| Author | Message | ||
     Mark Fuhrman Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 1240 Registered: 9-2001  |
Proposes cutting funds that benefit the poor while continuing to reduce tax burdens for the rich. If the deficit is as dire as he says, shouldn't the burden of reducing it be at least spread evenly across society? Even Reagan saw the benefit of this. Sure, consolidation can be beneficial, but even if it results in savings without harming program delivery (which I doubt in this case, having worked in low income housing development), shouldn't the extra savings be used for more investment in our society? WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 - Facing the prospect of record deficits, Bush administration officials laid out proposals on Thursday for deep cuts in spending on housing and community development. The government is now spending more than $5.6 billion a year on the 18 programs, which include the Community Development Block Grant, a lifeline for many impoverished urban neighborhoods. For the new program, Mr. Bush will request $3.7 billion, a cut of about 33 percent. "The current system forces communities to navigate a maze of federal departments, agencies and programs, each imposing a separate set of standards and reporting requirements," Mr. Jackson said. The programs, he said, "duplicate and overlap one another and have different eligibility criteria," with little accountability for the way money is used. But Jim Hunt, a city councilman in Clarksburg, W.Va., who is first vice president of the National League of Cities, said the president's proposal would have "a dire negative impact on cities of all sizes." For three decades, Mr. Hunt said, cities have used the federal money to create jobs, stimulate private investment and revitalize distressed communities. | ||
| Robert Livingston Citizen Username: Rob_livingston Post Number: 820 Registered: 7-2004 |
God, in the form of "faith-based initiatives," will help the poor people. | ||
| notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 2005 Registered: 5-2001  |
I wonder if Bush & Co. are deliberately trying to kill off all the "bad people" in America via neglect and deprivation while they spend the money that could help them on killing all the "bad people" everywhere else. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3081 Registered: 8-2003 |
 You guys kept harping about the country needing to sacrifice in times of war, that no one was being asked to sacrifice. Liberals can now be asked to sacrifice ineffective, duplicating and wasteful programs, and you just want to spend that money again. Have you no shame? | ||
| Bobkat Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 7489 Registered: 5-2001 |
Hey, the worse off the underclass is the more of them will have to join the army and fight for the fat cats such as CJC. Makes perfect sense to me. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3083 Registered: 8-2003 |
Don't worry, Bobkat. I'll have enough money to continue to pay for you so you don't have to defend your country. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 5348 Registered: 1-2003  |
What effective programs would replace the programs you call ineffective? Or if you think investing in the lower ranks of the economy is not worth anything, please say so. I think notehead is onto something. Starve the beast. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3084 Registered: 8-2003 |
First off -- despite the howling about deficits, Congress will not cut government spending overall. Just won't happen. Too much political capital to be lost in bringing federal money back home. When was the beast ever starved? Second -- I wouldn't be surprised if some programs double up on others. I venture to say the WH is seeking to scale back or eliminate programs you've never heard of. | ||
| Bobkat Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 7492 Registered: 5-2001 |
Cjc, I did my twenty active duty and reserve so don't worry about me. The Community Block grant program makes its prescence known in Maplewood. I think that we receive over $100,000 a year from that little boondoggle. Without it I suspect it would mean another rise in taxes. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3086 Registered: 8-2003 |
I suspect another rise in taxes WITH it! | ||
| Mark Fuhrman Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 1277 Registered: 9-2001 |
