I'm voting for Chris Matthews' ad on MSNBC. While Matthews is most often a Democratic apologist, it makes more sense than any of the other attack ads we see these days. It's only 15-seconds long. I can almost quote it because it's so short.

"You want big foreign policy...you want to go all over the world telling other people what to do?....you want big armies, all over the world protecting our interests, protecting our oil?....you want your social security and your healthcare paid for?....but you don't want to pay any more taxes? C'mon it can't work that way. It's just common sense."

Yeah, I'd add cutting spending as well as paying more in taxes. It IS common sense...and basic arithmetic.

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I'm voting for Chris Matthews' ad on MSNBC. While Matthews is most often a Democratic apologist, it makes more sense than any of the other attack ads we see these days. It's only 15-seconds long. I can almost quote it because it's so short.

"You want big foreign policy...you want to go all over the world telling other people what to do?....you want big armies, all over the world protecting our interests, protecting our oil?....you want your social security and your healthcare paid for?....but you don't want to pay any more taxes? C'mon it can't work that way. It's just common sense."

Yeah, I'd add cutting spending as well as paying more in taxes. It IS common sense...and basic arithmetic.

Did a little research on Chris Matthews and Obama. Found this interesting piece from a few days ago. Is Chris Matthews a Better Communicator Than Barack Obama? | The Nation

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I'm voting for Chris Matthews' ad on MSNBC. While Matthews is most often a Democratic apologist, it makes more sense than any of the other attack ads we see these days. It's only 15-seconds long. I can almost quote it because it's so short.

"You want big foreign policy...you want to go all over the world telling other people what to do?....you want big armies, all over the world protecting our interests, protecting our oil?....you want your social security and your healthcare paid for?....but you don't want to pay any more taxes? C'mon it can't work that way. It's just common sense."

Yeah, I'd add cutting spending as well as paying more in taxes. It IS common sense...and basic arithmetic.

I don't know how his statement makes any more sense that any other claptrap I've heard with an unsubstantiated claim.

he carried the party line and left out a couple of major impact groups....those who pay no taxes and those collecting benefits from the government who are not qualified to do so.....

that begins to get specific and may harm a voting block, hence not being mentioned.

btk

Originally Posted by billethkid

he carried the party line and left out a couple of major impact groups....those who pay no taxes and those collecting benefits from the government who are not qualified to do so.....

that begins to get specific and may harm a voting block, hence not being mentioned.

btk

Are you including Mitt Romney in that group that pays no taxes? Why won't Romney release ten years of tax returns like all other candidates have done starting with his father, George Romney, in 1968?

It is doubtful that those collecting benefits from the government who are not qualified to do so get to decide on when to go to war, unless of course you count congress in that group.

I do not know what else the following means:

those who DO NOT currently pay taxes (the almost 50% who ever they are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

those who get benefits from the government who ARE NOT QUALIFIED (whoever they are)

Nothing more! Nothing less! No messages between the lines! No including or excluding persons or personalities! Nothing to do with any party (while hard for some to accept...there is another view of subjects that excludes continuous obedience to partisan thinking and need for pound of flesh).

btk

Originally Posted by RichieLion

I don't know how his statement makes any more sense that any other claptrap I've heard with an unsubstantiated claim.

Geez, Richie, how does one "substantiate" common sense?

Oh, I forgot. You never do the arithmetic. You always rely on your gut feeling to make your political decisions. (I sure hope you don't do the household budget that way.)

Anyway, let me help you out with the common sense that Chris Matthews says is missing. It's based on arithmetic. Now don't get all excited; it's not higher math. Only addition and subtraction, not even multiplication or division. Here you go...

Step One. Write down the total amount that the federal government spends per year. (Hint: it'll be a number around $3.6 trillion).

Step Two. Write down the total amount that the federal government takes in in taxes, fees, etc. (Another hint: it'll be a number around $2.3 trillion)

Step Three. Subtract the second number from the first number. That's the number that people call the "deficit".

Step Four. To see how much government spending needs to be cut to eliminate the deficit, subtract the total of the "discretionary" budget of the federal government from the number you came up with in Step Three.(Hint: it's a number that's about $1.3 trillion.)

Wait a minute! You mean we'd have to eliminate the entire federal government except the Defense Department just to balance the budget?

