Newt, The Debt Limit, and Taxes - Or: Are We Going to Destroy Ourselves?

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Zakharra

Quote from: Vekseid on July 12, 2011, 08:19:53 PM

Hint: Money isn't wealth. Money is not meant to be hoarded. Money is meant to be exchanged for goods, services, and investments. When money is being hoarded, as it is now, the result is a liquidity crisis - interest rates remain low, unemployment remains high, the rich get richer because even though the rest of the country is not earning any more, they are producing more for the rentier class.

Hint: Money IS wealth. It's not the only indication of wealth but it is what defines mostly defines wealth.  Property, businesses, anythng else means nothing if you do not have moeny to pay for it.  Taxes are paid with money. You buy goods and services with money. Everything and I mean -everything- ,in this world is measured by how much is it worth in monetary value.

The rentier class also includes retired people, the elderly and anyone that has stock.


QuoteThen good riddance to bad rubbish. Someone more respectable will take your place.

Raise taxes to the 70-90% you seem to want then at and watch damned near every single one of those people scream at the pain. You'd see a flow of wealth out of the US as many of these people would find it suddenly painful they didn't have the money they used to have. Make it less costly for businesses to have mafucatoritng plants in the US and they will be more inclinced to stay.

As I've said, pretty much every one of them is a friking hypocrite if they do not give their money to the government now voluntarily.

QuoteName one brilliant inventor that started with billions.

I cannot, but every one of them has the money they earned. As faras I know, not one is giving away every penny they do not need.

QuoteThe people with money are not this nation's best and brightest. The conservative movement, as a whole, has in fact been about denigrating this nation's best and brightest. Those who sacrifice of themselves to do great things for this nation and this world. Especially in the military. They happily cut armor for troops and veteran's benefits, hamper their ability to vote all the while going on a warpath.

There is nothing honorable about that. It's deplorable, disgusting. I find the fact that people on the right, even on these forums, even tolerate that shit with their silence is disgusting. How much more of this before we get a Pol Pot or Great Leap Forward in America? An actual war on the 'intellectual class'? Do you seriously think that that is a good thing, and if not, why tolerate it

The liberals/Democrates are also very willing to cut military spending by large amounts. They'd likely cut things like armor, medical, weapons and weapon development.  Every time something comes up to be cut, the military is the first thing I ever hear mentioned.  Intellectuals are also some of the stupidist p[eople.  I would rather have someone with rteal world experience in charge, not am ivory tower person who wants to make his theories reality.

Their prefered method  of solving a problem is to also throw even more money at it. A program is failing? Give it several billion more and if that doesn't work, give it even emore money. And they are very unlikely to want to discuss any of their sacred cows like Soc Sec, Medicare or those programs. 

Look at how they fought against changing Welfare.  Even now, they will very likely want unemployment extended when it runs sout and it's been extended how long now? How many months has the government been paying people for not working? 20, 24, 36? How long should unemployment last before it ends? How long can it last before it runs into economic trouble?




Vekseid

Quote from: Zakharra on July 14, 2011, 05:32:48 PM
  Intellectuals are also some of the stupidist p[eople.

I had a much longer post written out, but I feel this needs to be highlighted first. Especially when I referenced Pol Pot and the Great Leap Forward - the two previous attempts at bringing down the intellectual class in their respective nations.

With this, along with your 'hypocrites' comment, you have insulted many members here. Myself included. If all you are going to do is to call the best of this community hypocrites and stupid, there is no rational basis for discussion with you, because you are no longer speaking from a rational platform.

You making light of the deaths of tens of millions is not appreciated. There is not one nation on this planet, in all of history, that has not been grievously wounded by its anti-intellectual movement. And you with this, and putting your ideology before facts, are aligning yourself with that movement.

It isn't healthy. It's deadly dangerous.

And I would ask you, kindly, to stop.


Alsheriam

Hey, look. It's a silly trickle-down person. Let's laugh at her.
A/A

Oniya

Quote from: Alsheriam on July 18, 2011, 03:48:34 AM
Hey, look. It's a silly trickle-down person. Let's laugh at her.

