Obama supporters

[Skull Pilot]

well, until 1985, the top tax bracket in the US was 70 or 80 percent.

Which is just where BHO and the Dimocrats want it.

Unlike capitalism, which has been a raging success

Moreso than Socailism

to paraphrase: Capitalism is the absolute worst system except for all the others.

 

[Modbert]

Which is just where BHO and the Dimocrats want it.




Moreso than Socailism

to paraphrase: Capitalism is the absolute worst system except for all the others.

Actually no

Capitalism is the reason we are in the hole we are now. It also goes to show how flawed a system it is if every certain number of years that the world's biggest economy who follows it (the US) collapses.

 

[Toro]

S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M

Pay attention, sport.

Yes, this is what the Bush administration is practicing right now.

If you are paying attention...

 

[editec]

Quote:
Originally Posted by editec
I believe the top tax rate on INCOME is 35%.

The top tax rate on capital gains is 15%.

My point is that if one sits back and says OK raise my taxes a little the government will do just that. To say that the government will not keep raising taxes if we allow it is naivete in the worst sense. That illustration is what will happen if we keep trusting the government.

We were talkng about something specific. You implied something that was flat our wrong about our tax structure. I gave you the facts about our tax policies.

You just ignored the facts to go into theoretical land, Skull.

Quote:
As we can plainly see top incomes from LABOR are being taxed at lates over two times that of investments.

Income from investments should be taxed even lower that they are encouraging MORE investment and savings.

So we sould disencentized LABOR?! by taxing it at higher rates?!?!

How does that make any sense?

This is, incidently, why I keep reminding people that the upper middle class are the most screwed segment of the population when it comes to paying a huge share of their incomes in taxes.

I agree which is why I am so anti tax. the government can do very few things better than I can when it comes to my money. Which is why i don't want to give my money to the government without a fight.

Here we go, back to theoretical land. The discussion (I thought) was about distribution of the tax burden and weho is getting screwed.

The people who are getting screwed the WORST are not thye wealthy, not the investors but the people who work for a living.

Highest tax rate for labor? 35%

Te highest tax rate for investors? 15%

These are fairly undeniable facts Skull.

Do you think the above makes sense?

Most of the affluent's upper middle class incomes come from their LABOR, and therefore the most productive people in America are taxed at higher rates than the check cashing scions who don't have to do doodle-squat for their dough.

Reduce ALL taxes then. Where do I sign for that?

We cannot reduce ALL taxes. Not with the debt load we've got now.

So the question is how do we distribute that tax BURDEN we are on the hook for?

And STILL most Americans feel sorry for the stupendously wealthy heirs because they can only inherit 80 years average American family income tax free?!

i have no sympathy for any wealthy person just as I have none for those who live beyond their means and then expect a handout from the government. BTW that sentiment goes double for businesses and banks.

Once again, the question was tax rates and how they incentivize investment or labor. Once again you just want to tell me you hate taxes.

No shit, Who doesn't?

Do you want a government that coerces businesses to sign a stock sale agreement? I don't but lo and behold that is exactly what we have. We need to starve the government into submission and the only way to do that is to give it less of our money...let me rephrase that... to not allow it to take our money.

off topic, I think. The discussion wasn't the bailout, but tax structures

I just don't get it.

The people who should be MOST supportive of tax reform are the people who appear to be to be the most supportive of the very people who are screwing them via the tax codes.

which is why the tax code needs to be burned so we can start anew with a truly equitable one.

You really have no answers to specific issues I brought before you, do you?

In 2007 total federal revenues were 18.69% of GDP or $2568.2 billion
but total federal spending was 19.87% of GDP or $2730.2 billion

Do you think 2008 and on will be better or worse?

It's time to put the government on a diet. 10% OF GDP is all it should get period. Scale down; cut spending. Let states make it up on their end if need be.

The bottom line is the more of their own money that people get to keep, the better off they are. the better off the people are the better off the country is.

Yes, we need to fix that, I agree.

None of the above is really relevant to the very specific points I made, though.

Quote:
They keep blaming welfare mothers when it is so very very obvious that most of their taxes are supporting the superwealthy.

