Paul Ryan's Budget Deficit Reduction Plan

[88Comrade2000]

Interesting plan. Clearly Medicare and Medicaid, correctly, are identified as major cost drivers going forward.

I think the issue both parties are running into is everyone is still proposing partisan solutions. Cut this, don't cut that. Raise this, don't raise that.

Simple plan: Cut spending across every single agency by 15 percent for FY 2012. Another 15 percent for FY 2013. Including defense, the intel community, etc.

Restore Clinton level taxes on the top 1 percent and restore the estate tax to 55 percent.

And figure out why on Earth we are still projecting 1.5 trillion dollar deficits when TARP and ARRA are now done. We should be, in theory, south of 1 trillion

There needs to be a national sales tax on top of that.

[Nerm]

I see a lot of talk about who was president when deficits occurred. Why is there no discussion of who was in control of congress? Regan and Bush the 2nd were big spenders. Who passed the bills they signed? Clinton was a big spender until the republicans took back congress. What happened after the Republicans in congress shut down the govt while demanding a balanced budget with Clinton? The budget got balanced.

Low taxes are fine if spending is limited. The problem is, the same presidents that pushed for low taxes, also dramatically increased spending. Both sides need to be for balanced budgets. Dems that want more spending should balance that with increased taxes. Repubs should do the opposite. Both sides need to argue for levels of taxes that pay for what they want to spend.

[mardi gras skin]

Its not just the federal budget. State and local taxes have to be accounted for as well when we're figuring the total tax burden to households and businesses.

The government spends nearly half the GDP. That's insane.

[DRSmith]

Interesting plan. Clearly Medicare and Medicaid, correctly, are identified as major cost drivers going forward.

Rising healthcare costs are an issue in almost every country, the problem with a mostly private sector in this regards is there is little that can be done in regards to what needs to ie price control also when you look at the driving factor taxing behaviours that lead to higher demands and more cost in the health care field also have to pass

[Wrong Direction]

I still maintain that any realistic plan to cut the deficit will involve not only spending cuts but tax increases as well.

The democrats need to step up with a plan that results in similar deficit reductions. Then we can discuss the pros and cons of competing ideas.

I agree. Both parties need to have a plan to balance the budget over the long run. Short run estimates are way too gimmicky, just see ObamaCare, which was purposefully designed for a specific 10-year window.

If both parties have a plan, they both put their balls on the line. The R's have put their balls on the line with Medicare, taxes and welfare programs through the Ryan plan. The Dems should step up and put their balls on the line with something like Defense and taxes and whatever, as long as it results in a visible path to a balanced budget.

Then at least they could come to some sort of agreement, or short run deal, or the people could choose what they like better at the next election.

Right now, the R's can point to a funny graph that shows Obama's budget running debt through the roof while theirs returns debt to 0. Obama doesn't want to run on that issue, so he needs a real alternative.

[Larry]

The deduction saves me 33 percent of the interest due to the tax bracket I'm in, and interestis currently 90 percent of my mortgage. So for me, it is 30 percent.

I just ran a mortgage calculator on the Web. According to this one, a 30 year loan at 5.5%, with zero property taxes, zero insurance, and zero PMI, pays 80% interest in the first year.

I just ran another one on a different web site. Assuming 7% interest on a 30 year loan, your first payment is 87% interest. If I make it an 8% loan, then the first payment is 90% interest.

(And I suspect that very few people have zero property tax and zero insurance.)

And you want to claim that this is not only typical, but that it's often more? For "millions of people"?

Frankly, I doubt

[Bliz]

I agree. Both parties need to have a plan to balance the budget over the long run. Short run estimates are way too gimmicky, just see ObamaCare, which was purposefully designed for a specific 10-year window.

If both parties have a plan, they both put their balls on the line. The R's have put their balls on the line with Medicare, taxes and welfare programs through the Ryan plan. The Dems should step up and put their balls on the line with something like Defense and taxes and whatever, as long as it results in a visible path to a balanced budget.

Then at least they could come to some sort of agreement, or short run deal, or the people could choose what they like better at the next election.

Right now, the R's can point to a funny graph that shows Obama's budget running debt through the roof while theirs returns debt to 0. Obama doesn't want to run on that issue, so he needs a real alternative.

The graph is certainly funny...because it doesn't show a balanced budget until 2063. That's preposterous and no one in their right mind should or will buy it.

Unless you were referring to the Rand Paul five year balanced budget plan?

[Prosperity]

Why does this ******* think cutting taxes on the wealthy and raising taxes on the middle class has any role in balancing a budget. Gawd...

[Predicto]

I just ran a mortgage calculator on the Web. According to this one, a 30 year loan at 5.5%, with zero property taxes, zero insurance, and zero PMI, pays 80% interest in the first year.

I just ran another one on a different web site. Assuming 7% interest on a 30 year loan, your first payment is 87% interest. If I make it an 8% loan, then the first payment is 90% interest.

(And I suspect that very few people have zero property tax and zero insurance.)

And you want to claim that this is not only typical, but that it's often more? For "millions of people"?

Frankly, I doubt

Don't just call me a liar unless you can back it up.