That isn't any more 'right'.  However, I would point out that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and George Lucas - people that are indisputably brilliant and have 'earned everything that they have' - are among the nations top charity donators (i.e., giving away money that they don't need).  So there's three.  And here's more.
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Zakharra

Quote from: Vekseid on July 18, 2011, 03:43:03 AM
I had a much longer post written out, but I feel this needs to be highlighted first. Especially when I referenced Pol Pot and the Great Leap Forward - the two previous attempts at bringing down the intellectual class in their respective nations.

With this, along with your 'hypocrites' comment, you have insulted many members here. Myself included. If all you are going to do is to call the best of this community hypocrites and stupid, there is no rational basis for discussion with you, because you are no longer speaking from a rational platform.

You making light of the deaths of tens of millions is not appreciated. There is not one nation on this planet, in all of history, that has not been grievously wounded by its anti-intellectual movement. And you with this, and putting your ideology before facts, are aligning yourself with that movement.

It isn't healthy. It's deadly dangerous.

And I would ask you, kindly, to stop.

  Wait..  am I wanting the deaths of intellecuals? No. I never said that in any way, Vekseid. You have to stretch what I actually said pretty far to get close to what Pol Pot and those types did.

I mean no insult. I  should have clarified that intellectuals are just as capable of making the same stupid mistakes everyone else does. Just because they are an intellectual does not mean they're good at everything and theories often have a way of running into the real world and crashing.  Intellectuals don't necessarily mean they are the best.  That is what I meant.

As for hypocrisy, I was pointing out in your comment that 2/3 or so of the wealthier households wanting to be taxed more, those ones are hypocrites if they are not voluntarily giving the government more of their own money voluntarily.  If you're doing it already, then more power to you, but I feel that if you are not doing it already voluntarily, then yes, you are a hypocrite. "I want to government to raise my taxes, but until they do, I won't give them anymore of my money."  And I can bet most of them would scream if they were taxed at the levels you want. 70-90%

Synecdoche17

Quote from: Zakharra on July 14, 2011, 05:32:48 PM

The rentier class also includes retired people, the elderly and anyone that has stock.
How does it include retired people and the elderly? That makes no sense, unless you somehow believe social assistance programs are the same as rentier income (which they aren't, especially in the US, because most of them are based on workers' input into the system).


QuoteRaise taxes to the 70-90% you seem to want then at and watch damned near every single one of those people scream at the pain. You'd see a flow of wealth out of the US as many of these people would find it suddenly painful they didn't have the money they used to have. Make it less costly for businesses to have mafucatoritng plants in the US and they will be more inclinced to stay.
Oh God, I actually cringed when I read this. You really don't have any idea how this post makes you look, do you? Just do yourself a favor and google income tax rates in the US before you post. Marginal income tax rates were at 92% in the 1940s and 1950s, the hey-day of Ford, GM, and the other great American manufacturers. Today, the top tax rate in the US is at a pathetic 35%, and we're watching our jobs ebb away. If low taxes are so great, why aren't the Caimans Islands so rich? All low taxes do is turn a country into a haven for tax evaders and family heirs.

Quote

I cannot, but every one of them has the money they earned. As faras I know, not one is giving away every penny they do not need.
Does Paris Hilton deserve the money she has? Do the Kardashians? It's very ironic that most of the people who actually DO earn the money they have are all in favor of giving it away - Oniya pointed out a few of the most prominent examples, but check out anyone who's taken Gates' Giving Pledge.

QuoteThe liberals/Democrates are also very willing to cut military spending by large amounts. They'd likely cut things like armor, medical, weapons and weapon development.
We spend more on military than the next fourteen nations combined. Every year. We repeatedly use billion-dollar destroyers to take out a handful of Somali pirates on a cheap dinghy, or pick off tribal leaders in the boonies of Pakistan with flying robots equipped with heat-seeking missiles. At some point, possibly the point where we acquired the power to eliminate all life on Earth repeatedly, we should probably have started reducing spending on it.

You know the best part about US military spending, right? We are subsidizing all of our allies' LACK of spending. I.e., there are many countries right now who are enjoying low tax rates and gov't spending because they trust in Uncle Sam to save them from the country next door if things go wrong. Everybody who supports current levels of military spending is effectively supporting free welfare for the French. Savor that, please.



