He puts money in the Cayman Islands which I guess is legal. A change in tax code that isn't for the millionaires or billionaires might change that. When asked about it when running for President he basically said: anyone would be a moron not to try to legally cut their taxes. You can't argue with that. But I think it'll be hard to stop these guys when they are so defiant. I'm sure there's a lot of hedge fund managers who are paying nothing.
They go away but he says they're funded "by other tax revenue under the plan". Very vague, I know. I question the revenue myself but it has increased overall tax revenue in places like Hong Kong and Russian Federation. At a high level it only makes sense that this would offset some of the progressive revenue with more jobs, more people making money and putting it into the system rather than taking from it, and more corporations here. How close that is or if it actually increases revenue is something I'm not sure anyone can answer without doing it. Too many variables. But the other side of this is he has real plans to cut spending - big time.
Well, Rand is for cutting defense spending which is the biggest cash cow in gov. http://www.newsweek.com/what-rand-paul-thinks-about-defense-spending-320291. I can dig that.
If there's other tax revenue is has to come from somewhere. If not payroll taxes then what? A VAT of any significant size would be a killer for the middle class and an absolute disaster for the poor. Good luck to him with that. The Military Industrial Security Complex will never accept cuts and we don't even know what a significant chunk of their spending is because it's in the Black Box. Seniors will not allow any political party to cut spending on them and the political losses for whoever tries will make the Obamacare fallout look tame in comparison. That leaves the rest of the corporate welfare system, which will never be cut due to their political influence, the farm bills, which are political suicide in mostly red states, and the infrastructure spending that the federal government does just to stay in maintenance mode on our already failing infrastructure. Welfare got cut in the 90's. It isn't even a minor piece of the pie any more and you certainly can't get from here to Oz even if you cut all of it. Rand Paul needs to specify his cuts because he will never get most of them passed if he somehow gets elected without doing that. We have an $18 trillion dollar national debt right now because Ronald Reagan could only get half his package passed. Even that luxury is no longer there for Paul. If he passes half of his package the US economy and likely government will collapse before his first term is over. Note that cutting all the big government departments sounds wonderful until the veterans march on Washington again and local towns and cities can no longer afford schools and toxic clouds begin forming over centers of industry again, etc. Big government is wasteful but the things that it does well can be done well by nobody else and that lesson is writ large on US history.
Well, if he's elected. The thing about entitlements and just blanketly cutting them like the Repubs did with food stamps. It's not fair. It cuts the legit people who really need help. Not all lazy bums either who don't want to work. People working minimum wage jobs. They work them because they have no other choices. They don't have the skills or the talents to make more money or they would. So what advocates of programs like this are saying is that: enforce the rules and get rid of the cheaters. You know like guys driving their Mercedes to the Welfare Dept to get their checks. Or those morons who use their check to go on cruises. But for the people esp kids who really need these programs, esp for food. Why should they be cut out. We can afford to help them out. As for enforcing the rules: you have to appropriate money to hire people to investigate the cheaters.
I love how right after he criticizes defense spending and introduces heavy cuts he has a small paragraph on protecting our embassies as our ambassadors are being put in harms way. Nothing like taking away a solution and then introducing the problem I do like the privatized TSA though, I don't like the elimination of Homeland Security grants
Well it's not as nutty as his dad's plans were but it's a hold your nose and jump off the cliff and hope the water is deep enough type venture. You also have to hope the water is close enough that you don't die when you hit it. Any serious attempt to re-invent the American economy needs to deal with the debt first and foremost before it does anything else. Heavily indebted ventures don't have the freedom to turn on a dime and make huge changes in the way they operate. Not until they are in bankruptcy at least and we're not there yet. We should be pulling an additional half percent out of the economy and using it solely to buy down the debt in the hope that one of the bubbles opening up now generates enough revenue to get us really moving in that direction.
He's just dreaming the dream. If he did the math rigorously he'd realize that it was just a dream until the debt was handled and he'd put much more of his resources into figuring that out. This plan is a non-starter unless you're looking to create a revolution. BTW, I'd love to see a plan that talked about debt reduction without destroying the government in the process. We need that in the coming generation or we're going to collapse as surely as the Soviet Union did and our aftershocks are probably only going to be a bit less harsh than those were.
The biggest reason for debt in 2015. Not the "Imperial President." The Iraq War. Now that was expensive.
Is there a reason you can't do both? We spend a fuck ton of money on stupid shit. I don't think we get the debt down without reducing spending, which is going to hurt somewhere for someone.
Debt and Partisan Warfare. I'm still shocked that the Republicans refused to let Obama surrender to Boehner in 2012. That was the beginning of the process of figuring this out and it got the back of the Republican's hand. It's reminiscent of the US essentially creating the Kyoto Protocols and then being the only major country unable to ratify them. A house divided cannot stand for long.
We do spend a fuck ton of money on stupid shit. I didn't read that whole document of course so perhaps this is unfair to say but I don't really see where he's reducing spending on stupid shit, it seems to me like some important shit is getting proposed to be reduced and the rest is pretty vague.
It would be a wonderful thing if anyone could do that and be successful. There are so many cost overruns and so much institutionalized cheating going on in terms of gov. contracts. The Conservatives are right in that the Fed guv is a too huge behemoth. People have been talking about these rip offs for years and giving great examples of the silly shit and the more serious stuff too like cost overruns on defense spending. It's really the job of Congress to start effectively monitoring this and stop the nonsense with Bengazi etc. which is taking their time and money. One place they can start immediately: more rules on lobbyists. And their relationships with gov officials esp elected ones.
I wouldn't single out defense spending in a discussion of cost overruns and stupid shit spending. Honestly, defense contractors have stricter requirements and face more criticism on costs than other departments and government expenditures
Based on what I've read over the years. There is more fraud in defense contracts than any other area of gov. It's huge because of the great amounts of money. Plus it's institutionalized. There's cheating everywhere though including entitlements.
One must begin by acknowledging the simple fact that progressive rates of taxation on income is not the same as deductions and credits. You could have a tax code with no deductions or credits and progressive rates of taxation on income. It's a simple point, really. I am not sure what is wrong with the language I have used here. A flat tax on income benefits the wealthy because they are then not subject to a higher marginal tax rate as their income advances above the cut offs for the lower rates.
just because it benifits the wealthy doesn't make it bad. my understanding is that this proposal benifits everyone.
Sure you could have both: no deductions for the rich. And a progressive rate. But if you had a flat rate with no deductions for the rich. Would it be better than what you have now. And could you enforce these deductions. Or would they just find another shady way of doing the same thing.
