Possible consequences of the US government shutdown

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To be fair, a big part of the problem has been a long term steady decline in the tax rate for top earners. For those of you who like charts, CLICK HERE

For a while, I suspect that the top rate on tax returns were past the optimum point of the Laffer Curve. Tax that high today and many of those people would likely find another country and surrender their U.S. citizenship if they couldn't find a way to protect their earnings from taxes.

In the end, a massive increase in tax rates for the top earners would likely not bring in all that much more and might result in substantially less.

I definitely agree. I was just pointing out another contributing factor to the current federal financial situation. If the tax cuts had been less drastic, then it would have been easier for the government to adjust their annual budgets. As it was, the large reductions in revenue were not offset by equal reductions in spending. That also goes for the historical reductions in corporate tax rates.

And I definitely agree that Nixon's game of taking gold out of dollar value was probably the single most (long term) damaging economical action in this country. It did make quite a few rich people richer, though.

[Moved from News and Current Events to PPR]

And about time!

Shut it down!

We are in life destroying debt due to made for media problems.

If we do not destroy Saddam, and his country, puppies will not have rainbows.

If it stays shut down we never have to pay those over paid Public Servants. They can get real jobs that produce something.

Government employees and contractors come after other debt, which has to be paid.

The future has been destroyed, and now why should we pay the people who did it?

Who is marching on Washington demanding more NAFTA, and more NSA spying?

Homeland Security needs machine guns, so they can hunt down those who question Big Brother.

Ibn Khaldun said in 1300 that when the government destroys the economy, they raise taxes to hire and arm goons.

The House has the Power of the Purse, and what they will not fund, no one else can.

Another trillion a year in debt throws crumbs at Obamacare, to bring support, but those are not the votes in the House.

Our debt exceeds GNP, payable soon, the thirty years of the War Babies retirement, another amount the government does not have, and made no plans to pay.

So lets share the pain starting now.

ok, fair enough, so long as folks like the kochs share their share of pain also.

if anyone already saw the Schoolhouse Rock video of Bill,

came across this that the media might have missed...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efqnvYz4YI[/youtube]

I work for the government. I work in a hospital providing healthcare to veterans. I make around $25,000 less than the national average for my job (according to the BLS). Your argument that government workers are overpaid is flawed.

All those studies that fly around don't take into account that:
A) The government employs a higher percentage of college graduates than the private sector workforce.
B) The government pays higher wages to those in typically minimum wage jobs in the private sector.
C) The government contracts out most labor jobs.
D) Most of these studies include cost of benefits, and since many corporations provide limited or no benefits.
E) The huge number of private sector employees that earn minimum wage drastically pull down the average private sector pay stats

You should then think about the fact that the salaries of top executives in the civilian world compared to the usually less than $200,000 that most top executives in federal service receive.
I know here at this hospital, government employed doctors (even some top specialists) make a fraction of what they would even at a mediocre civilian hospital.

And perhaps you should think about the fact that 3.2 million people are employed by the federal government, 5.4 million people are employed by state governments, and over 9 million by local governments. Do you really think that putting all of those people out of work is going to help the current state of things?

Under the Obama Administration, there has been a reduction in government budget shortfalls for the past 2 years; for the first time in more than a generation.

Don't get me wrong, the goivernment is overspending by quite a bit in many areas, but to call for their complete elimination is reckless and short-sighted.