Republican Axioms - Taxes.

[Modbert]

If you think it's possible to fight two major wars simultaneously AND achieve an overall net reduction in federal spending at the very same time you're not living in the real world.

Actually, it's three wars if you want to be technical. The War on Drugs is a drain on our resources, and not just monetary wise either. There are also the costs of keeping said people we catch in prison, where drugs are actually easier to obtain.

War On Drugs Clock

$10 Billion by the Federal Gov't and $16 billion by the States as we speak for a total of around $27 billion.

The U.S. federal government spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $600 per second. The budget has since been increased by over a billion dollars.

State and local governments spent at least another 30 billion.

Arrests for drug law violations this year are expected to exceed the 1,841,182 arrests of 2007. Law enforcement made more arrests for drug abuse violations (an estimated 1.8 million arrests, or 13.0 percent of the total number of arrests) than for any other offense in 2007.

Police arrested an estimated 872,720 persons for cannabis violations in 2007, the highest annual total ever recorded in the United States, according to statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent, 775,137 Americans were charged with possession only. An American is now arrested for violating cannabis laws every 38 seconds.

Since December 31, 1995, the U.S. prison population has grown an average of 43,266 inmates per year. About 25 per cent are sentenced for drug law violations.

The numbers are boggling.

 

[Modbert]

I know what you're referring to. I read that as well when it came out. Tax bills were lowest ever because incomes have fallen due to the recession and also because contrary to the lies the left tells about the Bush tax cuts, he eliminated the lowest tax bracket taking the poorest taxpayers off the rolls completely and also knocked the middle class down into lower brackets. That is set to expire in January.

The other article is a good read too if you haven't read it. Tax Policy Center is usually spot on with their work from what I read. I understand what is going to happen when the Bush tax cuts expire in January as well. America as a whole has to reexamine her priorities.

There is much to be done, none that will get done in this political climate because both parties want to see the other failure. It's why I hold no hope for when the Republicans take the House and make gains in the Senate in '10, it will merely just be "Dracula" Congress the Sequel.

Tea Party put up a fight while it lasted. Then again, it started off as something by the Ron Paul group, then grew into something else and grew too fast so by the time the GOP and Conservative part of the media got through with it, it was a shell of it's former self.

 

[Flopper]

Millions of the unemployed would welcome the opportunity to pay taxes, regardless of the rate.
"Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay." - Milton Friedman

 

[MaggieMae]

One of the biggest problems facing our country today in one form or another: ignorance or lack of knowledge.

What's Obama Doing to Your Taxes? - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

More than three quarters of Americans, according to a CBS News/ New York Times poll released that same month, thought the Obama administration has either kept taxes the same for most Americans or increased them. The latest CBS News/ New York Times poll released yesterday shows that as many as 34 percent of Americans think Mr. Obama raised taxes.

Today, thousands of Tea Partiers will descend on Washington to declare they've been "Taxed Enough Already." Yesterday's poll found that 64 percent of Tea Party supporters think the administration has raised taxes -- a finding that might leave Democrats banging their heads against their desks.

Reid was referring to the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus -- essentially, the only Obama policy to really impact people's 2009 tax returns. In fact, tax refunds reached an all-time high this year in part because of the stimulus, the president said in his weekly address on Saturday. Meanwhile, taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years, according to William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center and director of the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution.

Even conservative advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, which advocates for a single, national flat tax rate, found some praise for the Recovery Act -- specifically for provisions allowing small businesses to write off a wider range of business expenses.

More generally, "all tax relief has the minimum value of depriving the government of revenue," Americans for Tax Reform's tax policy director Ryan Ellis said.

While most Americans said in yesterday's CBS News/ New York Times poll that they paid a fair amount of taxes this year, Tea Party activists are less satisfied. And conservative economists are quick to point out that a sizable portion of the Recovery Act's tax credits went to people who already had zero or less than zero income tax liability. Nearly half of Americans who file federal income tax returns do not pay any federal income taxes, the Heritage Foundation reports.

Liberals would counter that people pay more than just federal income taxes -- there are payroll taxes, state and local taxes, sales taxes and more. Additionally, they say the stimulus purposefully targeted working middle-income families.

Here's what going to happen if and when the Bush tax cuts expire:

Mr. Obama has proposed letting the Bush tax cuts expire for individuals making more than $200,000 a year or couples making more than $250,000. That means by the end of this year, Washington is likely to, among other things:

Raise the top two income tax brackets from 33 percent to 36 percent, and from 35 percent 39.6 percent
Raise the capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for married filers with incomes above $250,000
Raise the tax on dividend income from 15 percent to 20 percent for married filers with incomes above $250,000

Why aren't those positives ever talked about? And these:

The capital gains tax of 15% was set to expire but was extended through 2010 (and may not be raised any higher than 20% thereafter). The estate tax was allowed to expire, allowing billionnaires to escape taxes on huge investment profits last year.