Just out of curiosity, I wonder how much in taxes that Erie County receives in the sales of Bills-related things for the rest of the year… I mean, all the advertising costs, shirts, hats, bumper stickers, etc that get sold from February to July could contribute a good amount to the bottom line - and keeping a pro sports franchise in the city can still attract money from fans outside the county (and hence keep jobs going).
Couple thoughts:
tax cuts will only go so far - and at some point, the government won’t raise enough capital to fund its needs without tax increases of some sort. I’d argue that once the economy is headed back into the black, some form of carbon tax would do triple-duty in getting America solvent, off imported hydrocarbons, and encourage investment into new technologies.
Medicare is the Federal program, Medicaid is state. And with the population of America aging, Medicare by default will grow. And pinching the supply-side is not much of an answer - in Rochester, U of R is already the largest employer, with the big chunk being Strong Hospital. Add the other hospitals in the region, and I’d bet that the biggest supplyer of jobs in the area is related to healthcare. Chop that funding, and I’ll guarantee you’ll see a decrease in access to care. I already see cases from outlying hospitals who have to send basic cases (e.g. appendicitis) to us because noone is available to care for it.
Alot of the problem with the bailout so far is the fallacy that direct-injection of funds into the companies involved will stimulate increased lending. The problem is that these companies started off before the crisis highly leveraged (high debt-to-asset/cash ratio), so all the cash did was lower the risk to the companies. Without some form of incentives to lending, all those companies will hunker down into survival mode and keep their cash close to home.
I understand where you’re coming from with a lot of that. But, whether it’s single-payer or another idea, something has to be done to get health care provider costs in check. People don’t care when the cost goes up because their insurance pays for it, but then the premiums go higher. Why is an aspirin $15 if you get it in a hospital? Why is a 5 block ambulance ride thousands of dollars? Why is a 15 minute operation 10k plus? While it’s certainly important to pay MD’s at a premium to keep the best and brightest in the field and give the motivation to go through med school, there’s so much administrative fat in our current system that adds no value.
And I want taxes raised, but on the people who have been on Easy St. since 2000 and those who spend the least percentage of their income, the wealthy. I work for one of the only major international banks to not take the cheap government funds. Most of the other well-capitalized banks took the funds just because they were there, and are gaining ground on us as a result. Future bailout funds need to be tied to incentives or quotas for lending, like you suggested.
Then again, I saw a statistic where the top 1% income earners in the US account for approximately 40% of the tax income.
The question I have is: where does “taxation” eventually become “income redistribution”? If we make the rich pay “their fair share”, what is that level - 40% of income? 65% of income? How about 80%? I mean, why wouldn’t a million-dollar earner do “just fine” with $200K/year? Perhaps the government should mandate maximum salaries, and use the rest in taxes to pay the costs of everyone else.
My point in this is as a society, what’s our biggest concern? If you are concerned about “fairness”, then a CEO of any company should be paid the same as a mechanic, and as the janitor. Higher education should be free for all.
Then again, what will motivate those with the ability to actually achieve?
OTOH, if excessive consumption is the issue, then a progressively rated consumption tax (e.g. food is taxed less than alcohol or Mercedes-Benzes) would do more to balance things than any income tax would do.
I do not want socialistic health care.
I do not want better schools.
I do not want higher minimum wage.
I do not want more government control over banks/economy.
I do not want my taxes to go up!
When I have children they will go to private schools, so I don’t feel that I should have to pay school tax at all!
I do not want more “programs”, this is America, if you don’t have the tools to succeed steal them from someone!
My great grand father was an Italian immigrant whom hardly spoke English and had Polio. HE MADE IT HERE.
At the point that you don’t demand the same dollar amount from everyone, duh. Anything else is logically redistribution of wealth.
The elephant in the room is that everybody likes to pretend that we don’t have socialist programs, and we don’t redistribute the wealth, and that in a perfect society you would keep all the money you made and we’d all just get to fend for ourselves.
If that were the case the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer and our country would be totally financially polarized in a hurry, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.
But then a lot of you would get all puckery and scared that the only other alternative is communism and then nobody would get rewarded for their efforts and with motivation gone the whole system breaks down.
Yet if you look at our history it doesn’t take a huge leap of faith to draw the conclusion that our greatness is a machine built on the backs of a strong middle class continually advancing to upper class and pulling up the poor. That necessitates some social programs, and some free market, in as close to an optimum balance as possible. These programs are balanced by power swinging between fundamental democrats and republicans making our bicameral political system work for our financial systems.
But I’m probably getting too deep for nyspeed. Back to our regularly scheduled communism vs greed debate…
and to answer tramadog’s question - it becomes redistribution when the wealthy actually start losing some control of all the wealth in the country… I don’t think we’ll see this anytime soon, but they’ll cry and scream about every cent they pay in taxes regardless.
I’m greedy and only care about my self and those closest to me.
I don’t really feel that there will ever be a big “change” as we have too many powerful families, which would never allow it to happen.
The lower and middle class need to stay there and be happy about it so upper middle and higher classes and live the lavished lives. That is just how the system works.
How come you never see the liberal media ever give their own money to the poor?
Do actors need to make 10 million per movie? How do they get that money? Lets see, poor people drop $10 so they can tell all their poor friends about the cool new movie they have seen.
That is a great system of oppression if you ask me.
Yeah my great grandfather came here from Austria in the early 1900s. He learned English, worked his ass off, and paid taxes. Millions of people before him did the same thing. :gotme: I don’t see why it can’t still be this way.
~I am also against socialized healthcare, fix the problem, don’t add to it.
~The government should not have control over the banks/economy. More government involvement is not the key.
~I am against raising minimum wage as well. Especialy when everyone is having hard times, this will lead to more unemployment as companies will not be able to make up the differance in profits if they have to pay more to their employees. Minimum wage is NOT meant to support a family. If you raise the minimum wage, costs for eveyone else go up, yet everyone else is NOT making more money, so it screws them over.
~Education is VERY important. Again, what we need to do is fix the problems in our schools, not throw more money at them hoping they improve. The city of Buffalo schools have something like a 50% dropout rate, yet the cost per student is almost equal to that of a student attending a private school. This says to me that we need to fix the problems in these schools, and not throw more money into them like it will fill in some noexistant pothole that is exacerbating the situation.
the problems in the Buffalo schools is poor stupid kids that are either incapable of learning or unwilling to. How do we fix that, mandatory schmashmortions in the ghetto?
Problems in schools start long before kids get to school. If you tell your kids every day that its a waste of their time then you are in fact the problem with society.
Yes, education is extremely important. Not so much formal education, but raising kids to think for themselves and actually take responsibility to wards being a productive human.
Comparing public to private schools in order to draw a conclusion about money ignores the fact that all private school kids have parents who care enough about their kid’s education to put up their own money beyond what they pay in taxes. Public schools are a mixed bag of good support systems and parents who never should have been allowed to procreate.
this is pretty much my stance on taxing the hell out of the richers as well, yet more eloquent 
