Politics and religion.

[Puckstop31]

Somewhere, the center has got to take the reins from the fanatics on both sides.

"Squish", like grape.

I disagree with one major point of the article, however, They give Standard and Poor's a pass on the bond rating downgrade, when S+P is as much a part of the political soup that's causing this mess as anyone else.

Sure.

Still, there has to be SOMETHING in there about borrowing 40% of every dollar spent.... With ZERO serious talk about actually changing our spending habits.

The entitlement issues needs to be dealt with, and the tax code as it exists needs to be scrapped. Completely. Clean sheet rewrite. Either a flat tax with a hard basic deduction raised annually by the CPI (as in anything under $30K isn't touched, adjusted for inflation) or a national sales tax.

Good luck there hoss. What politician is going to vote to repeal the 16th Amendment? You have to do that if you want a flat/sales tax. If you don't, we end up like Canada. Taxes on the money that was taxed already.

But I don't blame the politicians. I blame a lazy and ignorant electorate. Who actually has read and understands the Constitution anymore? Who has read the Federalist papers?

/rant

[Lady's Human]

For a national sales tax/VAT you'd have to amend the 16th, but I don't see a flat tax being a problem constitutionally.