Paul Ryan budget and the fact check.

[frigidmagi]

CSM

[quote]The House Republicans’ budget proposal for the next fiscal year and the next decade – as much a political statement as a blueprint for governance – contains a raft of eye-popping provisions. But the threat of a “debt-fueled economic crisisâ€

[SirNitram]

The main takeaway I keep getting is 'Oh. I'd die.' as my reaction to the proposed budget. It's kind of enough to remove oneself from the mockery.

[The Minx]

Among all that nonsense, there's one thing I'd support: the part about eliminating tax loopholes. There are several corporations that get away with hardly paying anything at all (General Electric being a major culprit in that). Even if the corporate tax rate is reduced to 25% down from 35% the total revenue from these kinds of corporations would go up, that's how bad the maze of loopholes is. It's just that I don't trust Congress to actually eliminate the loopholes, and/or not to add new ones.

[B4UTRUST]

The problem has always been, at least from my understanding of it, is that by eliminating the tax holes that corporations use, or increasing the taxes or otherwise costing the corporations more money in one manner or other is that some would pick up and send more of their revenue stream out of US territory and overseas to cut costs or would pass the costs onto the customers themselves. In both situations that isn't a good thing. Of course I may be wrong, but I highly doubt that a corporation would eat the extra costs and pass the savings onto the customer.

[frigidmagi]

They're not going anywhere. Everywhere else worth headquatering out of has a higher tax rate or enough problems to that correcting for that would eat up the extra profits.

And I'm getting sick of the excuse. Oh we can't actually make them pay taxes, they would leave or charge people more.... Then how come every other fucking nation on the planet can pull it off? It's an empty threat and it's time they were called on it. I mean crap, GE didn't actually pay any taxes this year, they got 3.6 billion dollars from the government instead and that's not unusual among the corporations.

[B4UTRUST]

*shrugs* Call em on it. I'm all for it if it works. I was just stating that from my understanding of the situation was that was the basic unspoken threat that was the main reason for not messing with corporate taxes.

[Derek Thunder]

This budget proposal is a troll, and here is the punchline.

"We hate Obamacare. As Republicans, we vehemently disagree with Obama's socialistic plans for health care. Thus, we are proposing a system for seniors where they receive federal subsidies to purchase privately-administered health insurance through exchanges with guaranteed issuance and most likely with a mandate."

Also, load up Ryan's plan and do a ctrl+f for "Defense." Prepare for disappointment.

[frigidmagi]

*shrugs* Call em on it. I'm all for it if it works. I was just stating that from my understanding of the situation was that was the basic unspoken threat that was the main reason for not messing with corporate taxes.

It's been trotted out but the real reason we don't mess with corporate taxes is the corporations have the lobbyists and make big campaign donations.

Also, load up Ryan's plan and do a ctrl+f for "Defense." Prepare for disappointment.

I wouldn't cut defense either. We couldn't set up that No Fly Zone while aiding in Japan and operating in Afghanistan, for example if the budget was seriously slashed.

[SirNitram]

*shrugs* Call em on it. I'm all for it if it works. I was just stating that from my understanding of the situation was that was the basic unspoken threat that was the main reason for not messing with corporate taxes.

It's been trotted out but the real reason we don't mess with corporate taxes is the corporations have the lobbyists and make big campaign donations.

Also, load up Ryan's plan and do a ctrl+f for "Defense." Prepare for disappointment.

I wouldn't cut defense either. We couldn't set up that No Fly Zone while aiding in Japan and operating in Afghanistan, for example if the budget was seriously slashed.

No cuts? No efforts to find, identify, and eliminate waste? Think about that for a bit; that is the official position of the GOP. The Dems went as far as to eliminate waste in medicare, which left them wide open politically. I think this says alot about the parties.

[frigidmagi]

Frankly Martin, that's a job for the CBO or GAO. Not Congress. And quite frankly every "efforts to find, identify, and eliminate wast" in the last 4 or so years has been a cover to kill things that the whoever is in charge didn't like actual need or efficiency be damned. I won't even bring up McNamara who has become some sort of dread bugbear.

If you declare you don't have the expertise to decide what you want the military to do, how can you determine what is waste or what isn't anyways?

My view on the military is simply this, we determine what we want the military to do (something I asked a lot of you before if you'll recall) and we fund and build it to do that. If we don't know what we want the military to do, then we have no damn idea where the money should go.

[SirNitram]

Fair, but I still suspect there's plenty of waste in there as the result of inefficiencies. Anyway, I wish to draw attention to this.



The boxed regions are mandatory spending; healthcare and social security are diminished as this, no doubt, comes from the plan to slash these things.

The bottom includes military funding. These are the effects Ryan asked the CBO to assume with his budget. He proposes no cuts or controls of military funding, yet expects it to crash to nearly 25% of it's current levels.

Then again, he assumes the housing boom to kick back into gear at full levels and not slow down.

[Derek Thunder]

Frankly Martin, that's a job for the CBO or GAO. Not Congress. And quite frankly every "efforts to find, identify, and eliminate wast" in the last 4 or so years has been a cover to kill things that the whoever is in charge didn't like actual need or efficiency be damned. I won't even bring up McNamara who has become some sort of dread bugbear.

If you declare you don't have the expertise to decide what you want the military to do, how can you determine what is waste or what isn't anyways?

My view on the military is simply this, we determine what we want the military to do (something I asked a lot of you before if you'll recall) and we fund and build it to do that. If we don't know what we want the military to do, then we have no damn idea where the money should go.

Arguments can be made for the role our military should play in the world, but I think it's the height of hypocrisy to claim that the deficit is the single largest and most important issue facing the country while ruling a discussion on our foreign military policy and military spending off-limits. It leads one to think that Republicans aren't actually concerned about the deficit at all (as was the case during the last administration) and are using a revenue crisis caused by the recession as cover to strike a mortal blow to the tattered remains of the New Deal.

I think that the Ryan plan is the epitome of un-seriousness for this reason, asking (future) seniors and the poor to shoulder a huge increase in health care costs while preserving the business models of defense contractors and actually lowering taxes on the wealthy once again (with the hilarious assumption that this will lead to "explosive" growth and 2.8% unemployment).