Susan here.
Everybody has their own ideas of getting rid of the deficit. I largely agree with my fellow Leftists that defense needs cutting and the tax cuts for the rich have to expire. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
But how about, instead of messing with Social Security and Medicare, which I’m dead set against, we institute tariffs. Americans consume most of the junk that is made in foreign countries. This would also be an indirect tax on corporations. Most likely these tariffs might be passed on to the American consumer, but, what the fuck, we like to spend, don’t we?
Another thing we can do is to institute a carbon tax. Meaning a tax on all retail sales of gas, oil, and coal. We consume all of this like flies eating shit, so this would contribute to deficit reduction.
Oh, and here’s an unconventional solution: Why don’t we decriminalize prostitution? If a woman or man is 18 years of age or older, they should be able to sell their sexuality. If it’s decriminalized, then it can be taxed like any other business is taxed. Legalized forms of sex work such as stripping and porn are already taxed; how much more revenue would be collected if straight up hooking was also taxed? Part of this money could go towards the deficit to pay it off, and would also save tax-payers in wasted billions of dollars because of “vice-arrests” of prostitutes that now occur due to criminalization. (There are people who bring up the “trafficking of minors” argument against decriminalization, but I would add that if we leave consenting adults alone, we have more money and manpower to rescue actual trafficked victims than we do now. So that argument is dead in the water.)
There are so many ways to get rid of the deficit. Starting, of course, with the military.
Empire is Dead.
Susan out.
16 Comments.
1) Tariffs: Ss. Smoot and Hawley tried that. As Prof. Krugman explains almost every column, the heathens rejected their great and beneficent plan back in the ’30s, just as it was bringing prosperity to the US. As Krugman keeps saying, ‘The Great Depression ended in ’33 as soon as FDR got elected, and If only the fools hadn’t reversed the great and wise laws of Ss. Smoot and Hawley, that same prosperity of ’33 would have continued.’ And, of course, according to Krugman, all the problems Bush, Jr. caused the US economy ended the day Obama took office. We must not concern ourselves that 20% are out of work: the Bush, Jr. Recession is over, the economy is rebounding nicely, and the only problem is World Trade, which must be throttled if prosperity is to continue.
2) Female Prostitution. While male prostitution is something that should be strongly encouraged, most women I know say that, if a man holds a $100 bill up to a woman’s throat and demands sex, that’s much, much worse than holding a knife to her throat. Men who have to pay women for sex should be institutionalised for life without parole, so women can have sex with men they WANT to have sex with, men they’ll PAY to have sex with, and women should never have to see the kind of men who are so repulsive they have to pay for sex. If a man has $4,000 to pay for sex, take the $4,000, give it to the woman, do NOT require her to have sex for the $4,000, and put the man in jail, where he belongs. Then the woman can give the $4,000 to a gigolo for great sex. That’s how the world should be.
Why not cut out of Social Security and Medicare? Recent demographic trends appear to be that people don’t enter the workforce until their mind 20’s and they will probably live into their mid 90’s given improvements in medical technology. Its impossible for people who do work to pay enough into the kitty to sustain an social security if others spend more than half their lives not working. As for Medicare, what is the harm in putting price caps on hospitals to keep them from charging the taxpayer $50 for a $0.10 dose of Xanax?
I like the fossil fuel tax. We should use it to fund our overseas military operations, since our army has become a pipeline protection force.
I also agree with legalizing prostitution, but hoping for tax revenue is wrong on many levels. People who engage in prostitution are in dire economic straits. They cannot trade on any mental or manual skills like the rest of us and have resorted to selling a basic biological function. Funding our great society on the backs of these people would be cruel. It would also be impractical. Prostitution is a cash business and it would have to be organized to get tax compliance. Organization would likely mean sanctioned pimps and brothels issuing W2’s. Prostitution can already be a horribly exploitative industry, and it would probably be even worse if pimps had the law on their side. Finally, it would put the state in a position of optimizing revenue by promoting a vice enjoyed largely by irresponsible people. State sanctioned casinos offer a clean, regulated venue for people with no financial sense to gamble away their kids lunch money. State sanctioned brothels would likely do the same. The additional burden created on the social safety net would more than counterbalance any money made in taxes. No sexual encounter between two consenting adults should be a crime, but prostitution should stay in the informal economy.
michaelwme
Agreed. We do need more male prostitutes. With more gigalos, I’d be free from my current humanitarian duty to pleasure misanthropic spinsters. I’d finally have time to develop my race of pleasure-bots and save mankind from irrational womankind once and for all.
