There's Always Money for War

[boedicca]

Corporations pass along the taxes by how they price products and services to their customers. They essentially serve as a pass through agent. There is a reason that public company stocks are usually valued as a multiple of Net Income (i.e., after deducting taxes). They must generate enough top line revenue to offset the tax burden.

As to the "CEO's should pay more" comment - envy is a bad basis for setting public policy.

 

[red states rule]

Wrong. Corporations pay taxes on certain utilities regulated by the government. Shareholder earnings are also taxed which also comes from corporate revenue. There are many instances where corporations are taxed by the government. Corporations are supposed to pay taxes because corporations are recognized as separate entities.


A CEO in the 50% bracket can pay three times more than everyone else.

Corportations pass all costs of business on to their customers. Look at your bills -you will see tax after tax being collected. YOU pay them not the company

It is the basic business model


Again, is 50% of their income not enough for you?

Of course, libs have a socialist view of the economy


Surviving Bush's Depression
I boiled one of my Birkenstocks for breakfast today. It’s not as terrible as it sounds – the Carbon Footprint caused by firing up my stove was actually offset by the Eco-Credits I earned for not wearing any shoes today. It’s not like I’ve never been forced to eat my footwear before, either. In the entire 20th Century, there was only one stock market crash, followed by one little depression. Since Bush stole the peeResidency, there has been a recession, a stock market crash, another recession, years of stagnation (not the good, Jimmy Carter kind of stagnation, either), then yesterday’s stock market crash which will likely lead to the Great Depression of our time. Thanks to the Shrub, I’ve digested enough shoes in the past six years to make Imelda Marcos gag.

I got smart after the 9/11 crash, though, and started squirrelling shoes away for the next big storm. So don’t worry about ol’ Larry, I’ll weather Bush’s Depression just fine. However, there are thousands of working families out there that can’t afford to put shoes on their dinner table. Who will care for them? Certainly not the so-called “Compassionate Conservatives”, who are far too selfish and greedy to feed someone the loafers off their own saintly feet. It must be up to us as progressives to scour the thrift stores and garage sales for every pair of used sneakers, sandals, and slippers we can find, and we must do it NOW before Bush and his gouging Big Footwear Buddies have a chance to corner the market.

It's too late to prevent Bush's depression. But together, we can rebuild America out of the ashes of Capitalism, leading it into a bright, new, social utopia with a government-issued boot in every pot and three families living in every garage.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/16887788.htm

 

[roomy]

...generates a lot of money?

 

[red states rule]

...generates a lot of money?

Of course there are companies producing war materials.

Ask Obama, he like alot of Dems, have stock in those companies - and are making money

However, those industries are small compared to the US economy

 

[roomy]

Of course there are companies producing war materials.

Ask Obama, he like alot of Dems, have stock in those companies - and are making money

However, those industries are small compared to the US economy

Thankyou.

 

[roomy]

My next point, there are a lot of senatorial fingers in a lot of war mongering pies.

 

[Dirt McGirt]

Corporations pass along the taxes by how they price products and services to their customers. They essentially serve as a pass through agent. There is a reason that public company stocks are usually valued as a multiple of Net Income (i.e., after deducting taxes). They must generate enough top line revenue to offset the tax burden.

As to the "CEO's should pay more" comment - envy is a bad basis for setting public policy.

It's not about envy. Corporations and CEO's use a lot of government resources when compared to the rest of the general population. Courts, public services, and the military being a prime example. I'm not against corporations by any means or raising taxes just for the hell of it. But I'm for taking a moderate and flexible approach to our economic system. Adjust accordingly.

Corportations pass all costs of business on to their customers. Look at your bills -you will see tax after tax being collected. YOU pay them not the company

So why are you complaining that CEO's shouldn't have to pay more taxes? If we cover the taxes of a corporation, and the corporations are paying a CEO's salary, why are you in favor of lowering a CEO's taxes?

 

[red states rule]

It's not about envy. Corporations and CEO's use a lot of government resources when compared to the rest of the general population. Courts, public services, and the military being a prime example. I'm not against corporations by any means or raising taxes just for the hell of it. But I'm for taking a moderate and flexible approach to our economic system. Adjust accordingly.


