Senate Fiscal Cliff Bill Approved by House

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

And exactly where does the idea that "half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them" come from?

People jump on that "47% of the people don't pay federal income tax" and make assumptions. They don't pay attention to the stats that show that most of them are the elderly (who paid their share their whole lives and are now living on fixed incomes), college students (who will, presumably pay their fair share in the future), and those who are too disabled to work (and I don't know what people think we should do about them... let them die???).

I've yet to meet anybody who would rather be sitting home collecting barely enough to live on than working, paying taxes, and making enough to cover their essential expenses.

All those welfare folks with their $120 a month in food stamps are really living high on the hog, don't you know? So what if they can't be used to buy toilet paper or diapers.

[UGAalum94]

I think the 47% issue is perhaps a different problem that just reducing it to makers and takers, which I know a lot of folks want to do.

How do you effect entitlement reform if 47% of voters benefit from "entitlements" of one kind or another? How are we going to pay for all the spending that we are presently projected to need?

The whole "tax the rich" "make them pay their fair share" rhetoric was great, but I think most people concede that you can't fund it by taxing people with incomes at the level that most folks think can afford to pay more in taxes.

And I don't know a lot of people likely to be affected by the income caps you most read about, but for the ones I do (It's really one family-owned business), I do think it's plausible that they will scale back the volume of business they do and have more time with their families etc, than continuing to work ridiculously, long hard hours to basically see less take home pay. I don't think the country's going to collapse because of it or anything, but I do think it's possible that people's behavior will change. Incentives matter.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

The whole "tax the rich" "make them pay their fair share" rhetoric was great, but I think most people concede that you can't fund it by taxing people with incomes at the level that most folks think can afford to pay more in taxes.

What's that level? Simply letting the Bush era tax cuts expire would do much to close the deficit.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

What's that level? Simply letting the Bush era tax cuts expire would do much to close the deficit.

Sorry to triple post, but what data are you looking at? (That's sincere question, not a sarcastic "that data doesn't exist claim.)

I'm seeing more claims that indicate it won't come close to paying for our spending, particularly with new costs of Obamacare and increasing social security.

Certainly, the end of the Bush era tax cuts move us in the right direction, but I'm not seeing anything that gets close to doing "much to close the deficit."