Congressional oversight and committees are intended to manage these things.
Not an unelected oligarch.
Are you functionally clueless with how things like USAID work?
The Biden EPA tossed $20 billion of “gold bars off the Titanic” (their words)
- Thread starter Phenomenally Frantastic
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Congressional oversight and committees are intended to manage these things.
Not an unelected oligarch.
Are you functionally clueless with how things like USAID work?
It’s amazing how the kool-aid drinkers like the OP take the squirrel bait. It’s ok, they’re about to find out the hard way. And I’m living for it.
No, we've spent the last 31 years asking for budget cuts and you telling us no.
Like, every time the debt ceiling comes up and we threaten to shut down the federal government, you call our bluff, and government spending continues, unabated.
It's how we've gotten from a $4.0T budget 8 years ago, to $6.8 today (a 70% increase for those scoring at home). We've tried it your way.
Yes. Yes they are. To know this information would have required more than a D- in civics class.
Well, you are cutting out the parts that actually ballooned the debt. You know, the massive tax cuts to rich people and corporations. It's easier to talk about cutting things if you haven't massively undermined the way you raise money to pay for things.
Clinton negotiated budget cuts.
And the GOP has done no such thing. They've done worse, providing massive tax breaks for the wealthiest, taking the revenues as a %GDP from 20% (Clinton) down to 16% or less.
You want balanced budgets, they need to go back to 20% (with the wealthy paying for it all).
You want to reduce deficits, they need to go above 20% by as much as the tax breaks took them below, to 24%.
That's how math works.
Government revenue in 2017 was $3.316T. Government revenue in 2024 was $4.919T. Revenue up almost 50% in 8 years with tax cuts...
Imagine how much higher it'd have been if folks like Elno had to pay the same tax rates that you do....
This is your response?
We were within about half a $T of balancing the budget 8 years ago. Proceeded to GROW tax revenues by nearly 6% annually over the next 8 years (despite you screaming about tax CUTS undermining revenue)...now the annual deficit is closer to $2T/year.
The numbers don't lie. We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
And just think of how much more it would have been if they didn't make those cuts. Because you know, prices go up over time. It doesn't matter too much if you keep the revenue proportional to the increase. However Republicans keep slashing that and then wondering why they can't pay for anything.
It's always shocking to see how Republicans don't understand that when you cut sources of revenue, you don't make as much money as you would have if you didn't cut that revenue. And yeah, I get that taxes that are too high can stifle growth but those taxes weren't being raised, They were just staying the same and they were doing just fine.
Yes.
The uber-rich in this country have dozens, if not hundreds, of tax shelters and avoidance tactics so they pay a far lower rate than you do.
Many did not even file, and Biden's admin beefed up the IRS to collect billions from them.
Know what's gonna happen when your buddies gut the resources of the IRS that went after those folks? They won't even pay a dime compared to what you have to report on a W2.
yall would have spend it all anyways. No matter how much we collect, Dems find a way to squirrel into NGOs they and their buddies control.
It’s outrageous.
Even if I grant your premise, it's because we have distinguished between income tax and investment tax. The second category has generally already been taxed once as income, so it would stand to reason that the tax rate on subsequent levels of taxation would be less.
Most of the rest is pure fantasy. Seems that the IRS would have been well-served to instruct their EXISTING workforce to address the billionaires who weren't even filing. I had two audits in the last year that both boiled down to auditing non-Cash (contributions), with adjustments in the $1500 range. Yet apparently there were BILLIONS to be had elsewhere, if only they had more agents.
C'mon Joe.
Did you miss the thread where Republicans plan on increasing the deficit by $5 trillion?
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We've dropped the tax rates on "investment tax" to below what many middle class folks pay on income taxes.
Any guesses on which income "vehicles" the uber-rich have more of than you do?
There is no reason for this; those should be far higher, and we can drop them for folks who have them in retirement investments only.
You're so full of shit and plug this forum with lies and bullshit only your MAGA cult buys the manure you throw out.
Credibility is something you don't lose and regain. Your Orange pathological Liar in Chief is case in point. Defenders are in the same category.
No, it has not.
You are not taxed on your "base", you are taxed on the "gain". And the gains have been "transferred" to you, triggering the taxes.
The way this SHOULD be done, the way most Americans WANT this to be done is to establish a level of spending whereby the government provides national security, infrastructure, and some limited forms of social safety net, then build your tax policy from there.
Instead we're at a point where we have to constantly play the class warfare game as a red herring for a massively bloated federal bureaucracy.
We don't have a revenue problem, Joe.
When we ran balanced budgets at 20% GDP tax revenues, we most definitely DO have a revenue problem at 16% and below.
JFC. What a stupid position. We don't take in enough revenue. JFC.
So, let's take in 2/3s of what we take in now. Whoppppeee.
Goadamm idiots. More millionaires and billionaires made every week/month/year parking money offshore to avoid paying taxes.
Sure. No revenue problem.
20% of GDP tax revenue was an exceptional figure (a level not seen since WWII), due in large part to the incremental tax receipts received during the dot com bubble. Historically, we've generally run between 15 & 17.5%. 2024 was at 16.86%. Obama saw his presidency at 15% to 17%.
Expenses generally ranged from 15-20% from 1990-2010. In more recent times, they've typically ranged from 20-22.5% and currently sit at 23.14% and will go up significantly as interest on the $37T of debt is fully experienced.
It was before Bush and Trump tax cuts on the rich.
Hell, we'd be close to a balanced budget with Reagan-era rates on the rich and corporations.
Gee. I make more than I did than I did in the Reagan era. And I'm retired.
Got anymore stupid arguments.
Tax and tax. Screw your bullshit. Close the loopholes and tax the people assholes who've avoided taxes for decades. Retroactively.
Trillions upon trillions of uncollected monies. Hire whatever IRS employees it takes to go after the dodgers. Give the criminals opportunities to voluntarily come clean before you go after a few to make examples. Spend a few billion to collect trillions.
BTW, the United States can cooperate with foreign governments to go after criminals, including tax dodger's.
Coupled with cutting the government's wasteful and largely fraudulent spending, America is on track to recuperate trillions.
Below is a list of the numbers the President announced:
- Up to $521 billion federal dollars lost to fraud per year
- An estimated $236 billion or more in improper payments were made in 2023
- $2.7 trillion in improper payments, including payments that went to the wrong recipient, made since 2003
- $162 billion in total improper payments in 2024, including:
- Earned Income Tax Credit: $15.9 billion
- Food stamps: $10.5 billion
- Restaurant Revitalization Fund: $8.7 billion
- Supplemental Security Income: $6.5 billion
- Unemployment insurance: $5.6 billion
- Social Security Disability Insurance and Survivors Insurance Program: $8.3 billion, including $6.5 billion in overpayments
$2.7 trillion of your money, that's how much the government has wasted since 2003, which was highlighted by Marjorie Taylor Greene's DOGE Subcommittee.
Iz this what Elno told you?
Remember how he said the same thing about his Twitter deal, when he was being forced to honor it?
He lied then. He's lying now.
