This graphic of the “fiscal cliff” gives a good summary of the tax increases in dollars terms for each taxpayer group which range from an extra $412 to $3500 maximum per year for 99% of tax payers, and up to 120K for the top 1% of income earners. More for sure, but hardly catastrophic or impossible to pay. The more serious impact will be in terms of a rebound in unemployment that is likely to follow from the government spending cuts currently slated for the new year. But these job losses could also be offset at least partially by new jobs in areas like an expanded focus on domestic energy. The dominant point is that the current spending/taxation regime is and always has been unsustainable. Affording expenditures through escalating debt is a mirage. It is a false reality and confuses Band Aids with cures as people chase after unrealistic expectations with child-like false hope. Serious fiscal changes– born of necessity–will force better policy and better behavior, and eventually a true and earned economic revival.
Source: USA Today
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What sillyness. How does raising taxes help? Seems the puppeteers are doing a great job of “educating” the masses. Take more money out of the free economy and place it in the hands of big government so they can piss it down a rabbit hole. Tax and spend or more recently spend and tax does not work. Governments are not equiped to run economies. As regulators the role of Government is obvious but as managers of capital the record is clear. government created jobs are net negative to any economy.
“Put the money in the hands of the working man and he will spend it”….my late Father.
Here is a solution, not just talk, talk, talk. Hope you can handle this thinking outside the box: There should not be any layoffs in Government due to the reduced spending. There should be pay cuts for all government workers, just as most private workers have experienced. Many private workers have been working part time for a few years, getting little if any raises, and many workers took a 100% pay cut when they were layed off. It will not kill the Goobermint workers to take a pay cut. Ditto those collecting pensions, especially those collecting large pensions. Their pension benefits are outrageous and cannot be sustained – they will have to take a cut. This includes all branches of government from the garbage collector to Barack Whoisinsane Oblabber, a.k.a. The Oblabbinator.
All Goobermint contracts should be reduced by 10% (more?). For example if you have a contract to build 80 Fighter Bombers, that just got cut to 72. Cuts, not layoffs. No new hiring by Goobermint – shrinkage by attrition.
If the Goobermint employees don’t like their pay cuts they can always jump over to the private sector. FAT CHANCE THAT WILL HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!
One other thing: I’ll be happy to pay my extra 2% in payroll tax for Social Security – it will probably be the largest share of my retirement so I will desperately need it. I’ll also gladly pay the rest of the tax increases IF THE IMMORAL CRIMINAL UN-AMERICAN MORONS IN CONGRESS ACTUALLY MAKE SIGNIFICANT CUTS TO THE DEFICIT!!!!!
One more point on my proposed pay cuts: I am proposing hourly pay rate cuts, not cuts because you work fewer hours. (This is what the state “cuts” in our state have involved. They give the workers an unpaid “furlough” day a few times per year. Not acceptable.) I could also go for a sliding scale to give highly paid government employees a larger cut than low pay employees.
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