[Shout Bits]

All:

Yes, of course cutting spending is the largest challenge. The big three (military, Medicaid, and Social Security) cannot continue uncut without bankrupting the USA. The math is obvious.

I personally think a low flat tax like the one Steve Forbes proposed is the best answer to the necessary evil of taxation.

The article is targeted to one of hundreds of deductions that must be eliminated to get to that goal.

[muawiyah]

Here's a surprise for you ~ Social Security, Medicaid, and potentially the military, either have or can have their own separate funding mechanisms.

If you abolish SS and Medicaid you would, of course, need to refund about $6 trillion to the people you took it from and which is as yet unspent. You can't just take that money and build highways and resthomes for illegal alien workers. You need to give it back. That'll run the national debt up over $21 Trillion.

Now, DOD, and this won't be popular ~ but DOD can exact tribute from client states. That's how it was done in the good old days. No reason we can't revise that custom.

[muawiyah]

The minute you treat ordinary personal income the same as capital gains you might get a favorable response from somebody. There 100% of your personal expenses would be deductible ~ quite a jump in fact!

Why should only the rich get to write off that stuff.

[count-your-change]

Spending must be cut first or no tax scheme will ever be enough.

The flat tax folks need to beat the drum for spending cuts before deduction cuts.

[DuncanWaring]

The big three (military, Medicaid, and Social Security) ...

I'm not certain "military" is one of the big three.

Even if it's the biggest (which it's not), it's the only one of the three that is a legitimate function of government.

The other two should be eliminated entirely.