rising all the time:

US Debt Clock
 
Hello Sailor,

Sailor said:
It is never a "solution" when the ones that whine the most might actually have to pay something.
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I'll never understand how some can think it is OK to hurt the nation or the planet for their own personal benefit. These things are essential for our way of life. We need to protect and strengthen them.

People should be proud to be ABLE to pay enough taxes to support the nation.

Instead, we have people resenting doing their part.

As if they hate the thing that they are part of.

Makes no sense.
 
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