machine - all depends on the situation. pensions are one thing - and i think if someone pays into something and makes plans to rely on that pension - it should be there as negotiated. the government would not allow us citizens to back out of our legal commitments, so why should we let them?
on the subject of taxes...i wrote this a few days ago... __________________________________________________
my main thesis: we need to raise taxes. these are 3 main reasons why...
1 - we have expensive wars to pay for. from the 1930s to the 1950s the federal income tax rate was around 70% - going so far as 90% at one point on those making more than 200,000$ (the highest bracket.) why did they pay such high taxes and not revolt? they understood the necessity for wars they could not avoid. our leaders back then professed "speak softly and carry a big stick." when we could not avoid war - we went full force - and then paid for the war in the same fashion.
in modern times - the tax rate stands around 30% (again for the top 2 brackets) and has for nearly 10 years, despite multiple costly wars. i would argue the modern wars were not necessary, and the costs are abstract to the American people for this reason. we have no urgent need to pay for the wars, we had no idea how much they would cost...to many people it meant little to nothing to them. they just say "support our troops."
if we raise taxes, we can eliminate the deficit. should wealthy people have to carry this burden alone? no, the wars were wrong and we must ALL pay for them - so i say raise taxes for everyone. i do think the richest should have a higher % increase in taxes than others, but they should not alone carry the burden.
2 - we have had these low taxes for a long time - and yet there are still some who claim low taxes create job growth. where is the proof?
with taxes the lowest under bush (in 2005 it was at 35%) so was job growth.
truth is - we have maintained low taxes and cut them for the wealthiest, but how has this made things easier on the middle class and the impoverished?
under obama taxes are still low, and there is more job growth under obama than bush - but unemployment is hovering around 10%.
if the GOP is correct - and supply-side is what we have catered to in our budget and policies - then why is there little job growth and high unemployment?
so secondly - i profess we raise taxes to attempt a different approach to our economic policies. the government either needs to put people to work, or provide the means for people to obtain upward mobility in their lives through education...NOT simply cut funding and budgets and shrinking/undoing the progress in social uplift we have made in the past.
3 - my last point is centered around the belief that social security will cease to exist in our lifetime. i think we could do things now to prevent that and we should.
currently there is a cap on how much can be taxed for social security and workers pay roughly 6 percent of their earnings - up to ~$106,000 per year.
why not raise that cap? even if that raise is temporary, until the baby boomers pass, they can help pay more. make the ceiling 200,000$ rather than 106,000...or remove the ceiling completely.
if we raised how much was taxed for this, and how much an individual could pay into it, people who are very wealthy would be taxed more to preserve the program. the wealthy who are supposed to produce jobs would be helping the people they are employing less. 6% of their income could be much more than 106k but at most they only pay that much because of the ceiling, if they even opt to pay into the system at all (those who employ can choose to pay into it or not.)
remove the ceiling and fix the problem. hell you could even greatly reduce the % from 6 to 2 or even 3 % if they earned over a certain amount. i just think if we tweaked the numbers and made people pay more into it, we could save it and maintain it's necessary function in modern society.
on July 23, 2011, 1:19 pm, in reply to "