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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (103824)	11/3/2011 4:44:07 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

OK. I agree with you completely on the raise taxes theme. I've said that multiple times on this thread. We absolutely need to raise taxes. However, to close the budget deficit, we'd have to raise taxes by $1.5 trillion per year. To put that in perspective, that is an incremental tax burden of $5,000 per person (man, woman, and child). That's an enormous tax hike. Even if you put that incremental burden on the rich, they would stagger under the increased burden. Hell, even if the rich could afford to pay an increase in $1.5 trillion, I would not be for a tax hike that big. I believe we have massive bloat in our spending. Clinton managed to get by on spending about $2 trillion per year. Why do we now need to spend $3.7 trillion per year? Don't even try to convince me that this is necessary. The fact is that it is not necessary. We all bitch and moan about the massive military expenditures. I suggest we start cutting spending right there. I suggest we go back to what Clinton spent there. Next, I'd stop spending money bailing out banks. That alone is probably the biggest root cause for both our increased debt and the increase in the money supply, as the Fed printed money. Then lastly (and this is where you and I part ways), we need to be cognizant that the laws on the books today regarding SS and Health are not sustainable. We need to raise the retirement age to 70 or 75 and means test those programs. If anyone earns more than $100K per year in passive income after they reach the age of retirement, then they should not get one dime from either of those programs. Let's go back to what it was intended to be, which is a social safety net, not a retirement plan. Hell, I'm all for helping poorer Americans, but I chafe at a system that let's rich folks get social security checks, when they get millions in passive income. And I chafe at a system that will add to our massive deficit problems in the future. We could clean that system up so it benefits the people who really need it, but we need Democrats on board with LETTING US change it and the GOP on board with letting us means test the programs.