Obama to Propose More Than Half a Trillion Dollars in New Taxes Over Ten Years


The president's proposed 2014 budget might be DOA, but not necessarily the tax hikes in it.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday will issue a greatest hits list of ideas to raise $580 billion in new tax revenues over a decade, including a minimum tax on the wealthy and putting an end to some corporate tax breaks, administration officials said.
The president's 2014 budget proposal, expected to be released in full later on Wednesday, has no chance of moving forward in the divided U.S. Congress. But as lawmakers consider a revamp of the tax code and face a deadline on the government's debt limit this summer, some Obama measures could play a role.
Of course the federal government's got a spending problem, not a revenue problem. And while the president focuses on more revenue, Republicans aren't focusing on cutting spending. And as for sequestration, tax hikes this year are already twice as big as the reduction in the growth of spending.
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Ed, the "spending problem, not a revenue problem" link needs to be fixed. Delete the apostrophe at the end of the link.
Thanks!
"Of course the federal government's got a spending problem, not a revenue problem."
What is this "of course" you speak of?
and First.
oops
That's what you get.
"No, fuck you, cut spending."
Beat me to it.
Someday this will be an alt-text. It will be glorious.
Somebody did use a gentrified version of it once.
Yeah, I know. That was more "kind of cool".
Oh, a purist eh?
Fuck yes.
I'm okay with "No, screw you, cut spending," "It's the spending, stupid," or "Non, te pedicabo, incide sumptibus.
Don't you mean pedica te?
Sounds like Pro Lib has a personal interest in being the one doing the pedic?ndum.
A budget deficit problem is a spending problem, a revenue problem, or both, depending on your priorities. If your priority is abolishing the social safety net and giving the loot to the rich, yeah we have a spending problem. If your priority is fixing the deficit while doing the minimum amount of harm to people, we definitely have at least partly a revenue problem.
Tony, the social safety net as you call it, mostly goes to the middle class and is so broke that no amount of taxes are going to fix it.
Hey dickhead it's your TEAM BLUE pact with the devil. Cut the warfare state if you want to keep your welfare state.
Oh that's right military spending isn't a problem when you guys do it.
Find me one liberal who doesn't support cuts in military spending.
Obama.
Krugman.
Cuts in military spending = Reduced GDP and Austerity, why we could end this recession today if we'd just beef up our military to prepare for an alien invasion
Leon Panetta. You remember him; the previous SecDef.
All of those people favor cuts. (Not necessarily arbitrary sequestration cuts.)
Krugman worries that the only politically possible way to get the massive spending needed to stimulate the economy to a sufficient degree is to prey on Americans' love of military spending and warmaking, since that's always easier than just fixing and building shit we need.
Krugman worries that the only politically possible way to get the massive spending needed to stimulate the economy to a sufficient degree is to prey on Americans' love of military spending and warmaking, since that's always easier than just fixing and building shit we need.
Well I hope Krugnuts gets his alien invasion too....for the good of the nation. But your TEAM holds the executive and the Senate so maybe you could dash off a letter and get them crackalackin on fixing the spending issues before they pick our pockets again.
Why are you speaking about yourself as though you're two separate people?
He's been under a lot of stress recently.
Giving=not stealing?
You should know better than to think that the proceeds of your effort belong to you.
Will there ever come a time when people realize that ever increasing spending isn't fixing the problem?
I just wish I could live like the government does. Then my fully functional space elevator/statue of myself would be a reality. Along with certain other material excesses.
Seriously. Why don't we just abolish money and all live like the government does?
That's the long term goal isn't it? Peons work and their lord dispenses the necessities for them to continue working.
No, no. In the real world, everyone will be the lord.
I hate to keep beating this drum, but I think Obama saw my infinite borrowing plan. . .and is executing it.
We'll pay it all off when we're a Type II civilization. They can afford pretty much anything we're able to do, so it's only fair.
Unfortunately, The Federation does a credit check on any prospective members.
