Cammmpbell
Senior Member
- Sep 13, 2011
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- #41
I believe the word you are looking for is Capitalism. America's Capitalist Manifesto can be reduced to "what's in it for me?"; "how big is my cut?", and "as long as I get mine who gives a shit about the rest".
Exactly!
When we were paying for the second world war the top tax bracket for earners of more than $300,000 per year was 91%. The excess above 300K was taxed at 91%. Right now the guy who hires two dozen plumbers pays at a rate less than the plumbers after his accountants get through massaging all the loopholes. Tax rates for the wealthy are lower than they've been in 50 years.
I have a friend who relocated to the MS gulf coast in 1971. He started a construction business. His annual sales and contracts have run $5-$10 million a year since about 1980. He once told me that if his total tax bill...including all forms of taxation exceeded 20% he would fire an accountant and hire another one. That same year I made less than $100,000 and I paid at a rate higher than that. Another consideration is payroll taxes, gasoline taxes, fees, state income taxes, sales taxes etc. The rich slough it off like it was nothing but to the poor it's just more of an impact to their already reduced ability to make ends meet and educate their young. The wealthy and corporations have control and have no intention of letting it go.
George W. Bush assumed an annual budget which was generating billions of surplus and the entire debt was scheduled to pay down by next year:
In 2000 the congress passed a bill to keep surpluses off budget so they could be used to buy back part of our debt. Fiscal years 1998, 1999 and 2000 used the excess revenues to buy back about $400 billion of debt and the course was set to completely pay down the national debt by 2012.
From congressional record:
Latest Title: Debt Reduction Reconciliation Act of 2000
Sponsor: Rep Fletcher, Ernie [KY-6] (introduced 6/8/2000) Cosponsors (24)
Related Bills: H.R.4866
Latest Major Action: 6/22/2000 Read the second time. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 626.
House Reports: 106-673 Part 1SUMMARY AS OF:
6/20/2000--Passed House amended. (There are 2 other summaries) Debt Reduction Reconciliation Act of 2000 - Establishes the Public Debt Reduction Payment Account in the Treasury. Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to use amounts in the Account to pay at maturity, or redeem or buy before maturity, any Government obligation held by the public and included in the public debt. Provides that any obligation which is paid, redeemed, or bought with amounts from the Account shall be canceled and retired and prohibits its reissuance.
Provides that if the Congressional Budget Office estimates an on-budget surplus for FY 2000 in a report submitted to the congressional budget committees pursuant to the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 that exceeds the amount of the surplus for such fiscal year set forth in the concurrent resolution on the budget for FY 2001 (H. Con. Res. 290, 106th Congress), then an amount equal to that excess is appropriated into the Account for FY 2000. Prohibits such appropriation from being considered as direct spending for purposes of pay-as-you-go provisions of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act).
Reduces the public debt limit by the amount appropriated into the Account.
Bars Account receipts and disbursements from being counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, or deficit or surplus for purposes of : (1) the Federal budget as submitted by the President; (2) the congressional budget; or (3) the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act.
Requires the Secretary to report to specified congressional committees on the Account.
From 2000:
Largest unified surplus as a share of the economy since 1948. The 2000 surplus is projected to be 2.4 percent of GDP - the largest surplus as a share of the economy ("GDP") since 1948.
The third consecutive year with a surplus—for the first time in over 50 years. The estimated surplus of at least $230 billion follows a surplus of $124 billion in FY 1999 and $69 billion in FY 1998. The last time America had three surpluses in a row was over fifty years ago in 1947-49. The FY2000 surplus marks the eighth consecutive year of fiscal improvement for the first time in American history.
A Republican controlled congress used reconciliation to block Democratic opposition and cut taxes in 2001 and again in 2003 and for the first time in our history added debt to Communist Chinese banks to fund the cuts. Bush started two wars, one totally unnecessary and in two terms doubled the national debt from $5.7 to more than $11 trillion dollars. The rich in this country take money for granted and most of them make most of it from investments and wouldn't know what real work is...that's why they don't give a damn about the plight of the poor.
A great deal of BS in that rant.
It is easy to see your confusion.
Prove that one goddam part of it is BS.
The confused in this country are the bible thumpers who believe some invisible man in the sky is directing their lives. People who earn less than $250,000 a year and vote for the Republican party on a national level should be in mental institutions.
By the way...I've gottcher rant a schwangin
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