QuoteIntellectuals are also some of the stupidist p[eople.  I would rather have someone with rteal world experience in charge, not am ivory tower person who wants to make his theories reality.
Scuse me if I'm being rude, but the next time you call someone stupid on the Internet, I think it would be a good idea if you double-checked to be sure you spelled "stupid" right. It doesn't make you look good.

QuoteTheir prefered method  of solving a problem is to also throw even more money at it. A program is failing? Give it several billion more and if that doesn't work, give it even emore money. And they are very unlikely to want to discuss any of their sacred cows like Soc Sec, Medicare or those programs.
If you are on a sinking ship, and despite furious bailing the ship continues to sink, should you just stop bailing entirely? Or get the rest of the passengers to help bail?

QuoteLook at how they fought against changing Welfare.  Even now, they will very likely want unemployment extended when it runs sout and it's been extended how long now? How many months has the government been paying people for not working? 20, 24, 36? How long should unemployment last before it ends? How long can it last before it runs into economic trouble?
It never runs into economic trouble. In fact, it prevents economic trouble. Look, we're both on this website so we can play pretend, right? So play pretend with me for a moment and imagine we're laid-off factory workers in one of those Michigan towns that got hit hard by outsourcing. There's 5,000 people just like us who got laid off simultaneously and no one in town who's willing to hire. What's the first thing you're going to do, besides look for a job? Me, I'm going to start cutting costs. No more movie tickets. No more ice cream, or magazine subscriptions. When you have no income, you have to save. When we all do that, it kills the movie theater, it shuts down the ice cream parlor, it shutters the magazine. That's what a depression does - it kills healthy businesses because their customers stop buying in order to save money. Welfare doesn't just help unemployed people - it saves businesses and keeps jobs going.
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Alsheriam

Quote from: Synecdoche17 on July 18, 2011, 11:38:18 PM
You know the best part about US military spending, right? We are subsidizing all of our allies' LACK of spending. I.e., there are many countries right now who are enjoying low tax rates and gov't spending because they trust in Uncle Sam to save them from the country next door if things go wrong. Everybody who supports current levels of military spending is effectively supporting free welfare for the French. Savor that, please.

*Puts on his former Army man beret*

While I do know my fair share of economics, the economics part of the argument are pretty much settled and established and I don't particularly feel the need to whip the same ol' horse over and over again, but I reckon I ought to provide a bit more detailed insight into the military side of things.

I think there's nothing particularly wrong with cutting military spending. It's indeed true that US military spending is subsidizing the defense costs of significant swathes of NATO. Particularly, Europe. Whilst Britain has been pulling their own respectable weight in Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently, Libya, the rest of NATO's EU member states have been less than impressive. Case in point: 3 weeks into the bombing campaign of Libya, the EU side ran out of munitions. That's right, folks. They ran out of bombs after just 3 weeks. For one, the US ought to pull their bases out of nations that no longer require the troop presence, such as Germany. There is no existing conventional security threat against Germany nor the rest of the West, what with the Russians having problems with their own military apparatus. The German military, the Bundeswehr all things considered are a well-trained and well-equipped force. Their lackluster performance in Afghanistan and Iraq were not at fault with the troops themselves, but the politicians who imposed Rules of Engagement that bordered upon the silliness of tag played by Kindergartners.

Andrew Exum from CNAS (Center for a New American Security) reported receiving "warnings" from European civilian officials during recent meetings that if the US continued to show weak performance for security in the Middle East, the EU might have to build up their own capabilities. To which, Exum replied was an excellent idea. He, too thinks that the US is overextending itself with its colossal military spending. If the EU would develop their own capabilities to deal with threats in the Middle East, whilst allowing the US to cut back their losses it'd be a double boon for both of them.

That's just one of the ways military spending can be cut. Another way is by forcibly shutting down incredibly expensive pet projects that have no real use. Case in point again, the F-22 and F-35 jet development debacles. Both planes have been bleeding billions and years beyond schedule, and for the past 10 years have showed no real capability advantage over 40 year-old design planes like F-16 or F-14 that have been delivering air strikes effectively over the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan. Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates was wise in putting his foot down on those two stupidly expensive projects, and many more.

