What's up..
I'm sure everyone is aware of what's happening now with our financial situation. I stopped posting so you could see this for yourselves if you weren't already convinced. I'd like your opinions on what's going to happen about the U.S. debt ceiling, about the situation and riots in Europe and also the war in Libya.
If this wasn't a big deal then we wouldn't have to vote on to raise it, nor would it receive this much public attention around the world.The choice is simple..
National debt: $14.5 Trillion.
Interest on debt: $3.6 Trillion.
National deficit: $1.3 Trillion.
Raise the debt ceiling: The U.S. continues on its spending spree. Devaluation of the USD continues. The country begins to bury itself even deeper in debt. Social security will begin to pay out more than it receives in the future; but over all the machine keeps rolling (for now).
Don't raise the debt ceiling: The U.S. defaults on its obligations and student loans, social security along with any grants and welfare checks will not go out (in fact Obama guarantees they wont http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG6Mm7RgwS0). Soldiers overseas and others working for the federal government will start seeing their checks either be delayed, or stop coming at all.
Both ways lead off of the side of a mountain. I believe that It's only a matter time.
It's common sense to look at our own debt and deficits. We're now $11.7 trillion in national debt, $3.80 billion per day. $16.2 trillion by 2012. It's simple, you cannot pay off a loan that has interest, by taking out another loan with interest, and paying the first loan off with it; and then taking out a third loan with interest to pay off the 2nd loan that has interest also. Gold skyrocketed over $1000/oz and USD continues to decline. Telling people this is troubling for me, because they have a hard time not understanding it or they refuse to listen to the truth.
The thing is, we can start to make a recovery if we can cut spending significantly. Raising the Debt Ceiling is the only foothold we have at current times. We need to use it as a means to re-structure and re-confine our spending though, not as an excuse to keep ourselves from failing. The majority of military personal and almost all military funding needs to be cut. We have to have troops ready because world war could possibly be on brink of happening, but we should not be out looking for ways to waste money in the war. Large companies need to handle their own problems and not receive bail outs. The money should come out of the top dogs pockets, not the lower level employees and standard us citizens. We need a re-structured taxing system that pays more attention to the difference between lower class, middles class, high class, and rich. 85-90% of government aid and funding programs need to be removed, in turn taxes need to be re-bracketed into an e system. It should start at 0% and raise up to a maximum of 45% on an e-scale. Right now, once middle class but now poor class people who make barely enough to get by are taxed 35% and up. The government should recognize that taking away that 35% from your low end income families only hurts them and the economy. It increases need and usage of government programs such as food stamps, WIC, unemployment, free health care facilities, and etc. Those programs cost significantly more money than we receive in taxes from the poor-scale members of society. Allowing them to keep a higher % of their paychecks would instead allow them avoid the use of funding, lowering the need to pay for not only employees but building costs, supply costs, and other misc useless expenses that come with government aid programs.
To me a good system would be something along the lines of
$0-$8,500 0%
$8,500-$24,500 5%
$24,500-$40,000 12%
$40,000-$74,400 22%
$74,400-$150,150 34%
$150,150-$350,00 38%
$350,000 - $1,000,000 42%
$1,000,000 - $2,500,000 45%
$2,500,000+ 48%
Of course that is rough %'s to get a general idea. It would need to be scaled properly so that a 2,500,001 dollar gross income would still take home slightly more than a 2,499,999 dollar gross income.
Bump up the rich slightly more but re-define rich as 6 digits and not as 250,000. Then greatly bump down the lower-tier incomes tax rates. Between state and federal most standard family incomes get taxed 30-35%. When the economy is in it's current state and cost of living is so ridiculous a $40,000 income can not afford to be taxed $14,000 of it away. It would put more money into the hands of people who stimulate the economy by shopping inside our country. The rich members of society do a lot of spending outside of the country and they also buy things that don't really provide any beneficiary to the economy.
That's what I think anyway. I'm all for raising the Debt Ceiling one last time if it means actually taking huge forward progress towards fixing what needs to be fixed. If they're just raising it to raise it, however, and leave the country in it's continued downward spiral, are they would be doing is making the inevitable crash worse while slightly delayed.