You mean if we eliminated Homeland Security, the national parks, the IRS, the FDA, EPA, FAA, FBI, DEA, FHA, Department of Justice, the federal court system, Immigration, the border patrol, Customs, any money given to support the post office, Amtrak, Freddie or Fannie, eliminate any money spent on education, the highways, close all the embassies, shut down the military hospitals and the Veterans Administration, even eliminate any money spent paying Congress (that's not a bad idea isn't it?), that we still would just barely have enough in tax receipts to make the legally-required payments for Social Security and Medicare? Not enough to pay the interest on our federasl debt though. That would have to be paid with either cuts in defense or increased taxes.

Well, maybe not. If we laid off all the people employed by the federal government, that would add close to 5 million people to the unemployment rolls; tax receipts would really take a nose dive. But hey, on the bright side, there'd be a helluva lot less regulations and nobody to enforce them. The private sector would love it!

So in order to keep the entitlements required by law untouched, we'd have to eliminate the entire federal government as we know it?

Yeah, Richie, do the arithmetic yourself. Just follow the bouncing ball in the steps outlined above. Then you'll see how much common sense will lead you to the conclusion that to balance our federal budget, we'll have to both cut spending pretty dramatically as well as increase taxes.

As Chris Matthews says, it's just common sense. No gut feeling required. And only the "substantiation" needed is what's outlined above.

It ain't claptrap.

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

Geez, Richie, how does one "substantiate" common sense?

Oh, I forgot. You never do the arithmetic. You always rely on your gut feeling to make your political decisions. (I sure hope you don't do the household budget that way.)

Anyway, let me help you out with the common sense that Chris Matthews says is missing. It's based on arithmetic. Now don't get all excited; it's not higher math. Only addition and subtraction, not even multiplication or division. Here you go...

Step One. Write down the total amount that the federal government spends per year. (Hint: it'll be a number around $3.6 trillion).

Step Two. Write down the total amount that the federal government takes in in taxes, fees, etc. (Another hint: it'll be a number around $2.3 trillion)

Step Three. Subtract the second number from the first number. That's the number that people call the "deficit".

Step Four. To see how much government spending needs to be cut to eliminate the deficit, subtract the total of the "discretionary" budget of the federal government from the number you came up with in Step Three.(Hint: it's a number that's about $1.3 trillion.)

Wait a minute! You mean we'd have to eliminate the entire federal government except the Defense Department just to balance the budget?

You mean if we eliminated Homeland Security, the national parks, the IRS, the FDA, EPA, FAA, FBI, DEA, FHA, Department of Justice, the federal court system, Immigration, the border patrol, Customs, any money given to support the post office, Amtrak, Freddie or Fannie, eliminate any money spent on education, the highways, close all the embassies, shut down the military hospitals and the Veterans Administration, even eliminate any money spent paying Congress (that's not a bad idea isn't it?), that we still would just barely have enough in tax receipts to make the legally-required payments for Social Security and Medicare? Not enough to pay the interest on our federasl debt though. That would have to be paid with either cuts in defense or increased taxes.

Well, maybe not. If we laid off all the people employed by the federal government, that would add close to 5 million people to the unemployment rolls; tax receipts would really take a nose dive. But hey, on the bright side, there'd be a helluva lot less regulations and nobody to enforce them. The private sector would love it!

So in order to keep the entitlements required by law untouched, we'd have to eliminate the entire federal government as we know it?

Yeah, Richie, do the arithmetic yourself. Just follow the bouncing ball in the steps outlined above. Then you'll see how much common sense will lead you to the conclusion that to balance our federal budget, we'll have to both cut spending pretty dramatically as well as increase taxes.

As Chris Matthews says, it's just common sense. No gut feeling required. And only the "substantiation" needed is what's outlined above.

It ain't claptrap.

I think it's easy to postulate that only by raising taxes and tax rates, can you raise the amount of money needed.

It's an opinion, but is it "common sense"?

There are those who disagree with your deduction, and point to myriad spending cuts, coupled with tax cuts (OMG) to spur the business growth needed to produce the needed taxes.

Even ignoring me you don't have a solid consensus, and your condescending tone doesn't impress me a whit,

Originally Posted by RichieLion

I think it's easy to postulate that only by raising taxes and tax rates, can you raise the amount of money needed.

It's an opinion, but is it "common sense"?

There are those who disagree with your deduction, and point to myriad spending cuts, coupled with tax cuts (OMG) to spur the business growth needed to produce the needed taxes.

Even ignoring me you don't have a solid consensus, and your condescending tone doesn't impress me a whit,

At least read what I wrote, will you Richie?