QuoteWe repeatedly use billion-dollar destroyers to take out a handful of Somali pirates on a cheap dinghy, or pick off tribal leaders in the boonies of Pakistan with flying robots equipped with heat-seeking missiles.

I think I'll have to take issue with that. Destroyers, missile frigates, submarines and the like were designed and deployed to mainly serve as escorts for carriers, which have been the main avenue of power projection by the US Navy since the post-WWII era. These destroyers were built for conventional conflict and to shoot down and chase after Somali pirates are considered OOTW (Operations Other Than War), and hence a secondary purpose. There's still plenty of use for billion-dollar destroyers: look at China. They have recently launched their first aircraft carrier, and carrier-launched jet. While they are yet to be fully operational and integrated into the PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy), it's only a precursor for what is to come. Those destroyers need to stay.

As for the "flying robots", they too, serve a purpose. UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are proving more and more indispensable to ground troops as they provide treasure troves of information that satellite photos could never hope to reveal, and they serve as a cost-effective method to taking out threats and high-value targets (e.g. Taliban commanders, Osama bin Laden's aides, et al.) without needing to insert and deploy troops on the ground. Trying to send an expeditionary force into Pakistan's tribal regions is suicide not just for the troops who will get dogpiled by the tribal fighters and Taliban combined, but also political and diplomatic suicide.

Hope the insight helps.
A/A

Oniya

Quote from: Synecdoche17 on July 18, 2011, 11:38:18 PM
Oniya pointed out a few of the most prominent examples, but check out anyone who's taken Gates' Giving Pledge.

That's actually the list I linked to.  :-)

Quote from: Synecdoche17 on July 18, 2011, 11:38:18 PM
It never runs into economic trouble. In fact, it prevents economic trouble. Look, we're both on this website so we can play pretend, right? So play pretend with me for a moment and imagine we're laid-off factory workers in one of those Michigan towns that got hit hard by outsourcing. There's 5,000 people just like us who got laid off simultaneously and no one in town who's willing to hire. What's the first thing you're going to do, besides look for a job? Me, I'm going to start cutting costs. No more movie tickets. No more ice cream, or magazine subscriptions. When you have no income, you have to save. When we all do that, it kills the movie theater, it shuts down the ice cream parlor, it shutters the magazine. That's what a depression does - it kills healthy businesses because their customers stop buying in order to save money. Welfare doesn't just help unemployed people - it saves businesses and keeps jobs going.

Exactly.  Right now, my work depends on government contracts, so it's dicey at the moment.  Mr. Oniya is working the Ren Faire, because he actually found a job opening there (unlike the local businesses who are only interested in hiring the people who will work at minimum wage because they still live at home, and don't have to support anyone), and brings in about $100/week.  Our housemate is on Workman's Comp, which is constantly trying to cut her off despite the fact that her doctors say she'll never get better than 50% mobility with ongoing therapy. 

We do not go out for meals.  We don't go to movies.  We buy the cheapest brand of everything.  I even hesitate before buying a skein of embroidery floss for 37c.  Everything we earn goes towards the mortgage (which is in forbearance), food, and utilities (which I still have to juggle - Internet is necessary for work, though).  We don't provide any support for local businesses because we can't.  Therefore, they close.  Therefore, they don't hire.  Therefore, there are more people out of work.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Zakharra

Quote from: Synecdoche17 on July 18, 2011, 11:38:18 PM
How does it include retired people and the elderly? That makes no sense, unless you somehow believe social assistance programs are the same as rentier income (which they aren't, especially in the US, because most of them are based on workers' input into the system).

Pension plans, money placed in the stock market, places like that.  If I remember right, money being earned without actually working for it.

QuoteOh God, I actually cringed when I read this. You really don't have any idea how this post makes you look, do you? Just do yourself a favor and google income tax rates in the US before you post. Marginal income tax rates were at 92% in the 1940s and 1950s, the hey-day of Ford, GM, and the other great American manufacturers. Today, the top tax rate in the US is at a pathetic 35%, and we're watching our jobs ebb away. If low taxes are so great, why aren't the Caimans Islands so rich? All low taxes do is turn a country into a haven for tax evaders and family heirs.