I said it first! You may not like Krugman's politics, but I want to hear Cons refute this line of reasoning. Cons claim Libs fight class warfare rather than care about the country--well, the Radical Right does it even worse. Even Reagan rolled back tax cuts when he saw the overall budget failing and the cuts to domestic programs were too much. Why shouldn't the wealthy who benefitted from the tax cuts now pay some back? February 11, 2005 OP-ED COLUMNIST Bush's Class-War Budget By PAUL KRUGMAN It may sound shrill to describe President Bush as someone who takes food from the mouths of babes and gives the proceeds to his millionaire friends. Yet his latest budget proposal is top-down class warfare in action. And it offers the Democrats an opportunity, if they're willing to take it. First, the facts: the budget proposal really does take food from the mouths of babes. One of the proposed spending cuts would make it harder for working families with children to receive food stamps, terminating aid for about 300,000 people. Another would deny child care assistance to about 300,000 children, again in low-income working families. And the budget really does shower largesse on millionaires even as it punishes the needy. For example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities informs us that even as the administration demands spending cuts, it will proceed with the phaseout of two little-known tax provisions - originally put in place under the first President George Bush - that limit deductions and exemptions for high-income households. More than half of the benefits from this backdoor tax cut would go to people with incomes of more than a million dollars; 97 percent would go to people with incomes exceeding $200,000. It so happens that the number of taxpayers with more than $1 million in annual income is about the same as the number of people who would have their food stamps cut off under the Bush proposal. But it costs a lot more to give a millionaire a break than to put food on a low-income family's table: eliminating limits on deductions and exemptions would give taxpayers with incomes over $1 million an average tax cut of more than $19,000. It's like that all the way through. On one side, the budget calls for program cuts that are small change compared with the budget deficit, yet will harm hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Americans. On the other side, it calls for making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, and for new tax breaks for the affluent in the form of tax-sheltered accounts and more liberal rules for deductions. The question is whether the relentless mean-spiritedness of this budget finally awakens the public to the true cost of Mr. Bush's tax policy. Until now, the administration has been able to get away with the pretense that it can offset the revenue loss from tax cuts with benign spending restraint. That's because until now, "restraint" was an abstract concept, not tied to specific actions, making it seem as if spending cuts would hurt only a few special interest groups. But here we are with the first demonstration of restraint in action, and look what's on the chopping block, selected for big cuts: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health insurance for children and aid to law enforcement. (Yes, Mr. Bush proposes to cut farm subsidies, which are truly wasteful. Let's see how much political capital he spends on that proposal.) Until now, the administration has also been able to pretend that the budget deficit isn't an important issue so the role of tax cuts in causing that deficit can be ignored. But Mr. Bush has at last conceded that the deficit is indeed a major problem. Why shouldn't the affluent, who have done so well from Mr. Bush's policies, pay part of the price of dealing with that problem? Here's a comparison: the Bush budget proposal would cut domestic discretionary spending, adjusted for inflation, by 16 percent over the next five years. That would mean savage cuts in education, health care, veterans' benefits and environmental protection. Yet these cuts would save only about $66 billion per year, about one-sixth of the budget deficit. On the other side, a rollback of Mr. Bush's cuts in tax rates for high-income brackets, on capital gains and on dividend income would yield more than $120 billion per year in extra revenue - eliminating almost a third of the budget deficit - yet have hardly any effect on middle-income families. (Estimates from the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution show that such a rollback would cost families with incomes between $25,000 and $80,000 an average of $156.) Why, then, shouldn't a rollback of high-end tax cuts be on the table? Democrats have surprised the Bush administration, and themselves, by effectively pushing back against Mr. Bush's attempt to dismantle Social Security. It's time for them to broaden their opposition, and push back against Mr. Bush's tax policy. E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3110 Registered: 8-2003 |
Roll back the tax cuts for: The Deficit Universal Healthcare Bailing out Social Security Even More Education Spending Krugman has spent that rhetoric 20 times already. Kerry only spent it 10 times. Makes no sense. | ||
| Mark Fuhrman Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 1282 Registered: 9-2001 |
What does not make sense is to cut poverty programs while also cutting taxes to the wealthiest while facing a record deficit. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3111 Registered: 8-2003 |
