I don't favor spending cuts. I favor slowing the rate in which we increase spending.  If we simply stopped increasing spending for a copule of years the deficit would by gone rather quickly.

Tax receipts by the government have nearly doubled since Bush came into office.

Wealth isn't distributed. In a capitalistic society, wealth is earned. Person A provides Person B with a product or service in exchange for money.

Of course. That's because social security is CAPPED. There's only so much you pay in and that's how much gets paid back. 

What does fairness have to do with it. If I make $1 million and put $60k into a bank aboutn I am putting in .6%. On the other hand, if I make $20k and put in $1000 into the bank then I am putting in 5%.  So what is your point?

Social Security is, in theory, supposed to be a retirement plan by the government.  If I were emperor, I would do away with it entirely and then no one would have to put anything into it.

There are so many things wrong with this statement I'm not sure where to begin.

First, what we pay in has nothing to do with whether we can afford it or not. The government, like the electric company, exists to provide its individual citizens with a service.  Stealing one man's earned income to give to another is wrong.

Secondly, you clearly have no idea of what the "rich" do with money. You are correct in that their lifestyles wouldn't change if you taxed them more. That isn't the point. The people with the highest incomes INVEST their money. That's HOW you get rich in the first place. You keep investing your money to make more money.  That investment is what creates jobs, opportunity, and new goodies for us to use. 

Taxing the rich more won't hurt the rich personally, but it will, in the long-run, hurt everyone else through fewer jobs, a slower increasing in standard of living.

Moreover, the # of Americans who don't have access to "basic needs" is trivial. I've mentioned this before but the poorest 25% of Americans live pretty well on average. Most have DVD players, TVs, Internet access, cars, and a slight majority of them even own their own home. They even get free medical care via Medicaid.  But even that's irrelevant. It is not the responsibility of the government to give away other people's earned money to other people.

You basically see the government as something that RULES us. This is completely contrary to what the founding fathers intended.  They saw the government as a glorified neighborhood association. For the first hundred years or so, the govenrment only taxed for services rendered.

You are correct, it woudn't affect my lifestyle. I'd just have to lay off a worker or two because that's where my excess income goes to -- investing in my business.

I have also pointed out, repeatedly, that it is well known that the budget would be easily balanced if we simply FROZE spending increases for a couple years. No cuts needed. Just quit increasing spending until the tax receipts catch up.  The tax recepts of the federal government have nearly doubled since Bush came in. Imagine the surplus we would have if they hadn't increased spending at an even faster rate.

So you admit social security is a pyramid scheme. 

I also work but instead of relying on the government to help my mom, I help her directly financially.  Free citizens do not need the government to do the right thing. They do the right thing because they are free people.  I'm sorry you need the government to intercede for to take care of your parents and grandparents.

Take a look at this graph from the CBO:

Historically, the federal government was only confiscating around 18% of the generated wealth of the country. 

But by the end of the Clinton administration (thanks to the Internet bubble) it was over 20%.  Most conservatives, such as myself would like to see that number around 15%.

The recession and tax cuts brought it down to 16%. It's back to 17% and trending to reach 18% by 2010.

Your basic problem is that you have no understanding of economics. You think if we just raise taxes everything will be fine. But that's not how it works. If you raise taxes, you are simply shifting wealth from the private sector into the public sector.  And who has a better track record of producing wealth? People like me or some clueless politican in Washington? 

Moreover, even if you raised taxes the 40% needed on the wealth to balance the budget next year, it would only be a temporary solution. In other countries, the government represents up to 30% of the GDP and guess what? They have debts too. Governments will always spend what they get because they have an incentive to do so. 

That is why the tax recepts and spending receipts aren't a good measure of what our tax rate should be.  The real question is, what % of our economy do we want the government confiscating.  Once you make that decision, then it's just a matter of the government living within its needs and making sure enough taxes are being collected to meet that number.

Look closely at this graph, Gene.  The government's tax income today is the same as it was when Bush came in.  Yet we have these scary deficits you mention.   So what is the cause then? Spending. We increased spending across the board:

You see the problem? Since Bush came in, spending just went berzerk. And it's not because of the Iraq war alone. The government went on a spending spree.

So to sum up:

1. Rich people are rich because they invest their money.
2. If you tax the rich more, it won't affect their lifestyle but it will mean they have less to invest (look at how quickly the economy jumped back largely thanks to the tax cuts).
3. If the rich invest less, people lose jobs.
4. It is immoral IMO to advocate that the government should confiscate money from one person to hand to another who provided no service to the original person.
5. Tax rates and spending levels are the wrong metric. It's what % of the economy you want the government to be involved in.
6. We have a deficit today because we increased spending.
7. Tax cuts are why the economy grew so fast after the recession.