Posted on 03/02/2013 6:22:13 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Poll after poll show that Americans don't want their Medicare and SS benefits cut and they don't want to pay more in taxes to support these programs. Look at the reaction to the end of SS 2% payroll tax holiday.
POLL: Clear Majority Want No Medicare, Social Security Or Education Cuts
The people who constantly demand more "services" and "free stuff" from government are not the hard-working, traditional American families who pay the taxes, and the hard-working, traditional American families who pay the taxes are not the same people who always have their grubby paws out looking for "free stuff". We are talking about two separate and distinct groups of people right there.
We have 57 million on SS, 47 million on Medicare, 70 million on Medicaid (includes CHIPS but not the 18 million more that will be added thru Obamacare), 48 million on food stamps, etc. Almost one out of every two Americans receives some sort of government check.
Mark Steyn did a brilliant column on all of this, America not paying its fair share--You cannot simultaneously enjoy American-sized taxes and European-sized government. One or the other has got to go
"My Gallic charmer is on to something. According to the most recent (2009) OECD statistics: Government expenditures per person in France, $18,866.00; in the United States, $19,266.00. That's adjusted for purchasing-power parity, and, yes, no comparison is perfect, but did you ever think the difference between America and the cheese-eating surrender monkeys would come down to quibbling over the fine print? In that sense, the federal debt might be better understood as an American Self-Delusion Index, measuring the ever-widening gap between the national mythology (a republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens) and the reality (a 21st century cradle-to-grave nanny state in which, as the Democrats' Convention boasted, "government is the only thing we do together.")
"Generally speaking, functioning societies make good-faith efforts to raise what they spend, subject to fluctuations in economic fortune: Government spending in Australia is 33.1 percent of GDP, and tax revenues are 27.1 percent. Likewise, government spending in Norway is 46.4 percent, and revenues are 41 percent – a shortfall but in the ballpark. Government spending in the United States is 42.2 percent, but revenues are 24 percent – the widest spending/taxing gulf in any major economy."
"So all the agonizing over our annual trillion-plus deficits overlooks the obvious solution: Given that we're spending like Norwegians, why don't we just pay Norwegian tax rates?"
I didn't ask for an explanation, just a direct answer to an easy question.
...as if those taxes were put into an account that earned a 2 percent real rate of return...
That answers the question. Thanks.
Who decides when to stop Medicare/Medicaid payments? The government has mandated that hospitals must treat illegal aliens who show up in the ERs along with the indigent. The government pays for may things that are wasteful. Again, who decides what the government will or will not pay for?
Since I am not one of the selfish eaters, I would prefer to see the nation implode and descend into chaos rather than go full communist (which is the inevitable and natural end result of the current slide if government continues to grow and confiscate ever more from productve citizens).
On the other hand, it almost sounds like you are shrugging and surrendering to the communists' calls for more taxes as if you buy the false dichotomy propagated by their "mainstream" newsrooms that Americans are confused schizophrenics who want all kinds of government "services" but "don't want to pay for them".
A California Politician Speaks the Truth! (May 30, 2009)
Nearly all of the billions of dollars in cuts the administration has proposed would affect programs for poor Californians...
“Government doesn’t provide services to rich people,” Mike Genest, the state’s finance director, said on a conference call with reporters on Friday. “It doesn’t even really provide services to the middle class.” He added: “You have to cut where the money is.”
Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare combined with a huge and growing glut of old people combined with new, enormously expensive equipment and procedures which make it possible to unreasonably and unnecessarily prolong the lives of people who have become permanently unproductive will cause the present system to collapse.
Just how much do you think that taxpayers (people who are productive) can pay?
The inevitable death of the current system is as certain as your death.
I know you don't read the links I provide to you, but you should recognize that Americans do want all these services and balk at paying for them.POLL: Clear Majority Want No Medicare, Social Security Or Education Cuts
The "takers" now outnumber the producers and it will get worse as our society ages. There has been a massive shift of wealth from the young to the old. We have a $16 trillion national debt plus over $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities represented by our entitlement programs. And it is going to get much worse. Who is going to pay this debt down? What do you think is happening to our standard of living? Wake up and smell the coffee.
Machines pay taxes indirectly through higher taxes on output. Taxes will be much higher in 2050. At this point the USA going bankrupt is a given, although we'll know what to expect by watching the European countries go bankrupt first.
Okay, so you ARE shrugging and surrendering to the communists’ calls for more taxes.
Good luck with that, Bunky. I think you’re on the wrong forum.
It is the perfect crime we have foisted on ourselves by trying to do what our parents did for us—make life better for the next generation. Except that now, it has derailed. We have more and mroe “kids” now expecting more for doing far less. And they really don’t get what is currently happening, because they are still really not footing the bills to the extent that it hurts them.
Not to worry. The US will soon have a similar tax rate as Norway (hidden or direct). I will hazard to guess the level of health care will not improve with the increased level of taxation.
Since SS and Medicare have been instituted by the government I would also hazard to guess that if waste and fraud were reigned in both programs would be sustainable. Let’s face it..no politician is going to do away with either program.
“Instead Americans want all the benefits ...” Pretty broad generalization.
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