[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by smc

Your method, though, is -- as always -- bankrupt, lying, and reprehensible.

Your obligatory uncalled for whining is noted. Next time just make an acronym of this and put it in your sig.

Originally Posted by smc

we subsidize the wealthiest Americans and their corporations, whether directly or indirectly.

This can be done largely with a flat tax. Then we can get rid of the IRS. There's a huge chunk of change saved.

Originally Posted by smc

I would cut every subsidy to the oil companies and other mega-corporations. I would eliminate the tax loopholes that make the United States have the most regressive taxation in the industrialized world and that make the United States have the largest income disparity in the developed or developing world, including China.

Deja vu. Again, flat tax.

Originally Posted by smc

I would cut the so-called "defense budget" by nearly everything,

This would be irresponsible.

Originally Posted by smc

- nearly $110 billion could be cut from the 2015 defense budget without taking as radical a step as I propose above; this would include savings through efficiency measures, reducing troop levels, eliminating unneeded weapons systems, and scaling back the wartime increases in the size of the military. To this I would add an immediate, 100% withdrawal from Afghanistan.

That's better...

Originally Posted by smc

- eliminate 100% of tax subsidies for companies that ship American jobs overseas, which would increase revenue by more than $132 billion.

Absolutely. And let's stop paying to get Brazil set up to do offshore oil drilling. That's a subsidy not for American companies that employ others oversees, but foreign companies employing people overseas... WTF?!!!

Originally Posted by smc

Anyone who thinks cuts without revenue increases will solve the budget problem

recognizes the huge amount of waste already in our government.

Originally Posted by smc

- eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the top two tax brackets and return to 2009 estate tax levels

Even Obama recognized how harmful that would be to our economy.

Originally Posted by smc

This is a start. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world,

For about 5 more years. Then it will be China.

Originally Posted by smc

but its wealth is concentrated in an unsustainable way that will provoke social unrest and class warfare as time goes on. History is clear. We can either have an equitable nation, or we can have a nation that kowtows to the interests of a wealthy few. That is the nation Tracy Coxx wants, assumedly because Tracy Coxx

...knows that American corporations and small businesses drive the economy. And if you raise taxes too much on these corporations they will move over seas and drive someone else's economy.

Originally Posted by GRH

I like that you put the word "entitlement" in quotation marks. This is such a politically charged word. Funny how things like basic income and health care for senior citizens is considered an "entitlement"-- despite the fact that these citizens have paid into the system for their benefits.

No, it is by definition:
* a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program
* belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges

Originally Posted by GRH

However, things like corporate tax loopholes and tax cuts are not called "entitlements." Funny, anytime there's a mention of taking these things away, there is such moaning and gnashing of teeth that you'd think the recipients of these give-aways feel "entitled" to them.

Also by definition. Fine go ahead and call those entitlements.

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

That quote is morbidly heartening. I never thought such a thing would be written in an American newspaper.

It wasn't. It was from the Los Angeles Times