Good Plan!

[04SCTLS]

The problem is, one side of the political aisle is working desperately to avoid that conversation and undercut it before it starts. As they always do.




Well, we do have "The Peoples Budget" from the progressive caucus which will...

• Increase payroll taxes.
• Reintroduce the tax hikes on small businesses that were threatened last year.
• Impose new tax hikes on highest bracket, reaching 47%.
• New taxes on foreign earnings.
• “Crisis responsibility fee.” Which sounds better than “Soak stockholders of banks for accepting TARP money tax.”
• “Financial speculation tax.” Which sounds better than “the twenty-first century equivalent of the Stamp Act:” it’s a tax on electronic stock transactions.
• $1,450,000,000,000 in new spending.
• Public option.
• Cuts to military.

Which side of the aisle is living in the real world and which side of the aisle is living in economic fantasy land?

If liberal activists and Democratic lawmakers rallied around this plan, or something similar, then there could be an honest debate contrasting Ryan's vision of lower taxes and entitlement reform with liberal plans to raise taxes, slash the military and further expand the role of government.


​

It looks like we may have a real debate.
I think the biggest piece of pork in the budget is the military so there's a start there.
​

 

[shagdrum]

It looks like we may have a real debate.
I think the biggest piece of pork in the budget is the military so there's a start there.

Will the Dems have the principled conviction to rally around this plan? My guess is "no".

 

[04SCTLS]

Their plan is like

Monsters From the Id
(Forbidden Planet)

Here in a nutshell is contradiction of the current Medicare.
People need to pay their own way and not expect others to subsidize them.
It's bad enough what the current bunch of retirees are costing us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Second, we can’t let the oldsters get off scot-free. As my colleague David Leonhardt reported in The Times, two 56-years-olds with average earnings will pay about $140,000 in dedicated Medicare taxes over their lifetimes. They will receive about $430,000 in benefits. This is an immoral imposition on future generations. The Ryan budget wouldn’t touch this generation, but a bipartisan budget deal should ask middle-class and affluent boomers to make a sacrifice for their country. Slow the growth in health care benefits now and dedicate that money to paying down the debt and investing in the young.