2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I Will Die With Student Loan Debt [View all]HeartoftheMidwest
(309 posts)but:
1) Flat tax? Many kinds.
A flat tax (short for flat tax rate) is a tax system with a constant marginal rate, usually applied to individual or corporate income. A true flat tax would be a proportional tax, but implementations are often progressive and sometimes regressive depending on deductions and exemptions in the tax base. There are various tax systems that are labeled "flat tax" even though they are significantly different. ( from Wikipedia, Flat Tax. ) Not gonna get into that discussion here.
2) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/how-elizabeth-warren-would-have-stopped-a-panic-on-wall-street/
A financial transaction tax used to be charged about 20 years ago; not necessarily a bad idea to revisit it.
3) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/navy-s-fast-sealift-ships-can-t-stand-buffeting-from-high-seas
also: re: aircraft programs:
The aircraft's radar-absorbing metallic skin is the principal cause of its maintenance troubles, with unexpected shortcomings -- such as vulnerability to rain and other abrasion -- challenging Air Force and contractor technicians since the mid-1990s, according to Pentagon officials, internal documents and a former engineer.
While most aircraft fleets become easier and less costly to repair as they mature, key maintenance trends for the F-22 have been negative in recent years, and on average from October last year to this May, just 55 percent of the deployed F-22 fleet has been available to fulfill missions guarding U.S. airspace, the Defense Department acknowledged this week. The F-22 has never been flown over Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sensitive information about troubles with the nation's foremost air-defense fighter is emerging in the midst of a fight between the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress over whether the program should be halted next year at 187 planes, far short of what the Air Force and the F-22's contractors around the country had anticipated.
"It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7 hours before it gets a critical failure" that jeopardizes success of the aircraft's mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane who is not authorized to speak on the record. Other skeptics inside the Pentagon note that the planes, designed 30 years ago to combat a Cold War adversary, have cost an average of $350 million apiece and say they are not a priority in the age of small wars and terrorist threats.
That quote is from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020.html
Add to just those few examples of misspent monies and wasted dollars, many, many more similar bad projects, and the trillions of dollars wasted on unnecessary wars for oil in the Mideast, and you get the picture, if you're willing to see it.