how to pay for obama promises? ooo ooo I know

lets raise taxes... heck lets create new taxes while we are at it!

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/12/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5009316.shtml

He argued that each penny of tax on a 12 ounce drink would raise $1.5 billion annually and lower consumption roughly one percent, improving overall health. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a three-cent tax would generate $24 billion over the next four years.

Such a tax might well be considered a "sin tax" similar to the taxes levied on cigarettes, which are extremely high compared to most other consumer products. Jacobson also wants the taxes on alcohol raised -- he argues that doing so will "compensate society for the costs of alcohol abuse and alcoholism and to marginally reduce problem drinking." The argument echoes the idea of cigarette taxes helping pay for health care costs associated with smoking.

Amazing how penny taxes on 300 million peeps adds up...

Canadian math must work differently then USA senate math
"He argued that each penny of tax on a 12 ounce drink would raise $1.5 billion annually and lower consumption roughly one percent, improving overall health. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a three-cent tax would generate $24 billion over the next four years. "


each 1 cent tax generates 1.5 billion per year
he is proposing a 3 cent tax so 4.5 billion per year

4years x 4.5billion = 18 billion ( ignoring the 3% reduction in consumption )
where does the extra 6 billion come from? Magic land?

maybe this is why the USA is in such freakin trouble.. its politicians use made up math.

Could be worse....could be trying to pay for things by borrowing....which would you prefer?

Print more money out of thin air...or increase the staggeringly low taxes in the U.S.?
I think we have more to complain about taxes than they do down south.

Could be far worse...they could be using photo radar to illegally ticket people, then use those proceeds to pay for their programs.....

"Could be far worse...they could be using photo radar to illegally ticket people, then use those proceeds to pay for their programs..... "
hehehehe

also...
The USA has tried the borrowing approach already.. hence the 13 Trillion in debt.

What's another trillion or two? lol

Sounds like the responsible thing to do, is being done....you want services like single payer health care...you have to pay for them somehow...such as taxes.

oh no doubt, but I bet the obamamites never thought it was actually going to happen.

I still don't think it's going to happen.

fool me once, shame on you....fool me twice...

something will happen to sabotage this....too many big players at risk. Too many in Congress bought and paid for....just wait for the vote, if it ever gets to that.

Same goes with the credit card bill....

Deank wrote:Canadian math must work differently then USA senate math
"He argued that each penny of tax on a 12 ounce drink would raise $1.5 billion annually and lower consumption roughly one percent, improving overall health. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a three-cent tax would generate $24 billion over the next four years. "


each 1 cent tax generates 1.5 billion per year
he is proposing a 3 cent tax so 4.5 billion per year

4years x 4.5billion = 18 billion ( ignoring the 3% reduction in consumption )
where does the extra 6 billion come from?

compounding interest over 4 years? Population growth over 4 years? Maybe each additional cent is taxed on the tax recursively? LOL

They probaly had the photo radar person from here fiqure it out for them . it must be right then. Since they can never pay it back .

ooo ooo ooo better yet!!!

Lets tax health plans!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090519/pl_bloomberg/akmzhkjisw_s

Could be worse....the Rethuglicant's came up with their own "health care" plan today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/republican-health-care-pl_n_205728.html

I'd cut down on military spending first. The United States spends about 40% of the entire planet's military expenditures which is more than the next 20 countries combined. There is no bigger waste in the US government than military spending and no bigger spender than the Republicans when they're in power. Bush nearly doubled the debt, by the way. That's from just over 500 billion to almost a trillion. No president in the history of the United States has inflated the debt as much as George Walker Bush.

Out of two evils, it's much better to raise taxes than simply to borrow the entire economy into oblivion like it's done now. In fact, in my personal (relatively insane) opinion, the government shouldn't even have the right to borrow money at all! By governments borrowing money, politicians can do whatever they want without any personal or political risk because the whole damn thing is rolled unto the next generation, which then has no choice but to roll it unto the next. I like his "pay-as-you-go" rhetoric, but it wouldn't be enough for me. I'd campaign for a constitutional amendment forbidding the government to borrow a single cent for anything! If the people want the government to do something for them, it's only proper that they feel the implications. Things have to be paid for, they can not simply be borrowed forever and ever. I cannot see how this is supposed to benefit anyone except politicians who want to buy votes at the expense of future generations. The public always needs to pay in the end anyway, why not pay it right away?

With the present system, and especially the periodical Republican governments, spending will always increase, never decrease, because it's never in any politician's favor to actually pay back the debt. The debt offers them a way to make unborn generations pay for stuff that benefits us now without the political ramifications.

But who cares? They're only our children and grandchildren, right?

"Bush nearly doubled the debt, by the way. That's from just over 500 billion to almost a trillion. "

that would actually be the defecit not the debt

"No president in the history of the United States has inflated the debt as much as George Walker Bush"

yup there sure is... his name rhymes with your momma..

