The extremely wealthy will always find ways around being taxed because they can find and afford attorneys who will help them maneuver around the tax code
So where is the problem? The lower income earner gets a tax cut and the higher income earner doesn't pay tax anyway. Both sides a winner from B.O.'s plan by the look of it.
Isnt that what both sides want? This economic stuff is simple when you put your mind to it. (Maybe even S.P. can eventualy get the hang of it.)
Apologies if this has been asked before, I haven't followed all of this thread, but is it possible that there may be any truth in the rumours doing the rounds of blogs and emails that Obama may have actually been born in Kenya and not Hawaii?
I ask because I wouldn't have thought that even the Dems could be quite so silly as to not check something quite so basic.
How high is up? You might as well be asking that. You assume there are 'both' sides... which is a fallacious assumption.
The key word there is 'extremely', as in 7-digit or up annual income, first digit greater than probably at least a 3, on the low end. You really need to read it in context. The specific case I was talking about was a small business owner (a plumber, actually, and I made that pretty clear) who is getting into the lower end of what Obama's plan considers higher income. Specific range, business income of approximately US $250,000 per year, which, with a couple employees, is not a particularly enormous sum of money, but, it trips the little 'tax the sh*t out of me' levers in the Obama machine.
Explain to me, if you can, why it is good that a huge portion of the population, that already doesn't pay taxes at all, gets to pay less? How does this encourage anything other than earning less money and creating less wealth and sitting around on one's behind if one is one of these people?
If you really think your post is clever... well, I'm glad someone does. What's so difficult to understand about the fact that Obama's tax plans are regressive on the middle-class in practice? And why would you think that's a good thing?
I don't know that McCain's plans are very good (nor have I said that they are)... what I do know is that Obama's are definitely not very good. I don't know for whom I am voting, I only know for whom I am not.
And for Capt. Stable who answered my previous post with 'All bollocks, of course, not to mention mutually exclusive'.
A well-considered answer... and equally fallacious. Read my entire post in context and don't cherry pick one sentence you happen to believe is incorrect and then start spewing generalities to all points of the compass.
While I'm sure that spraying broadcast is probably a good method for painting the interior of a closed room, it's a pretty wasteful way of getting your opinion out.
I will say it again very s l o w l y. If the rich don't pay tax (as you assert,
Quote:
The extremely wealthy will always find ways around being taxed
) and the poor don't pay tax (as you also assert,
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that already doesn't pay taxes at all
) Where is the problem, (also where is any change that BO claimed but that is another story.)
These are YOUR claims to back up YOUR argument. Not mine. I just see your case as very confused. Maybe just better to quote facts and sensible truths rather than just 'make up things' as these claims apear to me
Actually that was harsh and probably beyond what I really care. I don't get a vote in the US election and personally do not believe either side will do anything great or bad beyond what already happens.
The US has done, and will continue to do, many good things in this world (provided it has any resources left). It has also done some very sh*t things that have had a very negative impact on our society and will also continue to occasionaly do that, whoever is in power, in the name of national interest. (or invoking the red herring of 'terrorism' if it helps someone get elected. We do that here too).
What the US does tho very much impacts on all parts of the world and no amount of denying that, by some of the more Rabid posters, here will change that.
I didn't say the rich don't pay tax. You said that. Actually, I do know what I'm talking about. I wouldn't pretend to in Australia.
Approximately 40% of the low-earning population of the U.S. pays no income tax at all and in many cases already receive tax credits. To cut their tax further implies that they get paid, or paid more than they already are. Why shouldn't they like this idea? By doing nothing more than they already are doing, they get a pay increase.
Very wealthy people tend not to pay their fair share of income tax (which is different) due to legal (and illegal) tax shelters. Changing the tax code (which Obama does indeed advocate), will not change this. Candidates have been saying for decades that this time we're really going to stick it to the fat cats and have never been successful. I don't expect Obama will be any different, and I think once he finds himself in the White House, he will find he hasn't got anywhere near the power to make that happen that he appears to think he has.
I read these oversimplifications of the issue from people who aren't here and I realize that you simply don't understand. Human nature is such that there are always people who are willing to live off the labor of another. Many of us resent that and don't want government here codifying that any more than it already does. I realize that's a fundamental difference between various nations, but we're not going to change their minds and they're not going to change ours, so it's not an argument I get into.
But, back to the topic. To continue to support the low-earning population for being low-earning, someone has to pay for that, and pay for the bureaucratic infrastructure that needs to exist to reimburse these people for being low-earning. It will not be the extremely wealthy who do this, in general. That leaves the middle class, who are that portion of the population who already pay their fair share of income taxes. Politicians and celebrities are notoriously generous with money that they have not earned and spending it on things that they feel are best, with little or no input from those who earned the money.
To create a further regressive tax on small business owners (which was the entire context of my original post, I wrote nothing about healthcare or any other topic and won't comment on them, and no, I am not a small business owner) and increase that tax burden will discourage small business development and encourage people to live on the dole. That last bit is definitely my personal opinion, but it's been borne out in societies with regressive tax systems throughout the world over time.
