[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by kyp275

Way to take unnecessary potshots, how classy of you.

It was a potshot only in your own mind. What I stated was simply the truth. I pointed out facts and figures, and only got "THE US IS DIFFERENT!" repeated ad nauseum back at me.

Oversimplification of the issue. Taxes can shape consumer behavior, the cigarette tax is a good example. However, unlike cigarettes, gas is a necessity. You can choose to quit smoking, but you can't choose to not put gas in your car so you can go to work or get around.

Except you CAN put electricity in your car instead. So gas is NOT a necessity. And you can also decide to walk, bicycle, or use public transportation. Even carpool. Sure, gas makes it a lot easier, but my dad bicycled to work for years. Even I did.

The whole thing w/ "foreign oil" is just missing the point IMO. It's an international market, it's not as if the oil we produce are staying inside the country. Foreign oil, domestic oil, they all go into the same pile that is the international market. The only way to change that would be to nationalize the oil industry and/or severely restrict/ban oil exportation.

As far as renewables go, solar and wind are nowhere near advanced enough to replace coal in the US, and the only one that can - nuclear, gets all the bad press.

And geothermal, and tidal, and hydroelectric, and... there are others on the table, too. True, no one source is going to handle everything, but when we draw from many different sources, it all becomes possible.

Which ironically is something that an increased gas tax will do.

It will some. But people can more easily decide to use less gas. They can't decide to just make less money in order to get taxed less, at least, if they want to eat and live in a warm place. Apples to oranges.

You can't continue to spend $3,000 every month when your monthly income is merely $2,000 forever without having it coming back and bite you in the ass later. I'm all for a progressive tax code, but the idea that the US can tax its way out of trouble purely on the rich is not only ridiculous, but also mathematically impossible. You can tax their income at 100% and not do much than making a small dent in the annual deficit. That's not to say that there should be widespread and mindless budget cuts everywhere, the problem is that we're not spending our money wisely, or at least we're doing it with too much waste.

First off, the government is not a househould. Running deficits and a debt is not a horrible thing. We should be running a deficit in bad times, as we need to ramp up spending to get the economy back on track. The key is that during boom times, we should be running a surplus to store money for the down times. That's the part the government usually has problems with, though.

But let me point out a falsehood here. The top 1% of taxpayers took home an average of $370,000 AGI in 2010, per IRS records. The top 1% consist of 1.4 million people (who filed tax returns that year).

1.4 million people x $370,000 = $518 trillion

Well, we just blew away, not only the deficit, but the federal debt, too. Of course, it is silly to tax them at 100%, but you brought up the number, so I thought I'd put that particular notion to rest. But taxing them at 50% would still do the trick nicely. It's a common misconception that taxing the rich more won't solve our problem. Who tells you that? Rich people, naturally.

Anyway, that's my math based off of IRS records from 2010. What is your math?

Ultimately what you need is growth, without which nothing else you do will be enough.

Growth is nice, but it is NOT the only variable in play. Nor is it the only thing to hang your salvation on.

Originally Posted by GundamFan0083

The actual number is 11,078 deaths by firearm [/URL] due to violent crime, not 30,000.

Oh, okay then. Only 11,000 people are dying, so I guess that is low enough that we can continue to arm ourselves and ignore the larger point about how a lot of people are dying today, because we are preparing for a fascist government that may or may not come tomorrow. By the way, where is the line for you? I am just asking, because I am honestly curious. How many people dying each year, due to guns (and I'll let you use just homicide if you like), would it take before you'd agree to cracking down on guns? Obviously, 11,078 dead people is too small. Was 30,000 too big? 100,000? Your statement implies you have some sort of number, where it goes from "okay to prepare for dictator" to "Hmm, perhaps we do have too many guns now."

That's all I'd like, is just a number from you, so if you could simply provide me one, that would be cool. Thanks!^^