Fact Check: Pork or Earmarks?

[Care4all]

Wrong care...

If I don't pay taxes on the first 20K but pay taxes on the next 100K.... there is one huge difference... I AM ACTUALLY PAYING FUCKING INCOME TAXES... if you have a net income tax payment of 0, you in no way should get a 'tax refund', P-E-R-I-O-D

It is back door welfare handouts

I don't see it that way at all...they are over paying their SS taxes only for the government to use it for the income tax bills.

you all or we, are stealing from them....especially since the government is going to not pay back or reduce their benefits from what they were promised, in the long run.

Income taxes collected ONLY PAYS for 1/3 of our BUDGET dave....2/3's of the OTHER TAXES pays for the rest.

Then suspend sales taxes... suspend property taxes... REDUCE tax burden... do NOT use the tax system as a hoax job to hand out money when none was paid in

The other thing to, care... is that the REST OF US PAY THOSE TAXES TOO.. and the rest of us are being "stolen from"... fix the SS system that the FED cannot take from it...

And if you are thinking SS is going to support you in your old age... sucks to be you

But none of that means you get a refund on income taxes when you pay no fucking income tax

why not? have you been paying the amount of income taxes it takes to pay the bills?

NO, YOU HAVE NOT.....been paying in income taxes what it takes to pay the bills....

Soooooo, WHY SHOULD YOU get an income tax rebate? You don't deserve one...you are not paying the bills or paying enough in income tax to pay the bills, we are having to borrow it from foreigners, paying 300 billion a year in just the interest payment on it...

What makes you deserve an income tax break and the people paying SS security taxes OVER AND ABOVE what SS security pays out not deserve a tax break?

you are not making any sense on this Skull...

If we collected enough in income taxes to pay the bills that income taxes are suppose to pay for....then you might have a valid Beef with this....but YOU DON'T....pay the bills with income taxes and you are suing SS monies to pay those bills....

Why not just give a SS tax rebate and skip income tax rebates all together....

this is what should be done..... ohhhhhhhhhh, but then the suckers that do not pay much in SS will get next to nothing in tax rebate or nothing if they earn all of their income via capital gains or dividends.....and we can't have that, now can we?

Care

 

[DiamondDave]

I don't see it that way at all...they are over paying their SS taxes only for the government to use it for the income tax bills.

you all or we, are stealing from them....especially since the government is going to not pay back or reduce their benefits from what they were promised, in the long run.

Income taxes collected ONLY PAYS for 1/3 of our BUDGET dave....2/3's of the OTHER TAXES pays for the rest.

Then suspend sales taxes... suspend property taxes... REDUCE tax burden... do NOT use the tax system as a hoax job to hand out money when none was paid in

The other thing to, care... is that the REST OF US PAY THOSE TAXES TOO.. and the rest of us are being "stolen from"... fix the SS system that the FED cannot take from it...

And if you are thinking SS is going to support you in your old age... sucks to be you

But none of that means you get a refund on income taxes when you pay no fucking income tax

why not? have you been paying the amount of income taxes it takes to pay the bills?

NO, YOU HAVE NOT.....been paying in income taxes what it takes to pay the bills....

Soooooo, WHY SHOULD YOU get an income tax rebate? You don't deserve one...you are not paying the bills or paying enough in income tax to pay the bills, we are having to borrow it from foreigners, paying 300 billion a year in just the interest payment on it...

What makes you deserve an income tax break and the people paying SS security taxes OVER AND ABOVE what SS security pays out not deserve a tax break?

you are not making any sense on this Skull...

If we collected enough in income taxes to pay the bills that income taxes are suppose to pay for....then you might have a valid Beef with this....but YOU DON'T....pay the bills with income taxes and you are suing SS monies to pay those bills....