At the end of the day, you and I are in agreement, I think, though I imagine you don't believe that. To discourage creation of wealth by small businesses in the U.S. we end up in a worse way than we are now and have less wherewithal to do good in the world and probably will do even worse at the end of the day.
In some areas we probably need a little more government and regulation than we have, but in many others we have far too much. The result is probably that we need less, overall, but there is no such thing as a major political party in the U.S. that reduces government, not the Republicans, and not the Democrats. Australia shares some of our problems.
As flypuppy pointed out astutely, the issue in the election is picking the best of the worst (or words to that effect)... and so it is.
U.L. This is the quote I used copied directly from your post #3757 earlier today.
Quote:
The extremely wealthy will always find ways around being taxed because they can find and afford attorneys who will help them maneuver around the tax code
.
I happen to not believe that is the case. The rich do actually pay tax generally, I was only quoting your assertion as an indication that your premise was false as in this case you claim the rich do not pay tax and in a later you claim the poor (those getting B.O.'s tax cuts) don't pay tax. It appears to me you were claiming no-one pays tax. Obviously that could not be true.
I do not need to be there to understand the tax system or human impacts. We pay tax here to. As I understand it higher than yours. I am also a small business owner and a taxpayer.
Do I like paying higher taxes? No.
Does it stop me trying to make my businesses run well? Not really.
Would I like lower taxes? Absolutely.
Kerry Packer put it very well many years ago at an inquiry here. Asked does he minimise tax he replied he saw it as his duty to pay as little as possible and would do so while-ever he felt the government wasted it. If he were still alive He would rightly believe governments waste too much of our money, but that is an argument for another day re gov. spending.
Businesses do not shut down for small changes to tax scale as proposed. Large change to incentivise or stop behaviors obviously do. I don't see that being proposed there or here either for that matter, despite the ranting of some against the change of government here.
I believe we would agree on many things, I just like to see consistent arguments as they will make a difference.
This mess we are all in now tho is not the result of too much regulation on the financial sector. Greed will always win over common sense, when given too much free rein. Fannie and Freddie may have been encouraged to lend to higher risk people but they were never ordered by gov. to give money away like they did. That decision comes from their boards or risk-manager( I guess they didn't have straight thinking risk-managers)
I probably won't be around to see it but a bet the next generation of 'smart young things who know it all' will declare a different paradigm in 25-30 years and do it all again.
What are we all going to rant about come 5th November? Something I guess will come up that we can blame the U.S. for.
Gladly ORAC. However, all I know is what I heard in the 30 minute drive while listening to the radio. I'm not about to waste my time digging through it all. That's the reason we have political reporters.
This will be my first Presidential election that I'm voting in since college. The intervening years I was wearing my country's uniform and thus thought it improper to vote for my boss. So tell me again about the 'political' military?
Two things: one, I have noticed that the deceased union PATCO and its toothless successor NATCA don't hold to such standards. You and your union have been quite vocal and generous in supporting your candidates. No conflict of interest there as you claim snidely against the military?
Second, you're habit of ignoring direct questions, thus having to explain a thought of your own, not one taken from another's quote, is very telling. Parrot-like if you will.
Read my entire post in context and don't cherry pick one sentence you happen to believe is incorrect ....
In that spirit Ummmm....
Who shall pay ? We owe around 11 trillion dollars and we have a government to run. Despite what every politician out there is afraid to say, somebody has to pay the taxes. Who shall it be ?
I don't expect a tax code. General guidelines will suffice.
No conflict of interest there as you claim snidely against the military?
Brick,
Your anger clouds your judgment. I'm reading Richard Clark's "Your Country Failed You" and he mentioned the military had reversed course on the issue of voting. He suggests that it was part of an effort on senior officer's part to ensure we never fought another Vietnam -- i.e. an unpopular war. It didn't sound quite right to me. I was seeking an opinion.
I learned of the practice (of not voting) in W.E.B Griffin's books. (Hopefully that will keep you from putting your foot in your mouth.)
I don't claim a conflict of interest nor was I trying to be snide about it.
I really no longer have time to devote to this thread, but who shall pay for it is indeed the question. There is too much government, and the impression I get from your literally hundreds of posts on the topic is that you want more and more and believe it to be the solution to everything. I disagree, but I'm simply going to leave it at that.
In reality, for each new governmental agency and program we generate, we need to shed at least one, but we won't because each serves some special interest that believes their pet agency is essential. There also is no incentive for government to be efficient, indeed, most federal budgeting processes are designed with the reverse in mind. Which agencies/projects and which aren't essential isn't a swamp I intend to wade into because I'll never find my way out again. Some are, some aren't. Again, I'll leave it at that.
Until we do reduce the size of government, we will continue to overtax the middle class and people who can do so will consider it their patriotic (Joe Biden notwithstanding) and personal duty to pay as little tax as possible. And that is the case regardless of who is elected in November, I just think it will be a bigger problem quicker with Obama than it would be with some other candidate (and I'm not necessarily saying it should be McCain).
I'm reading Richard Clark's "Your Country Failed You" and he mentioned the military had reversed course on the issue of voting.