What I said was that in order to balance the federal budget virtually the entire federal government, every department and every employee, would have to be eliminated, shut down, every single person drawing a federal paycheck terminated. Even then taxes would have to be increased just to fund defense, the legally required entitlements, and interest on the national debt.

You keep saying the arithmetic is "unsubstantiated", "opinion", "claptrap". The fact is I do have a consensus. No one who has ever actually put pencil to paper has ever asserted, like you, that there's any possible way to "spur business growth" sufficient to balance he budget. Go ahead, Richie, give us all the name of one person, just one, who asserts that some combination of tax and spending cuts will actually balance the federal budget?

Wait, I know your answer. You're going to tell us that the Paul Ryan budget accomplishes what you say. But it dosen't...not even close. It's a decent start, but people like you listen to the sound bites but never bother to do the arithmetic don't realize that even the Ryan budget produces a sizable deficit each year and grows the national debt at an unsustainable rate. So if you're planning on citing the Ryan budget proposal as the answer, better find someone else. Ryan's numbers don't produce what you think they do.

Do a little more arithmetic, will you Richie. Figure out how many years and at what growth rate of the economy would it take to "spur business growth and tax revenues" sufficient to balance the budget if we kept tax rates at the "Bush tax cut" levels?

Let me give you the answer, as calculated by the Government Accounting Office. If tax rates and spending were maintained at 2011 levels, the economy would have to grow at a 10% yearly rate for 50 years in order to produce a balanced federal budget.

Want to know the last time our economy grew at a 10% year-to-year rate? Never. Not even once.

And yes, I will ignore you, Richie...either because you're so ideologically stubborn as to refuse to recognize what the arithmetic makes so obvious....or because you're simply delusional.

As the pundits like to remind us "the devil is in the details". To suggest that its simply arithmetic is to take "the political bait."

Raising taxes whether federal or state has repeatedly demonstrated that the rich simply get more creative with tax loops or simply move, the poorer cry poverty and the middle class get stuck.

The key to prosperity is "productivity" With so many people collecting freebie from the government without paying any taxes is a tremdous drain on our budget (Of course I exclude social security medicare, etc where people in good faith paid into the system). Add to that fraud and bid rigging of government contracts and those issues alone sink any budget. but there is no incentive to fight fraud because gets votes ( so many of thses dubious receipents have been recorded calling it Obama money) but it easily could be Bush money,, etc because the government refuses to gert serious about fighting fraud. In the insurance industry I have seen fraud programs that are very workable and result in effective returns. However the insurance companies have incentives such as demands made by the departmens of insurance and of course their profit line. government doesn't have a profit line. It has taxpayers. so a program goes into effect without any serious discussion of fraud.

Finally we have the issues of pork and boondoggles neither of which politicians want to lose.

Essentially without any present changes in current tax policy effective changes to the above would result in substantial savings and a postive bottom line. Politicians are lazy and resistent to anything that complicates their view of thw world. IMHO taxes can and should be reduced forcing politicians to become prudent spenders of tax payers funds

I opine you decide

Originally Posted by rubicon

As the pundits like to remind us "the devil is in the details". To suggest that its simply arithmetic is to take "the political bait."

Raising taxes whether federal or state has repeatedly demonstrated that the rich simply get more creative with tax loops or simply move, the poorer cry poverty and the middle class get stuck.

The key to prosperity is "productivity" With so many people collecting freebie from the government without paying any taxes is a tremdous drain on our budget (Of course I exclude social security medicare, etc where people in good faith paid into the system). Add to that fraud and bid rigging of government contracts and those issues alone sink any budget. but there is no incentive to fight fraud because gets votes ( so many of thses dubious receipents have been recorded calling it Obama money) but it easily could be Bush money,, etc because the government refuses to gert serious about fighting fraud. In the insurance industry I have seen fraud programs that are very workable and result in effective returns. However the insurance companies have incentives such as demands made by the departmens of insurance and of course their profit line. government doesn't have a profit line. It has taxpayers. so a program goes into effect without any serious discussion of fraud.

Finally we have the issues of pork and boondoggles neither of which politicians want to lose.

Essentially without any present changes in current tax policy effective changes to the above would result in substantial savings and a postive bottom line. Politicians are lazy and resistent to anything that complicates their view of thw world. IMHO taxes can and should be reduced forcing politicians to become prudent spenders of tax payers funds

I opine you decide

I not only have no argument with all that you said, but I agree completely!