Ah, ha! But we're not prospective; we're retrospective! Loophole for the win! SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!
Is the Federation actually a Type II civilization? It's up there, but I'm thinking I with a decimal. How do you do that with Roman numerals?
I.VI
I'll have to refresh myself with the Civ Scale wikipage, I forget the specs.
How do you do that with Roman Romulan
numerals?
ftfy?
Is that 1.6 or 1.51?
Is that 1.6 or 1.51?
Shit. Ok, now I understand the problem....
It's amazing Roman engineers got anything done. Thank Jupiter for geometry, I guess.
pft. So did the EU. Just get Goldman to cook the books a bit.
Well, that landed in the wrong spot:
pft. So did the EU. Just get Goldman to cook the books a bit. Like Greece.
I'm sure they were using the energy output of the sun as a civilization, but they weren't harnessing it from one star.
The Borg--Type III? If so, how could Starfleet have possibly contended with them? That's like us losing to a tribe of Neanderthals. Unarmed Neanderthals.
The Borg--Type III? If so, how could Starfleet have possibly contended with them? That's like us losing to a tribe of Neanderthals. Unarmed Neanderthals.
Afghanistan. EOM.
They're not unarmed.
Maybe not a full Type III, mind you, but much closer to it than the Federation.
Yeah, but in this Neaderthal fight we are all doing exactly what Tony thinks we should.
Spending has grown at a slower pace under Obama than at any time in 60 years. Will there ever be a time when you people think for yourselves and not in the talking points of interests that don't give the slightest shit about you?
Spending has grown at a slower pace under Obama than at any time in 60 years.
So? It's still growing. Is it really your defense that growing slower = not growing? Do you need it to just jump to the government spend $100T/year before you'll finally agree it's not working?
It's only April, but I think we have this year's winner for "Least Self-Aware Statement of The Year."
Obama spent 20% more in 2010 than Bush did in any year of his Presidency.
BUT HE WOULD HAVE SPENT 30% MORE IF NOT FOR FUCKING AUSTERITY!!111oneoneoen
WHAT PART OF REDUCED GROWTH IN SPENDING = SPENDING CUTS DONT YOU MATHITHCALLY-CHALLENGED MORANS UNDERSTAND!?12onetwo?!
when you people think for yourselves and not in the talking points
Also, this has to be one of the most retarded memes in existence. What's with the belief that someone who doesn't agree with you is getting their marching orders from some shadowy group who disperses ideas to the brainless proles?
And even if they are "talking points" so what? Isn't each side going to try and promote the facts that are most damaging to their opponents? Watergate was one hell of a Democratic Talking point back in the day.
it's equal parts projection and cognitive dissonance, an odd mix I admit. Committed Teamites like Tony believe everyone is team-oriented, too, meaning subscribing to a specific set of beliefs and thoughts.
Blue 'talking points' are not talking points, per se, they are the truth, the light, and the way, according to the Tonys. Anyone dissenting can only do so out of ignorance, partisan malice, or inability to think independently.
1
3
5
7
9
19
20
21
22
Yes those last 3 numbers grew at a much slower rate than any of the previous increases, that doesn't mean that they are not a significant deviation from the average.
Further why has spending been growing so slowly? It wouldn't have anything to do with the governments inability to pass a budget would it? No budget means no new spending programs, just continuing resolutions. Had Obama been able to actually pass a budget there is no doubt that the rate of spending growth would have been far higher
"Spending has grown at a slower pace under Obama than at any time in 60 years."
Tony thinks ObamaCare will lower spending.
Seriously, arguing with Tony about the economy is like arguing with a creationist about evolution.
He doesn't care what the facts are. He believes in Obama--like fundamentalists believe in the Bible. Just because his beliefs about the economy aren't grounded in the God or the Bible doesn't mean they aren't religious in nature.
Arguing with Tony about Obama is like arguing with a Scientologist about L. Ron Hubbard.
Arguing with Tony about Obama is like arguing with a Scientologist about L. Ron Hubbard.