I have no problem with welfare as long as it goes to those citizens who truly need it.

You mean the scions class of superwealthy? That's how our tax structure is working.

We tax a person busting his ass to put bread on the table at a rate 233% higher than someone who doesn't do a fucking thing for his money.

You good with that, or not, Skull?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Actually no

Capitalism is the reason we are in the hole we are now. It also goes to show how flawed a system it is if every certain number of years that the world's biggest economy who follows it (the US) collapses.

The economy's so called collapse is the product of government meddling in and attempts at micromanaging the market

 

[DavidS]

well, until 1985, the top tax bracket in the US was 70 or 80 percent.

Which is just where BHO and the Dimocrats want it.

Uh, no. BHO and the other Democrats want it at where the brackets were under Clinton which is nowhere near 70 or 80%. Seriously, if you're going to post on here, post facts and not conservative right wing blather that Rush Limbaugh mouths off of on his radio show.

 

[Skull Pilot]

We were talkng about something specific. You implied something that was flat our wrong about our tax structure. I gave you the facts about our tax policies.

You just ignored the facts to go into theoretical land, Skull.


So we sould disencentized LABOR?! by taxing it at higher rates?!?!

How does that make any sense?

Please Ed you know I've been saying all along that taxes need to be reduced. just because I disagree with you on punitive taxes for the wealthy does not mean I am for screwing everyone else. But I will say that everyone should have some minimum income tax to pay so that 40-50% of earners who now pay nothing will have to pay something say $250 per year. That's only $5 a week surely those poor souls on the bottom of the ladder can afford that no?

Here we go, back to theoretical land. The discussion (I thought) was about distribution of the tax burden and weho is getting screwed.

Ah the distribution let's see the top 10% of earners pays over 70% of all federal income taxes. You want them to pay more?

The people who are getting screwed the WORST are not thye wealthy, not the investors but the people who work for a living.

Highest tax rate for labor? 35%

Te highest tax rate for investors? 15%

These are fairly undeniable facts Skull.

Do you think the above makes sense?

Again I've always said taxes should be cut to some reasonable amount say 10-15% of income but that includes everyone. No one gets a pass.

And our retirement savings system should be revamped as well. Right now 401 K contributions are not taxed and all that money is taxed at regular income rates in retirement basically the feds get all that deferred tax back in the first couple years of your retirement. It should either not be taxed at all or it should be taxed at the lower long term capital gains rates.

Yes Ed people ALL PEOPLE are taxed too much. I just don't differentiate between working and "rich" people.

We cannot reduce ALL taxes. Not with the debt load we've got now.

So the question is how do we distribute that tax BURDEN we are on the hook for?

Let's freeze and cut spending first and see where that gets us.

Once again, the question was tax rates and how they incentivize investment or labor. Once again you just want to tell me you hate taxes.

No shit, Who doesn't?

People have to work, the feds know this and since more people work than invest it makes sense to the government to tax them more. Investments will cease to bring in tax revenues if they are taxed beyond a certain threshold because principle will shrink and will be used up thereby ending the stream of taxes to the government this will probably result in less gains being realized and therefore taxable which will lessen the tax revenue to the feds.

People however will always work because they have to. This statement does not mean I agree with the system as is.

The question to ask is at what tax rate will people decide it is not worth earning more? It's obviously not 35% but trust me the government will do its best to find that line and raise taxes right up to it if we let them.

And face it, as a percent of GDP long held investment do very little to increase production and grow the economy so again it makes sense to the feds to tax income that directly correlated to GDP thereby increasing their revenues. Again this statment does not indicate my agreement with the feds tax policies

off topic, I think. The discussion wasn't the bailout, but tax structures



You really have no answers to specific issues I brought before you, do you?

Choke the government into submission by forcing it to run on less. If your only specific solution is to raise capital gains taxes to make so as to reduce tax on earned income, all you will get is investors locking up their gains and paying NO tax on them at all.

