Dave Ramsey on Debt

[TFOGGER]

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer

a step in the right direction, but needs to be accompanied by massive cuts in spending to work.

[sniper7]

I think you read what you want to read. I have been consistent. I said that we need to tax all income the same. This will raise taxes on some people who have the system rigged so they don't pay. People who make billions on long term cap gains and those worthless trust fund babies from boulder will now have to pay taxes like everyone else. This will raise their rates. But I think this will generate so much revenue that we could lower taxes (only after we pay off our debt).

I also said that we need to end all corporate breaks. Only ones that should exist are for national interest reasons. Now we have billion dollar companies like GE who pay NO taxes while middle class small businessmen do. Its market manipulation and the mega companies buy our gov to get those breaks while small companies can't afford to.

There is no way we can cut our way out of this mess alone. We need to fix the rigged tax structure.

As to taxing imports.... hell yeah. The more we tax foreign companies, the lower we can put the tax rate for all business in America. For the first 100 years of this nation import tariffs paid for 90% of all gov. I rather like the idea of sticking it to other countries to pay for our gov. Sounds grand...

you are living in dream land. Everyone who makes money figures out a way to hide it from being taxed or being tracked in one way or another whether it is the drug dealers or the investment bankers with offshore bank accounts.

You keep talking about raising taxes to pay off debt...never has the debt been paid off yet it has been proven time and again in this thread that raising taxes does anything but give the politicians more money to blow. Until there is hard rules and possibly a constitutional amendment as to how much of the .gov income must be used to pay off the debt, how much is to be set aside into "savings" once the debt is paid off and strict limits on when that savings can be touched (such as times of recession or war) then raising taxes is out of the window. It has been tried time and time again, in this country and others and continues to fail. look of the definition of insanity, it applies perfectly.

[nynco]

As I said you read what you want to read. Its like you create strawman arguments and dance a victory dance when you take it down.

As to why you think its wrong to tax rich people the same as the middle class, I am at a loss. It makes absolutely no sense. I think you fall back on misunderstood ideology rather than common sense. But really I think it is just - you're stubborn.

[Sharpienads]

Well then think about how to reform them. Because they do play a positive roll too.

Here's a way to reform them and every other program liberals have started/taken over: Make them optional. If unions are so great, people will want to join. If they're not as great as some would have us to believe, they will fall apart once optional.

Same with things like social security. I for one would give up all my SS contributions if I could invest in my own retirement, and I'm sure a lot of other people would too. But it is mandatory, so I have to participate. If it's such a good program, why is it mandatory? If it was that good, enough people would want to participate to keep the program going. SS is such a joke... an unconstitutional joke.

To quote Andrew Wilkow: "Liberalism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory."

[Sharpienads]

Also, can anyone define a few terms for me?

-Rich

-Middle Class

-Tax Loopholes

Flat tax or fair tax, either one sounds about a million times better than our current tax code. If the treasury secratary can't do his taxes right, what makes you think I can? If we had a flat tax of 10%, where EVERYONE paid the same percentage regardless of income, it would save a lot of time and money. I could put 10% of my paycheck in a savings account every month, know EXACTLY how much I owe, earn interest in the meantime, and send a check to the gubment in April. No witholdings, no complicated forms, no excuses. The form could look like this:

How much did you make: _________
x .10
Total owed in taxes: _________
Make checks payable to Uncle Sam. Thank you for your patriotism.

I also belive you should have to pay taxes to be able to vote. And since everyone should be able to vote, everyone should pay taxes. No more people voting to spend other people's money. Everyone needs skin in the game.

As for the cut spending or raise revenue, as others have already stated, we have a spending problem not a revenue problem. Get rid of unconstitutional departments. Education, EPA, welfare, agriculture, etc. If you think they're so awesome, pass an amendment giving the federal government the power. Next, cut the budget. The budget can be cut everywhere, defense included. Anybody who has ever been in the military can identify a hundred places where the defense budget could be cut without taking away pay for troops or their benifits.

Bottom line, if we actually stuck to the constitution, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[Drilldov2.0]

As I said you read what you want to read. Its like you create strawman arguments and dance a victory dance when you take it down.

As to why you think its wrong to tax rich people the same as the middle class, I am at a loss. It makes absolutely no sense. I think you fall back on misunderstood ideology rather than common sense. But really I think it is just - you're stubborn.

Where are you getting this nonsense? The rich pay more proportionally, as you said. But why do you think taxing them more is a good idea?

You never answered my post about the flat tax across the board, Which includes taxing the lower 50% which does not pay taxes currently.

