The Associated Press
The tax cuts of Bush's first term will expire by 2010.
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Posted 37 weeks 2 days ago
Is a big tax increase coming?
Congress is intent on letting the Bush tax cuts expire, a move that opponents say would lead to the largest tax increase in U.S. history.
The House and the Senate this week both passed non-binding, $3 trillion budget resolutions. Although the plans differ, both would provide generous increases to domestic programs but bring the government's ledger back into the black by letting most or all of President Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of 2010.
Should Congress let the tax cuts expire? Would higher taxes help or hurt the American economy? How will tax increases affect Americans' lives?
Thoughts
Responsible? Numbers?
Submitted on April 3rd, 2008 by MathManSo, is it Chuck’s point that we teach children to be responsible by making them pay for our war?
While deficits in and of themselves may not be bad, using them to make others pay for our excesses is wrong.
Why is spending twice as much on Iraq as on education peanuts. I take that you think that money spent on public education is bad in some way?
Jim, why is the percentage of the the GDP a good measure of how much should be spent on defense? Wouldn’t needs be a better measure, and one that may very well not be correlated to GDP? Nice numbers you have there, but alone, they are irrelevant.
Bush
Submitted on March 21st, 2008 by Anonymousi helped put him in office and regred every day that I did. He is killing us with this war and N.F.T.A. crap. Clinton started it but just picked it up and started running with it. Now Mexican trucks can drive goods into th U.S. We cant do free trade we are futher up the industrial latter to ever do buisness with any third would coutry.Our wages cant even think of being competitive with them.
We're not spending enough on defense
Submitted on March 15th, 2008 by Jim LakelyPercent of national GDP spent on defense:
1968 -- 9.4 percent
1986 -- 6.2 percent
1992 -- 4.8 percent
1996 -- 3.5 percent
1999, 2000, 2001 -- 3 percent (historic post-World War II lows)
2007 -- 4 percent
2009 (proposed) -- 4.5 percent
I think you gotta spend a little more than that, especially if you're actually, you know, fighting a war.
Iraq vs. Department of Education
Submitted on March 15th, 2008 by JoelEstimated monthly cost of the war in Iraq in 2008: $12 billion. That's $144 billion for the year.
Total 2008 Department of Education appropriations: $68.6 billion.
On children and starving the beast
Submitted on March 15th, 2008 by Chuck_JohnsonMaybe we ought to start teaching our children responsible practices -- like paying for your own retirement and your own health insurance.
Maybe we ought to teach them that government big enough to provide everything to you is big enough to take everything from you.
That little diddy didn't come from me. It came from Thomas Jefferson.
We ought to use tax cuts to starve the federal government beast of the money it spends.
I don't think most people understand that even if we repeal the Bush tax cuts we still cannot pay for all the mushrooming of entitlements. We simply cannot afford it even if we were to take the incomes of just the top.
This whole deficit myth is kind of annoying, though. The U.S. has been in deficit dozens of times before. Deficits aren't in and of themselves a bad thing. (Your parents used one to finance WWII.)
The real question is spending. Before you suggest that the Iraq War is a waste of money, think about how big the budget is. The Iraq War is peanuts compared to all of the Department of Education spending.
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Chuck Johnson is a student at Claremont McKenna College. Feel free to contact him.
Make the children pay?
Submitted on March 14th, 2008 by MathManWhen we run huge deficits we are putting the financial burden on future taxpayers. I see that as immoral. If we are going to support medicare, wage a voluntary war and build highways, as examples, we should pay for them.
The current deficits are irresponsible. Although I don’t much like higher taxes, I can’t live with forcing others to pay for what we do now. I am not selfish enough.