 

[BAMMABARB]

Those people are sick!!! Heckling patriotic McCain supporters is so much worse then yelling kill him when we hear hussein obamas name or dressing a stuffed monkey in hussein obama stickers but the libs are too stupid to understand. They should have been arrested!!!

 

[FarmGal]

This old Republican is a Barack Obama fan and will stand with the majority of this country in electing him.

We've gained nothing, lost a lot, started 2 wars and watched our country go into a depression under my own party.

We don't need another 4 years of the same and frankly I doubt America could stand up under another 6 MONTHS of Bush or McCain for that matter.

 

[editec]

Those people are sick!!! Heckling patriotic McCain supporters is so much worse then yelling kill him when we hear hussein obamas name or dressing a stuffed monkey in hussein obama stickers but the libs are too stupid to understand. They should have been arrested!!!

Way to stay on topic there, hon.

Great contribution. I can see you're going to be a real asset to this community where ideas and issues are discussed rationally.

Skull,

You and I can agree that:

1. The government is corrupt and wasteful, and we need to wring out that waste to decrease taxes overall.

2. ALL People pay far too much taxes.

My point in addressing you was merely to show you the REAL numbers, as opposed to that theoretical example that you posted which really has nothing to do with the real tax structure that you and I BOTH agree needs to be modified.


My point was and will continue to be this...

We tax LABOR even worse than we tax INVESTMENT.

We are therefore, punishing the working class and rewarding the investing class.

Do bear in mind when I say the working class...I include everyone who works for the money, no matter how much money they make.

I you make $1 million a year as brilliant surgeon who save people's lives...you pay $350,000 a year in taxes.

But if you sit on your ass and clip coupons to make your million dollars a year, you pay $150,000 a year in taxes.

Do you think THAT is the right path for this society to take?

Does it make sense to tax the PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE for working for their money, at a rate 233% higher than the person who does NOTHING fore their money?

Now if I were going to fix the capital gains tax I'd consider doing the following:

1. Discount the capital gain that is merely inflationary gain. (there's a huge reduction in capital gains taxes, right there, true?)

2. Significantly reward longer term capital gains than short term capital gains. (this protects the buy 'em hold em investors and encourages a more stable market)

3. Distinquish between a capital gain resulting from an individual who was growing a business and a capital gain that was merely the result of an individual whose investment was merely passive investment like stock investment.

It's not that I want to punish investors, Skull.

In fact what I want to do is reward REAL capitalists --- people risking capital (and usually their time and energy, too) growing thier businesses.

I don't have the exact numbers, but I think you catch my drift here.

Rewarding people who work (including those busiessmen whose capital gains are because they grew a business) is a good thing.

Punishing people who work for a living, making them pay a higher rate of taxes that those who don't work, but whose money works for them, is foolish in my opinion.

 

[BAMMABARB]

Thank you editec.
I don't agree with the rest of what you said but the compliment was nice.

 

[DiamondDave]

And of course you and your ilk get to determine what is 'real' or what is 'productive' or what is truly 'worthwhile'

My risk of investment contributed as much as my efforts as a manager and troubleshooting guru

It IS that you want to punish investors or ones you personally don't see as doing enough or being productive how YOU would want them to be...

ridiculous

Try basing things on true equality... equal burden... instead of subjective labels or some ranking system... keep government and taxation blind as justice is supposed to be blind... everyone treated exactly the same and burdened the same... Joe 6 pack being taxed 17% (for example) and Joe Millionaire also being taxed 17%.. no matter how the income is earned

 

[Dr Grump]

The economy's so called collapse is the product of government meddling in and attempts at micromanaging the market

You don't know much about economics do you. So the govt decided to hand out subprime mortgages? I say again

 

[elvis]

Uh, no. BHO and the other Democrats want it at where the brackets were under Clinton which is nowhere near 70 or 80%. Seriously, if you're going to post on here, post facts and not conservative right wing blather that Rush Limbaugh mouths off of on his radio show.

are you saying I am lying about where the brackets were in 1985 or that the other poster is lying about where Obama and the dems want them? If you're saying I am lying, I can provide a link.

