<p>Probably should have said Should instead of Could. Yes, of course there is waste in the military. My argument was about stripping it down…</p>
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<p>Really! Duh. I’m pretty sure that when I flew to basic training 20 years ago it was on a commercial jet. They are not, however, going to move 20,000 armed troops overseas, into a hostile zone, via commercial airliners. Give me a break. I’m sure most people understood what I was talking about. This would be a scarier country to live in with padad’s view of the military.</p>
<p>To me tax rates are meaningless. What is meaningful is how burdensome taxes are to an individual family. For most/many low and middle income families, there is little disposable income after fed/ssi/mecicare/state/sales/property taxes are taken into account.</p>
<p>For me taxes are not burdensome in the slightest. Yep, I pay a lot more federal income tax than Joe Schmoe but my saving rate still exceeds my total salary most years. How you might ask? The increase in investment accounts, IRA’s 401K’s, and vested pension benesfits values typically exceed my total gross salary, exceeding $200,000 in a good investment year. </p>
<p>If I am typical of the top 15% of taxpayers, reasonably significant increases in federal tax rates will not impact my financial situation in the least. In fact Pres Bush’s tax reductions just allowed me to bank a little more so that your children can pick up the tab. It wont impact mine because I expect that he will be an instant multimillionaire when me and my wife croak.</p>
<p>The US military spending in the year 2005, the most recent year where comparison could be made, is equal to the total of the rest of the world. Give me one justification why we need to maintain this level of expenditure.</p>
<p>Our military budget for 2007 is 440 billion. If we cut it by half, our national debt will disappear within 3 years, accounting for the cost of downsizing.</p>
<p>Who suggested we need to maintaint that level? I certainly didn’t. We can’t go to your extreme either though. Overnight you can’t slash the military by 50% and withdraw from bases around the world. It’s like pulling out of Iraq in a week…</p>
<p>To be honest it’s not worth the argument. You are so far out there on this there would be no reasoning. I’ll concede defeat in that you are too set in the idea that it is a snap of the fingers with no ramifications.</p>
<p>Look - the deficit equation is rather simple. Bush essentially took out hundreds of billions of dollars in loans from our owners in China and Saudi Arabia, and rather than fix the nation’s failing infrastructure, do something about health care, shore up Social Security, etc., he gave it to the super-rich. Not “loaned” it - gave it. And, as usual, it didn’t “trickle down” - it didn’t result in increased employment, enhanced tax revenues, etc., but did result in more purchases of goods and services, more investment, and more raw materials imported from our owners. (The “Laffer” curve remains a laugher.)</p>
<p>Everyone complains about the military, but few complain about the dead people receiving HUD vouchers for housing. Dead people using food stamps. Lot a fraud and wasteful spending.</p>
<p>Why give the government more to waste? Look at the ABC Makeover House that was given to a family free and clear just to be foreclosed.</p>
<p>Just say no to wasteful spending, and fraud.</p>
<p>AMom2,
I know that saying otherwise is a favorite mantra among conservatives, but the actual waste involved in government is fairly small:</p>
<p>Professor Douglas J. Amy of Mt. Holyoke College said this, referencing Joseph Nye’s book “Why People Don’t Trust Government:”</p>
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<p>I do believe large government agencies are inefficient because of their size. But so are large corporations. You think Microsoft is not inefficient? Ford Motor Co? The answer is not to chronically underfund the government, but to break the largest divisions of it into smaller sections, with less central oversight and more site-based management and corresponding higher accountability to the tax payers. (i.e. charter school approach). Government is not bad, and the small percentage of wasteful spending and fraud that actually occurs is peanuts when compared to how much government actually works FOR us.</p>
<p>You don’t even collect tax at the poverty level.
You might live long enough to file tax a few more dozen years but that shouldn’t suggest you know more or less about it than someone with due diligence. The 10% example is non sequitur.</p>
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Isn’t what you said imply raising tax at the upper echelon? I know the example I gave is specific, but it’s along the line of what you want to do, is it not?</p>
<p>I have worked for 15 years each in both the private sector (where I founded a million-dollar business with offices in several countries, and which is still going), and in the government sector. In my personal experience, government is far, far more efficient than the private sector, and for some very simple reasons: there are not multiple contractors with multiple administrative apparati doing exactly the same tasks. I’ll never forget when I would contract for printing, and have 10 sales reps visiting me for the same job with 10 different support operations, with 10 free trips to 10 different printing plants, and with all requisite wining and dining, all to have them submit bids within 5% of each other. It was the most extraordinary inefficiency I could ever imagine. And don’t even get me started on private health insurance inefficiences.</p>
<p>What government does not do is innovate. And taxpayers wouldn’t want government to do so - what taxpayers care about is accountability, which costs money. The private sector is not “efficient at innovation” - for every innovation that works, 10 don’t. (And for every new business that succeeds, 10 fail.) But it is those innovations (not “efficiency”) that drives business ventures.</p>
<p>Which is why public/private ventures makes such good sense. There is no reason why the taxpayer should be deprived of the financial benefits of innovation - in drug research, oil exploration, alternative energy - when the taxpayer paid for it.</p>
<p>I don’t care how inefficient private enterprises are unless I am a stock holder or a consumer of their products…in both cases that is my CHOICE. I don’t have the choice of paying taxes. The same goes with charities. Everyone complains that too much of the charity dollar goes to admin purposes. Do the research and give to a more efficient charity. Again, it is a CHOICE of what to do with my money when it comes to businesses and charities.</p>
<p>As I pointed out, both McCain and Obama are acknowledging that taxes may have to be raised. So which taxes? Whose taxes? I’m not proposing to soak the rich. Indeed, I am not suggesting anything except that IF taxes have to be raised, they need to be raised where there’s money.</p>
<p>As for cutting spending, often going after waste can be more expensive. The most efficient way to cut spending is to eliminate whole programs rather than trying to ensure that they are not being wastefully managed. that is why I’m asking which programs should be eliminated.
I’m for eliminating NCLB for a start.</p>
<p>pmrlcomm, no you don’t. Sorry. It would be really nice to get stuff for free. But that doesn’t mean that there is a great deal of waste going on. You might prefer to think so, but it doesn’t make it true.</p>
They are not, however, going to move 20,000 armed troops overseas, into a hostile zone, via commercial airliners. Give me a break. I’m sure most people understood what I was talking about. This would be a scarier country to live in with padad’s view of the military.</p>