Why not just give a SS tax rebate and skip income tax rebates all together....

this is what should be done..... ohhhhhhhhhh, but then the suckers that do not pay much in SS will get next to nothing in tax rebate or nothing if they earn all of their income via capital gains or dividends.....and we can't have that, now can we?

Care

As stated SO many times... I don't believe in phony baloney rebates or graduated systems.. I believe in 1 rate for every last person.. 1 rate for every last company... on every fucking dollar earned.. period.. no loopholes... no nothing

But beyond that I do not believe that someone who is paying no income taxes does not deserve an income tax rebate.. .in any way shape or form... if a rebate is going to be given, even if I don't agree with it, you have to have actually paid something to have something come back from it

and BTW.. I'm DD, not skull

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I'm still waiting for the Change You Can Hope For mantra to pick up steam. Why can we not seem to pass a bill or stimulus package without added "pork" to it?

Oh that's easy... because the goal was not to pass a stimulus package... the goal, albeit unstated, concealed and as such, a function of deceit, was to pass a leftist pork fest of unspeakable ambition; a leftist pork fest which is tantamount to a subversion of the very principles of Democratic government and stands as either a symptom of the fatal virus which decadence must inevitably bring and NOTHING brings decay like left-think.

"Spendulous 2009" is what was predicted; it is what must have resulted from lending power to the ideological left; it was as certain to happen as the sun rising and that anyone is even remotely surprised that it is happening, is the only potential surprise in the entire affair.

Now just so ya won't be surprised: This bill will finish what the last Great Leftist Pork Fests: "The New Deal" and it's younger sibling: "The Great Society"... the bankruptcy of the US Economy.

 

[Zoom-boing]

This was Obama's original stimulus plan. What a difference getting elected and having to thank those who got you there makes.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need

Here's another article on how his plan changed just from Jan. 08 to Nov. 08. Note, the jobs he stated this plan would create just three months ago was 2.5 million; now the magic number is 4 million. Is this another one of those shape-shifting numbers, like the people getting taxed making over '$250,000, no wait $200,000, oh wrong again it's $150,000'?

What Obama would build - Nov. 26, 2008

How much money is actually being spent on tax cuts and infrastructure type jobs vs. pork?

 

[Sinatra]

baloney they don't pay taxes charlie, their SS taxes in surplus -is paying the bills that income taxes should be paying...

you don't pay income tax for you and the wifey for the first 20k or so that you make either due to standard deductions and the such....they got no more of an income tax break than you...

the truth will set you free....

envy will bound you...charlie.

Wrong care...

If I don't pay taxes on the first 20K but pay taxes on the next 100K.... there is one huge difference... I AM ACTUALLY PAYING FUCKING INCOME TAXES... if you have a net income tax payment of 0, you in no way should get a 'tax refund', P-E-R-I-O-D

It is back door welfare handouts

I don't see it that way at all...they are over paying their SS taxes only for the government to use it for the income tax bills.

you all or we, are stealing from them....especially since the government is going to not pay back or reduce their benefits from what they were promised, in the long run.

Income taxes collected ONLY PAYS for 1/3 of our BUDGET dave....2/3's of the OTHER TAXES pays for the rest.

Income tax is the single largest contributor of the Federal Budget - and by far the single largest contributor to discretionary spending.

It is also the single quickest way to inject money into the economy via reductions in federal income tax rates.

If you add a reduction in corporate tax rates to the mix, you have the most powerful stimulus that can be provided to a market economy.

This stimulus bill is far from that - and those "tax cuts" are not tax cuts but rather welfare checks taken from payroll taxes that are meant for social insurance programs. People are getting rebates who pay NO federal income tax.

If this administration and Congress - both Democrats and Republicans alike, were serious about improving the economy, they would have reduced tax rates across the board and then slashed government spending.

What in fact is happening is marginal tax rebates/welfare, and a HUGE increase in government spending that intends to greatly expand the liberal agenda of the party currently in power.

It is a shame and a sham.

