Deficit Commission Proposals Give Most Americans the Shivers, Poll Says

i am on ss and retired military. we have not had a cost of living for 2 years and probably won't get one the next year. has it hurt? yes. the federal government may be giving me a tax break(NOT) but the city and county are taxing and feeing me right into the shelter. i have heard some things i like in this new plan. eliminate the mortage deduction but lower my tax bracket to 20% or lower. my house is not worth $250,000 so i come out with more money in my pocket

1968 - GDP was $912B, average hourly wage $3. 2008 - GDP was $14,500B, average hourly wage $18. So the economy grew by 16 times and hourly wage by six times - slightly less than inflation. If average wages had grown with the economy, average hourly would be $48! You've got to tax the folks with the dough. They're the ones with portfolios and a lower propensity to spend it. The Bush tax cuts, financed through more borrowing, are a continuing theft from the Treasury.

Doesn't anyone believe/know that there are federal workers who are middle or in the lower income bracket just trying to stay afloat like other americans? My supposedly stable job is going no where -- granted I'm VERY grateful to have a job, but when my health care is going up 7.8% it's tough to say it's fair. I'm going backwards in my budget and looking at foreclosure. So federal employees ARE feeling the pain too. Everyone in my household are unemployeed except me. My children have had to move home because they didn't have jobs. We ARE the american tax payer too...we just call ourselves Civil Servants, not indentured slaves.

It is a good idea. The rich and powerfull can either give it up on there own or wait until you cant throw any more poor people in jail that are forced to be accountable for their lives that feed this nation. You fat cats have enough and if your that stupid to think you dont, then keep screwing up this nation with your bad ideas and wants and see where you end up.....

If you took Nancy's Peelossie Jet away from her that should save a billion a year

Good idea on Iraq and Afghanistan. Then, to reduce the deficit radically, let the tax cuts expire for the top 2% and then raise their taxes further. Return to the sane level of marginal taxation on these people that we had under General Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald Ford. We had 40 years of almost uninterrupted growth in the economy, strong infrastructure, and PLENTY of jobs. The idea that continuing tax cut after tax cut is good for the health of the nation as a whole is a big fat lie propagated by those very people. They were spoiled rotten by Reagan and rottener by Bush, and now they rake in one out of every four dollars made. If the tax cuts are extended for them, in another decade it iwll be one out of every three dollars. This ia bad for the country ans unpatriotic, because the framers did not want a landed gentry running this country. That is what Reagan and Bush have gotten us.

Start by getting out of Iraq and Viet Nam.... I mean Afghanistan. That should save a few billion. Every week. Anyone see on today's AOL home page the picture and story of the cold war B1 Bomber, originally designed to fly under and through detection to deliver the Big Kahuna to the Soviets? It's now being used to bomb the rag-tag, rock-throwing, rifle-carrying oh-so-bad Afghanis. Why are we spending money and spilling blood in that worthless land? Next, eliminate the proposed defensive shield that will protect our goooood friends in Europe against any nuclear attack. Hugely expensive and the technology doesn't work.

If you could lift the state mandated health care plans, keep the tax cuts, implement term limits, privatize public school, close the borders, make DC politicians have the same health care plans as we have would be a good start. Oh, one more thing...elect a new BUSINESS oriented president 2012.

America is, by other polls, a center-right nation that wants low taxes and high gov't spending. Can't have it both ways, but, as the average american is going to relearn once again, we will try and fail. And that paradox is at the heart of the BIG problem in America. We live by wishes and exaggerations and when those wants can't happen, then we go through the whole gyration again, blame somebody else, revert to the same pipe-dreams and see the bright future that, in all reality, will not occur. The problem in the country is the American people, not the politicians-who we elect, not the eviromentalists, not the immigrants, not anybody but the American people. Gridlock exists in Washington because the American people want it both ways, and it can't happen that way-the mathematics won't support it. And the answer, I feel, is to bite the bullet, cut the programs deeply, raise taxes, and listen to the screaming and hope some air of reason finally sinks in and we won't do it again.

I've not read all of the proposals. But from the ones I have read about, this sounds like it's on the right track toward weaning us off of government dependency and reducing it to a managable size. If you've upset everyone equally, you're on to something.