There's also the economy of the area to take into account too. The '40s and 50s were a completely different culture too. Soc Sec and Medicare weren't the massive burdens they are now and there wasn't the world economy that exists now.Things have changed a lot and it's more or less impossible to make them like what they were in the 40-50s. At the technological, economic and communications-wise, the world is connected at a level unprecedented back then. The auto makers also did not face the competition with foreign auto makers they do now. Plus as it came up, how many of the pensiosners were the companies supporting? Over time that built up until they were able to get the government to take on that support (I believe).

QuoteDoes Paris Hilton deserve the money she has? Do the Kardashians? It's very ironic that most of the people who actually DO earn the money they have are all in favor of giving it away - Oniya pointed out a few of the most prominent examples, but check out anyone who's taken Gates' Giving Pledge.

She inherited it. Unfortunately for some, you cannot take away money like that. Those who earn it seem more willng to give it to charities where they know it will do good.


QuoteWe spend more on military than the next fourteen nations combined. Every year. We repeatedly use billion-dollar destroyers to take out a handful of Somali pirates on a cheap dinghy, or pick off tribal leaders in the boonies of Pakistan with flying robots equipped with heat-seeking missiles. At some point, possibly the point where we acquired the power to eliminate all life on Earth repeatedly, we should probably have started reducing spending on it.

You know the best part about US military spending, right? We are subsidizing all of our allies' LACK of spending. I.e., there are many countries right now who are enjoying low tax rates and gov't spending because they trust in Uncle Sam to save them from the country next door if things go wrong. Everybody who supports current levels of military spending is effectively supporting free welfare for the French. Savor that, please.

Uumm..  yes. We're the world's police and Search and Rescue. We built up that power competing against the USSR.  It would have been folly to not keep a strong military at that time.  That's allowed the European nations to spend more money on other things than the military. I do agree we should reduce some military spending, close some bases and such. How much though is more difficult to say.

Alsheriam says it better than I do.


QuoteIf you are on a sinking ship, and despite furious bailing the ship continues to sink, should you just stop bailing entirely? Or get the rest of the passengers to help bail?

I'd ask them to bail.

QuoteIt never runs into economic trouble. In fact, it prevents economic trouble. Look, we're both on this website so we can play pretend, right? So play pretend with me for a moment and imagine we're laid-off factory workers in one of those Michigan towns that got hit hard by outsourcing. There's 5,000 people just like us who got laid off simultaneously and no one in town who's willing to hire. What's the first thing you're going to do, besides look for a job? Me, I'm going to start cutting costs. No more movie tickets. No more ice cream, or magazine subscriptions. When you have no income, you have to save. When we all do that, it kills the movie theater, it shuts down the ice cream parlor, it shutters the magazine. That's what a depression does - it kills healthy businesses because their customers stop buying in order to save money. Welfare doesn't just help unemployed people - it saves businesses and keeps jobs going.

That money has to come from somewhere, and added on top of the additional spending it adds up. Unemployment was never intended to be used for years. How long should it last then? At what point should it end? If the situation doesn't improve, where will they get the money from to continue to pay unemployment?

A side question, is unemployment taxable income?






Alsheriam

I will still have to point out that conservatives and Republicans who demand that the military deserves a blank check is utter folly, and crying about liberals and Democrats wanting to slash military spending is even greater stupidity. One of the fundamentally basic economic questions always lies in butter vs guns, and you cannot simply want both and get your cake and eat it. The US is no longer a tremendously prosperous nation with lots of additional economic capacity to spare.

In other news, yes, unemployment income is passively taxable income. It pays sales tax whenever something is bought, and the revenue received by retailers taking in unemployment income pays for property tax which the landlord/landlady has to pay.
A/A

Oniya

Quote from: Zakharra on July 19, 2011, 10:11:05 AM
Pension plans, money placed in the stock market, places like that.  If I remember right, money being earned without actually working for it.