So why are you complaining that CEO's shouldn't have to pay more taxes? If we cover the taxes of a corporation, and the corporations are paying a CEO's salary, why are you in favor of lowering a CEO's taxes?

So you want the folks to fork over MORE of their money in taxes?

CEO's are already paying more then half their income in taxes. They are paying enough

Libs have to get over their wealth envy problem

 

[boedicca]

It's not about envy. Corporations and CEO's use a lot of government resources when compared to the rest of the general population. Courts, public services, and the military being a prime example. I'm not against corporations by any means or raising taxes just for the hell of it. But I'm for taking a moderate and flexible approach to our economic system. Adjust accordingly.

Do you really think it is moderate and flexible to have people pay more than 50% of their income in taxes?

I guess we could also start charging a property tax on savings and investments. That is the Final Frontier of Conversion to a Total Statist System.

 

[red states rule]

March 09, 2007
Taxing Us for Breathing
By Robert Tracinski

Last week, the New York Times published an extraordinary editorial complaining that "Right now, everyone is using the atmosphere like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." The Times editors suggested that the government "start charging for the privilege" by imposing a "carbon tax."

We all knew it would eventually come to this: the New York Times thinks the government should tax us for breathing.

Of course, the editorial was supposed to be aimed at big corporations who build coal-fired power plants--but why should the logic stop there? Right now, eight million people are walking around on the streets of New York City heedlessly inhaling precious oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, treating the skies over their fair city "like a municipal dump, depositing carbon dioxide free." Shouldn't they be forced to pay for the "privilege," too?

And the connection is a logical one, because the generation of power by industrial-scale power plants is as much a vital activity as breathing.

I mean this in a literal, biological sense. In biology, "respiration" doesn't just refer to the act of breathing; it refers to the chemical reactions made possible by breathing. My dictionary defines this sense of "respiration" as "the processes by which a living organism or cell takes in oxygen from the air or water, distributes and utilizes it in oxidation, and gives off the products of oxidation, especially carbon dioxide." (Wikipedia has all the biochemical details.)

Sound familiar? That's right: there is no difference in principle between your cellular mitochondria and a coal-fired power plant. Our lungs take in oxygen and emit carbon dioxide so that they can provide the energy our cells use to keep us alive and to allow us to move, to grow, to thrive. Ditto for the power plants. They augment the biological process of respiration with a process you might call "industrial respiration," which we can define as follows: the processes by which a living civilization takes in fuel, distributes and utilizes it in oxidation, and gives off the products of oxidation, especially carbon dioxide.

There is an old, tired slogan used by environmentalists: that the Amazon jungle is the "lungs of the earth," because its mass of overgrown vegetation works the opposite way our lungs work: plants take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, so that the Amazon allegedly produces something like 20% of the world's oxygen. It turns out this isn't true. An old-growth forest like the Amazon releases more carbon dioxide, from rotting vegetation, than it absorbs. But the problem with that slogan is much deeper. It denies the fact that the real lungs of the earth--or at least, the lungs of global human civilization--are power plants. They take in fuel and turn it into the energy we use to live.

For all of their "green" pose, environmentalists don't have a genuine biological perspective on the world. They regard mankind as if we were non-biological. They talk endlessly about the "ecosystem" required for the survival of every creature on earth--but they never ask what is mankind's means of survival.

Man's primary organ of survival is his brain. We use our minds to understand the world around us, to derive scientific principles, and then to put science to work for us by rebuilding our surroundings to better suit our needs. The inscription that rings the rotunda of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago--built in an age that had a better appreciation for progress--sums it up perfectly: "Science discerns the laws of nature. Industry applies them to the needs of man." That is the real biological imperative of human existence.

Industry is not "unnatural," not in any fundamental sense. It is the product of our biological means of survival, our minds, and it is the means by which we secure our survival and extend the reach of our action. And central to all of this is the development of "industrial respiration," the process by which we turn oil, natural gas, coal, or uranium into energy we can use.