As I pointed out, you could tax every person in the US 100% and there is still a deficit (and not even a dent in the debt) to the amount of spending this administration is continuing, and this administration insisted on a debt limit increase for purely political reasons.

Now back to the real world. Since we spend more than we take in and could ever possibly tax, even at 100% tax rate, what logical solutions do you have? You don't, because there are not any.

The only solution is CAP the current spending, cut useless programs and trim down outrageous entitlements, Gut the government and their over-reaching claws, reduce taxes, yes even for those evil corporate entities.

You keep referring to increased "revenue" that means tax increase on producers. You simply cannot "stimulate" the economy by taking even more money out of the private sector and putting it into the govt. Your thinking is absurd and has been proven to be a failure.

The Dim- controlled senate tables every bill that would actually do something. Cut, Cap and Balance would have been a strong first step. But they would never approve something holding themselves accountable.

See how far the Mack Penny Plan gets in the Congress.

[nynco]

Where are you getting this nonsense? The rich pay more proportionally, as you said. But why do you think taxing them more is a good idea?

You never answered my post about the flat tax across the board, Which includes taxing the lower 50% which does not pay taxes currently.

As I said, you guys read what you want to read. Then assign me your strawman to take down.

Actually no the really rich people pay less of an effective tax rate than the middle class. Look up the term "effective tax rate". Read away for proof of how they get taxed less than you...

Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/mon...cle1996735.ece

I don't care if the rich pay a larger percentage of the total revenue. They make WAY more. If we taxed them at a flat rate as everyone else, they would pay even more than they do now. Why? Because they get paid insanely more than the middle class.

I think the "Fair tax" is insane and unfair. I think a national sales tax is wrong. What I advocate for is a FLAT TAX on ALL forms of income... I would rather a progressive tax, but I would take a flat tax over the regressive taxes we have today. Also, no cap on Soc Sec 2% across the board on all income forms and I am sure there would still be a surplus. No taxbreaks to game the system. All poor and rich pay the same.

[Drilldov2.0]

As I said, you guys read what you want to read. Then assign me your strawman to take down.

Actually no the really rich people pay less of an effective tax rate than the middle class. Look up the term "effective tax rate". Read away for proof of how they get taxed less than you...


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/mon...cle1996735.ece

I don't care if the rich pay a larger percentage of the total revenue. They make WAY more. If we taxed them at a flat rate as everyone else, they would pay even more than they do now. Why? Because they get paid insanely more than the middle class.

I think the "Fair tax" is insane and unfair. I think a national sales tax is wrong. What I advocate for is a FLAT TAX on ALL forms of income... I would rather a progressive tax, but I would take a flat tax over the regressive taxes we have today. Also, no cap on Soc Sec 2% across the board on all income forms and I am sure there would still be a surplus. No taxbreaks to game the system. All poor and rich pay the same.

So basically what you are saying, and have said; is that you think if you work harder and earn more you should have to pay more in taxes? Well as I and many have shown, the most successful have already paid more in taxes.

You like to talk about taxes. The real issue is spending vs. income. Raising taxes will do nothing but put more money into the inept hands in Washington. So what do you propose to do about cutting the current debt and deficit spending, what exactly should be cut in your mind? Raising taxes does nothing, effectively. So what should be cut?

And don't give me your oft-repeated, lame line of "you guys read what you want to read" bullshit. I am dealing in facts and numbers, so propose to me, wait all of us, your plan beyond higher taxes that actually makes economic, not theoretical sense. Raising taxes now furthers the decline of our economy. Govt. taking "revenue" out of the private sector reduces jobs and hampers the economy.

[nynco]

So basically what you are saying, and have said; is that you think if you work harder and earn more you should have to pay more in taxes? Well as I and many have shown, the most successful have already paid more in taxes.

Well as I have said many times........ you guys read what you want or need to read. ^^^^^^^^^ this is a strawman argument.

I have said and I have repeated this many times. Flat tax on all forms of income. Since the uber rich have currently set up a system where they pay a lower taxrate on investment income than we pay from labor income, this will raise taxes on them. But this is not unfair to ask them to pay the same rate as everyone else. We should not have a system that punishes the middle class and lets the rich off from paying the same taxes as them. If you think that only taxing the middle class is good and that the "kings" should not pay.......... well you need to explain that logic to me. It makes no sense.

[Bailey Guns]

So close tax loop holes and make all investment income taxed the same as regular income.

[sarcasm]What a great incentive to make people work and invest.[/sarcasm]

That's probably one of the most idiotic things I've ever seen posted here.