Showing posts with label town hall meeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label town hall meeting. Show all posts

Friday, August 13, 2010

Federal Budget Discussions (2010)

The link below has a summary of a recent electronic town hall meeting:

http://usabudgetdiscussion.org/national-town-meeting-results/

I attended the meeting. I was surprised to see that cutting 15% from the defense department and other agencies and raising SS taxes were not enough to balance the budget. A combination of spending cuts and tax raises were required to balance the federal budget. Many people at my table and nationwide supported a carbon tax, even after I argued that such a tax should not be passed until it was accompanied by a corporate tax credit to upgrade utility/energy facilities. (Without a credit, it is very likely that utilities will impose the costs of making their facilities environmentally-friendly on consumers.)

I learned that I wanted to limit the mortgage tax deduction/credit. As is, the mortgage tax deduction benefits rich people or people who spend more for houses. In short, it is a tax cut for the rich and upper-middle class that leads to inflated housing prices. Overall, I had a good time at the meeting.