That's why it is absurd to complain that America is "addicted" to oil. An addiction is an unhealthy dependence. So would you say that you are "addicted" to breathing, because you feel like you will die if you stop doing it? Of course not. The only difference between industrial respiration and the kind that we do with our lungs is that a human body can only use a limited quantity of energy, while the power made available to us by industrial respiration is unlimited. That's not a problem. In fact, it's the whole secret by which we rose from the cave to the skyscraper--and from the campfire to the power plant--with the result that we can now reliably stretch our lives into their eighth decades and beyond. It is the added power from industrial respiration that makes the modern human animal a healthy, vigorous, thriving organism.

That is why the environmentalist crusade against industrial power plants is so dangerous. In attempting to construct a phantom threat to our survival, the dubious theory of anthropogenic global warming, they are attempting to suppress the central source of human vitality.

What would you say if someone told you that he was concerned you might get sick because it's hot and humid out--and then told you that his "cure" was to constrict your supply of oxygen by 80%? Would you believe that he was sincerely concerned with your health? Well, you had better start asking the same question of Al Gore and the rest of the global warming fanatics, because that's exactly what they're trying to do. In denouncing fossil fuels, they are seeking to tax, reduce, and ultimately to eliminate the fuels that provide our civilization with 80% of its energy. Their goal is a fatal constriction of the process of industrial respiration.

That is the deepest, fullest reason why a "carbon tax" is just as dangerous as a tax on breathing.

If we really care about the biological health of human civilization, we need to guard it against the environmentalist charlatans who are seeking to suffocate the real lungs of the earth.

Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.

 

[Dirt McGirt]

Do you really think it is moderate and flexible to have people pay more than 50% of their income in taxes?

Considering they use and benefit more from public resources and government than the average person, yes I do.

I guess we could also start charging a property tax on savings and investments. That is the Final Frontier of Conversion to a Total Statist System.

Oh, the infamous strawman argument. I almost didn't see that coming.

 

[red states rule]

Considering they use and benefit more from public resources and government than the average person, yes I do.


Oh, the infamous strawman argument. I almost didn't see that coming.

If you want to tax people who use government services consider this

Those who use government services the least pay the most in taxes

and those who use government services the most pay the least in taxes

 

[red states rule]

Considering they use and benefit more from public resources and government than the average person, yes I do.


Oh, the infamous strawman argument. I almost didn't see that coming.

Tax Hikes, or Fiscal Responsibility?
The Republican ursurpers have held this nation in their iron grip for six long years, but now the Democrats are poised to assume absolute control of Congress just as the Founding Fathers had intended. Watching helplessly as his stolen throne slips from his blood-stained hands, a desperate Shrub is back to doing what he does best - using lies to mislead and frighten the American People who, like typical sheep, are easily misled and frightened.

“Democrats will raise taxes! Democrats will raise taxes!” the lying liar lies at every whistlestop on his Lies Across America Tour. The Repugs have pulled this same tired con job for years, and it really boils my bongwater. Repealing unfair tax cuts handed out by an illegitmate peeResident is not “raising taxes”, but restoring the price we pay for enjoying America’s bountiful cornucopia of welfare programs.

Suppose for the sake of argument that you see an ad in the paper for $50 off an authentic Native American dreamcatcher made from Russell Means’ pubes. Life is suddenly worth living again. But when you arrive at the store, you discover that the sale is over and the dreamcatcher has reverted back to it’s original price. Do you throw a hissy fit and accuse the store of “stealing” fifty bucks from you? Of course not. That money was never yours to begin with.

Try to think of Bush’s tax cuts the same way. Americans have been enjoying a bargain at the expense of the working poor for six long years. But in a few weeks, the sale will finally come to an end. You may have become used to getting a few extra pennies in your paychecks every week, but the time has come for you selfish freeloaders to pony up the loot and return to our benevolent Democrat leaders what is rightfully theirs. They will in turn redistribute the wealth equitibly amongst those they wisely deem most deserving of it, thus erasing the chasm between rich and poor so all Americans can exist on a level playing field of poverty and stagnation. The Latin term for this is Fiscali Responsibiliae, or "I can spend your money better than you can, you greedy bastards."

