Jack Nicklaus Endorses Romney, Mitt calls Jack “Greatest athlete of the 20th century.” - Page 13

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Originally Posted by newtogolf 

I especially agree with revamping the tax code.  I'd like to see it simplified to the point that we can shrink the enormous size of the IRS.  Give Romney some time with public speaking, it took Obama 4 years to figure out how to do it without a teleprompter, though GW never seemed to get the hang of it. 

 

Personally, I don't think that just revamping the tax code will do it.  The entire system needs to be rethought because it's just not fair, and there's no way to make it fair without throwing it away and starting over again from scratch.

I could personally live with a consumption tax.  That's really the only fair way to tax people.  Taxed on what you spend instead of what you earn.  Rich people will naturally pay more, but everyone will contribute something.  If you buy a $2k used car, you pay a flat rate on that $2k, but if you buy the $2M Bentley, you pay the same percentage, but naturally the amount will be much more.  It's the only fair way to tax people.  Then you wouldn't need an IRS at all.  It would also encourage investment, since you're no longer taxed on your investment income at all.  It would also encourage people to save and not incur more credit debt.

It would also get rid of any loopholes.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond 

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Originally Posted by Archie Bunker 

Jack knows that in golf, there are winners and losers. Obama would run PGA tournaments with handicaps, so everyone would "even out". There would be no winners. Everyone loses, just like in Obama's vision of America.

Well, at least we would have won the Ryder Cup with a points redistribution.

 

Yeah - a tie guaranteed every year. Plenty of "gimmies" and lack of effort. Sort of like what people expect from "Big Government" today.  

I think USPS is more efficient than Fedex. Fedex agrees which is why they use the USPS to delivery a good chunk of their packages. There are individual spots where fedex beats the USPS but in general they are about the same for similiar products. And no one wants an efficient post office. USPS is required to serve the whole country even when it doesn't make financial sense for social and political reasons. Look how upset people got with the idea of getting rid of saturday mail. Health care is another win for the government.  Maybe you did save 1500 bucks as you health care only went up 1800 instead of  3300.:) Try finding private insurance that is cheaper than the medicare cost per person.  Marines are cheaper than Blackwater contractors and so on.  I am not sure how efficient the gold standard was or how you would even measure that so you might be right about that one. But I seem to remember a lot of credit issues in the 1800s when we were on the gold standard so it might not have been that great either.

The housing crash had just about zero to do with the CRA. Most of the lenders who issued bad loans had ZERO CRA obligations. And of the ones that did, the CRA loans performed the same as the rest of their portfolio. The crash was Wall Street overpaying for securities. Without that overpayment, there wouldn't have been money for all those poor home owners. Thank Phil Gramm (and Clinton for signing it) for that bill.

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Originally Posted by Bullitt5339 

Both candidates are horrible choices, the only choice is if you're actually in the 53% who pay taxes is: where do you want your money spent at.....  Neither party will actually shrink the size of government, they just spend more of our money on different things.  The National Government (I will no longer call them the Federal Government, because it no longer meets the definition) has never been successful at anything they've taken over from the free market or private entities.  Compare UPS to USPS.  The Fed vs. the Gold Standard.  Everything they touch turns to crap, no matter which party is in power.  Now they're involved in my healthcare?  Great.....  I was promised that my healthcare for my family would decrease under the current regime by $1500.  Remember that speech?  Mine has increased $1800 in the past 2 years.  More broken promises, more rhetoric to get elected or reelected and then no action.  

 

Republicans block all the legislation?  Sounds like a good excuse until you realize that the current regime had complete control with vast majorities for the 1st two years and still nothing happened.  The people got pissed and kicked a bunch out and gave the House to the Republicans hoping for something good to happen.  Still nothing gets done.  I don't want to talk about the worthless Senate.  Just 2 weeks ago, with polls showing that 94-96% of Americans are against sending foreign aid to Syria, Egypt and Pakistan, our Senate leadership voted overwhelmingly 81-10 to continue aid to countries that hate us.  Most of them on either side ignored their oath and job to speak for the people they're elected to represent.