My mortgage payment does not have PMI because I put down over 20 percent. It is not common in California to include homeowner insurance OR property taxes on your mortgages (neither is on mine), and even if it was stuck on the same bill it is not part of the "mortgage." Just because a mortgage calculator throws all three together for you, it doesn't make them part of the actual mortgage payment. The mortgage payment is principal plus interest.

I may have overstated slightly with 90 percent, it really is in the 80s for me. So what. Because of the way that back loaded amortization works, iinterest stays over 75 percent for the first ten years of the mortgage, which is longer than most people live in their houses.

So if you are in the 33% tax bracket (which is not uncommon at all in dual income households near big cities) or even the 28% tax bracket (which is the great majority of people buying houses in the US), eliminating the mortgage deduction would increase your mortgage by over 20% percent in real dollars for the first ten years of your mortgage. And yes, there are millions and million of of freaking people in that situation.

So stop picking nits. It's unseemly.

[ABQCOWBOY]

While there's some truth to this, the reality is that we've also cut taxes beyond the point they should have been cut. And now Ryan is proposing lowering taxes even more to further increase the deficit so that the GOP can then say "See!! We're still spending too much." Well :censored: him and the horse he rode in on. :mad:

I still maintain that any realistic plan to cut the deficit will involve not only spending cuts but tax increases as well.

I would like to understand how you have come to this conclusion. If we can't afford to continue down this path, the logical conclusion would seem to be one in which we turn around. I'm sorry, I can't agree with this.

---------- Post added April-7th-2011 at 04:13 PM ----------

Why does this ******* think cutting taxes on the wealthy and raising taxes on the middle class has any role in balancing a budget. Gawd...

I don't see where his plan calls for this.

[Bliz]

I would like to understand how you have come to this conclusion. If we can't afford to continue down this path, the logical conclusion would seem to be one in which we turn around. I'm sorry, I can't agree with this.

That is turning around. We tried tax cuts and spending increases. Didn't work so well. Turning around means cut spending and increase or maintain tax rates. More revenue plus lower spending is a responsible approach to addressing deficits.

[Larry]

Don't just call me a liar unless you can back it up.

Uh,

1) You just quoted my entire post, and the word "liar" isn't in it, even once.

2) And I did back it up. I told you exactly what I had to do in order to generate those numbers.

My mortgage payment does not have PMI because I put down over 20 percent. It is not common in California to include homeowner insurance OR property taxes on your mortgages (neither is on mine), and even if it was stuck on the same bill it is not part of the "mortgage." Just because a mortgage calculator throws all three together for you, it doesn't make them part of the actual mortgage payment. The mortgage payment is principal plus interest.

I may have overstated slightly with 90 percent, it really is in the 80s for me. So what. Because of the way that back loaded amortization works, iinterest stays over 75 percent for the first ten years of the mortgage, which is longer than most people live in their houses.

So if you are in the 33% tax bracket (which is not uncommon at all in dual income households near big cities) or even the 28% tax bracket (which is the great majority of people buying houses in the US), eliminating the mortgage deduction would increase your mortgage by over 20% percent in real dollars for the first ten years of your mortgage. And yes, there are millions and million of of freaking people in that situation.

So stop picking nits. It's unseemly.

And as I've already pointed out, the proposals I've seen for getting rid of the deduction involve replacing the deduction with a credit, which "pays" the taxpayer a percentage (the same percentage for everybody, not one percentage for some folks, and a higher percentage for richer folks), up to some ceiling. (Meaning, the government won't pay 20% of your mortgage, no matter how big it is.)

Granted, I'm not certain that the currently-discussed proposal includes the "get rid of the deduction and replace it with a credit" language. I'm just saying that it seems to be common, in other proposals I've seen.

[ABQCOWBOY]

That is turning around. We tried tax cuts and spending increases. Didn't work so well. Turning around means cut spending and increase or maintain tax rates. More revenue plus lower spending is a responsible approach to addressing deficits.

No, we did not try turning around. Had we turned around, we would not currently be the 2nd highest Corporate tax in the world. The policy by this Administration has been to tax corporations at a higher clip as opposed to cutting taxes.

[The Evil Genius]

No, we did not try turning around. Had we turned around, we would not currently be the 2nd highest Corporate tax in the world. The policy by this Administration has been to tax corporations at a higher clip as opposed to cutting taxes.

So lower corporate taxes and raise the tax on personal income?

They seem to go hand in hand.

[88Comrade2000]

Broken record me again. National Sales TAX on top of the income tax. Once the debt is wiped off, then we can adjust the tax.

Some states don't even have an income tax, they survive on sales taxes. Why a national sales tax didn't enter the picture is puzzling to me.

[DRSmith]

Two huge problems with his proposals once you go to much privatization you can not do anything to control costs which takes more money out of the economy as the middle and lower class the largest part of the population has less money to spend hurting the economy.

When a large enough part of the population starts to suffer to big to fail kicks in and you end up with government having to reinstate many programs he wants to eliminate.

Maybe the best solution is to raise the taxes to levels needed, means test programs and cut waste.

