Should it be mandatory to cut spending if you want to cut taxes?

• IggyPride00

  

  If the government has "surplus" income then taxes are too high.

  That is ridiculous. If you have savings left at the end of the year, does it mean you made too much money? If a company has a shithouse full of cash on their balance sheet, does it mean shareholders aren't getting enough of a dividend?
  
  China has over $2 trillion dollars of reserves right now that gives them leverage to do so many different things when a situation arises. If America had a similar piggy bank accumulated in good times, we would wield more power in this world than the mind can imagine.
  
  The living hand to mouth idea that government should have no savings account for a rainy day essentially flies in the face of how people and businesses operate in their daily lives because the reality is that unforeseen circumstances will crop up, or some years will be better than others.
  
  I cringe when I think about it now, as I was as guilty as anyone of thinking it was a good idea at the time, but how in the world when we still had a $5 trillion dollar debt could we have thought we needed the tax cuts in 2001 because government might pay down too much of the debt?
  

  I'm just a little tired of the left wing "show stopper" "well Clinton balanced the budget" when in fact the congress holds the purse strings and that was the one time in recent memory that congress was controlled by the republicans.

  You're making the left's point for them about why Clinton does deserve credit for the balanced budget without even realizing it.
  
  With Bubba in office the GOP Congress were Conservative on spending. The second he left and a Republican replaced him they started spending like BHO's bastard little brother.
  
  I am not sure how, but Bubba seemed to have found a way to reign them in because once they were given the opportunity to run wild on spending with Bush in control they lost any and all connection they had with Conservative principals.
  
  It's hard to give Congress all the credit on the budget and not Bubba a bunch when Congress lost the ability to restrain themselves without him guiding them. I don't particularly like the guy personally, but he is the only President in decades that was able to put a lid on Congress's urge to spend themselves into oblivion.
• jmog

  IggyPride00;425899 wrote:
  You're making the left's point for them about why Clinton does deserve credit for the balanced budget without even realizing it.
  
  With Bubba in office the GOP Congress were Conservative on spending. The second he left and a Republican replaced him they started spending like BHO's bastard little brother.
  
  I am not sure how, but Bubba seemed to have found a way to reign them in because once they were given the opportunity to run wild on spending with Bush in control they lost any and all connection they had with Conservative principals.
  
  It's hard to give Congress all the credit on the budget and not Bubba a bunch when Congress lost the ability to restrain themselves without him guiding them. I don't particularly like the guy personally, but he is the only President in decades that was able to put a lid on Congress's urge to spend themselves into oblivion.

  
  Were you even an adult paying attention the first couple years of Clinton's administration when he did have a D congress? His spending was heading out of control too.
  
  I never said the Rs didn't screw up plenty, matter of fact that's the one thing you cut out of my quote is where I said both sides have completely screwed up. However, to act like it was all Clinton is hilarious.
• believer

  

  IggyPride00;425899 wrote:The living hand to mouth idea that government should have no savings account for a rainy day essentially flies in the face of how people and businesses operate in their daily lives because the reality is that unforeseen circumstances will crop up, or some years will be better than others.

  When government cuts taxes, the economy does much better. When the economy does better, more people are employed, more people are paying taxes, and fewer people are sucking off the government welfare tit.
  
  The government does not need a piggy bank for a rainy day. When the rainy day comes, they have the powers to do what is necessary to adjust but that should be a last resort. If the Feds are putting taxpayer dollars to anything but providing the services government should be rendering (IE: national defense, etc.), then taxes are too high.
  
  Let the people keep THEIR money and the watch the economy fly...including increased tax revenues.
• Sykotyk

  

  believer, if that were true the 2000s would've been the golden age of America.
  
  That's the fallacy, sure, more people were employed, at lower paying jobs paying lower taxes all collectively requiring more 'assistance' because their meager jobs weren't cutting it.
  
  If you let the people 'keep their money' as you put it, no services will be paid for (police, fire, schools, courts, regulatory agencies, roads, etc).
  