 

[Care4all]

Then suspend sales taxes... suspend property taxes... REDUCE tax burden... do NOT use the tax system as a hoax job to hand out money when none was paid in

The other thing to, care... is that the REST OF US PAY THOSE TAXES TOO.. and the rest of us are being "stolen from"... fix the SS system that the FED cannot take from it...

And if you are thinking SS is going to support you in your old age... sucks to be you

But none of that means you get a refund on income taxes when you pay no fucking income tax

why not? have you been paying the amount of income taxes it takes to pay the bills?

NO, YOU HAVE NOT.....been paying in income taxes what it takes to pay the bills....

Soooooo, WHY SHOULD YOU get an income tax rebate? You don't deserve one...you are not paying the bills or paying enough in income tax to pay the bills, we are having to borrow it from foreigners, paying 300 billion a year in just the interest payment on it...

What makes you deserve an income tax break and the people paying SS security taxes OVER AND ABOVE what SS security pays out not deserve a tax break?

you are not making any sense on this Skull...

If we collected enough in income taxes to pay the bills that income taxes are suppose to pay for....then you might have a valid Beef with this....but YOU DON'T....pay the bills with income taxes and you are suing SS monies to pay those bills....

Why not just give a SS tax rebate and skip income tax rebates all together....

this is what should be done..... ohhhhhhhhhh, but then the suckers that do not pay much in SS will get next to nothing in tax rebate or nothing if they earn all of their income via capital gains or dividends.....and we can't have that, now can we?

Care

As stated SO many times... I don't believe in phony baloney rebates or graduated systems.. I believe in 1 rate for every last person.. 1 rate for every last company... on every fucking dollar earned.. period.. no loopholes... no nothing

But beyond that I do not believe that someone who is paying no income taxes does not deserve an income tax rebate.. .in any way shape or form... if a rebate is going to be given, even if I don't agree with it, you have to have actually paid something to have something come back from it

and BTW.. I'm DD, not skull

OOPS!!! DD not skull!

Well, i can't disagree that we need major tax structure reforms and a flat rate is more acceptable than a consumption tax imho, but i still believe the first 5-10k per adult should be exempt from any taxes.....I don't think the government should get a take in anyone's "first dollars earned", it takes from the "feel good" of supporting oneself and getting out and getting a job.

I'm not thrilled about any of these actions by our government, and never have been...from the bank bail out to this....I'm a bluedog democrat, and am heavily in to the financial numbers making sense, and not much of this makes any sense to me...some things do, but many things don't and i am not in to waste....waste is pissing money down the sewer....many reasons of why i was very dismayed and upset with the Bush Administration....i don't need more of it....last 8 years have already put more gray than i can count in my temple area of the head....and hock tooey on that!

But, we are in the here and now...?

they are going to spend the money REGARDLESS of what I think about it...

and thus being the case, I must say that if they do not spend the entire wad on fixing the housing crisis, then it will end up being a waste of money, imho....and since it doesn't appear that they are concentrating on getting to the root of the problem,

then my second choice would be spending on infrastructure....NOT made up little projects in this congressman's district or that Senator's district, but major projects that will help this country in the long and run and where money would have had to be spent on it somewhere down the road, any way....just moving up the project to funding it and doing it now....

like converting all government buildings to using solar power and solar hot water or wind power or geothermal power...a big investment, but the investment will have a return, by reducing the tax dollars down the road on energy bills....

or putting more money in to finding a way to turn shale in to oil economically AND in an environmentally safe manner, without depleting us of our drinking water or poisoning our drinking water....

building desalinization plants to convert salt water in to drinking water...a shortage of water is on the horizon and in states like massachusetts their municipal water has been sold off to a foreign country....who has no vested interest in supplying us with clean drinking water and could bottle it all and send it off to europe if times got tough....(i know this is an exageration....but ya never know?)

Repairing Schools in desperate need or filled with asbestos....

Repairing roads and bridges.