Too bad they don't teach Latin at community colleges, or conservatives might actually have a clue about economics.

http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/current_affairs/index.html

 

[boedicca]

Considering they use and benefit more from public resources and government than the average person, yes I do.

Really? When they drive on the street they use more road than someone who earns less money but drives a similar size vehicle? Their children use more public education funding when they go to private schools instead of public ones? They consume more criminal court resources than rapists, child molesters, thieves, carjackers, drug dealers, etc.?

Please provide any empirical data that show that The Rich consumer multiple orders of magnitude more of government services than the average person.

Oh, the infamous strawman argument. I almost didn't see that coming.

Is there any tax rate that you find Too High?

I don't think you grok the risk to a society when the bulk of the population pay little or no taxes and The Rich pay an enormous concentration. If you think that Government Serves The Rich more than the rest of us - it's only logical to conclude that Those Who Pay For Most Of It Should Expect Most Of The Benefit.

 

[Dirt McGirt]

So you want the folks to fork over MORE of their money in taxes?

I'm open to raising taxes to exclusively pay down the deficit. See I'm not masquerading as a fiscal conservative who's really an apologist for cut and spend policies, unlike yourself.

 

[red states rule]

Really? When they drive on the street they use more road than someone who earns less money but driving a similar size vehicle? Their children use more public education funding when they go to private schools instead of public ones? They are consume more criminal court resources than rapists, child molesters, thieves, carjackers, drug dealers, etc.?

Please provide any empirical data that show that The Rich consumer multiple orders of magnitude more of government services than the average person.



Is there any tax rate that you find Too High?

I don't think you grok the risk to a society when the bulk of the population pay little or no taxes and The Rich pay an enormous concentration. If you think that Government Serves The Rich more than the rest of us - it's only logical to conclude that Those Who Pay For Most Of It Should Expect Most Of The Benefit.

To libs like Dirt, if you have any money left over after your current taxes are deducted from your paycheck, you are NOT paying enough in taxes

 

[red states rule]

I'm open to raising taxes to exclusively pay down the deficit. See I'm not masquerading as a fiscal conservative who's really an apologist for cut and spend policies, unlike yourself.

The budget deficit is down 57%


It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!
Ahhh, Tax Day! Christmas for Liberals! I got so excited as I filled out my 1040ez this evening that I nearly wet my Noam Chomsky underoos. It feels so great to do my part to keep the wheels of the government turning.

Then something happened which completely spoiled my good mood. After completing my return, I was dismayed to discover that I will be getting a "refund" of $432 this year. It didn't make sense. Last year, I actually owed money. Something had to be wrong with my math.

I redid all the numbers three or four times, coming up with the same bizarre result each time: +$432. It was a complete mystery.

I had to chuckle to myself when I finally realized what was going on.

"You can't buy me off, Bush!" I said out loud. "I don't want your dirty blood money!"

Isn't it just like the Pee-resident Select to steal money from the government - to take food right out of the mouths of starving children - and then use it to buy my vote?

I resolved right then and there to send this so-called "refund" right back to Uncle Sam where it belongs. But then it occurred to me that Bush is the government! He'll probably just give the money to a stupid religious charity or something.

No, this money should be entrusted to someone who would use it for good, not evil. Needless to say, I sat down and cut a check to John Kerry for the full amount.

I encourage all my readers to follow my lead and send their "refunds" to a man who will use his power as president to insure that no American ever receives such an undeserved, untargeted pay-off from the government again.

http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/current_affairs/index.html

 

[wiggles]

To libs like Dirt, if you have any money left over after your current taxes are deducted from your paycheck, you are NOT paying enough in taxes

I find it hilarious that people here refer to Dirt as a liberal. Because I've seen him talk to liberals, and they always call him a right-wing Republican.

 

[red states rule]

I find it hilarious that people here refer to Dirt as a liberal. Because I've seen him talk to liberals, and they always call him a right-wing Republican.

He is liberal on taxes - just keep paying, and paying, and paying, and paying

 

[wiggles]

He is liberal on taxes - just keep paying, and paying, and paying, and paying

Or at least watch the spending. It's called balance.