[Brices Crossroads]

Ping!

[Lancey Howard]

I like this, but why not go with a “five penny plan”, where 2c goes to pay down the debt and 3c goes toward tax cuts?

[org.whodat]

Get off the drugs and stop rewarding people for bad behavior, you just get more of it.

[sourcery]

When the history of this financial crisis is written, future historians will marvel at why when in such a debt hole, the leaders of Europe (and America) refused to stop digging.

[Ref: First Rule Of Holes: ‘When you find yourself in a hole...’]

[Jim Scott]

A cogent analysis of the debt ceiling situation and some compelling suggestions for Candidate Palin to consider. I like the '2% solution'/'my two cents' concept because it's workable and easily understood. Thanks for a thoughtful piece.

[ken21]

>>>>Governor Palin should frankly indict the GOP leadership for its lack of leadership and its irresolute response to the worst crisis to confront our country since the Civil War. She should analogize the behavior of the GOP elites in Washington to those she vanquished in Juneau and Anchorage. It is a case she can and must make if she is to become the 45th President.

[JPG]

My .02 is that I agree with your .02 idea. Unless things change, the present ‘cuts’ based on phony baseline budgeting, rat spenditis and O’Zero’s redistribution/reparation frenzy for Holders people and the unions, the sad end result is inevitable.

[HMS Surprise]

If Palin were to endorse such a plan, I would support it, because I believe in her willingness to actually do whatever she promises to do. But, and this is no small caveat, I honestly think that she recognizes the unconstitutionality of the bulk of what the federal government does. (Depts. of Ed., Ag., Energy, etc..) I would therefore be surprised if she didn’t immediately begin dismantling same after she is elected. Would I be disappointed if she didn’t? A little. Would I settle for what you have outlined above? For a time, but the fight to restore the Constitution must continue ad infinitum, amen.

[for-q-clinton]

To get any plan like this passed first we have to kill baseline budgeting. That 1% cut would be communicated by the rats as a 20% cut because they’ll base it on future years planned spending.

I believe Nixon brought us this baseline budgeting crap...so it’s only fair we clean up after ourselves and get rid of that garbage and go to a regular budget.

[erod]

The GOP needs a solid leader like Palin, no more linguine-spined RINOS like Boner of McConnell. The GOP get’s a solid leader who is a conservative they will do great things. Excellent post Brice!

[Finny]

Great post. Good work.

[rintense]

Didn’t Rand Paul propose the penny plan recently?

[RonDog]

From atlasshrugs:

Does it strike anyone else that this next presidential election feels less like an election
and more like two opposing countries fighting for victory?

Obama's idea of America is positively un-american (collectivist, socialist, transnational).
The Republican mavericks (no, not the RINOs) are channeling our founding fathers,
fighting for individual rights, less government, and our unalienable rights endowed by our Creator.

The battle is for America, exceptional, sovereign and free,
vs. America, unexceptional, transnational, statist.

This isn't so much an election but a fight for America.
The Individual vs the State -- it's a non-violent civil war.

[Colonel_Flagg]

However, it would be wrong to condemn the TEA Party Freshmen who buckled under the tremendous pressure.

Please. Those freshmen know damn good and well why they were elected. It wasn't to do THIS.

[RayChuang88]

I think Palin should support this plan for REAL economic recovery:

1. We MUST reduce the size of government in general--government spending squeezes out the private sector and that can have really bad effects on the economy. In addition to passing the One Percent Spending Reduction Act of 2011 (H.R. 1848/S. 1316), we need to aggressively audit every government agency for bureaucratic overlap, agency bloat and obsolete/unneeded regulations and do the following:

a. Merge agencies to reduce bureaucracy size. For example, why do we need separate agencies for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social service agencies when it could all be handled by ONE agency instead?
b. Reduce the size of bureaucracies in general. With modern computer technology, do we really need so many people to run agencies anymore?
c. Remove obsolete and unneeded regulations. Many regulations on the books no longer apply today, and many regulations cost more to implement than the savings they were supposed to offer.
d. Privatize certain agencies. Do things like air traffic control and running Amtrak need to be done by a government agency?
e. Phase out a lot of agencies in general. Too many agencies just add complexity and their mission could be handled by state or even local agencies at far lower cost.

