I just can't take it. I have to say it. Troll me if you must but all of you "typical Republican" or "Leave it to the Democrats" people are just that. Idiots. You look at the opposing party and shake your head and condemn them for mindless, greedy, morally bankrupt actions as if your party would do any better. They won't. I've sat in Senate Arms committee meetings and heard both parties pander to their own constituencies. They will spend every dime we have buying votes from their own state. There is no long term vision among them.
You blame the republicans because they won't cut defense spending. Well, at least providing for the common defense is a part of the governments clear responsibility. It's only
25% of the budget . Healthcare and pensions make up a whopping 46% of the budget. I'm not sure the Constitution supports that. In fact, the 10th amendment would seem to support the contrary. In fact, for every $1 we spend on the military we spend 50 on welfare (another 12% on top of the aforementioned 46%). Why is the federal government spending money on welfare (see 10th amendment)? So screw you Democrats.
But wait, G.W. Bush and the Republicans had 6 years controlling every aspect of government, didn't they? How much streamlining did they do? Did they cut the budget? No. Screw you Republicans.
In fact, did Reagan get rid of the then recently formed Department of Education? My best friend works for the Dept. of Ed. I can't believe the horrible waste going on there. And what the hell is the federal government doing getting involved in education? That's a state matter if not a county matter. Refrain (screw you republicans and democrats)
But wait, the Democrats (and some of you sub-geniuses on slashdot) want to fix the deficit by increasing taxes. In fact, some have criticized republicans for funding wars without tax increases. But, in 2011 the federal budget was ~3.8 trillion dollars while the income was less than 2.2 trillion dollars. That means we would need to increase our income (READ TAXES) by ~73% in order to balance the budget. THAT's a 73% tax increase children!!! If the average American is taxed ~18%, their new tax rate would become ~31%. Do you have any idea what would happen to the American economy? Worse, we don't get any new benefits from this tax increase and we don't even pay off the debt, we just keep it from getting worse. Oh and those of you who want to tax the wealthy consider that their tax rate would be over 60%. How many wealthy people would simply take their money and go elsewhere at that rate? Remember, that's just federal income tax. Add state income tax, sales tax, property tax. How close to 100% can you get before even the wealthy become poor?
Now some brilliant people like to say "tax the corporations." Well guess what. Corporations aren't people. They are entities. If Exxon makes 100B profit and you tax 50% of it, that's a free 50B in taxes, right? Wrong! Where do you think that money was going to go? Some was going to R&D. You know research and technology advancements. Something slashdotters seem to love and something that benefits pretty much everyone as advancing technology eventually tends to do. Well the rest goes into the pockets of the employees in the form of bonuses and is paid out to shareholders in the form of dividends or price increases. No fair, the government doesn't get that oh wait they all get taxed and what is left tends to stimulate the economy. If you don't believe that last part then you MUST be dead set against any form of government stimulus so you are already saying screw you democrats. In other words, taxing corporations takes the money out of the hands of people who would have paid taxes on the additional income so there is little or nothing or less than nothing to be gained there.
I'm sorry to be such a jerk about this but you slashdotters forgot a very simple saying: "The more you learn, the less you know." Hopefully a few facts, a few calculations (mine), and a slightly broader perspective will help you to understand that you don't know anything.
Even if the information I posted above is not exactly correct, it's pretty close. You should get the idea.
I don't have the answer. I don't know who does. I know the American system of government is designed to be inefficient and our government was never designed to fix our problems. Only we can do that. Regardless of the party, they are just writing more and more laws (that's what lawyers do) at a time when most of the important stuff was already a law ~200 years ago. I'm pretty sure blaming the "other" party, whoever they are, only elevates the opposite party to an undeserved height.
So, consider this the next time you say those &^*@@# republicans or those ^@$*& democrats. What are you accomplishing? They all suck.
End of rant.
I wonder if anyone actually read this tirade all the way through.