Susceptible to litigation?
And his budget for the next ten years doesn't have a lower deficit than $575 billion.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/site.....tables.pdf
Tony, you're punching way above your weight arguing numbers. I've repeatedly taken the government's own data and proven you wrong time after time after time. Go back to the coffeeshop, you SWPL dork.
By locking in that "one time" stimulus spending that he voted for?
And of course that is using the fiscal year, which pushes a bunch of Obama-approved spending back onto Bush.
"If your priority is abolishing the social safety net and giving the loot to the rich, yeah we have a spending problem."
Never mind that letting people keep their money is "giving to the rich" in Tony's parasite world...
Obama gave $350 billion of the taxpayers' money to bailout Wall Street.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....58292.html
You're such a disgusting self-contradicting, parasite troll, Tony. Why don't you get a job?
And Tony defended it and every other bailout under the sun! Yet he has the gall to say we support giveaways to the wealthy.
I know!
He doesn't even think about what he says.
I keep tellin' y'all, the Obama attraction is essentially religious. He doesn't care what L. Ron says or whether it makes any sense.
Believing in Obama gives him a sense of belonging. And being ridiculed for the silly things he says--being persecuted for his beliefs--just makes him feel more like a part of the cause.
He should be pitied, but it's hard to feel sorry for someone who's so obsessed with things like refusing to acknowledge that people have rights regardless of whether the government recognizes them. A few months ago, he refused to acknowledge that Jews in the holocaust or Rosa Parks had rights--even if those governments at the time didn't recognize them.
He'll say anything so long as it's in defense of Obama, and it doesn't matter what the facts are. The point isn't to be right--it's to be pro-Obama. That's what being a true believer is all about.
Ken I freely disagree with the Obama administration on any number of policies. I think the quasi-religious problem is actually you guys treating every thing that goes wrong in life as Obama's fault. Reason is embarrassingly egregious about this. It's positively obsessed with Obama.
Obama, like any US president, is not especially powerful legislatively. His main role is to talk. He is not responsible for your bad hair day.
Your beliefs are essentially unchallengeable--because there isn't any reason behind what you believe to get traction with...
You're basically a political Moonie. If the Moonies had gotten to you before Obama, you'd be out in an airport parking lot begging for change.
Don't you get it? Tony is above ideology! He only does what's smart and right, unlike you.
I try my hardest to be above ideology. What might be best for people 20 years from now may not be what's best for them right now. Nobody has it all figured out, and anyone who claims to is selling snake oil.
And yet your actions say the exact opposite. Your ideology (gasp!) is nothing but Top Men and one-size-fits-all central planning.
If the Moonies had gotten to you before Obama, you'd be out in an airport parking lot begging for change.
Still plenty of opportunities for begging to come.
Obama, like any US president, is not especially powerful legislatively. His main role is to talk.
His main role is to drive the government to get its collective shit together. Also, to sign off on everything coming out of the government. You know, like an executive. If he can't handle that, he shouldn't have taken the job. Now it's like a company that has no direction and middle management is running the show.
P.S.
Notice, Tony won't deny refusing to admit the Jews during the holocaust and Rosa Parks during Jim Crow--both had rights regardless of whether the government recognized them.
His position on their rights doesn't appear to be much different from that of the Nazis and the segregationists, but it isn't really about that. He just doesn't want to admit that people have any more rights than Obama says they have. That's all there is to it.
It would be pitiful if its implications weren't so disgusting.
What possible good does it do for the dead Jews to claim in 2013 that they had rights? If you're being hauled into a concentration camp then a gas chamber, you actually don't have any rights. I'm sure it would have been very comforting for them to know you think they actually did have them but they were being violated. It really makes such a difference.
It makes a difference because properly recognizing and understand the mistakes of the past is how we avoid making those same mistakes.
Gee, you think the fact that people have right no matter what the government says has any implications for today?
If you're being herded into a gas chamber, you don't have any rights. Period. Append whatever magical bullshit descriptions you want, that is the definition of not having any rights.
