Thursday, December 31, 2009

It's time to cut the bloat

From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:

Just when most Americans-or at least the "working families" who toil away on behalf of the government-are getting fed up feeding the pig, along comes Professor Matthew Dallek in this morning's NY Daily News to instruct us that we need to get over our aversion to being taxed: "Americans have not always hated taxes. The marginal tax rate was approximately 90% for the wealthiest Americans during World War II, but 85% to 90% of the public still described their tax rate as fair. In the mid-20th century, new payroll taxes were enacted to help pay for Social Security and Medicare, while federal taxes helped fund the Interstate Highway System, strengthened research and education at America's premier public universities and built the world's most powerful military."

It's as if Dallek hasn't been awake and aware for the past decade as NY City and NY State have borrowed us into an unsustainable debt - as Nicole Gelinas points out in the NY Post this morning. Or as more and more middle class Americans and small business owners have been forced to fork over more and more of their income in order to maintain - not vital services or infrastructure improvement - but a bloated state bureaucracy.

14 comments:

georgetheatheist said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Frugal Lino said...

"It's as if Dallek hasn't been awake and aware for the past decade as NY City and NY State have borrowed us into an unsustainable debt

It figures someone like this would quote a "Post" article.

What they conveniently fail to note was that fact that these local deficits grew out of the shell game that fraud Reagan played on us in the 1980's.

By cutting the top tier tax rate for the rich, it forced mandated spending onto localities.

Whitman enacted similar schemes in NJ during the 1990's and my friends quickly realized that their 'local' property taxes for school-police-sanitation etc, quietly went up to fill the gap.

When Reagan took office the Federal the federal budget was $678 billion..during his term it increased by 69%.

The annual deficit rose from $79 billion to $212 billion in that first term, the Reagan years added $1.9 trillion to the federal debt.

Oh, and The nation’s annual tax load increased by 65% during his time in office, in part due to the 1982 tax increase which was the largest in our Nation's history at that time.

We can go into Bush's economic perfidy if you're game.

Queens Crapper said...

Yeah the waste that happens in New York State today is all Reagan's fault! The reckless spending by lame ass pols, the bloated, redundant agencies, the sweetheart deals for developers ...

REAGAN, REAGAN, REAGAN!!!

Klink Cannoli said...

Ehhh! Wrong comrade Lino. It was quoted from the Daily Worker. I'm mean Daily News.

If you lost your little red book, I'm sure Anita Dunn has a spare.

Kisses.

Lino said...

"Yeah the waste that happens in New York State today is all Reagan's fault! "

The shifting of mandated spending due to cutbacks in Federal reimbursements -has- caused the current mess.

NYS is not alone n this situation -nor is it in the worst condition.

The Reagan tax cuts were a smokescreen for cutting the highest tier.

You can't get away from the fact that as the Feds have abdicated fiscal responsibility for programs they created, the cities have had to take up the slack.

Anonymous said...

Lino, the repubs do no better. They're all crap.

Lino said...

" Klink Cannoli said...

Ehhh! Wrong comrade Lino. It was quoted from the Daily Worker. I'm mean Daily News.

If you lost your little red book, I'm sure Anita Dunn has a spare.

Kisses."

Ehh..darling, in case it eluded you the link in the post was to a Post article.

BTW: The Daily News as "Daily Worker"? The paper that backed Nixon and most republicans? Man you have your head up somewhere.

BTW: Both D-N and Murdoch's Post backed Bloombag.

Queens Crapper said...

The Dallek link you criticized was to the Daily News.

Klink Cannoli said...

There are links to both papers, actually. But you're still a red diaper doper baby. ;@)

Care for the blood pressure, Lino.

georgetheatheist said...

The Daily News hasn't been the same since the death of the great editorialist Reuben Maury, n'est ce pas?

Anonymous said...

Dallek's an idiot. Most people don't mind taxes if they see the money is being used properly. Here in MN last week we had a snowstorm over Christmas-I didn't mind one bit about the overtime being paid to get the roads plowed because that is tax money well spent. On the other hand, all the sidestreets are still like washboards a week later because of the ice on them that should be removed with tax money. THAT's when people rightly wonder and complain about taxes.

Queens Crapper said...

How about throwing money at the schools just so they can continue to graduate dumb kids?

Anonymous said...

People don't mind paying taxes if the money is properly spent. However, we live in bloated New York State where the politicians have a spending addiction. Everyone got a raise, except the taxpayers. When money is tight, you are supposed to go over your budget and reel in spending. In New York, all the higher ups get raises with the excuse that you have to pay more money to keep good people. The job market is in the toilet, yet our government keeps imposing all kinds of taxes on us. Seniors will not get a social security increase, yet Congress got a raise. Health care will cost more for all of us under the Obama plan, yet Congress has a private insurance plan that we are not privy to. If government downsized and put our tax money to good use, instead of stimulus money that is spent on ridiculous things, people wouldn't be so upset. Stop sending foreign aid to all these countries that hate us, cut the higher-ups in government by 10% across the board, tighten our boarders, stop welfare fraud and stop using taxpayer dollars to bail out private companies. When the bloat is cut, people won't mind shelling out a little more in taxes if the money is used properly. Americans have had enough! Let the Revolution Begin!

Anonymous said...

it would be a revelation for COMRADE LINO to read "CITY FOR SALE" by Wayne Barret. he revisits the Mayor Ed Koch's years in n.y.c.

former mayor lindsay caved in to the left wing run M.T.A. union,led by Mike Quill.the taxpayers have paid for this local political, wage and benefit, give away to date. the other n.y.c. unions then got there extortion tax payoffs. the unions strike and we pay.

as to blaming federal politicians for n.y.c.'s possible bankruptcy,here is a quote from WALTER E. WILLIAMS : thou shall not steal, unless you have a majority vote in congress.