Huh? Obama has done worse in his short while than Bush? How is that even possible? Or is he forced into it because of a) Bush's antics and 2) the recession?

bush took the debt from 500 Billon to 1 trillion.... what is the debt now, deank?

bush took the defict from a profit of 400 Billion to a deficit of 1 Trillion. In that time he racked up 6 trillion in debt ( was 3 trillion finished at 9ish trillion )

Obama took the defecit from 1 trillion to 3.2 trillion in less then 100 days. by the end of his two terms he will have racked up 12.3 trillion in debt. and america will be 21 trillion in the hole.

GOM does it really matter what is causing him to be in that situation are you going to do the Math on what Bush's and ever other president before him plus and minuses were that take away from the staggering debt that the americans are under?

Huh? If I didn't want to know I would not have asked. And yes it matters. Extenuating circumstances will help me form my opinion.

btw, Have you taken over as our resident grammar deficit poster? Add a period or question mark in occasionally so some of us less intelligent peeps can truly understand what is being said...

I won't try to defend Bush's antics, though I'll mention the "warS" definitely added to the deficit, and several of the worst natural disasters have occurred during his terms (Katrina for one).

Circumstances in general will always affect the funding of any group, be it government or private enterprise. It's how they handle it that determines if they did well or poorly.

In Obama's case...his bleeding heart whining about "entitlement" for everyone is going to bankrupt the US. It's the same road Clinton was on during his terms, giving away billions of dollars to people who just squander it anyway. Obama is no different. Creating taxes on the "rich" mean the rich have to make more money...so they raise prices on the things they own, cut wages, fire personnel, etc.

Despite Dean's math...the numbers are a bit off IMHO. If Obama keeps going at the current rate, sure...but he can't do that...because the more he borrows and buries the country in debt the more he's going to need to try and dig his way out, so the more he's going to borrow to offset the costs. He's unwilling to do what really NEEDS to be done, which is to force everyone to actually WORK for a living...get rid of the welfare system as it's currently designed, and start locking up criminals rather than coddling them.

I'd imagine it's going to get MUCH worse before it even starts to get better...and unless Obama gets some kind of wake-up call towards what he's doing...they'll be CHASING him out of the White House in 3 years.

I must admit that I confused the numbers of the deficit and the debt. I tried to do some research on the topic, and I ended up at the Library of Congress (loc.gov), of course through the magical tool of Wikipedia. See how useful Wikipedia really is when you check the sources?

I failed to find sources on the actual debt, but I did find concrete sources on the debt *ceiling*, which is what Congress allows the government to owe. Here is the most recent number I've found for how much the US federal government is legally allowed to owe, which is 12.104 trillion (confirming the number in the Wikipedia article at the time of this writing).

http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc-cgi/get_external.cgi?type=pubL&target=111-5
(Click "All Information", use your browser to find, usually Ctrl-F, look for "Increases the public debt limit")

This was on February the 13., 2009.

Since all the sources on this topic in the Wikipedia article use the same source of sources (namely loc.gov), I'll just copy/paste the numbers from the Wikipedia article. I checked sources 23, 25, 29 and 38 and at the time of this writing they all match. It seems pretty obvious to me that Republican are overwhelmingly responsible for increasing the national debt. Now, on the national deficit, I don't know, but it seems pretty obvious that Republicans have been mostly responsible for increasing the debt.

• September 1987: to $2.800 trillion.^[23]
  
• November 1989: to $3.1227 trillion.[24]
  
• November 1990: to $4.145 trillion.[25]
  
• August 1993: to $4.900 trillion.[26]
  
• March 1996: to $5.500 trillion.[27]
  
• August 1997: to $5.950 trillion.[28]
  
• June 2002: to $6.400 trillion.[29]
  
• May 2003: to $7.384 trillion.^[30]
  
• November 2004: to $8.184 trillion.^[31]
  
• March 2006: to $8.965 trillion.^[32]
  
• September 2007: to $9.815 trillion.^[33][34][35]
  
• On December 19, 2007: to $10.615 trillion, to account for the potential bailout of the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.^[36][37]
  
• On October 4, 2008, to $11.315 trillion, by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R.1424).^[38][39]
  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Republicans had the presidency from 1981 to 1993, Democrats had it from 1993 to 2001, Republicans from 2001 to 2009 and since then, Democrats.

Anyone care to cross-examine?

"Despite Dean's math"

not my numbers.. actual projections from the white house based on its current prediction of the state of the union over the next 8 years

and yeah they raise the debt ceiling every year pretty much its a vote usually around September.

grumpy old man wrote:Huh? If I didn't want to know I would not have asked. And yes it matters. Extenuating circumstances will help me form my opinion.

btw, Have you taken over as our resident grammar deficit poster? Add a period or question mark in occasionally so some of us less intelligent peeps can truly understand what is being said...

periods are for women

and hockey players too