  We were in debt $5 trillion when Bush took office.
  
  That's like arguing if you have more than enough to pay the minimum on your credit card you can blow the rest at a casino. Here's a novel idea, why not pay more towards that credit card?
  
  Sykotyk
• believer

  

  Sykotyk;426755 wrote:believer, if that were true the 2000s would've been the golden age of America.
  
  That's the fallacy, sure, more people were employed, at lower paying jobs paying lower taxes all collectively requiring more 'assistance' because their meager jobs weren't cutting it.
  
  If you let the people 'keep their money' as you put it, no services will be paid for (police, fire, schools, courts, regulatory agencies, roads, etc).
  
  We were in debt $5 trillion when Bush took office.
  
  That's like arguing if you have more than enough to pay the minimum on your credit card you can blow the rest at a casino. Here's a novel idea, why not pay more towards that credit card?
  
  Sykotyk

  I was talking government surplus...not deficits.
  
  I'm perfectly OK with no tax cuts at the moment as long as it's coupled with definite, concrete CUTS in public spending...which the idiots in DC are completely unwilling to do....especially with the Socialist Triad now calling the shots.
  
  You know...the clowns who thought spending $879 billion IMMEDIATELY without even knowing the contents of their own insane bill that was allegedly going to prevent unemployment from jumping above 8%, and the same twits who want to fine us if we choose not to opt-in on government-controlled personal health care, and the same idiots who can't balance their own government checkbook but think they have the answers to fixing our private-sector financial markets (hypocritical too when you consider that some of these same idiots had their hands in creating the financial mess), and the same morons who want you and I to think cap & trade will mean an end to the alleged phenomenon known as global warming - er - I mean "climate change" but is truly a back-door method of increasing our taxes (which of course will help insure we stay in the economic malaise we currently enjoy).
  
  So I'll say it again...if the government runs a surplus our taxes are too high. But idiot-controlled Big Government doesn't even know how to break even so I guess we'll never know.
• LoganAlumni99

  Studies have shown that the Reagan tax cuts actually increased government revenue rather than decreasing it because they spurred economic growth. That growth led to more income being earned and therefore more in tax receipts. So no, spending and tax cuts don't necessarily have to happen at the same time. Of course, the best way to correct the national debt is to return the federal goventment to its Constitutional boundries.
• fish82

  

  IggyPride00;425899 wrote:That is ridiculous. If you have savings left at the end of the year, does it mean you made too much money? If a company has a shithouse full of cash on their balance sheet, does it mean shareholders aren't getting enough of a dividend?
  
  China has over $2 trillion dollars of reserves right now that gives them leverage to do so many different things when a situation arises. If America had a similar piggy bank accumulated in good times, we would wield more power in this world than the mind can imagine.
  
  The living hand to mouth idea that government should have no savings account for a rainy day essentially flies in the face of how people and businesses operate in their daily lives because the reality is that unforeseen circumstances will crop up, or some years will be better than others.
  
  I cringe when I think about it now, as I was as guilty as anyone of thinking it was a good idea at the time, but how in the world when we still had a $5 trillion dollar debt could we have thought we needed the tax cuts in 2001 because government might pay down too much of the debt?
  
  
  
  You're making the left's point for them about why Clinton does deserve credit for the balanced budget without even realizing it.
  
  With Bubba in office the GOP Congress were Conservative on spending. The second he left and a Republican replaced him they started spending like BHO's bastard little brother.
  
  I am not sure how, but Bubba seemed to have found a way to reign them in because once they were given the opportunity to run wild on spending with Bush in control they lost any and all connection they had with Conservative principals.
  
  It's hard to give Congress all the credit on the budget and not Bubba a bunch when Congress lost the ability to restrain themselves without him guiding them. I don't particularly like the guy personally, but he is the only President in decades that was able to put a lid on Congress's urge to spend themselves into oblivion.

  
  
  Clinton had zero to do with it. The Pubs lost their way when their fiscal hawks left, namely Gingrich and Kasich. Simple as that.