tk421;956689 wrote:It won't do anything for the deficit and Barry knows it. You aren't going to squeeze 1.5T dollars from the rich. At best they get another 40-50 billion a year. Chump change when compared to the out of control spending. I also wonder, once the taxes are raised on the rich and the deficit doesn't go down, who is next to be called evil? Who do they go after then?
Well like I've showed you before the CBO disagrees with you. If Congress does
Nothing, the Budget would be balanced by 2015 because....
"the extended-baseline scenario, adheres closely to current law. Under this scenario, the expiration of the tax cuts enacted since 2001 and most recently extended in 2010, the growing reach of the alternative minimum tax, the tax provisions of the recent health care legislation, and the way in which the tax system interacts with economic growth would result in steadily higher revenues relative to GDP.
Revenues would reach 23 percent of GDP by 2035—much higher than has typically been seen in recent decades—and would grow to larger percentages thereafter. At the same time, under this scenario, government spending on everything other than the major mandatory health care programs, Social Security, and interest on federal debt—activities such as national defense and a wide variety of domestic programs—would decline to the
lowest percentage of GDP since before World War II."
We've had the discussion on here before about how Tax Revenues historically average around 18.6%. The CBO projects that the new health care taxes along with the Alternative Minimum Tax reaching lower incomes (remember if Congress did
nothing), that tax revenues would rise to 23%. Those tax provisions would make a difference.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12212
As far as the long term budget picture goes, social security would be solvent for the next 75 years (as long as its been around thus far) if we removed the cap on earnings.
http://aging.senate.gov/crs/ss9.pdf
And, 67% of Americans think this is a good idea.
Bottom line is the Democrats have put forward $3 trillion for deficit reduction in the super committee and the Republicans have balked. We know the ways that will reduce the deficit and have the least effect on economic growth. But in reality Republicans by and large don't seem to really care about the deficit. They just use it as a tool to try and dismantle government.