Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[TimeForGuinness]

Welcome to stagflation.

[Hungary Jack]

Welcome to flagstation.

[wart57]

stop blowing [expletive] up?

That would be one hell of a campaign slogan.

If I am elected, I will stop us form blowing [expletive] up.

I would fell better if someone could get the other guys to stop blowing [expletive] up so we don't have to blow [expletive] up as well.

Cute.

Terrorism is police work, wart. The so-called War on Terror was incredibly misguided,
as is obvious from the upcoming 10 year anniversary. When does it end? How many
trillions of dollars have to be spent? Short answers: Never. Until the well runs dry.

Al Qaeda had all of their dreams come true when we invaded Afghanistan AND Iraq.
That is a sick return on investment. Three planes crashed into two buildings, and the US goes
literally insane and spends trillions of dollars playing whack-a-mole. Even if Al Qaeda is
slaughtered, we've paupered ourselves. So we can say we killed 100 #2 leaders while
the mastermind gets away and our own leader said he couldn't be bothered.

Pathetic.

So, yeah, I'd really be happy if one of our leaders sacked-up and stopped blowing up
brown non-english speaking civilians. This is Interpol work, not the 101st Airborne.

I wish it was a simple as so many on here think it is. Stop blowing [expletive] up sounds great. I can get behind that.

[maddash]

How about: let's make better choices on who we blow up.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Screw raising the retirement age. Let's just close most of the tax loopholes and stop spending so much money on blowing [expletive] up.

Eliminating these three exemptions alone would increase annual revenue by $1.2 trillion.

Bam. Deficit closed. Now let's all hang out, invent cool new technology, create art, advance culture, and stop spending so much money and so many human lives on maintaining our empire. It's more trouble than it's worth.

Unless I missed something, those tax breaks don't add up to 1.2 trillion. The first, and largest by far, is $264 billion. The second doesn't mention a price, but presumably falls between the first and third and the third is listed at around $160 billion. So...guesstimate about 264 + 200 + 160 = just over 600 billion. That's a huge number, about the amount of interest we pay on the debt. It's definitely significant but unless I am totally misunderstanding their numbers, they don't add up to the amount of the deficit.

[Hungary Jack]

How about: let's make better choices on who we blow up.

We can start by blowing up Congress.

[cards2468]

How about: let's make better choices on who we blow up.

We can start by blowing up Congress.

I wonder how many feds are reading through GRB right now.

[G. Keenan]

How about: let's make better choices on who we blow up.

We can start by blowing up Congress.

I wonder how many feds are reading through GRB right now.

100 LaRussa bucks says there's some NSA bot out there reading everything we write.

[Arthur Dent]

Unless I missed something, those tax breaks don't add up to 1.2 trillion. The first, and largest by far, is $264 billion. The second doesn't mention a price, but presumably falls between the first and third and the third is listed at around $160 billion. So...guesstimate about 264 + 200 + 160 = just over 600 billion. That's a huge number, about the amount of interest we pay on the debt. It's definitely significant but unless I am totally misunderstanding their numbers, they don't add up to the amount of the deficit.

I think the $1.2 trillion number is for all deductions, credits, etc. not just the three listed.

In any case, you're off by about a factor of three in your figure on interest expenses. Last year, the federal government spent about $200 billion servicing the debt or about 6% of total federal spending.

Edit: And the real figure is effectively even less than that given that a significant fraction of the debt is held by the Fed which returns its profits to the Treasury.

[vinsanity]

Screw raising the retirement age. Let's just close most of the tax loopholes and stop spending so much money on blowing [expletive] up.

Eliminating these three exemptions alone would increase annual revenue by $1.2 trillion.

Bam. Deficit closed. Now let's all hang out, invent cool new technology, create art, advance culture, and stop spending so much money and so many human lives on maintaining our empire. It's more trouble than it's worth.

Like AD said, cutting health care and retirement benefits isn't exactly going to fix problems we have nowadays. Although, assuming tax laws are the same 40 years from now regarding taxed vs pre-tax retirement accounts - 401k's generate more taxes for the Gov't on some people.

For instance, if I'm at the 20% bracket and contributing to my 401k but plan on retiring and living on income at a higher tax bracket - the Gov't will make a few extra points on my withdrawals. Though I'm favor of a 'consumption' like Buffet proposes. Money you invest is tax free to stimulate investment and saving.

Then with Mortgage Interest deduction....I'm not against the deduction. Cutting that would hurt an already weak housing market. Housing is a necessity to life. I believe renters get a tax deduction as well, no? Now I think there should be a cap on the amount of a mortgage that is deductible. Cap it at say $150k. You want that million dollar mansion? Good for you, only the interest on the first $150k is tax deductible.

End tax cuts for the wealthy. Capital Gains tax needs to be redone. I believe that certain qualified dividends are paid at your income tax level. So it's possible to generate a yearly salary's worth of tax dividends but not work a day and pay 0 taxes on those dividends. End refundable tax credits for international corporations. Legalize and tax pot (and online poker).

Bottom line is that no one thing is going to fix anything. If you were to cut these things, would other spending or taxable income decrease? Would the housing market take a hit? Would retirees or those currently saving for their own personal retirement have to work longer? Would they end up saving more and spending less because of the tax hit? But they are good places to look towards for some revenue increases.