http://the-wawg-blog.org/?p=1846

Freedom Isn’t Free – What Are We Willing to Pay For It?
What are we willing to pay for freedom? How about our fair share of citizenship dues – taxes not unlike those of WWII? I suggest we raise the 33 percent tax rate to 35, let the 35 return to 39.6 percent, and add several more brackets for those making more than $500,000.
http://the-wawg-blog.org/?p=1963

Same for all treeasury holders so this is an ironclad, copper-bottomed sure thing, we cannot lose!

Feeling better already? There, I knew I could help you have a better day.

Any other problems? Just let me know.

Why? All folk will realise reality of the Fed’s spending and will seek to distance themselves from such bureaucratic determination to give our money to the poor bankers.

Also don’t forget to hike state taxes to balance for same effect.

What support can we garner for this eminently sensible solution?

That’s the trouble with averages, they don’t always mean what you might think they do. Life expectancy is greatly affected by child mortality, which has gone down greatly since the 19th century in the developed world. A better statistic would be life expectancy at 20, which his gone up only slightly in the developed world in the past 100 years.

As for the retirement age, the Japanese are right. We should retire at 50. What good are labor saving devices if they don’t save labor?

We should raise the age for Social Security to 72 over time. Phased retirement should be encouraged: work hard until 62 but then wind-down over the next 10 years into less demanding jobs.

Also, I doubt many senior citizens will be thrown into the streets. Some are quite wealthy overall and we’ll probably means-test Social Security first. (All you Progressives should be for that!) Also, the healthy ones will get a job. Finally, what about the immediate family helping? It’s the poor and disabled that have been adandoned by their families that we really need to worry about.

Countries with large welfare nets may be comfy and cuddly, but they are boring and stagnant, too. We need dynamic growth to address the problems on this planet, not more welfare.

When Social Security began in 1937, lifespans averaged 55 years and the retirement age was set at 65. Now average life expectancy is 78, and we still think people should retire at 65!

The age where benefits begin should have risen with life expectancy; then Social Security and Medicare would have been much closer to solvency. Asking those younger than retirement age to pay for a cushy retirement for those not elderly is absurd, but that is what we are doing.

Both Social Security and Medicare are thoroughly broken without major actuarial changes. No amount of new taxes will fix them. New taxes, particularly in this economy, will only throw millions out on the street, and shove this economy off a cliff.

A better question actually would have been ” do we really want to throw millions out on the street” to fund the early retirement of people not really elderly?

The last several tax cuts going back to at least Prop 13 in California, increased not decreased revenue. Often increased revenue dramatically. And the inverse has also shown to be true, higher taxes depress economic economic activity. It has been shown over the last eleven years the top ten high tax states have lost on average 1100 people a day combined to low tax states.

Higher taxes unless they are very regressive will not yield greater revenue. Period. Get over it.

So why are all you people still trying to raise taxes in the worst recession by far since the Depression?

Sorry, was this supposed to be an argument that government should be more entrusted with charitable enterprises? As you know FEMA is a government agency.

To meet needs of such proportions we need well-functioning, organized assistance, as well as individual and collective charity. There is no need to set up a false dichotomy.

Fair enough, agreed. It’s a false dichotomy and both are important.

The view that “taxes will have to go up” however precludes (and indeed, actively inhibits) charity from being part of any approach to the issue. In other words it makes an assumption that the solution lies entirely with government. So, as you and I agree, that’s a false dichotomy.

Income, capital gains, and estate taxes fall more upon the rich than the rest of us. And that is fair in terms of charity,

What do you mean? Taxes are not “charity”. The two terms are mutually exclusive.

the bulk of charity comes from average and even poor people, while the rich do not, as a group, do their part.

This is just false. Or, I guess it could depend on what you mean by “doing their part” but that begs the question.

Oh wait.

Anyway, private charity was working better than most people think. It has been crowded out over time a bit by government, of course – but that’s my point. How would private charity be doing if 40+% of middle class families’ incomes weren’t garnished off the top by the government?

But more to my original point, if you don’t think private charity would be “enough”, to prevent (for example) “millions of seniors being thrown onto the street”, that’s fine. You might be right, I guess. But such a view is not consistent with claiming to believe the American people are “decent”. It is, rather, an opposite view, that they are indecent.

For one thing: all these “millions of seniors” that are supposedly going to be thrown on the street – where are their families? Their children? Their children wouldn’t let them come stay with them in a pinch? “Sorry we need that room it’s the video game room”? That’s the point of view being implicitly promulgated here. Again: right or wrong, it is simply not a view consistent with the American people being “decent”.