This is such a stupid debate. You're saying people should have rights. But for some reason you can't phrase it that way--probably because it would mean that rights are just claims people make and not imprinted in the fabric of the cosmos like you want them to be (so you get to decide what they all are and nobody can disagree).
I wish i could respond with a barbershop quartet harmony of "fascist"
meh Close Enough
The entire purpose for the existence of free-market ideology is as a massive scheme for the already wealthy to take all they possibly can from the world's wealth for themselves (what you so dutifully call "their money.") If that's not its purpose, that has certainly been its result.
I certainly would have done the response to the Bush economic crash differently if I were emperor, but you don't get a gold star for favoring the bad medicine of total economic collapse on "principle."
I certainly would have done the response to the Bush economic crash differently if I were emperor
--------------
no, you wouldn't have. You would have gone along with the same response that candidate Obama and the Dem majority in Congress supported, the one Bush put forth. Of course, you would have also blamed the whole thing on Bush as though nothing else contributed to the meltdown but you would have been in lockstep with Team Blue. As you always are.
I like calling it the Bush recession because for some strange reason it gets all you independent-minded nonpartisan libertarians in a tizzy whenever anyone remotely criticizes THE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY, and I think that's funny. But plenty of contributing policies were enacted under Clinton. Bush just didn't do anything to make them better, and it was his watch after all.
I would have done whatever was politically and pragmatically feasible to solve the problem, as any intelligent person would do. I would not let lame childish ideology contaminate the situation, though.
it gets all you independent-minded nonpartisan libertarians in a tizzy whenever anyone remotely criticizes THE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY
How is calling it the Bush recession any kind of criticism of James Madison?
I think you mean Woodrow Wilson.
No, I meant James Madison.
No love for Buchanan around here? He's pretty regularly tagged with that one.
check the site you are posting on again because your efforts to find the Bush fan club here are failing epically. And again, no, you would have done no different than what the Pelosi high command had told you to do.
Remember your party ran Congress at the time; it fully supported Bush's bailout plan as did a good number of Repubs. Those calling bullshit were treated as near pariahs. Nothing you have ever posted hints at you taking a stand apart from the crowd.
The bailout was not the worst possible response, thought it was hardly the best. It might have been the best politically possible one (since Wall Street effectively runs DC). All you're doing is booing from the peanuts gallery. What would you have preferred? Collapse of the banks and then the global economy?
That's rich coming from a defender of the Fed, an institution which explicitly benefits the already wealthy at the expense of those on fixed income and with little assets.
Oh, and there's the regulatory state which makes it impossible to start your own business and entrenches the big guys.
"The entire purpose for the existence of free-market ideology is as a massive scheme for the already wealthy to take all they possibly can from the world's wealth for themselves"
"The world's wealth"?
Show me the legal entity known as "the world" and show me where it has legal title to "the wealth".
The collective wealth of the individuals who live in the world.
So for instance the US, collectively, has grown more wealthy in the past 40 years. You might call it economic growth. Problem is almost all of that growth has gone into the pockets of a tiny minority of the very wealthiest. So either that tiny minority did almost all of the heavy lifting and everyone else slacked off, or maybe they bought politicians and looted the country for everything they possibly could get their hands on?
Tony, I notice that you hop around from comment to comment only addressing specific points and never answering any questions put to you. Is this because you have some kind of list of "talking points" that only address the comments you decide to respond to?
What was the question?
Problem is almost all of that growth has gone into the pockets of a tiny minority of the very wealthiest.
Which is why even the poorest among us have cellphones. Oh, and how's that starvation thing going? Gee, nearly all Americans have shelter, clothing, and food covered? You don't say. Highspeed internet everywhere.
Yeah, it's only the Richie Richersons getting all the wealth.
Um, 50 million people are considered food insecure in this country, and that's after government assistance. 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year. Middle class wages have not risen significantly for decades. A cellphone is not evidence of a comfortable lifestyle.
