The US debt (proper debate) - Page 39

A universal VAT (national sales tax) instead of income tax is one proposal certain people want to do to overhaul our tax system -- one full of loopholes, etc. I dont remember specific numbers, but its somewhere between 15 and 25% universally would produce equal, if not much greater tax revenue instead of our current (and rather broken) system. People in favor of the current system argue that increased wealth != increased spending, meaning the rich wouldn't be taxed more, like they should be. It would eliminate the IRS almost entirely, everything is done at the cash register, no forms, no tax fraud, nothing -- probably saves a lot of money too.

But in all reality, every time there seems to be an increase in taxes, the spending just goes up too, leading to our current problem. Inevitably, i think both must be done, but spending cuts to a much larger extent. It is hard to see how much of this money is actually doing any benefit. Education is one concern -- we pay so much per student, but it really doesn't show. Our elementary schools are good, but then it just fails miserably at the middle and highschool levels.

It's also just a generational shift between losing manufacturing to china and people not educated enough to move up from manufacturing / manual labor jobs to a "high-tech" industry which our economy is becoming. Auto workers' careers are limited, when so much of their work can be automated, and the same for many other similar factory occupations. Unemployment = less revenue, but not to our current scale.

Another problem is that the tax payers pay for public employees' employment benefits (health care, etc) if they are in public unions. Our tax dollars go to their (in some cases too high salaries), which then goes to their benefits. So you see some people (like Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey) go after unions. Obviously this creates backlash regarding the above education funding, and how it affects our children. Unfortunately, the current, bloated spending isn't doing much, and cutting or increasing will not change anything. It's a quality issue more than a quantity issue, leading to a belief that quality = money. While that is true in some cases, I would argue that we are at the "high" end of the money spectrum and not seeing much from it, and it is a systemic problem that requires a major overhaul that will not be accomplished because of political games.

Defense is another. The wars do cost money. There is the argument that we don't need to be deployed in so many countries, that America shouldn't police the world. And whatever else happens. I'm rather indifferent, though I would wonder what would happen if we didn't mediate all of these situations, both good and bad. Obama is continuing Iraq and Afganistan (I think its one of the things he is doing well), but he jumped into Libya, something that may be a criticism, depending on your stance with our military involvement. It really isn't that different than Bush jumping on Iraq and Afghanistan (reasoning may / may not be different, depending on personal beliefs), but the scale is, fortunately, much smaller. Either way, it adds more to defense spending, and further cements the US into the policing role.

And the list goes on and on for all of our major departments. It is easy to see that they can easily be downsized, but people decide to panic and create scapegoats. This leads to nothing being done.

The "struggling" is political games. People focus on re-elections instead of really doing what is right. If we had term limits on congress, it wouldn't be so bad, they wouldn't be focused on getting re-elected for the 5th, 10th, etc time. Because of re-elections, nothing will really get done till 2012 passes, and even then, it depends on who wins -- both congressional balance, and obviously the president. Unfortunately, that will never come to being, as they would be voting on ending their own careers, especially with super majority voting that amendments require. Re-elections & career politicians lead to zero risk taking, nobody standing firm against the majority, as the majority is not necessarily the correct decision. Nobody has concrete beliefs and core values that isn't persuaded by third parties. Whether you agree or disagree with them, it is something to be respected, and I believe that is lost in our current political system. I am talking about deeper values and beliefs than "pro-life / pro choice," etc. I bet a lot of them couldn't explain why they hold that belief that isn't political babble or shallow reasoning.

Big organizations, corporations (banks, for one), unions control both parties, because of the vast amount of funding that election campaigns apparently require. This is also another problem with our system. So these large organizations threaten members of congress with money. And since congressmen need money for their nth re-election, they bow to them.