But let me be specific on taxes. Specific in the concept that getting entitlements and continuing to be big brother to the world must come with some shared responsibility--increased taxes. But that doesn't necessarily mean that tax revenues have to be substantially higher. What I believe it does mean is that the U.S. tax system must be reformed. Here are some things that I think could be done to reform our tax policy, and possibly increase revenues, although that wouldn't be a requirement in my mind.

• An absolute requirement that Congress consider and approve a budget for the federal government by a date certain every single year. One way to do this might be to prohibit that passage of any spending bills if a budget is not in force.

• Make some sort of pay-go rule permanent. That is, any spending legislation would be required to be "scored" as revenue neutral by the GAO.

• Eliminate all corporate tax loopholes, credits, deductions and other benefits. There will be some babies thrown out with this bath water, but it simply has to be done.

• Increase the personal tax rates on the wealthiest 2-3% of American income earners.

• Reduce the corporate income tax rate. The first two steps should essentially make these cuts revenue neutral.

• Somehow re-do the tax code to remove the financial incentive for U.S. companies to move operations offshore. Maybe that means that any earnings reported from foreign subsidiaries are taxed, but there may be other ways to remove the incentives to move offshore.

• Eliminate some of the currently allowed personal tax deductions such as the deduction for mortgage interest and a very low limit on charitable contributions.

• Modify the tax rates and code so that every income earner with gross income above the poverty rate would pay some modest level of income taxes.

I'm sure there may be other modifications to the IRS Code that could be designed, but these are some that I might suggest.

Then on to spending cuts. Without going into detail, here are a few that seem to be calling out for Congressional approval.

• A flat 10% cut of every single federal budget.

• A thorough review of the federal organization with objective of eliminating departments and agencies with duplicative or overlapping objectives. This would be in addition to the across-the-board budget reductions.

• Reduce the defense budget by eliminating the programs that are no longer strategically necessary and particularly that defense sending demanded by Congress but not requested by the Pentagon.

• The cost of entitlements must be reduced. A couple good starts might be means testing both Social Security and Medicare. A serious program to reduce fraud calls out for approval. It might start with some serious penalties for those committing fraud--like serious jail time and lifetime removal of medical license. Another candidate for reduction/elimination is on the Congress docket right now. I'd suggest eliminating the food stamp program over about a ten-year period.

So no, I haven't taken anyone's " political bait". The arithmetic is my own. The arithmetic is the same as will be used by the lenders who have been financing our terribly unbalanced federal budgets. And if we don't do some of these things now, our lenders--most likely China--will do them for us.

Do I hear a second!....I mean it!

Originally Posted by rubicon

As the pundits like to remind us "the devil is in the details". To suggest that its simply arithmetic is to take "the political bait."

Raising taxes whether federal or state has repeatedly demonstrated that the rich simply get more creative with tax loops or simply move, the poorer cry poverty and the middle class get stuck.

The key to prosperity is "productivity" With so many people collecting freebie from the government without paying any taxes is a tremdous drain on our budget (Of course I exclude social security medicare, etc where people in good faith paid into the system). Add to that fraud and bid rigging of government contracts and those issues alone sink any budget. but there is no incentive to fight fraud because gets votes ( so many of thses dubious receipents have been recorded calling it Obama money) but it easily could be Bush money,, etc because the government refuses to gert serious about fighting fraud. In the insurance industry I have seen fraud programs that are very workable and result in effective returns. However the insurance companies have incentives such as demands made by the departmens of insurance and of course their profit line. government doesn't have a profit line. It has taxpayers. so a program goes into effect without any serious discussion of fraud.

Finally we have the issues of pork and boondoggles neither of which politicians want to lose.

Essentially without any present changes in current tax policy effective changes to the above would result in substantial savings and a postive bottom line. Politicians are lazy and resistent to anything that complicates their view of thw world. IMHO taxes can and should be reduced forcing politicians to become prudent spenders of tax payers funds

I opine you decide

How can someone who is so outraged about fraud in government vote for Gov Rick Scott, who was CEO of the company that commited the largest medicare fraud in US history? And where is the outrage toward Mitt Romney, who will not release his tax returns for the past ten years as all other candidates have done? People with nothing to hide usually don't try to hide things. How does a Romney/Scott ticket sound?

Originally Posted by jebartle

Do I hear a second!....I mean it!

Nah. The power brokers would toss him out when he told them he'd quit after a first term.

Janmcn, If people with nothing to hide don't hide things, then why don't we know anything about Obama? He has sealed everything he can about himself.