Noted.
Quote:
He suggests that it was part of an effort on senior officer's part to ensure we never fought another Vietnam -- i.e. an unpopular war. It didn't sound quite right to me. I was seeking an opinion.
In just shy of 22 years, I never either received pressure to vote or not or to support any particular candidate.
The military has/is castigated for not making it easy for the troops to vote. Mainly due to Congressional measures, it is extraordinarily easy for a serving member to vote even when deployed to war.
Getting certain states to accept those votes isn't always as easy - see Florida in 2000, et al.
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I learned of the practice (of not voting) in W.E.B Griffin's books. (Hopefully that will keep you from putting your foot in your mouth.)
I see. Fiction.
I learned of the practice from George Marshall.
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I don't claim a conflict of interest nor was I trying to be snide about it.
But now I am.
And failed.
As an aside, you assume anger on my part. Hardly the case, simply distaste for hypocrisy.
Today the top 5% of American income earners pay 60% of the income tax collected. The bottom 50% pay 3%.
I think the top are paying too much and the bottom are paying too little. The biggest problem I have with the set-up is that the bottom 50% have an equal vote with no stake in either the level of taxation at the top, or restraining in any way the taking of money and property from the top. It's a free lunch.
National Health Care? Great, it won't cost me anything.
Increase the top tax rate to 90% - Super, won't cost me a dime.
Raise capital gains. No problem I don't have any.
Tax whatever you want - I don't care, I don't pay.
Just don't cut the many and various subsidies I receive. I've got time on my hands and I'll be out in the streets screaming over that.
Everyone needs to pay a share, and if the costs of programs to benefit a certain class go up, the costs for that constituency need to go up, too. In a better day charities and community organizations provided most of the care for the poor and disadvantaged out of human concern and generosity. Government social programs have greatly eroded that ethic in our society to great, though intangible cost.
There is a continuum of socialism on which every nation can be plotted. To a point, some degree of it is necessary and good, roads, common defense, a legal system, etc. But the founders envisioned much less government than we have now, and it seems the larger government gets, the worse our society becomes.
Once we get to the point where that bottom 50% pay zero - watch out! And we are almost there.
Chaps, watching the debate, the part where they discussed the negativity of the campaings made me wonder......
I have read (here or elsewhere) that where McCain took the fixed amount of federal funding, Obama did not. Raising vast amounts of money instead, thereby having an ability to obscenely outspend McCain.
A spending power supremacy which I understand is largely used on television ads. Hardly a medium suitable for increasing people's understanding of the issues, very much a medium suitable for sounbites that appeal to the gut feeling and to the lowest common denominator.
In Norway and Holland political parties get equal amounts of 'airtime' before an election, slots where they can talk about their own programme, but can NOT mention their opponents in any shape or form.
Would such a system or a variation thereof, improve the American elections I wonder?
It was mentioned but it's back there somewhere in a pile of other stuff.
Where a child born to a U.S. citizen is born is now of no import and I think that was the law when Obama was born. (The law changed just after John McCain was born, about the time the Civil War ended.) For instance my children, born in Germany are "natural born" U.S. citizens under this law. I filed a "Consular Report of Birth of a U.S. Citizen Born Abroad" and that was that. They, like Obama, I assume, were born as citizens. Germany, Kenya or Hawaii, no matter.
John McCain however was born in the Panama Canal Zone under the old law! He had the right to U.S. citizenship at birth but he still had to be naturalized; he was not a "natural born" U.S. citizen. Maybe! This one has never come up before and even constitutional scholars are a bit unclear what that phrase means.
Would such a system or a variation thereof, improve the American elections I wonder?
I would say yes, Juud. A concept that seems to have been lost in America is that the public airways belong to the public. We could -- if we chose to do so -- actually make free speech free.
I suspect you will soon be getting an education on "The Fairness Doctrine".
I suspect you will soon be getting an education on "The Fairness Doctrine".
I'll leave that up to others.
I can, however, share with you my experience from living many years in Europe.
The "public" airways in Europe are many things, but they are not diverse, nor are they free. Annual radio and television taxes are common, levied on each TV set or household. Progams are either government produced (BBC, AFP, etc.) or follow a standard formula. Certainly the news reports are highly slanted.
I'm always amazed at the sheer variety of radio programs in the U.S. From wacky Art Bell in the high plains of Nevada (or wherever the UFOs land these days) to the frothing moonbats at Pacifica Radio, to the sterile NY Times talking points on ABC/CBS radio, to the bombastic and provocative Rush Limbaugh (one of your favs I'm sure), to Vietnamese language coastal fishing reports in southeast Texas, and spun-up god-fearin' preachers in Georgia....you just don't get this mix in Europe.
This diversity, it's a beautiful thing. Let's not spoil it with some cockamamey government scheme, shall we?
. Both sides a winner from B.O.'s plan by the look of it.
(also where is any change that BO claimed but that is another story.) 
However, all I know is what I heard in the 30 minute drive while listening to the radio. I'm not about to waste my time digging through it all. That's the reason we have political reporters.
Linear Mode
