The Rich Want to Pay More Taxes

[popeyespappy]

Rather than approaching the issue by raising taxes, we need to make our government more efficient and get spending under control.

It isn't that simple. Yes, there are efficiencies to be gained in government spending. Yes, we also need to reduce our military spending. Although the later needs to be slowly cut over over time. Slashing the military budget in half next year would result in millions becoming unemployed overnight and cause an economic downturn that would make the last one look like a trip to Disneyland.

Those things alone can't fix the problem. The government is either going to have to cut spending on what are by far its biggest expenses which are the social security and medicare programs or increase revenue. The smart thing to have done would have been to raise SS & MC taxes while the baby boomer generation was earning their highest levels of income. But as far as I can tell intelligence isn't something our elected representatives have ever had an abundance of, and that hasn't happened. In fact instead of doing that they did the exact opposite and decreased those taxes for a short time making the problem even worse. Compounding the problem is the fact that the government needs to be increasing spending in areas such as education and infrastructure. This issue makes reducing the overall level of government spending problematic at best.

Simply rolling back taxes to pre Bush or pre Reagan levels would also have serious negative consequences to the economy. We don't want to do that either. The answer is to increase revenue through raising taxes, spend the money more efficiently on things other than the military, and reduce the rate of growth of government spending. In order to lessen the impact on the economy these things need to be phased in slowly over time. At least a decade. Maybe two or three.

I have a couple of things to say about the video in the OP too, but I'm about to head out the door and that is going to have to wait until later this afternoon.