Our nation's debt is literally indenturing our children to our international debt holders, but most Americans don't care because they are more concerned about the latest saga involving Snooki on Jersey Shore rather than what really matters, our country’s future.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Sen. Rubio: We Don't Need New Taxes, We Need New Taxpayers | RealClearPolitics

"Our total debt is about to reach the size of our entire economy. That's kind of the framework in which we're operating in when we discuss this. Now, I actually think we're closer to some sort of agreement on this, Sen. Ayotte, than a lot of people realize.

"I've heard the term thrown around in the last couple days, a 'balanced approach' to dealing with it, and I think there's agreement that there has to be a balanced approach. I certainly have always said that you cannot simply cut your way out of this problem. You have to have a combination of cuts and growth, growth and revenues to government. I think the debate is, how do you accomplish these two things? And I'm not going to focus so much on the cut part of it today. I want to focus on the revenue part of it because that's the part the president and some of my colleagues here have focused on over the last day, this idea of getting more revenue or this new term, 'revenue enhancers,' which is Washington talk for more money to the government.

"And, according to the president, some in his party, most in his party I should say, the idea is simple that...in America that are making a lot of money, more money than maybe they should be making, and they just need to pay more in taxes. And if these people pay more in taxes, then all of these problems will get a lot easier to deal with. That's kind of the viewpoint they bring to this debate.

"Yesterday, we saw, and I know tomorrow the majority leader, we'll be voting here on the floor on something the majority leader has offered up, something called the 'sense of the Senate,' which people watching at home may wonder, 'What is that?' Well, that basically means what's on the Senate's mind. The 'sense of the Senate,' this thing that we're going to be voting on tomorrow, is basically that you've got a bunch of people in this country that make over a million dollars, and that these people need to do more to help with the debt. That's basically the 'sense of the Senate' that there's going to be a vote on tomorrow -- very interesting things.

"So, I looked at it because ultimately this is a serious issue. So, let's explore this with an open mind. Let's not be doctrinaire, let's not be blindly ideological. Let's look at this from a common sense perspective, this idea that all these millionaires and billionaires, if they just paid more taxes, these problems would be solved. Let's analyze it. This is all about math.

"And here's the fact: the fact is it doesn't solve the problem. First of all, if you taxed these people at 100 percent, basically next year you said, 'Look, every penny you make next year the government's going to take it from you,' it still doesn't solve the debt. Not only does that not solve the debt problem, but I looked at a host of other -- a great publication that came out today from the Joint Economics Committee, our colleague Sen. DeMint chairs it. And it kind of outlines some of the tax increases being proposed by our colleagues in the Democratic Party and the president to solve the debt problem. And you add them all up, you add all of these things up -- the jet airplanes, the oil companies, all of the other things they talk about -- you put them all together in one big batch, and you know what it does? It basically deals with nine days and 23 hours worth of deficit spending. Nine days and 23 hours of deficit spending. That's how much it solves. So all this talk about going after people that make all this money, it buys you nine days and 23 hours. Let's round it off. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. It buys them 10 days of deficit spending reduction. That's what all this stuff rounds up to.

“So, here's the bottom line: These tax increases they're talking about. These so-called revenue enhancers, they don't solve the problem. So what do we do then? Because clearly we have to do two things.


Sen. Rubio: We Don't Need New Taxes, We Need New Taxpayers | RealClearPolitics

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