Pension plans are worked for. 

From Investopedia
QuoteWhat Does Pension Plan Mean?
A type of retirement plan, usually tax exempt, wherein an employer makes contributions toward a pool of funds set aside for an employee's future benefit. The pool of funds is then invested on the employee's behalf, allowing the employee to receive benefits upon retirement.

In many ways, a pension plan is a method in which an employee transfers part of his or her current income stream toward retirement income. There are two main types of pension plans: defined-benefit plans and defined-contribution plans.

In a defined-benefit plan, the employer guarantees that the employee will receive a definite amount of benefit upon retirement, regardless of the performance of the underlying investment pool.

In a defined-contribution plan the employer makes predefined contributions for the employee, but the final amount of benefit received by the employee depends on the investment's performance.

If you don't work for an employer that offers a pension plan, you don't get one.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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RubySlippers

Okay lets get real here our nation has hungry people, homeless people, poor working people and many critical obligations how are we supposed to pay for these AND cut taxes. Its the stupidest thing I ever could consider it not like we have a happy citizenship all bloated on the fat of the land and housed here with the poor all provided for.

How does tax cuts and program cuts affect this, usually a jackboot on the heads of the poor and needy.

AndyZ

I'm not very good at this (which has already been proven) but I wanted to try to weigh in for a bit if nobody minds.  If I goof up somewhere, please point it out.

People who inherit insane amounts of money like Paris Hilton aren't affected by the current tax system.  Progressive Income Tax.  You can raise that amount all the way to 99% and it's not going to affect them whatsoever if they don't even make any income.  However, you will affect small businesses which only make around $250,000 which is the highest tax bracket, which will kill more jobs when people can't make ends meet.

In order to tax people who sit on all their cash and don't actually work, you'd need to completely get rid of the progressive income tax and replace it with something else.  Some have suggested the national sales tax instead of the progressive income tax, which would hit heirs and heiresses if they buy anything in America.

The usual argument for this is that it would strike the poor as well, but if we already don't pay taxes on food, I would imagine that we can figure out various necessities which would not be taxed.  Maybe other people would have ideas for this as well.

Maybe there's something that would work better than a national sales tax, but I have no idea what it is.  Attempting to tax someone just on how much money they currently have would either force everyone to constantly spend their money or else hide it in precious metals, stocks and the like.  However, if you bring up people like Paris Hilton, don't use her as justification for increasing the progressive income tax.  That only hurts the people who actually earn an income.

---

Alsheriam, no argument from me that we need to cut military spending, but that doesn't mean that we don't have to cut other things.  The entire department of defense is only 20% of the budget.  So let's agree that many things need to be cut, including defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

Link provided in case the picture is too tiny.  I pulled it from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

---

Maybe I have some mistakes on all of this, but people can let me know where.
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Oniya

Quote from: AndyZ on July 20, 2011, 02:09:57 PM
The usual argument for this is that it would strike the poor as well, but if we already don't pay taxes on food, I would imagine that we can figure out various necessities which would not be taxed.  Maybe other people would have ideas for this as well.

One thing that hit me as 'new' when I moved to Ohio is that certain food items are not taxed.  Virginia taxed everything at 4.25% when I lived there.  After analyzing my grocery receipts for a couple months, I determined that something that is an 'ingredient' (meat, dairy, produce, flour, sugar, etc.) falls into the 'tax-free' zone, and prepared foods (frozen meals or 'meal mixes') got taxed.  Something like this setup would ensure that the necessities would be available at a minimal tax, as well as encouraging healthier eating (have you looked at the labels on some of those prepared meals?)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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elone

http://www.ssa.gov/history/tftable.html

For those who think Social Security is a budget problem, look at the numbers. Social Security is still taking in more money than it pays out. As baby boomers age, this may be a problem but for now that should not a problem. The problem is that the government takes your social security payments and uses that money to buy government bonds. When SS needs money they sell the bonds, therefore the government owes that money and it has become a big part of the debt. SS is actually a money maker. (so far)

By the way, the rich don't pay social security taxes on all of their income, there is a limit on that. Just another perk for the wealthy.
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