So raise taxes. That'll do it. Raise taxes to save Social Security since you don't have 40 workers supporting a retiree, you have 2. Raise taxes for Medicare, where you have a system where the cost of the service bears no resemblance to the consumers ability to pay. By no means change those vaunted systems despite their impending and/or current failure. Raise taxes to expand poverty programs as unemployment goes down thanks to the tax cuts. Raise taxes to spend even more on education, where 15K a kid or more can't turn out an educated student in Newark. Raise taxes to keep programs you've never even heard of from going away. Raise taxes so you can re-elect that Schmo in DC who brings back pork to your state. Nice museum. Starve the beast. Starving means you spend more and more at the federal level, above the rate of inflation. | ||
| Mark Fuhrman Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 1284 Registered: 9-2001 |
Cut tax loopholes that allow the rich to avoid paying their fair share, and allow corporations dodge their contribution to society. Index benefits to incomes so wealthy retirees don't get the same benefit as the elderly poor. Cut corporate handouts like farm subsidies to corporate farmers (keep for family farms). Cut pork spending on useless local projects (we agree on this one)--and, while we are at it, make sure Ted "Pork" Stevens (R-Alaska)is retired for good, along with "Highway Robber" Byrd. There are tons of common sense ways to save money or raise money without screwing the poor or benefitting only the rich. Oh, how I pine for the Republicans of my father's day--never thought I would say that, but the extremists who parade as Republicans these days have gutted the moral and rational heart out of the party. And Bush, who claims the mantle of a mandate in a lame duck term, could take the lead in making rational reforms, but instead he dithers it away. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3112 Registered: 8-2003 |
Fair share??? The 'rich' already pay a disproportionate share of income taxes as it stands. Then come out and tell those getting Medicare and Social Security that they're on welfare. They are living on someone else's dime for their measly Social Security benefits and state of the art medical care. Just tell them up front that's what it is, and don't give them the means to acquire enough throughout their lives to take care of themselves. We're going way beyond the poor here. We're extending welfare into the middle class. You're asking for wealth redistribution in essence. If there's a problem, equalize it by penalizing someone else. If it works out perfectly, we'll all be equally miserable in the end. The republicans of your father's day -- are they the ones that lost elections, where Democrats controlled Congress for 40 years and we started the welfare state? Just asking. | ||
| Mark Fuhrman Citizen Username: Mfpark Post Number: 1286 Registered: 9-2001 |
Right, cjc, so the only thing that matters to you is winning. What ever happened to principles? | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 3113 Registered: 8-2003 |
We are talking about principles here, Mark. | ||
| sportsnut Citizen Username: Sportsnut Post Number: 1740 Registered: 10-2001 |
"...allow corporations dodge their contribution to society.." That's not a fair statement. First of all Corporations are not living things, they cannot dodge anything, the people who run them can. Second they employ millions of people and without them we wouldn't enjoy the standard of living we have. They provide healthcare, insurance and other benefits that we enjoy. They make products affordable for all of society. But you never focus on that. What you hear about in the paper, the Enrons, the Tycos, the MCIs et al. are but a handful in comparison. The people who perpetrated those frauds should be punished. Taxes that weren't paid as a result of the frauds comitted should be collected. One of the items causing VZ to think hard about the MCI acquisition is the claims filed by states seeking avoided state income taxes (I think the total the states are seeking is on the order of 1.5B). Many corporations use the existing laws to their advantage to be more tax efficient - there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Those corporations have teams of lawyers and accountants just like me who's job it is to plan around existing laws. If you don't like it have the legislature change the laws, don't blame the corporations or their CFOs. | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 700 Registered: 5-2004  |
Sportnut, I believe that's what Mark was saying. I don't think he was saying that they break the law (though some do, just like citizens do). I think he was saying that the LAW allows them to dodge what should be their responsibility to the country. he said "Cut tax loopholes that allow the rich to avoid paying their fair share, and allow corporations dodge their contribution to society" [emphasis mine]. By the way, as I'm sure you know, while people do the actual cheating, usually it is the corporation that is fined. In most cases, the executives do the cheating and the shareholders pay the fines. Frequently, the executives get golden parachutes, or at least get to resign rather than fired. And though Corporations aren't living things, they do get the rights that individuals get uin many circumstances. I still don't quite get why a corporation acn make political contributions. they don't get to vote, so as an entity, they are no one's constituent. but now we're getting WAY off topic. Bush sucks. There we go. right back on topic.  |