 

Bush gets a lot of blame for the current situation, but economists can point most of our current crisis to the housing bust.  Why did the housing bust happen?  Because Clinton-led legislation forced banks to make high risk loans to people who they knew couldn't repay them.  G.W. was warned about the crisis coming but did nothing to change the regulations.  Banks were more than willing to loan the money because the housing market was booming, and they could foreclose and flip the houses for even more profit.  Individuals bought houses with low initial interest rates and loans that would allow them to just pay interest for a number of years, effectively putting them in more house than they can afford, and most knew it.  But it was no big deal, they could sell the house in the booming and inflated real estate market, make some money and live above their means for a few years and then do it all over again.....  Until it all caught up and crashed.  Everyone was guilty in that one, Republicans, Democrats, Banks and the Individuals.

 

A very smart economist once said "Only borrow money if you have the ability to pay it back, or borrowing the money will give you the capability to pay it back".  Noone, especially our government, a lot of corporations or our citizens seem to follow this anymore at all, and that's a huge problem in itself.

 

It doesn't matter who we elect and put in the White House anymore.  Nothing will drastically change for the better until our politicians actually represent We The People instead of themselves, which won't happen until we reach the level of crisis to where they can't ignore it and address it with empty promises and more unnecessary spending.  When we're in the situation that Greece is in right now, things will change.  Until then, it's business as usual, which isn't good for any of us in the long run, no matter what side of the isle you support.

Consumption taxes have a different set of draw backs. The estimates are that we would need a 20-30% tax on everything to have the same revenue which would be hugely regressive and would be a huge tax on current savers. Imagine I have 50k and am about to buy a 50k car. This law passes and now that car costs 60k+. Imagine being retired and having your income cut by 20%. Wouldn't make to many people happy. And then there would be the exclusions. Having to pay a 20%+ tax on your house would kill the market. But if you start excluding things the rates go up and results in market distortions. And you would definitely need an IRS. The schemes people would come up with to avoid taxes would be all new ones.  And you would have to figure out how to tax business transactions. You wouldn't want an item that passed through 3 or 4 hands before being sold to be taxed at 200%. All of this stuff can be solved but it is messy (look at the European VATs for examples) and is subject to different types of lobbying.

There is no such thing as a "fair" tax system as everyone has different views on what is fair.  Most of them come down to tax the other guy and leave me alone.

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Originally Posted by Bullitt5339 

Personally, I don't think that just revamping the tax code will do it.  The entire system needs to be rethought because it's just not fair, and there's no way to make it fair without throwing it away and starting over again from scratch.

 

I could personally live with a consumption tax.  That's really the only fair way to tax people.  Taxed on what you spend instead of what you earn.  Rich people will naturally pay more, but everyone will contribute something.  If you buy a $2k used car, you pay a flat rate on that $2k, but if you buy the $2M Bentley, you pay the same percentage, but naturally the amount will be much more.  It's the only fair way to tax people.  Then you wouldn't need an IRS at all.  It would also encourage investment, since you're no longer taxed on your investment income at all.  It would also encourage people to save and not incur more credit debt.

 

It would also get rid of any loopholes.

USPS is not even close as efficient, because they've never made a profit. They aren't required to.  In fact, they lose more and more money every year, which is the true measure of efficiency. Fed Ex or UPS has to make a profit in order to survive and are doing quite well, which means they are more efficient.  The fact that they would use USPS just shows that USPS can deliver things cheaper than the cost because it's subsidized by our tax dollars.  So if it's cheaper for the business that has to make money to use an agency that doesn't, it's only good business sense to use them.

Healthcare costs have skyrocketed for a number of reasons.  One of the main reason in the past 2 years is that there were always caps on the amount that health insurance companies could have in their "rainy day" fund.  That limit was removed by Obamacare in order to allow insurance companies to stockpile money because their operating costs are going to spike when all the new regulations kick in because of the overpricing of our healthcare system outside of insurance.  There are quite a few reasons why, and I won't get into all of them, but sometimes you just have to ask why an MRI cost me 10 times more here than when I was in Japan.  Why does an aspirin cost 10 cents, but if they give me one at the hospital, it costs me $40?  It's simple abuse of a necessary  "product" that isn't allowed to compete on the open market which would lower our costs.  There's no simple answer on how to fix it, but I don't think the current plan is a good one, since it's already proven to be ineffective in many other countries who come to the U.S. to receive our overpriced healthcare because they can actually get it, even if they're paying way too much.   I see this as only the first step towards moving towards the same single payer system that has failed in many other countries.  How many things has our government started or taken over that didn't grow in time?  Remember that Federal income taxes were supposed to be temporary to pay for the war.  Imagine the debate on that back in the 40's....  The CBO has already stated that the initial cost estimates were horrifically wrong, and it's going to cost a lot more than initially planned for.  Someone's going to have to pay for it someday, I guess.

Healthcare costs America $2.5 Trillion a year.......  I've heard people say that ending the war in Afghanistan and Iraq would pay for everyone's healthcare.  Simply not true.  While I see no reason for our Soldiers to keep getting killed for no apparent reason anymore, the wars cost us an average of $200 Billion a year, which doesn't scratch the surface of our healthcare costs.  Bring the Soldiers home, but not under the farce that it'll be a budgetary life-saver for the American public.  

The gold standard meant that money was actually secured, not just a fictional entity like it is now.  The printing presses at the Fed have been running non-stop printing out money that isn't backed by anything but another hollow promise.  It causes inflation and devalues our dollar, which is something that we are already seeing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by x129 

Consumption taxes have a different set of draw backs. The estimates are that we would need a 20-30% tax on everything to have the same revenue which would be hugely regressive and would be a huge tax on current savers. Imagine I have 50k and am about to buy a 50k car. This law passes and now that car costs 60k+. Imagine being retired and having your income cut by 20%. Wouldn't make to many people happy. And then there would be the exclusions. Having to pay a 20%+ tax on your house would kill the market. But if you start excluding things the rates go up and results in market distortions. And you would definitely need an IRS. The schemes people would come up with to avoid taxes would be all new ones.  And you would have to figure out how to tax business transactions. You wouldn't want an item that passed through 3 or 4 hands before being sold to be taxed at 200%. All of this stuff can be solved but it is messy (look at the European VATs for examples) and is subject to different types of lobbying.

 

There is no such thing as a "fair" tax system as everyone has different views on what is fair.  Most of them come down to tax the other guy and leave me alone.

Well, I'm also a huge advocate for major budget cuts.  I have to admit I'm a bit of a Constitutionalist and a moderate Libertarian (I'm not a Ron Paul supporter though) and don't believe that the majority of the money spent by the Federal Government is needed, necessary or Constitutional on both sides of the isle.  I know that there's no chance of us ever seeing that during my lifetime though.  If you take all the stupid crap that the Government pays for out, and focus on the things they need to be paying for, you could balance the budget with lower tax burden.  But again, that'll never happen.  Did you know that we send Billions of Dollars for humanitarian relief to China and Russia?  Guess who owns most of our debt?  So we're borrowing money from countries to send it back to them for them to spend it on their people......... How much sense does that make? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by x129 

Consumption taxes have a different set of draw backs. The estimates are that we would need a 20-30% tax on everything to have the same revenue which would be hugely regressive and would be a huge tax on current savers. Imagine I have 50k and am about to buy a 50k car. This law passes and now that car costs 60k+. Imagine being retired and having your income cut by 20%. Wouldn't make to many people happy. And then there would be the exclusions. Having to pay a 20%+ tax on your house would kill the market. But if you start excluding things the rates go up and results in market distortions. And you would definitely need an IRS. The schemes people would come up with to avoid taxes would be all new ones.  And you would have to figure out how to tax business transactions. You wouldn't want an item that passed through 3 or 4 hands before being sold to be taxed at 200%. All of this stuff can be solved but it is messy (look at the European VATs for examples) and is subject to different types of lobbying.

 

There is no such thing as a "fair" tax system as everyone has different views on what is fair.  Most of them come down to tax the other guy and leave me alone.

You clearly don't understand the concept.  Pls read the FairTax book and get back to us.  You'll learn about embedded taxes as well as the fact that that consumption tax REPLACES the current federal income tax.  It's not repressive at all......and allows for collection of taxes from previously unavailble sources.  It's NOTHING like a VAT.

You realize that up until about 5 years ago the USPS routinely made a profit?  Again efficient here is a vague term. The postal service is very efficient at delivery packages at about cost given a lot of constraints (imagine if Fedex wasn't allowed to close any branches or raise prices without intervention by an outside board). It isn't efficient at making money because that isn't a goal.

Health care costs over the last 2 years have gone up the same amount as before. The point remains that Medicare and the VA get more for their healthcare dollars than private insurance.

I understand the gold standard. It isn't clear to me if it was more efficient. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullitt5339 

USPS is not even close as efficient, because they've never made a profit. They aren't required to.  In fact, they lose more and more money every year, which is the true measure of efficiency. Fed Ex or UPS has to make a profit in order to survive and are doing quite well, which means they are more efficient.  The fact that they would use USPS just shows that USPS can deliver things cheaper than the cost because it's subsidized by our tax dollars.  So if it's cheaper for the business that has to make money to use an agency that doesn't, it's only good business sense to use them.

 

Healthcare costs have skyrocketed for a number of reasons.  One of the main reason in the past 2 years is that there were always caps on the amount that health insurance companies could have in their "rainy day" fund.  That limit was removed by Obamacare in order to allow insurance companies to stockpile money because their operating costs are going to spike when all the new regulations kick in because of the overpricing of our healthcare system outside of insurance.  There are quite a few reasons why, and I won't get into all of them, but sometimes you just have to ask why an MRI cost me 10 times more here than when I was in Japan.  Why does an aspirin cost 10 cents, but if they give me one at the hospital, it costs me $40?  It's simple abuse of a necessary  "product" that isn't allowed to compete on the open market which would lower our costs.  There's no simple answer on how to fix it, but I don't think the current plan is a good one, since it's already proven to be ineffective in many other countries who come to the U.S. to receive our overpriced healthcare because they can actually get it, even if they're paying way too much.   I see this as only the first step towards moving towards the same single payer system that has failed in many other countries.  How many things has our government started or taken over that didn't grow in time?  Remember that Federal income taxes were supposed to be temporary to pay for the war.  Imagine the debate on that back in the 40's....  The CBO has already stated that the initial cost estimates were horrifically wrong, and it's going to cost a lot more than initially planned for.  Someone's going to have to pay for it someday, I guess.

 

Healthcare costs America $2.5 Trillion a year.......  I've heard people say that ending the war in Afghanistan and Iraq would pay for everyone's healthcare.  Simply not true.  While I see no reason for our Soldiers to keep getting killed for no apparent reason anymore, the wars cost us an average of $200 Billion a year, which doesn't scratch the surface of our healthcare costs.  Bring the Soldiers home, but not under the farce that it'll be a budgetary life-saver for the American public.  

 

The gold standard meant that money was actually secured, not just a fictional entity like it is now.  The printing presses at the Fed have been running non-stop printing out money that isn't backed by anything but another hollow promise.  It causes inflation and devalues our dollar, which is something that we are already seeing.

The budget cuts would have to be huge. In 2010 the federal government took in ~1.1 trillion in income taxes from corporations and individuals. That basically pays for defense (DOD, homeland, veterans, DOE) and debt payments.  So if you eliminated the rest of the budget (who needs roads, a court system, a banking one, ....) you could probably balance the budget with todays rates. Now the situation looks a bit better if you assume tax revenus go back up the 400-600 billion that they were before the depression but even then you would need 1/3 cuts to balance budget. If you actually wanted to justify tax cuts you would need much bigger budget cuts. And that is ignoring the fact that the budget owes a couple of trillion dollars to SS+medicaid now that those programs are not donating 100's of billions of dollars to make the numbers look good.  You can debate if reneging on that debt is permissable.  Doesn't mean that cutting a lot of waste programs isn't a good idea but unless you plan on returning the US to a regional power (i.e slash the military budget by 75%), it is impossible to make the math work. There is a reason why the Ryan budget doesn't have a balanced budget out for 20+ years.  You can't get the math to workout with out crazy growth numbers (i.e. numbers that we have never had for a 20 year period) and a lot of compounding.

Shifting things to the states has good things (they are more local) and bad (you end up with 50 different rules). Imagine if you couldn't bring your car across state lines because it didn't meet a states regulations for being on the road.  Or the pain pill you are taking for your back gets you arrested and serving 30 years when you go to a neighboring state because they have decided to crack down. And there would be incentives for the state to dump their problems on others. Would FL be happy to have all those old people move there if in 20 years, they would be responsible for all the medicaid nursing homes expenses? States would start setting up things saying that you need x number of years of residency before you qualify. Reducing mobility is not a good thing. Some other stuff is a no brainer. If a state doesn't want to pay for teachers or police officers, that this their problem. If you want to live in the sticks, realize that getting a phone line or electricity might cost your 50-100k.  

A quick google suggest the US give both Russia and china ~70 million a year. And most of that money isn't just handed to the government. It is spend on things that advance US interests. The one I read about a couple years ago talked about how like 20% of the particulate air pollution in CA came from China's coal plants and they were working to get the chinese to install scrubbers. I have no idea of that money is worth it. That is the problem with a lot of these things. They don't seem as stupid once you  look into them. Except the ones that are totally nuts (i.e. the one that studies the effect of crack on quails sexual behavior springs to mind).

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Originally Posted by Bullitt5339 

Well, I'm also a huge advocate for major budget cuts.  I have to admit I'm a bit of a Constitutionalist and a moderate Libertarian (I'm not a Ron Paul supporter though) and don't believe that the majority of the money spent by the Federal Government is needed, necessary or Constitutional on both sides of the isle.  I know that there's no chance of us ever seeing that during my lifetime though.  If you take all the stupid crap that the Government pays for out, and focus on the things they need to be paying for, you could balance the budget with lower tax burden.  But again, that'll never happen.  Did you know that we send Billions of Dollars for humanitarian relief to China and Russia?  Guess who owns most of our debt?  So we're borrowing money from countries to send it back to them for them to spend it on their people......... How much sense does that make? 

Sales/consumption taxes are the least fair type of taxes.  It's an obviously regressive tax system and poorer folks are burdened much more heavily by it.  This one is pretty simple guys.  It's hard to take your conversations seriously when you all bat around the idea that a flat consumption tax is "fair."

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Originally Posted by David in FL 


So what are his accomplishments. The things that cause you to want him in office for 4 more years?

I think you need empathy, and the only way to get that, is to look at issues from another point of view - the opposition. But that takes work. And it is with empathy that we begin to come together as individuals, and as a nation.

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Originally Posted by Subaroo 

Sales/consumption taxes are the least fair type of taxes.  It's an obviously regressive tax system and poorer folks are burdened much more heavily by it.  This one is pretty simple guys.  It's hard to take your conversations seriously when you all bat around the idea that a flat consumption tax is "fair."

I do not agree or even see where you could even come up with that idea.  How is being taxed on what you spend instead of what you earn not fair?  Fair is everyone paying the exact same percentage....... EVERYONE.  Regardless on income.  I could see retirees being exempt, but other than that?  Don't care, pay your share.

What happens in a few years when the consumers outnumber the earners?  The obvious answer from your point of view would be "Tax the earners more to pay for it".  

I take it that you think just because someone's income is low, they should not be "burdened" with any taxes?

That's a destructive thought in itself.  This may sound kind of cold-hearted, but it's the truth.........

People who do not pay taxes are the highest consumers of tax money.  So until they're paying something, I don't ever want to hear another poor person say that the rich need to pay more.  20% of people in the U.S. get paid to live here and actually receive our money directly through a tax return when they contribute nothing throughout the year.  Yeah, that's fair.......

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Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond 

I think you need empathy, and the only way to get that, is to look at issues from another point of view - the opposition. But that takes work. And it is with empathy that we begin to come together as individuals, and as a nation.

I have empathy, but I've seen too much abuse of the systems in place.  My views have actually changed a lot over the past 10 years because I actually moved into an area that has rampant open abuse of the system which is passed on from generation to generation.  A friend of mine works at CPS, and some of the crap he witnesses is a real eye-opener.

Wait - what argument are you making?

"I had empathy for the poor before I found someone abusing the system?"

Or "Obama is bribing people with lobsters, steaks, and iPhones?"

Find the truth ..

Did Obama change the food stamp system that existed to buy votes?

Does the government have anything to do with purchasing phones for those on entitlements? (already looked this one up weeks ago about Obama phones  - the answer is no - it's another right wing lie)

I had to cut my response short in order to come in to my overpaid Government Contract job. (sarcasm)

I didn't have time to respond to the VA/Medicare statement earlier.  I have no dealings with Medicare, except that being around retired Military all day, I know that once they turn 65, the "free" (isn't really free anyways, just cheaper) healthcare they were promised disappears, and they have to start paying $1500 a year for Medicare.  So I will not comment further on that, because I am not informed on it, especially on the efficiency of the system.

I can comment on the VA though, being a disabled veteran (60%).  If VA is so efficient, why is there a 1.5 year backlog on claims?  I broke my back in the line of duty, was discharged, and had to wait nearly 2 years before my claim was finalized.  Doesn't seem very efficient to me, when the records were all there showing that I was injured in Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent surgeries and therapy was all documented..  I have been to the VA once for treatment and choose now to pay the deductible through my insurance for my care instead because of the quality of care.  Their answer was to give me a never-ending supply of Percoset.

Honestly, I measure efficiency by the value of the service vs. what it costs.  Government agencies, no matter who they're run by or what they do operate with ridiculous unnecessary expenses, which always means that it ends up costing the taxpayer more than it would cost the private sector to do the same job.

I always look at the source of the information as well.  My income for the past 20 years has been provided by the government, so you'd think it would make sense to vote for the party who believes "Government knows best".....  Well.....  My living has always been made from the military, so I guess I should vote Republican huh?  Nope.  My mother is a Vice President for the Food Worker's Union, so obviously I would side with the Democrats...... Nope.  The truth is that being exposed to so much from both sides has shown me that neither is capable of fiscal responsibility, they just waste money on different things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond 

Wait - what argument are you making?

 

"I had empathy for the poor before I found someone abusing the system?"

 

Or "Obama is bribing people with lobsters, steaks, and iPhones?"

 

Find the truth ..

 

Did Obama change the food stamp system that existed to buy votes?

 

Does the government have anything to do with purchasing phones for those on entitlements? (already looked this one up weeks ago about Obama phones  - the answer is no - it's another right wing lie)

I have emphathy for the poor, just not the same as everyone else, apparently.  I grew up very poor and realized and was taught from a young age the value of hard work in order to get what you need/want.

 I have empathy for the family in WV who's entire family history is working in the coal mine and that's all they've ever known, but through increased EPA regulations over the past 30 years, the coal mine has closed down and the parents went from making $150k a year to $40k a year working in a department store.  They're working hard, but just not making it.  They've moved out of their $250k home into a trailer, sold the BMW and bought a used Ford, got rid of the Iphone and got a basic phone, trimmed all the unnecessary things out of their budget that they possibly could, but still have to choose between food and the electric bill this month.

I have no empathy for someone who collects welfare and food stamps, but drives a brand new Lexus, goes and gets their hair and nails done every week, uses their food stamps as barter material for cash and is complaining about rich people not paying their fair share to someone on their brand new Iphone.