These are things that we would end up spending money on down the road ANYWAY, so i could see us excelerate these type of things.....or moving up, these type of things.

care

 

[editec]

I will remind you all again that a significant portion (last I heard it was 44%) of the economic stimulus package IS TAX CUTS.

I will remind you again that is Bullshit. as that 44% includes people who do not make enough to pay federal Income taxes and yet are going to get a refund from federal Income taxes.

That my friend is not a tax cut, no matter how many times you try and call it one. That is spending.

Does it?

I'll need to see the numbers on that.

Can you direct me to them, please?

 

[amrchaos]

10 trillion dollar deficit?

Tell me--does that include the cost of the two wars and the "repayment" from the 2tax cuts passed during the Bush administration??

Boy, republicans can talk a good game of fiscal responsibility, to bad you need Libertarians to show them how it is done!!

 

[Xenophon]

When you are heavily in debt it should be obvious to all you don't double it as a solution.

That is obvious to everyone who has common sense.

Which lets out the supports of this bogus bill.

 

[Sinatra]

10 trillion dollar deficit?

Tell me--does that include the cost of the two wars and the "repayment" from the 2tax cuts passed during the Bush administration??

Boy, republicans can talk a good game of fiscal responsibility, to bad you need Libertarians to show them how it is done!!

I must assume then that you are opposed on Libertarian principle to this porkulus bill?

 

[DiveCon]

When you are heavily in debt it should be obvious to all you don't double it as a solution.

That is obvious to everyone who has common sense.

Which lets out the supports of this bogus bill.

yup common sense does say that

 

[Care4all]

When you are heavily in debt it should be obvious to all you don't double it as a solution.

That is obvious to everyone who has common sense.

Which lets out the supports of this bogus bill.

Yep. When you are gambling, you should only double down, on a SURE THING....and pretty much this whole thing is a crap shoot.

 

[DiveCon]

When you are heavily in debt it should be obvious to all you don't double it as a solution.

That is obvious to everyone who has common sense.

Which lets out the supports of this bogus bill.

Yep. When you are gambling, you should only double down, on a SURE THING....and pretty much this whole thing is a crap shoot.

not so

in a gamble, you do have SOME chance of winning
in this debacle it is a sure thing its going to fail, because what its doing is what has already proven to be a failure

 

[Care4all]

When you are heavily in debt it should be obvious to all you don't double it as a solution.

That is obvious to everyone who has common sense.

Which lets out the supports of this bogus bill.

Yep. When you are gambling, you should only double down, on a SURE THING....and pretty much this whole thing is a crap shoot.

not so

in a gamble, you do have SOME chance of winning
in this debacle it is a sure thing its going to fail, because what its doing is what has already proven to be a failure

although the dealer gives you 5 cards upfront every hand, not all cards are the same every hand dealt, nor are the hands and bets of the others around you....the circumstances around you dictate how to play your own hand and it could be that you raise and call the games both times due to such, but the results will not always be the same, you win some, you lose some!

But I am not here to defend any of this....none of it is a sure thing and that is damn frightening to me....gambling with so much money!

care

 

[DavidS]

I'm still waiting for the Change You Can Hope For mantra to pick up steam. Why can we not seem to pass a bill or stimulus package without added "pork" to it? If you want to truly help the economy and the nation, then pass a stimulus package where the items included in the package go towards stimulating the economy or making every American better off. Selective rewards and "pork" projects are not going to motivate the average citizen to go out and spend their hard earned money.

Here is a link to an AP article that conducts some fact checking on this bill and Obama's characterizations of it. Fact Check: Obama has it both ways on pork

And to think this article did not originate from the Fox News site, what is the AP thinking.

Despite his lame attempts to spin otherwise, this Obama bill is a whole ton of...

Infrastructure spending is pork all of a sudden? Job creation is pork?

There's pork and then there's wasteful pork.

