Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Do you ever say anything of value?

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

I agree completely.

FRENCHY Loc: Stone Mountain , Ga

Democrats seem to ignore this or some reasons right? so what we can do?

Bazbo Loc: Lisboa, Portugal

But the logrolling v**es would be easy to track would they not? This would be pretty easy to f**g patterns...high school stuff, really. Much easier than tracking insider trading which we seem to be able to do. Sunshine may well be the best disinfectant.

What about number 2? Ready for your tax increase to keep us in Afghanistan? Don't get me wrong--I am OK with Afghanistan as long as the American people put in on a pay as you go basis. How much would that, alone, cut into the deficit?

btbg

Well, regarding raising taxes the interesting thing is that statistically every time taxes are cut a couple of years later federal revenue is up. Raising taxes on the other hand has an initial surge in revenue and then revenue decreases or remains flat.

So given that is what has historically happened how does raising taxes bring in the revenue to pay for a military action?

Right now, the feds have record revenue and it appears to be coming directly from the Trump tax cuts.

btbg

As far as tracking v**es, of course it would be easy to track. It's easy to track now. The thing is it won't make any difference because nobody likes pork, but everybody likes pork in their own congressional district. People get reelected by bringing government waste into their district. They would proudly announce that they had v**ed to bring government programs to other districts in exchange for getting people to v**e for the pork in their district and nothing would really change.

Bazbo Loc: Lisboa, Portugal

Yes, which exactly what I said in my prior post. The root problem is us.

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Budgets have one built in error that can cause over spending, simply put it is the desire of the budgeted person or department to spend every dollar allowed. When GE owned our Studio they insisted that all departments strive to cut costs 10% yearly, prior to that we spent the unused dollars to insure that next year's budget would not be reduced. I am sure that many do the same with their home budgets, in stead of investing the unspent they buy the latest IPhone or maybe a BMW.

Bazbo Loc: Lisboa, Portugal

Got data about what happens every time taxes are cut? Do you think that is true on all points of the revenue and taxes curve? Even if your theory is correct (I am skeptical--especially how the Trump tax cuts are bringing in increased revenue) how would that justify endless war on the credit card (which is what I was speaking about specifically)?

Note: the tax cut being responsible increased revenue is a dubious claim and seems to be a talking point only among right wing outlets. It certainly is a more complicated story than simply stating "Hooray for Trump!":
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/aug/17/patriot-news-alerts/did-us-have-record-tax-haul-after-trump-tax-cuts-s/

Also, you might find this interesting. Scroll all the way down to FY 2017 and 2018. this data does not suggest that trump's tax cut had the effect you claim. Especially disturbing are the projections through 2024.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/federal-receipt-and-outlay-summary

And deficits are up, are they not? And remember, my argument is about deficits, not revenue.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

I used to subscribe to the same philosophy as you, that we should have to pay for our wars and even pass a balanced budget amendment, I knew that most republicans who lobbied for the same had little understanding that it would necessitate an immediate increase in taxes, somehow my side only thinks in terms of cutting wasteful spending and does not realize that the federal budgets are much more complicated than that.

Anyway when the debt skyrocketed right past $15 Trillion, I gave up and decided that the government would bankrupt itself long before the politicians would ever deal responsibly with the budgets and the unfair burdens that they were strapping our children and grandchildren with.

As far as an increase in revenue? There was no contraction in federal revenues, in fact there was an extremely modest gain, what remains to be seen is if future economic growth can actually increase the revenues beyond what they would have been had the tax cuts not taken place, unfortunately any study of that question will have to be done in abstract and will be open to political bias as we can not analyze an alternative policy that never actually occurred, we can only guess what the impact or lack of impact would have been on revenues by not changing the tax policies.

yhtomit Loc: Port Land. Oregon

...that and opening up federal land to mining and logging in too big a way. Other than that he our guy!

Vladimir200 Loc: Beaumont, Ca.

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

Nobody was more financially irresponsible than obummer.

btbg

Your graphs show exactly what I was saying. The first year of the tax effect there was a 1 percent increase in revenue. In 2009 dollars there was also an increase. The third column of the graph that shows a decrease on revenue as a percentage of GDP is expected with tax increases. The whole basis of giving corporate tax breaks is that it causes GDP to raise faster than otherwise.

Remember according to the politifact article tax revenues from individuals went up by 7.8 percent in 2019, while corporate revenue went down. More people are now working than ever in our nations history, so with most of those people paying taxes individual revenue should be up even more next year. Since corporations have added people to payroll and are increasing their profits the revenue for 2019 should once again show an increase in corporate taxes as well.

Assuming there isn't a recession during the next 12 months what should be expected is a larger rise in income since the GDP has risen significantly.

Yes, deficits are up. That is a spending problem, not a revenue problem. That is the whole point. Raising taxes to pay for war will not raise revenue, it will merely stifle the economy and will not lead to significant revenue increase.

If you look at your graph you will see that there is a corresponding increase in revenue following Reagan's tax cuts, that is realized well into the Clinton administration.

As far as the deficit rising, you are absolutely correct. It is a very serious problem, and it needs to be addressed. Unfortunately Dems want to address it by raising taxes, which will not fix the problem and Reps currently do not seem to be willing to try to cut spending.

The only way I know to fix the problem is to require balanced budgets with a constitutional amendment. Something that the Republicans in the house have attempted to start more than once without success.

Both sides spend to excess. The Dems just spend more wildly than the Reps. We must control spending if we do not want to go bankrupt. Already payment on interest debt is becoming a serious problem that takes an increasingly larger portion of our revenue.

As far as the war stuff, i am not pro war. My son in law has spent two tours of duty in Iraq, one in Kuwait, and four years in South Korea. He will probably have at least one more tour of duty overseas in either an area of conflict, or if tension like South Korea. Most of those tours of duty should never have happened since we as a nation do not have the stomach for doing what is necessary to actually win a war instead of spending millions of dollars and then stopping short of winning. We should either go into war ready to do wh**ever it takes to win, no matter what the human cost of the enemy, or we should never enter the conflict to begin with. Since WWII we have repeatedly quit when we had victory in our grasp.

LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America

Grow up.