 

[jreeves]

Unlike capitalism, which has been a raging success

Actually I am for a mixed system, one extreme isn't good. Obama's policies push us dangerously close to a 'The United Socialist States of America'. Taking directly from one taxpayer and giving to another non-taxpayer is closet socialism. That is too extreme...

 

[jreeves]

Actually no

Capitalism is the reason we are in the hole we are now. It also goes to show how flawed a system it is if every certain number of years that the world's biggest economy who follows it (the US) collapses.

No, the reason we are in the mess is due to both systems. The socialistic 'CRA' contributed greatly to the mess we are in, as well as greedy CEOs and corrupt politicians.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Read your data and show that the CRA contributed greatly. Bull puckey.

Gotta love libbies. Uneducated, unintelligent whackjobs

Sarah Palin is a libby?

Bachmann is a libby?

 

[Skull Pilot]

You don't know much about economics do you. So the govt decided to hand out subprime mortgages? I say again

No but the fed held short term interest rates so low that in reality they were negative. If the feds allowed interest rates to rise as they would have naturally this inflationary bubble would have contracted and would not have popped.

The Housing Bubble in 4 Easy Steps - Mark Thornton - Mises Institute

The Housing Bubble in 4 Easy Steps

Daily Article by Mark Thornton | Posted on 9/27/2008

1. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to as low as 1% so that after inflation we had negative interest rates.



2. As a result, mortgage rates fell to an all time low.



3. Low rates caused borrowing and lending to explode, particularly in real estate. For example, commercial banks more than doubled the amount of real-estate loans they made.



4. All these low interest loans had to be extended to people with worse credit ratings and this increased the demand for homes and other real-estate assets. It should not be surprising that home prices skyrocketed

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, mortgage-backed securities, and credit derivatives were simply the conduit that made all these bad loans and investments seem less risky than they really were. In this manner the Federal Reserve can fool the market, at least temporarily. In the end the market always reasserts itself.

Do you understand those economics?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Uh, no. BHO and the other Democrats want it at where the brackets were under Clinton which is nowhere near 70 or 80%. Seriously, if you're going to post on here, post facts and not conservative right wing blather that Rush Limbaugh mouths off of on his radio show.

What taxes were under Clinton has nothing to do with what Dimocrats want taxes to be. When BHO gets his Senate super majority and Bella Pelosi and Scary Reid get to run their agenda in the house with no opposition in the Senate we'll see what happens. After all taxing a mere 5% of the population more is NOT going to pay for all the "good" BHO wants to do.

Have you read his "Jumpstart the Economy" plan?

There's a lot more spending in there than can be paid for by rasing taxes a mere couple percent on "THE RICH"

and BTW I don't listen to Limbaugh.

 

[DiveCon]

No but the fed held short term interest rates so low that in reality they were negative. If the feds allowed interest rates to rise as they would have naturally this inflationary bubble would have contracted and would not have popped.

The Housing Bubble in 4 Easy Steps - Mark Thornton - Mises Institute

The Housing Bubble in 4 Easy Steps

Daily Article by Mark Thornton | Posted on 9/27/2008

1. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to as low as 1% so that after inflation we had negative interest rates.

View attachment 6149

2. As a result, mortgage rates fell to an all time low.

View attachment 6150

3. Low rates caused borrowing and lending to explode, particularly in real estate. For example, commercial banks more than doubled the amount of real-estate loans they made.

View attachment 6151

4. All these low interest loans had to be extended to people with worse credit ratings and this increased the demand for homes and other real-estate assets. It should not be surprising that home prices skyrocketed

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, mortgage-backed securities, and credit derivatives were simply the conduit that made all these bad loans and investments seem less risky than they really were. In this manner the Federal Reserve can fool the market, at least temporarily. In the end the market always reasserts itself.

Do you understand those economics?

and banks encouraged borrowers to take out larger loans than they actually needed
to the full level of the current valuations and then when the values dropped, they could recoup the loss
it was a tgotal mess and there is a lot of blame to go around, only the MSM only wants to place blame on Bush and the GOP
and are totally forgetting the crap the dems did and the investment bankers themselves
they are ALL to blame as far as i'm concerned