2. Income tax reform should RIGHT NOW be at the top of the agenda. The current income tax system has become a huge impediment to the economy, when you consider the following problems:

a. You have around 35,000 tax lobbyists trying to tweak the tax code to help or punish even as little as ONE taxpayer.
b. The result is the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) plus additional rulings that is around 70,000 pages of code so complex that even the Internal Revenue Service has trouble figuring out much of it!
c. Because of its complexity, the Tax Foundation estimates the current cost of compliance per year now exceeds US$300 BILLION per year. Some economists estimate the compliance and economic opportunity costs of the tax code per year is over US$500 BILLION per year!
d. Because of the 35% top rate (among the highest in the industrialized world), too many individuals and businesses are involved in tax avoidance schemes by taking advantage of tax loopholes. That explains why millions of jobs, thousands of factories, hundreds of corporate headquarters, and possibly as high as US$14 TRILLION in American-owned liquid assets are "offshored" for tax avoidance reasons, with the economically devastating result of increased unemployment in the USA and too many banks short on liquidity.

Since everyone across the political spectrum wants more taxpayers and everyone to truly pay their fair share, the solution is simple: overhaul the tax code to reduce yearly compliance costs, lower the tax rate to a single under 20% rate, and get rid of just about all the complicated credits, deductions, exemptions and preferences in the Internal Revenue Code--the plan proposed by Steve Forbes originally back in 1996 and described in a book he wrote in 2005. Under the Forbes tax plan, we get the following advantages:

a. The compliance cost per year is far lower, freeing up over US$200 BILLION per year for more productive economic activities.
b. The poor will no longer be subject to income tax, since we now offer a generous US$13,000 per adult (in a two-adult household) and US$9,000 per child initial household exemption for earned income.
c. Above that, all earned income will be subject to a 17.5% income tax--easily among the lowest rates in the world for a G-20 country.
d. We eliminate the alternate minimum tax, estate tax, and additional taxes for being married or living in a registered domestic partner (RDP) relationship.
e. We eliminate double taxation such as including bank account interest, capital gains and stock dividend payments, which encourages American residents and businesses to keep as much of their savings and capital investments in the USA as possible. That could mean millions of jobs, thousands of factories, hundreds of corporate headquarters and the vast majority of that US$14 TRILLION sitting in foreign financial institutions return to the USA, at once lowering the unemployment rate (e.g., creating a far larger base of taxpayers!) and making financial institutions in the USA whole again.
f. If we still have payroll taxes for Social Security, we can drastically cut the rate to under 3% or even lower, since private citizens can now create their own financial "nest egg" for retirement and/or medical bills tax-free, lowering the demand for Social Security and Medicare.
g. With the drastically simpler tax code, corporations will find far less need to spend a fortune to lobby for additions to the IRC or engage in expensive, highly-complex accounting schemes in order to lower the tax burden. Corporations would rather pay a low-rate corporate income tax with a far simpler filings than having to lobby for highly specialized tax breaks and/use complicated company incorporation schemes, both of which waste time and money (I've read just the yearly tax filings for General Electric would fill almost a 53-foot long truck trailer!).

So what are we waiting for even now?

[casinva]

I like the concept presented here overall, but I would think it might work better to stick with the Mack Penny Plan to establish the 1% incremental budget reductions and THEN to have a separate process to work on tax reform.

One of the most wonderful benefits of The Penny Plan is its simplicity and no nonsense actions that start immediately upon implementation.

To jumble other reforms all together (and especially taxes and IRS changes)confuses things and makes it easier for our politicians to throw in confusion, delays, and smoke and mirrors.

In other words: Yes with the 1% budget reduction solution, but KISS it (Keep It Simple Stupid), lol

Then also work on what we need to do with taxes, hopefully as effectively as that program changes how our government agencies develop and use their budgets.