FRENCHY Loc: Stone Mountain , Ga

Absolutely thru .

:thumbup: :thumbup:

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

That is what taxation is all about. How do we pay for a military if not with taxes? And making sure women are paid equal to men requires very little money. Even if you think the federal government has no place building an interstate highway system, if the states build it they still have to pay for it, hence taxes. And if you think roads shouldn't be a state concern, but a local one, they too have to tax to pay for it. Taxes are an unavoidable part of life in any society. They have been around since the Romans. Deal with it.

DEBJENROB Loc: DELRAY BEACH FL

Actually the answer is simple ..... increase taxes or those who could be afford .... why go back to the rates under Bill Clinton ..... lets go back to the rates under Ronald Reagan .... yes ... we have to reduce spending .... how about national health care .... put medical personal on salary with incentives for keeping their patients healthy .... how about investing in education so that we can grow the economy and increase GDP .... remember it is not how much we owe but what the ratio of debt to GDP is ... I could go on and on .... but it will not make a difference .....

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

The most basic functions of government are to provide for:

1. its own survival.

2. security from domestic and foreign threats.

3. economic supremacy of those with political power.

4. enough force and/or economic placation of people with little or no political power to keep them from revolting.

5. whatever else the political elite deem important.

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

Now there is a novel idea, investing in education. I though that was already being done, my school taxes would make your toes curl. What is needed in education is for kids to go to school and for them to have a family unit to support them. Raising the salaries of teachers and administrators has not improved test scores nor education. 8-)

Ront53 Loc: Maryland

Again, it is to protect the citizens. The interstate highway system was started by Eisenhower modeled from the German Autobahn in order to move the military from one point to another rapidly. It just so happens that now it moves civilians from one point to another quicker than using back roads. If we ever have a conflict in this country, that the military has to move, watch how quickly it will be shut down to private vehicles. In Maryland and Delaware, I-95 is a toll road run by the states. Everyone know that taxes are necessary, but having that money pissed away is not suppose to happen.

Remoman Loc: Someplace Remote Near LA

Sounds a whole lot like China to me.

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

Great sentimental response. Unfortunately the math doesn't work.

The national government is borrowing 35% of what it spends. A trillion dollars per year. It will not be possible to raise a trillion dollars per year in taxes. In fact, the president's proposals will raise $1.6 trillion over TEN YEARS. That's $160 billion per year along with a lot of assumptions that that rate of taxation won't crater the economy.

We still need hundreds of billions per year in cost reductions in order to avoid the true financial armageddon in front of us. (And I'm not talking about the fiscal cliff on Jan 1 - that is relatively minor in comparison to what will happen if we don't manage better).

The longer we wait to balance the budget the more difficult and painful it will be. If we wait long enough, we won't have to worry about how to do it, that will be decided by others.

Photogdog Loc: New Kensington, PA

Maybe I'm off the mark here but I believe the founding fathers intended that the individual states take care of their citizens rights and the federal government was to be minimzed, maintain national security (using a collective state's militia) and deal with foreign policy.

I think the whole idea was to minimize a centralized federal government after winning their freedom from a tyrannical monocracy that taxed the hell out of them and passed whatever laws it wanted whenever it suited their purposes (does any of this sound familiar?).

amyinsparta Loc: White county, TN

AMEN BROTHER, AMEN!!!!!!!!!

Vanderpix Loc: New Jersey

Would a true government by the people, for the people, and of the people ever rule?

UP-2-IT Loc: RED STICK, LA

You sure found a way to see which side of the bread is buttered for most of the folks here. :thumbup:

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

I think that would be called a dictatorship. 8-)

DEBJENROB Loc: DELRAY BEACH FL

That is a canned answer ..... I did not refer to the Presidents plan .... I said go back to the tax rates of the Reagan years ..... and also allow only the deductions allowed during those years ....

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

Are you trying to say, raise taxes on the rich? This fellow would not have agreed with you not that long ago.

Obama On Taxes - Interview with NBC News's Chuck Todd on August 5, 2009

Todd: Let me jump to another topic, Scott Ferguson, he’s upset about taxes, he says: “Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.” And he actually wants to you look at historical markers where this has been — you say, you know, where this has been a helpful thing coming out of a recession.

Obama: Well, first of all, he is right. Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we have instead cut taxes. So I guess what I would say to Scott is his economics are right, you don’t raise taxes in a recession. We haven’t raised taxes in a recession. We don’t have a…

Todd: But you might for health care. You might for the highest — for some of the wealthiest.

Obama: The — we have not proposed a tax hike for the wealthy that would take effect in the middle of a recession. Even the proposals that have come out of Congress, which, by the way, were different from the proposals I put forward, still wouldn’t kick in until after the recession was over.
So he is absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up — take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.