If you were aware of the extent to which the productivity of this country's economy has benefited only a few, you would be outraged at the sheer audacity instead of defending every cent in every island tax shelter.
Um, 50 million people are considered food insecure in this country, and that's after government assistance.
Let's look at this food security crap, you're pushing into the world.
According those standards, anyone who is on the Ramen/Tuna Fish diet or misses a meal is "food insecure."
3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year.
Stop being a deceptive little shit and quote the rest of the Wikipedia article you stole that nugget from.
If you were aware of the extent to which the productivity of this country's economy has benefited only a few...
That's no way to talk about your duly elected representatives, bureaucrats, and courtiers in D.C., Tony.
If memory serves, "food insecurity" is statistic measuring how many people thought they may not get to eat as much as they wanted, not how many did not eat as much as they needed. It is not worth much.
"The collective wealth of the individuals who live in the world"
Show me unequivocal and absolutely definitive proof that there is anything collective about wealth.
I find most of your comments laughably inaccurate and ridiculously pro-Obama. In this case, just like a broken clock
you got one right.
The sale of tax code and legislation, in exchange for campaign contributions is the biggest problem and main cause of everything wrong with the US and the economy.
That said, you're batshit insane.
You acknowledge that problem, yet you want more government control, more spending, and more regulation.
These are two incongruous thoughts.
The more power and money the government has, the more laws and tax code will be sold in return for campaign contributions.
Thus, the smaller the government, the less power and money it has, the better.
"The entire purpose for the existence of free-market ideology is as a massive scheme for the already wealthy to take all they possibly can from the world's wealth for themselves."
The machinery of capitalism is oiled with the blood and tears of the proletariat!
Much better that the machinery of Communal Governance get those lubricants instead. It's more Fair.
If your priority is abolishing the social safety net and giving the loot to the rich, yeah we have a spending problem.
And if you can't do 5th-grade mathematics and are obsessed with GIBMEDATS, spending is never a problem.
$201 billion collected in taxes for Medicare and Medicaid; $1.052 trillion spent on both programs.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0912.pdf
p. 6 and 10
And that's with proggies claiming that these systems are more efficient than private insurance plans. There's no tax collection system in the world short of Cyprus-type confiscation that will close that gap, and we can't afford to continue paying 5 times what is collected for the programs.
Of course, we could go back to a cash-based system, mandate open pricing, and that would slash medical spending by about 70-80%. But that wouldn't allow progs to claim that its moral for people to get "free" services.
As you should well know the cost problem associated with these programs is in healthcare itself, which is more expensive for people not benefiting from those government services (meaning yes, they are more efficient). The healtcare cost problem (due to aging populations, corporate favors, and other factors) is a big one, but it's not caused by government healthcare delivery services. If anything it's mitigated by them. And I'm not saying it's an easy problem to solve, though you seem to think it is solved by just making healthcare a privilege of those with means.
RRR's right, you are completely out of your depth on these matters. Between this and your collective wealth comment, you have shown quite clearly that you have neither education nor instinct in finance and economics and are simply regurgitating talking points, showing once again that projection is the lifeblood of Team Blue.
As you should well know the cost problem associated with these programs is in healthcare itself, which is more expensive for people not benefiting from those government services (meaning yes, they are more efficient).
Sorry--spending five times what's taken in taxes for these programs is unsustainable. In New Mexico alone, 70 PERCENT of all births in the state are paid for with Medicaid. And healthcare costs are the same when they're paid for with any insurance program; the costs are just shifted to others. That doesn't actually lower the real cost of healthcare.
The healtcare cost problem (due to aging populations, corporate favors, and other factors) is a big one, but it's not caused by government healthcare delivery services. If anything it's mitigated by them.
Wrong. These programs were enacted under the argument that they would actually lower the real costs of healthcare for everyone else. That's been shown wrong by orders of magnitude. In 1980, federal spending on healthcare was about $50 billion. Today, it's over $1 trillion. Medicare and Medicaid have failed to keep costs down, even on an inflation-adjusted basis.
