ThisTooShallPass
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2011
- Messages
- 168
Re: Dems: highest 2% of earners,who already pay 50% of all incm taxes, must pay even
I can't imagine a worse idea. For one thing, their income is a drop in the bucket -- less than $50 billion I believe for ALL churches in the entire United States. Suppose half of that is spent on charity and the rest is taxable. If taxed at 15%, that'd yield $3.75 billion, around 0.1% of federal expenditures.
And for that meager pittance you get a tidal wave of separation of church and state lawsuits that will inevitably render the unfair singling-out of churches (and not other non-profit institutions like universities, non-profit hospitals, and charitable organizations) unconstitutional.
You won't get any argument from me, but not even libertarians imagine you'll save much money that way. According to the Cato Institute, corporate welfare amounts to about $100 billion annually.
That includes a LOT of things you would probably object to having cut, like agricultural subsidies and rural utilities development.
If we get rid of the tax cuts, we raise about an extra $400 billion in revenue. And while I'm all for taxing corporate bonuses more, that wouldn't raise much money either. At its worst, Wall Street bonuses were something like $80 billion. Tax them by half and you get $40 billion.
So all in all you're talking about raising around $550 billion, less than a third of the 2010 calendar-year budget deficit, and that's before the lawsuits that render part of those changes unconstitutional. Still got another $1.2 billion or so to cut in spending.
Here's a better idea: why not go back to the Clinton budget of 1999, and not just the revenue? We'd need to cut maybe 5-10% of spending on top of that to make it actually balance, given the much higher debt service costs today, but people weren't dying in the streets then. Surely the world could survive going back to federal expenditures being just under $2 trillion.
One good place to get more revenues would be to have EVERY religious institution pay taxes, and just take deductions ONLY in what is properly demonstrated to go 100% to charities.
I can't imagine a worse idea. For one thing, their income is a drop in the bucket -- less than $50 billion I believe for ALL churches in the entire United States. Suppose half of that is spent on charity and the rest is taxable. If taxed at 15%, that'd yield $3.75 billion, around 0.1% of federal expenditures.
And for that meager pittance you get a tidal wave of separation of church and state lawsuits that will inevitably render the unfair singling-out of churches (and not other non-profit institutions like universities, non-profit hospitals, and charitable organizations) unconstitutional.
Big corporations gets much "corporate welfare" and still uses every loop holes on the books (and some additional ones!). This is a kind of entitlements that could be cut immediately.
You won't get any argument from me, but not even libertarians imagine you'll save much money that way. According to the Cato Institute, corporate welfare amounts to about $100 billion annually.
That includes a LOT of things you would probably object to having cut, like agricultural subsidies and rural utilities development.
The tax rates should go back up to the Clinton era for ALL (yes, even the lower income), BUT somme loopholes that advantage the wealthiest a lot more than the poor should be closed (i.e., we could keep the mortgage interest deduction. . .up to the level of "jumbo mortgage." Anything above the level of "jumbo mortgage - - I believe about $400,000 mortgage these days, but it varies per area - - should NOT be tax deductible).
And, BONUSES should be taxed higher, much higher if they are above 3X the salary.
If we get rid of the tax cuts, we raise about an extra $400 billion in revenue. And while I'm all for taxing corporate bonuses more, that wouldn't raise much money either. At its worst, Wall Street bonuses were something like $80 billion. Tax them by half and you get $40 billion.
So all in all you're talking about raising around $550 billion, less than a third of the 2010 calendar-year budget deficit, and that's before the lawsuits that render part of those changes unconstitutional. Still got another $1.2 billion or so to cut in spending.
Here's a better idea: why not go back to the Clinton budget of 1999, and not just the revenue? We'd need to cut maybe 5-10% of spending on top of that to make it actually balance, given the much higher debt service costs today, but people weren't dying in the streets then. Surely the world could survive going back to federal expenditures being just under $2 trillion.