If someone slips in a nursing home for a city in his state into a bill that's going to pass, that's pork. If someone slips in $180 million for wooden arrows into our bailout bill, that's wasteful pork.

 

[Xenophon]

Infrastructure spending is pork all of a sudden? Job creation is pork?

There's pork and then there's wasteful pork.

Those things are covered in the normal budget david, and are reviewed by the comittes for them, they are not 'stimulus.'

The bill is supposed to jump start the economy, and it can't be done by spending money we don't have.

 

[DavidS]

Infrastructure spending is pork all of a sudden? Job creation is pork?

There's pork and then there's wasteful pork.

Those things are covered in the normal budget david, and are reviewed by the comittes for them, they are not 'stimulus.'

The bill is supposed to jump start the economy, and it can't be done by spending money we don't have.

Anything that creates a job is stimulus. That person's salary will be used to by food at the grocery store, drugs at the drug store, gas at the gas station, clothes at the clothing store, on and so on. And if there isn't enough money in a state's budget to build that nursing home then yes, it's pork, but it's not wasteful. It's beneficial.

We don't have another choice - if we stop spending, then our economy collapses. Then what's to stop Russia from attacking us and trying to make us the U.S.S.A?

 

[Xenophon]

Infrastructure spending is pork all of a sudden? Job creation is pork?

There's pork and then there's wasteful pork.

Those things are covered in the normal budget david, and are reviewed by the comittes for them, they are not 'stimulus.'

The bill is supposed to jump start the economy, and it can't be done by spending money we don't have.

Anything that creates a job is stimulus. That person's salary will be used to by food at the grocery store, drugs at the drug store, gas at the gas station, clothes at the clothing store, on and so on. And if there isn't enough money in a state's budget to build that nursing home then yes, it's pork, but it's not wasteful. It's beneficial.

We don't have another choice - if we stop spending, then our economy collapses. Then what's to stop Russia from attacking us and trying to make us the U.S.S.A?

The gov isn't going to stop spending, they will make a new budget whther we have this pork bill or not.

 

[Sinatra]

Infrastructure spending is pork all of a sudden? Job creation is pork?

There's pork and then there's wasteful pork.

Those things are covered in the normal budget david, and are reviewed by the comittes for them, they are not 'stimulus.'

The bill is supposed to jump start the economy, and it can't be done by spending money we don't have.

Anything that creates a job is stimulus. That person's salary will be used to by food at the grocery store, drugs at the drug store, gas at the gas station, clothes at the clothing store, on and so on. And if there isn't enough money in a state's budget to build that nursing home then yes, it's pork, but it's not wasteful. It's beneficial.

We don't have another choice - if we stop spending, then our economy collapses. Then what's to stop Russia from attacking us and trying to make us the U.S.S.A?

Oh Boy.

If the revenue required to create that job exceeds the financial benefit of said job, it is a negative impact on the economy - thus, NOT stimulus.

This is one of the primary contentions many economists are having with this bill.

It is not sound policy.

It is not even Keynesian anymore - it is simple agendized liberalism paid for on the backs of the present and future generations of Americans.

 

[DiveCon]

Infrastructure spending is pork all of a sudden? Job creation is pork?

There's pork and then there's wasteful pork.

Those things are covered in the normal budget david, and are reviewed by the comittes for them, they are not 'stimulus.'

The bill is supposed to jump start the economy, and it can't be done by spending money we don't have.

Anything that creates a job is stimulus. That person's salary will be used to by food at the grocery store, drugs at the drug store, gas at the gas station, clothes at the clothing store, on and so on. And if there isn't enough money in a state's budget to build that nursing home then yes, it's pork, but it's not wasteful. It's beneficial.

We don't have another choice - if we stop spending, then our economy collapses. Then what's to stop Russia from attacking us and trying to make us the U.S.S.A?

why would Russia need to attack us and make us that when the road we are on is taking us there now