@michaelwme
1) That is not what Paul Krugman says at all. He insists the depression didn’t end until World War II almost did, and that FDR’s stimulus was useful but insufficient. Only the war was a big enough expenditure to dig out the country. Krugman is also very critical of Obama, and believes that Obama’s mostly conservative policies are making things worse. He has actively stated so both in numerous columns and blog posts. Say what you want about Krugman, and perhaps he is 100% wrong, but at least get what he says correct if you are criticizing him.
2) I suspect this is all sarcastic and therefore not worth wasting the copious time to need to address it.
means testing.
Once you get out of social security/medicare what you and your employer(s) put in you get tested to see if you need help. Doesn’t put people on the streets but puts an end to people benefitting from a system they do not need.
Of course, there’s no problem that more taxation won’t solve. I’m with you on prostitution, Susan, but purely from a pro-liberty stance, not one for conveniently filling up the coffers of government. Next you might propose subsidizing, which is the other side of “liberal” socio-economic policy.
Shut down foreign bases, bring all troops home immediately, slash the military budget in at least half. Abolish the CIA, the NSA, the DHS, BATF, DEA and all other arms of the police state. Let young people opt out of SS and shift the spare budget obtained from the afore-mentioned cuts towards financing SS for those who came to depend on it. By all means test it for means.
bucephalus,
It seems we have more things in common than I thought. All of the crap agencies bearing initials you listed need to be abolished.
In regards to sex work, there is always the danger that the State might become just another pimp, treating sex workers differently from other workers by taxing and regulating them more than other workers. When I say “taxed like everyone else” I mean just that: nothing more and nothing less. And it would never do to over-regulate, because the workers who could not meet the rules the government sets will be working illegally as before, with the money earned not taxed.
Social Security has nothing to do with “the deficit.” Social Security has its own books, and they’re fine. The only reason to bring up Social Security and the deficit in the same paragraph is to change the subject, confusing people and creating an opening to get rid of Social Security, which “libertarians” and other Republicans have wanted to do since it was created.
“Means testing” means turning SS into a “welfare program,” facilitating stigmatization and eventual elimination, and once again has no effect on the deficit at all one way or the other.
I support an increase in tariffs and killing “free trade” all the way. A carbon tax might be good in the short run, but we must focus foremost in ending fossil fuel burning altogether. Yes and legalize prostitution.
Global trade is another unfortunate enlightenment-era shell game. We all scurry around trying to chase the cheese in the name of efficiency. Also, “progress” in the form technological advance is destabilizing. It puts people out of work en masse.
We have this feeling that because a machine can replace 100 workers, it should. Okay. We can indulge that a little while longer, perhaps. But there needs to be a plan for the vast superfluous workforce. We can put them on a generous dole, like in Sweden. We can sign them up for the military, like the US or we can simply starve them, or shoot them. We can’t just keep ignoring them, but we will.
Albert,
Increasing tariffs will just make other countries impose retaliatory tariffs on your country’s wares, thus making stuff more expensive for poor people on both sides of the border. I suppose your affection for laborers in foreign countries only show when they turn up as illegals in the US.
Also, “progress” in the form technological advance is destabilizing. It puts people out of work en masse. We have this feeling that because a machine can replace 100 workers, it should.
Angelo, aren’t you a couple of centuries too late. Anyway, I think human beings should not have to do a job a machine (or an animal, is less technologically advanced ages) can do. I tend to think we’re destined to higher purposes and endeavors. It never ceases to amaze me how low a concept of humanity you reconstructed, born-again socialists of the 21st century seem to have.
Right, we should have to live in our cars when the holy Market has no current use for us.
And take your “amazement” and any other ad-hominem verbal abuse somewhere else.
Zombie, what about my post was “abusive”? Did I hurl insults or four-letter words at you or Angelo? Aren’t you a little bit too sensitive?
Yes, I suppose we can all go back to a life of idyllic, full-employment toiling in the fields, in harmony with Mother Nature. The Holy State could then take care of any shortcomings the elements might throw our way. Except it wouldn’t be able too, being as dirt-poor as we’d be.
>>>>Anyway, I think human beings should not have to do a job a machine (or an animal, is less technologically advanced ages) can do. I tend to think we’re destined to higher purposes and endeavors.>>>>
How are we going to do “higher purposes and endevours” when machines have taken away our earning power? I think that is what Zombie is talking about. Capitalism can’t solve that problem.
Susan, I think “capitalism” has done exactly that over the last two centuries in the developed world and it is starting to do the same in the developing world.
By “developed world”, you would not, by chance, be referring to Western Europe, would you?
TWO RULES:
1) Development has NEVER occurred absent heavy state involvement
2) Development without any semblance of an equal distribution is the opposite of development.