And I'm not saying it's an easy problem to solve, though you seem to think it is solved by just making healthcare a privilege of those with means.
Healthcare is a service, and that service costs. In the 1950s, the cost of two days in the hospital and a normal live birth cost less than $1000, inflation-adjusted. Today, it's about $10,000, over 10 times what it cost before Medicare and Medicaid.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.....07-09.html
Are you seriously telling me people can't save up less than $100 a month to have a baby? That insurance can't go back to what it was initially used for--emergency services? No wonder progs worship at the altar of the Central State.
If your priority is abolishing the social safety net and giving the loot to the rich returning the money to the people it was confiscated from
FIFY.
If your priority is fixing the deficit while doing the minimum amount of harm to people
Stop spending money. Problem solved.
As someone who getting hammered by the IRS this year:
FUCK You, Tony.
Completely OT but I gotta say, the Ukranian date ad girls are much hotter than the Phillipinio date girls
I'm just getting ads for motorcycle parts.
I will trade you for the add for the criminal background check web site with the fat guy with the enormous white mustache.
I got that one, too!
Whatever happened to the SNORG Tees girls? That fat guy is not really doing it for me or my appetite.
Some of those SNORG girls are out of control.
The hipster guy they got selling shirts now, with the "Gone Sasquatchin", he is to hot chicks what cold showers are to centerfolds.
I like the cheesy fake polls. Sarah Palin, child eating monster or future President? You decide!!
Well, the Bad Idea T-shirts girl is an acceptable replacement.
Is she the brunette with the huge boobs in the khaki shorts laying on her back? She is quite lovely.
Nah, the one facing the camera and bending over, in all her glorious, tanlined cleavage-displaying awesomeness.
I like that one too. But I really like the one in the khaki shorts.
Is she the brunette with the huge boobs in the khaki shorts laying on her back? She is quite lovely.
Nah, the one facing the camera and bending over, in all her glorious, tanlined cleavage-displaying awesomeness.
I'm fairly certain those are the same girl. The ads are blocked at work but I checked them very ... closely at home.
I think you are right Sparky. Of course those ads mysterious stopped appearing as soon as I thought to look.
That one, too!
Her rack looks like everything I ever wanted for Christmas:
http://thechive.com/2010/12/09.....ashley-18/
That's the chick who got a boob reduction. Why can't Obama work on outlawing that?
We should have started a facebook group or somethin' to save them!
The Lord said to Noah: There's gonna be a floody, floody
The Lord told Noah to build him an arky, arky...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEFqsUY0h9s
There's a cute woman who sings terribly tone-deaf versions of children's songs.
ouch http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....6PA_vYAk4Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52wXFJjkubI
Re: Tony,
Actually, it will depend on your level of economic literacy. When it comes to budgeting, there's only one thing you can control: your spending. What you can't control is your revenue; doesn't matter how much you wish it weren't so, you can't make people pay you money just for your pretty face, and even if you rely on threats (like the govenrment does) that does not guarantee that people will not lie to you or hide their money. That translates to: You CAN'T have a revenue problem if your budget does not jive with reality; the problem is with your spending. Period.
Cry me a river. Letting people keep their money =/= giving them loot.
So much for your economic literacy.
Sure. Because iPads and televisions and washing machines - those rain down form Heaven. Rich people just take the "wealth" from the Earth.
What are you talking about? Government very much can control its revenue, being that one of its main functions is to raise revenue in the form of taxes. It's fallacious to analogize individual financial behavior with government, but even individuals can negotiate or seek higher wages. Even individuals don't necessarily have to rely on spending cuts alone to balance budgets, assuming they have a means to find more revenue. Government has such means, of course.
Why is it always the case that money in the US Treasury somehow belongs to rich people? No it doesn't. If you're not paying your legally owed taxes, you are the one stealing. If your taxes go up, some of your money becomes the property of the Treasury. Calling it "their" money, apart from being wince-inducingly servile, is really begging the question. We all give and we all take, and in the context of a federal budget imbalance in an era of relatively quite low taxes, it's just a fact that the option that will cause the least amount of hardship for human beings is to first start taxing people at the top then go from there.