---------- Post added April-7th-2011 at 07:13 PM ----------

Broken record me again. National Sales TAX on top of the income tax. Once the debt is wiped off, then we can adjust the tax.

Some states don't even have an income tax, they survive on sales taxes. Why a national sales tax didn't enter the picture is puzzling to me.

Everytime a VAT tax is discussed people get all outraged

[Larry]

The policy by this Administration has been to tax corporations at a higher clip as opposed to cutting taxes.

Really? Could you point me at a link to where Obama has raised the corporate income tax rate? Damned liberal media must have suppressed that news.

[ABQCOWBOY]

So lower corporate taxes and raise the tax on personal income?

They seem to go hand in hand.

Interesting Graph but that is not what Ryan's plan suggests.

[DRSmith]

Where are the military cuts?

You can not keep the worlds largest military and not have some the highest tax rates in the world

[ABQCOWBOY]

Really? Could you point me at a link to where Obama has raised the corporate income tax rate? Damned liberal media must have suppressed that news.

So, are you saying that this Administration does not want to increase taxes on the top 10% in this Country? This is a major piece of the platform President Obama ran on. Can we at least be honest about this?

[Larry]

So, are you saying that this Administration does not want to increase taxes on the top 10% in this Country? This is a major piece of the platform President Obama ran on. Can we at least be honest about this?

If I repeat my question, will you stop trying to run away from the bogus claim you made?

[ABQCOWBOY]

If I repeat my question, will you stop trying to run away from the bogus claim you made?

Give it a try, see what happens.

I can see you are not going to be honest about this issue. This Administration is on record as wanting to increase taxes on the highest earners in this Country and that means Corporations. I honestly never thought that you would take issue with this. I mean, it's a cornerstone of his election.

[Larry]

I can see you are not going to be honest about this issue. This Administration is on record as wanting to increase taxes on the highest earners in this Country and that means Corporations. I honestly never thought that you would take issue with this. I mean, it's a cornerstone of his election.

I can see you're going to try to conceal the fact you're shoveling BS, by shoveling more BS.

OK, so let's just assume that your first BS was BS, because you keep trying to run away from it.

You then ran away from that BS, and ran towards this one:

So, are you saying that this Administration does not want to increase taxes on the top 10% in this Country? This is a major piece of the platform President Obama ran on. Can we at least be honest about this?

I don't know. Can we?

I may be mistaken, but I don't believe Candidate Obama ever once so much as mentioned raising taxes on anyone. (And I'm pretty certain that if he had, I would have heard about it, since those kind of things tend to make news.)

Now, I do recall him advocating leaving taxes alone for the top two brackets (which would represent around 5% of tax returns, near as I can tell.), and cutting them (permanently) for the other 95%.

But any way, it seems you've already moved past that BS, and towards a third one.

I can see you are not going to be honest about this issue. This Administration is on record as wanting to increase taxes on the highest earners in this Country and that means Corporations. I honestly never thought that you would take issue with this. I mean, it's a cornerstone of his election.

Again, since you seem to know so much more about this subject than I do, could you point me towards the place where "This Administration is on record" as supporting increasing corporate income taxes?

Take all the time you want. I've got studying to do, and I'm gonna try to stay off ES at least until tomorrow.

[Predicto]

And as I've already pointed out, the proposals I've seen for getting rid of the deduction involve replacing the deduction with a credit, which "pays" the taxpayer a percentage (the same percentage for everybody, not one percentage for some folks, and a higher percentage for richer folks), up to some ceiling. (Meaning, the government won't pay 20% of your mortgage, no matter how big it is.)

Granted, I'm not certain that the currently-discussed proposal includes the "get rid of the deduction and replace it with a credit" language. I'm just saying that it seems to be common, in other proposals I've seen.

If that is the case (which I have not heard), then the discussion would be different.

I was discussing the idea of the straight abolition of the mortgage interest deduction, and what that would mean for middle class people with larger mortgages in high cost states and for the real estate market and for the banks. It would be devastation.

---------- Post added April-7th-2011 at 05:36 PM ----------

I can see you are not going to be honest about this issue. This Administration is on record as wanting to increase taxes on the highest earners in this Country and that means Corporations.

No it doesn't. Corporate tax rates and individual tax rates are completely different.

[JMS]

So lower corporate taxes and raise the tax on personal income?

They seem to go hand in hand.

Most American corporations don't pay any income tax. Zero, Ziltch, NADA.... and personal income taxes are at historical lows ( since the early 1930's )...

So how about we actually raise income taxes to a draconian rate of say... 5%..... and we further raise the top tax rate by say 4%.... Return ourselves to the fiscal nightmare tax rates under the Clinton Administration... where we actually were able to work ourselves out of massive deficits and grow our way into a fiscally more responsible position.

---------- Post added April-7th-2011 at 08:53 PM ----------

Interesting Graph but that is not what Ryan's plan suggests.

Ryan's a moron with the personal morals of a rattle snake. It's unconscionable to balance the budget on the poor and elderly. It's unconscionable to abandon the American taxpayers to the mercies of the trusts who run our medical system as he would do just because he and his ilk can't screw up the courage to address the problem directly.

His ideas if left unchecked would return the United States to a pre industrial age.