Where is the US economy headed?

Cyclo wrote,

Quote:

I for one do have a problem with the mortgage interest deduction and ALL federal subsidies for home ownership.

That's like the wagon pulling on the horse; you can't reverse something that's been on-going taxation policy for home-buyers, because that would have decimated home buying by millions of Americans. It's good taxation policy for home-buyers, business, and the government; it encourages the right kind of capitalism where "everybody" benefits.

When we bought our home(s), we considered several issues; a) property taxes, b) upkeep of a home, c) neighborhood, d) our ability to finance the mortgage, and e) the long-term benefit of buying rather than renting.

I'm not sure where you're coming from, but it's your assumption that this taxation policy was/is a bad one. I can't put my arm around this one either!

But you're tying mortgage interest deduction against taxation policies which is a different issue all together.

Schumer Calls GOP Bluff On Spending And Deficits
Brian Beutler | March 9, 2011, 10:35AM

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the Republican Party's bluff on the need for deficit reduction Wednesday, outlining a fiscal framework that involves broader cuts and revenue raisers than the GOP has proposed -- and warning that there will be no agreement on funding the government unless the GOP broadens its approach.

"A bipartisan compromise simply will not be found in the domestic discretionary spending cuts alone," Schumer said in a half-hour presentation at the Center for American Progress. Without a broader scope, Schumer said, "we won't be able to come to a compromise on a seven month budget."

Schumer's entreaty changes the frame of the debate on Capitol Hill, which for weeks has been driven by Republican leaders, who have isolated their focus to domestic discretionary spending. Democratic leaders, who are unwilling to countenance major cuts to government services, had little luck playing on GOP turf, but will now have a coherent alternative to point to when negotiations over how to fund the government continue in coming days.

Schumer noted that the GOP's plan for spending cuts does almost nothing to reduce the deficit -- a fact that runs at cross-purposes to their insistence that the deficit must be reduced.

"Right now a very small, very intense ideological tail is wagging the dog over in the House of Representatives," Schumer said. "Their fervor for spending cuts is not grounded in deficit reduction at all. Instead the far right wing has deliberately confused two separate issues. They've conflated reducing the deficit -- which is not their true priority -- with cutting government -- which is."

Schumer endorsed the approaches taken by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, both of whom reduced or eliminated deficits by cutting discretionary spending and addressing entitlements and tax revenues. He identified achievable savings on all three flanks, including cuts to defense spending, agriculture subsidies, and a surtax on millionaires and billionaires.

"I noted with interest last week's Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, the most popular proposal to reduce the deficit out of 23 options surveyed was a tax -- a surtax -- on millionaires and billionaires," Schumer said. "It's not only a popular thing to do, it's the right thing to do."

Schumer left Social Security off the table, noting that it doesn't run into real actuarial problems for decades, and isn't a contributor to the deficit.

Republicans were caught off guard by the Democrats' new approach.

"Right now we need to crawl before we can walk, and that means finishing last year's business and complete a spending bill," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also tried to retrain the focus on the narrow sliver of the budget where Republicans feel most comfortable. "Their answer is to raise taxes, not to cut spending, and that's not something anyone else is talking about," he said.

Schumer's presentation shifts the onus in budget negotiations on to Republicans to explain why their focus is so limited. But fundamentally, the dynamics of that debate haven't changed. One side will have to blink, or something will give -- the government will shutdown, or be hampered by a series of short-term stop-gap spending bills until the next budget cycle begins, and round and round we go.

He was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in 1988 for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and tax code violations,

In December 1980, LaRouche and his followers started what came to be known as the "October Surprise" allegation, namely that in October 1980 Ronald Reagan's campaign staff had conspired with the Iranian government during the Iran hostage crisis to delay the release of 52 American hostages held in Iran,

Neighbors said they saw LaRouche guards in camouflage clothes carrying semi-automatic weapons, and the Post wrote that the house had sandbag-buttressed guard posts nearby, along with metal spikes in the driveway and cement barriers on the road. One of his aides said LaRouche was safer in Loudoun County: "The terrorist organizations which have targeted Mr. LaRouche do not have bases of operations in Virginia."

In January 1984 NBC's aired a segment on its Nightly News about LaRouche, and in March a "First Camera" report produced by Pat Lynch. In an article for the Columbia Journalism Review in 1985, Lynch wrote that the reports included the allegation that "LaRouche was the leader of a violence-prone, anti-Semitic cult that smeared its opponents and sued its critics."[79] In interviews, former members of the movement gave details about their fundraising practices, and alleged that LaRouche had spoken about assassinating U.S. President Jimmy Carter...

LaRouche filed a defamation suit against NBC ... LaRouche lost the case. NBC won a countersuit, the jury awarding the network $3 million in damages,....LaRouche failed to pay the damages, pleading poverty, which Federal District Judge Claude M. Hilton described as "completely lacking in credibility."[83] LaRouche said he had been unaware since 1973 who paid the rent on the estate, or for his food, lodging, clothing, transportation, bodyguards, and lawyers. The judge fined him for failing to answer.