But you're not interested in reducing hardship, you're interested in your forcing stupid anarchic bullshit on everyone, damn the consequences.
Government can control tax rates, not tax revenue.
Money in the U.S. Treasury belongs to whoever it was taken from, rich or not.
Re: Tony,
Raising taxes is not the same as obtaining what you expected to obtain, as people are still rational actors, Tony. Ergo, you CAN'T CONTROL YOUR REVENUE.
Who's doing that? I'm applying economics, the laws of which apply to everybody equally.
They can't certainly try. That does not mean they will obtain them.
I didn't say that. You can certainly work as a night guard to get some extra bucks, but you cannot count on that income to balance a budget that operates on unreasonable expectations.
It should be "They can certainly try"
Re: Tony,
It doesn't belong to the Treasury in the first place.
It's the other way around, Tony. If the government takes my money in the form of taxes, that's stealing. Just because the government made it lawful to steal does not mean it stops being stealing.
That would mean my labor - and thus me - belongs to the state, at the rate the State decides. Is that your argument now, Tony? That we're all part-time slaves?
You may take. I trade.
Because the people at the top are lesser human beings? Or how does your utilitarian calculation work here?
"What are you talking about? Government very much can control its revenue"
Ok Tony here is a little homework assignment. In the post World War 2 era there have been 14 major revisions to the tax code, go look up their dates, then compare government revenues (in inflation adjusted terms) for the 3 years prior to and following each tax revision. Determine if there is any correlation between the two.
If there is your statement stands as true, if not then it is false.
Re: Tony,
No, Tony. ALL prices - ALL - are the result of supply and demand. ALL of them. If something becomes more expensive is because either there's too little supply or too much demand; if that's the case, then there is clearly something that is hindering the market from shifting resources towards the places of higher demand. Those hindrances come entirely from government, through regulations, licensing laws and tax schemes. It is NOT possible that, in a market, a certain product like stitching a boo-boo costs the SAME as mending a broken leg! But that is the case in many parts of this country, and the only explanation is that the market is being encumbered by restrictions to supply. In other words, there's nothing economically special about medical care except that it is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the U.S.
Medical care is offered by people who sell their labor in a market, so whether you think only "the privileged" get to buy it or not is irrelevant, as doctors and nurses are not slaves.
Slaves are people who are forced to labor for no wages. No doctor or nurse that I'm aware of fits this definition.
The high price of healthcare in this country relative to other countries (all of which have a universal coverage system of some sort) is mostly tied to private sector incentives--that is, it's a business, and people have to pay not just for care but for the profits of associated industries, which are bolstered by lobbyist-won government favors as well as the inherent inefficiency of multiplying administrative costs. Despite your lecture on elementary economic principles, nothing about the US healthcare economy suggests that the way to lower costs is to make it more profit-centric and less centralized.
Re: Tony,
There's a reason for that: BECAUSE MEDICAL CARE IS NOT A RIGHT, YOU NITWIT.
You're ignoring, as always, the waiting times people have to endure in those Progressive countries, which is a price. Not a price in pecuniary terms, but an economic price nevertheless.
What do you mean "nothing", you lying sack of shit?
"Slaves are people who are forced to labor for no wages. No doctor or nurse that I'm aware of fits this definition."
Incorrect, they are forced to do labor against their will. They may or may not be paid a wage for their efforts, it could even be a "living wage", in fact there are historical examples of slaves being paid wages that would make them quite wealthy were they free men (some Roman Gladiators for example) but that does not change the fact that they are slaves.
Slaves in the South received compensation in the form of food, shelter, and clothing. They were still slaves, idiot.
Oops, that was directed at Tony.
Re: Tony,
The fallacy of this proposition is clearly debunked here.
Another obamanation committed in the name of 'fairness'.