FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
1. 150 billion in spending cuts. Obama has identified 50 billion in medicare waste - let's cut that, and make that amount into a new "deficit reduction" component of the payroll tax. We can also easily cut about 100 billion from military budgets, especially with the wars winding down. I think that vague things like "eliminate waste" are more deficit peacocking than anything else, but if you can add anything to this that would be great.
2. 150 billion in tax raises. The least radical way would simply be to raise our current systems taxes by a certain percentage. We could also add a new tax onto the current system - a 3% VAT or an LVT that takes in this amount each year.
Then there are more radical approaches. SF's flat tax would probably represent a modest tax increase and could be tweaked to take in just 150 billion extra (if it doesn't already take in that amount is - it's never been put in front of an accountant to guestimate the revenue it would generate). The fair tax could also easily be raised to a 26% rate instead of a 23% and take in the necessary amount, or you could reduce some of the rebates inherent in the program.
3. This would probably get our deficit to sustainable levels - around 200 billion a year, which is a little over 1% of GDP. In case the economy just happens to go north and we get a surplus, the surplus should be returned to tax payers as an automatic tax rebate the next year.
Other issues like social security privatization are, IMHO, just shoving money around, and don't have much to do with deficit reduction.
2. 150 billion in tax raises. The least radical way would simply be to raise our current systems taxes by a certain percentage. We could also add a new tax onto the current system - a 3% VAT or an LVT that takes in this amount each year.
Then there are more radical approaches. SF's flat tax would probably represent a modest tax increase and could be tweaked to take in just 150 billion extra (if it doesn't already take in that amount is - it's never been put in front of an accountant to guestimate the revenue it would generate). The fair tax could also easily be raised to a 26% rate instead of a 23% and take in the necessary amount, or you could reduce some of the rebates inherent in the program.
3. This would probably get our deficit to sustainable levels - around 200 billion a year, which is a little over 1% of GDP. In case the economy just happens to go north and we get a surplus, the surplus should be returned to tax payers as an automatic tax rebate the next year.
Other issues like social security privatization are, IMHO, just shoving money around, and don't have much to do with deficit reduction.
Last edited:
