How will we pay for it all?

I thought the minimum age for the site was 12.

this sort of the way it used to work.... now it seems to me that the better a company does on tax relief the more they tend to downsize, outsource, cut bennies etc. and prices still go up.

many remove their "corporate headquarters" to an off shore location like the caymans.

halliburton really relocated; to the arab emirates. the volume of america tax dollars they take in is ginormous. they must have some ops here in country, but, i'd be real interested to see what they pay in taxes. not to mention that by removing to the uae, they have dodged any legal blowback. nice touch.

and here's some stuff that we could cut and see immediate savings;

* faith based initiatives

* the 500 million dollar program to promote marriage.

* multibillion dollar tax breaks for the oil companies. their posting of historic consecutive q profits is a tip off that they don't need the help.

* put politicians on performance based pay. if they really are doing the political thing because of a strong need to serve the country, they shouldn't mind.

* bush just handed out a billion dollars to georgia this morning for "reconstruction". for what? the russians made the mess, let them clean it up.

* cut foreign aid to countries that don't really need it. too often it comes off as a pay-off to counties that the u.s. would like to ally with, but they just take the money and offer a one finger salute. remember Turkey?

Yeah, I read about that billion dollars the US is giving to Georgia. Our country is already bankrupt, and they continue to give money away like there's no tomorrow. Who are they trying to impress?

Another thought: the republicans don't want to tax the rich, because it will become a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, but it's okay to mortgage our children and grandchildren's future with all this debt by giving money to other countries. It's a crime to help our own people.

That's the conservative way.

I may be wrong about this, but the pie chart appears to me to be bogus because it includes "payroll taxes" as a source of revenue. Sure enough, employees have something like 7.6% of their earnings get withheld for Social Security and Medicare. And the employer matches that.
But that money, I thought, was supposed to go not into "General Funds" but into a trust fund for paying for Social Security and Medicare.
Legions on "Baby Boomers" contributed billions over their working careers, and many administrations (Dem & Rep), when they needed cash, would toss in IOU's to borrow from that fund.
But now us baby boomers have become old farts and we are starting to retire in droves. We look into the trust fund and it is filled not with money but with IOU's from better days.
So what, if anything can be done? The gov't gradually has been increasing the retirement age a bit, delaying things a bit. Promised benefits could be reduced, but woe be it to any politician who suggests that. The current generation of employees and their employers could be asked to pony up more, but woe be it to any politician who suggests that.
I would like to see this pie chart put side by side with one showing Social Security/Medicare benefits for, say, the next 10 years.
Again, I am not meaning to be partisan. This mess was created by short-sighted politicians who were quite content to push potential problems out beyond the next election cycle.

All the pols are useing our money to gain power with foreign countries like Israel .

yeah. like israel needs us. those guys are some tough motherfletchers.

and with a whole bunch of nukey toys, it's the arabs that should be afraid. surprising that they aren't really.

They are. That's why they keep trying to get comparable weapons. We won't let that happen, though.

I think payroll taxes are "supposed" to be off limits but that they generally have not been. You remember how they ridiculed Al Gore about that "lock box". Well, we still don't have one.

I'm about to join dys and become an anarchist.

"A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)."

The short answer to your question, FD, is that we can't pay for it all. Choices - tough choices - will eventually have to be made. I know one thing... I am sick and tired of working hard, paying LOTS and lots of taxes both as an employee and employer, and watching our representative government squander it.

Me too.

i too, say me too.

"billions of dollars" is treated like chump change. unreal.

I agree with the clown. The best way is to cut out all the fat " in other words make cutbacks, reduce government spending " maintain taxes as they are and cut back spending. That is what most corporations are doing currently as the economy is falling. No more big corporate parties, no more first class flying, video conferencing in place of flying to locations, re-negotiating with vendors. There is numerous ways to make cutbacks.

Government cutbacks also are received more positively than an increase in taxes by the general public. As an aside I think the whole SS should be scrapped. As far as I am concerned, I’m not counting on a penny of it. Granted I’d love to get it back, but I am relying on me " the government doesn’t make the best investment decisions. I do much better with my retirement investments.

How amusing that this is a thread started by a liberal Obama supporter.

How will we pay for it indeed?

How will we pay for all of Obama's promises?

When the people believe the government can provide them with all their needs, our Republic is in deep trouble.

It comes down to this: Very few conservatives believe in extreme social Darwinism. The fellow members of our society that truly cannot support themselves require our generous help. Taxes to fund such assistance are acceptable. Taxes to fund our security are acceptable. Taxes to pay for the national requirements that states might get parochial about are fine.

Taxes to pay for the votes for Democratic candidates are not acceptable.

How amusing that you start your response with a presumption about the person starting this thread. How unsatisfactory that whatever interesting points you might have brought to this thread are obscured by your obvious disdain for the question itself.

You are not a liberal Obama supporter?

I am an Obama supporter. Not sure if I qualify as liberal and I have a hard time seeing how you could know if I dont. I also dont see how it has any bearing on the topic. (pardon my broken apostrophe key)

Don't let me categorize you.

What are you?

I'm a conservative and have no difficulty exclaiming so.

Sorry, but it's difficult, having discerned Obama's positions, how any of his supporters might not be considered liberal.

Open to persuasion mostly. I am unaffiliated. Had a libertarian bent for a while. The last 8 years have made me reconsider liberal arguments in some areas while rejecting long held conservative beliefs in others. I am mostly just looking for competence and a righting of the ship right now and I dont see any ideology that has all the right answers. Having discerned Obamas positions myself, I think he agrees. I realize that is open to debate.