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[–] Racer_the_observer ago
Maybe your right. What about Trumps claim that he and the rest of the billionaires could pay off the national debt. Do you think they should or do you think the poor should also have to pay part of it?
[–] Fuzzy_Dunlop 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
Most of it needs to fall on the rich just because of the wealth disparity, you just can't really tax the poor that much more while leaving them enough for sustenance. Not just the billionaires though. If I were in charge of solving the debt problem I would do the following: 1. Cut discretionary spending. This would primarily come from defense, homeland security simply because defense is the majority of discretionary spending. Defense spending I would temporarily cap at equal to the next 4 top spending countries in the world combined. It is absurd that we spend so much relative to the rest of the world. This would entail pausing a lot of R&D and new weapons acquisitions, but those programs can be re-addressed once the debt is paid off. I would also cut foreign military aid, and some across the board (I would need to study each departments budget to be more specific than that).
2. Legalize and tax marijuana. Decriminalize other drugs and other victim-less crimes. This reduces law enforcement and prison spending and I just don't think people should be imprisoned for victim-less crimes.
3. Raise the Medicare tax by .9% (.45% on employers, .45% on employees). Medicare needs to be independently solvent. 4. Have Medicare negotiate for better prices. Allow the import of drugs from other first world nations (would need to go nation by nation to determine which ones had a good enough FDA-like department to trust, but I'm sure it would at least be Canada, Australia, Western Europe, etc.) I don't know how much money this would actually save, but when you see how much more Medicare pays for medical expenses compared to the Canadian and British governments it seems like it should be a lot.
5. Create a new tax bracket at $1.8 million+ at 44%.
6. Raise capital gains tax rates to be more inline with income tax rates, or simply treat them as income. 7. This is the big step. Remove the income cap for the Social Security tax. This is a huge tax increase so I would put a lot of restrictions on it. It would be written to be temporary. If less than 85% of it went to the interest on the national debt and the principal of the national debt for 2 years it should automatically end. After 15 years it would expire. Or when the national debt was paid off (or close to paid off since internal debt to Social Security can't really be paid off until it is needed and some long term bonds could not be bought back).
I haven't run the numbers for a few years now, but it should pay off the national debt is about 12 years. At that point the biggest tax would expire and we can decide whether or not to restore foreign aid, defense, and the other cuts.
[–] Racer_the_observer 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
You got my vote. The only thing you left out was the federal reserve. Judging from your platform I think you could come up with a feasible plan for them too. Where do I sign up?