"The Real Spending Problem" by THE EDITORIAL BOARD at the NY Times

[applegrove]

The Real Spending Problem

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinion/sunday/the-real-spending-problem.html?hp&buffer_share=82e17&utm_source=buffer&_r=0

"SNIP.................................................

Each year, the government doles out tax breaks worth $1.1 trillion. That is more than the cost of Medicare and Medicaid combined. It is more than Social Security. It tops the defense budget, and it tops the budget for nondefense discretionary programs, which include most everything else.

Tax breaks work like spending. Giving a deduction for certain activities, like homeownership or retirement savings, is the same as writing a government check to subsidize those activities. Functionally, they mimic entitlements. Like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, they are available, year in and year out, in full, to all who qualify. Yet in budget talks, Republicans ignore tax entitlements, which flow mostly to high-income taxpayers, while pushing to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

President Obama and Congressional Democrats have rightly asserted that tax breaks are ripe for cuts that could raise revenue without hurting most taxpayers. One method, as presented in the Senate Democratic plan, is to convert tax deductions, which increase in value as income rises, to tax credits, which would provide benefits more broadly and evenly among low-, middle- and high-income households.

Tax deductions, however, are only one kind of tax break. Many others take the form of arrangements that allow wealthy taxpayers to either escape tax entirely on specific transactions or to defer it indefinitely.

..............................................SNIP"

[Nancy Waterman]

1. Good article

It presents facts that are hardly known when people talk about taxes
and what can be done to fix them. Kick!!

[Thinkingabout]

2. It bothers me there is a tax collected for social security and Medicare and should stand on its own.

I know we could get Medicare cost down by fraud and having a more efficient payout but here is Paul Ryan wanting to blame spending on these two items. Where in the hell is his war tax, never been created and Bush did not include the wars in his budget.

[magellan]

5. I'm tired too of seeing SocSec and Medicare included in these discussions

...as if they're part of government spending. It's to the point that I'll faint if a fancy analyst/opiner properly identifies these programs as separate from the deficit.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. War tax?

Here's the way the Republican "brain" works.

Wars aren't fought by the government. Wars are fought by the Pentagon.

What the hell does the Pentagon have to do with the government?

That's just Washington making excuses to steal more of our money at gunpoint.

[Moostache]

12. How many wars do you think would be fought under these rules?

1) IF the USA is to enter into armed conflict, a MANDATORY draft of ALL citizens age 17-45 would be conducted and if chosen the draftee would either serve in the military or in prison until such time as their tour of duty or the war was over. NO deferrals. NO qualifiers. If you are BREATHING, you are FIGHTING in one way or another....active combat requires a ton of logistics, so the disabled and infirm could just as easily serve as the able-bodied and hale.

2) IF the USA enters into a foreign conflict or long term base of operation, the ENTIRE amount of annual expenditures must be paid for in taxation of financial transactions. Start at $0.005 per traded share and if the revenue is short, increase the tax until the balance is achieved or the war is averted....you want to see America develop a REALLY THICK SKIN about what is and is not an action that demands a military response, just tax the bankers for wars and we will have world peace (and balanced budgets) TOMORROW!

Make war as painful to those who currently profit from it as it is to those who are forced to fight in it and we will have a new world order alright, but not one to fear or make into the boogeyman, rather a world that seeks resolution and compromise instead of conquest and subjugation.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. FDR did this....

[colsohlibgal]

3. Boehner And The Right Have A Lot Of Nerve

All I here is we have a spending problem. Well they should know, they were all for the unneeded Iraq war and big tax breaks for people who don't at all need it.

That these types of things are rarely if ever broached in MSM explains why they can get away with this nonsense.

The Republicans should be re-branded as "Hypocrites Are Us".

[RainDog]

4. k&r n/t

[love_katz]

7. Kicking.

[brer cat]

8. k&r

[SunSeeker]

9. K&R

[freshwest]

10. Not one word of this on the American television 'news' which is all RW propaganda.

[Duval]

11. K&R n/t

[loudsue]

14. Rupert Murdock's rag, NYTimes, can kiss my liberal ass.

Deductions for interest on homes is one of the ONLY breaks the middle class gets anymore. The repukes have been trying to take it away since before the bush years.

Screw em.