"You didn't get there on your own"

[Vast LWC]

The war was not about tea; the colonists had an aversion to ginormous corporations that (rather than who) put local businesses and small trades people at a disadvantage

So the Tea ... Tax ... was a reference to "ginormous corporations?" "Corporations" were taxing the colonists?

Yep, it was called the East India Company.

From the Wiki:

East India Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At the same time, there was commercial stagnation and trade depression throughout Europe. The directors of the company attempted to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help. This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773, which gave the Company greater autonomy in running its trade in the American colonies, and allowed it an exemption from tea import duties which its colonial competitors were required to pay.

When the American colonists, who included tea merchants, were told of the act, they tried to boycott it, claiming that although the price had gone down on the tea when enforcing the act, it also would help validate the Townshend Acts and set a precedent for the king to impose additional taxes in the future. The arrival of tax-exempt Company tea, undercutting the local merchants, triggered the Boston Tea Party in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, one of the major events leading up to the American Revolution.

 

[kaz]

I invested that money in shipping jobs overseas

I'd think you'd like that. Fewer Americans are victims of evil businesses by working for them. Let someone else suffer from having a job instead of an innocent, non-working American.

and the board IQ just dropped another 10 points

Yes, you're back

 

[Jarhead]

If you think you built your business on your own lets try an experiment. Lets stop enforcing patents and see what happens.

when it is free to get a patent, I will gladly support your premise.

Until then, your premise is nonesense.

 

[kaz]

The war was not about tea; the colonists had an aversion to ginormous corporations that (rather than who) put local businesses and small trades people at a disadvantage

So the Tea ... Tax ... was a reference to "ginormous corporations?" "Corporations" were taxing the colonists?

Yep, it was called the East India Company.

From the Wiki:

East India Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At the same time, there was commercial stagnation and trade depression throughout Europe. The directors of the company attempted to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help. This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773, which gave the Company greater autonomy in running its trade in the American colonies, and allowed it an exemption from tea import duties which its colonial competitors were required to pay.

When the American colonists, who included tea merchants, were told of the act, they tried to boycott it, claiming that although the price had gone down on the tea when enforcing the act, it also would help validate the Townshend Acts and set a precedent for the king to impose additional taxes in the future. The arrival of tax-exempt Company tea, undercutting the local merchants, triggered the Boston Tea Party in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, one of the major events leading up to the American Revolution.

Tea Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, and the corporation created the tea tax. Which is why John Adams and company were always saying, another tax? Damn, I HATE corporations!!!! Liberals really have no shame when it comes to stupid arguments, do you? Duh, a private company created a tax, the founding fathers hated corporations because they were taxing us. Then the two of you stroke each other. Get a room.

 

[Vast LWC]

The hole in your argument, Barb, is that the 1% who cover the cost of that infrastructure aren't the only ones making use of it.

The top 20% of earners pay 94% of the federal income tax. That means that the bottom 80% are paying virtually nothing. And those small business owners are typically a part of that 20%. It's not true that the"1% use up 25% of outlay". If it was, they'd be the only ones allowed to use the infrastructure and the only ones protected by national defense. But they MORE than pay for it, as we see.

What's more, and I'd really like to see somebody, anybody, provide an answer to this question.... This administration has behaved irresponsibly with our tax dollars to begin with. We have NO budget and NO attempt to reform our unsustainable entitlements, which are eating up two-thirds of federal spending. Instead, they've given us another, even more expensive entitlement, costing three times what we were told it would. And they've driven the national debt to nearly 16 trillion.

WHY should even one American, no matter how filthy rich, give another red cent to this administration when it's obvious that they're not doing the job they were elected to do???

That's because the top 20% of the nation owns 85% of the wealth. And that's not even including the money they've been hiding overseas.

This chart is from 2007. The disparity has grown significantly since then.

And, of course, as usual, you're only including income tax in your figures.

But, putting that aside, how much of the infrastructure do you think a minimum wage worker uses, in comparison to a multi-millionaire with multiple investments in various corporations?

 

[Murf76]

Really???
Did Romney try to raise taxes on them during that little speech? Did he tell those young Olympians to get out their wallets and hand over some cash to the federal government in return for what their families and communities had done for them?

It's not really an argument that 'no man is an island'. None is. The context of the argument is about what we owe to the ones who helped us along. Do we owe them our thanks and gratitude?... or do we owe them our CASH, ultimately at the point of a gun?

He was asking the Olympians to share the currency that they were paid in:

Fame and Glory.

It's the exact same argument.

You can rationalize it all you want, but anyone who isn't a brainwashed radical extremist psychopath will see the point, and agree.

You do of course realize, that taxes are mandated with the force of law behind them. If you don't pay your taxes and if you persist in resisting paying your taxes, eventually some uniformed officer is going to come and pick you up, take you to jail, and if you give him any guff about it, you'll go there at the point of a gun.

"Cheers" are not mandated, and the suggestion that people engage in a round of applause does not carry the force of law.

 

[kaz]

That's because the top 20% of the nation owns 85% of the wealth. And that's not even including the money they've been hiding overseas

If you exclude unrealized equity in their homes and the NPV of their retirement accounts, which are the primary assets of the 80%, then they have 15% of the wealth. Wow, you're onto something...

 

[Vast LWC]

Tea Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, and the corporation created the tea tax. Which is why John Adams and company were always saying, another tax? Damn, I HATE corporations!!!! Liberals really have no shame when it comes to stupid arguments, do you? Duh, a private company created a tax, the founding fathers hated corporations because they were taxing us. Then the two of you stroke each other. Get a room.

See if you can wrap your head around this...

The corporation lobbied the British parliament to levy a tax, so the British government could use the funds garnered to subsidize the corporation's operations.

Which is extremely similar to half the shit that goes on in Washington today.

And yes, the founding fathers did in fact hate the East India Company. Jefferson hated corporations with a passion.

 

[Vast LWC]

Small business can also react more quickly to market changes than a large business. Knowing your customer is the advantage.

Barb rewrites the Boston Tea Party, how quaint.

The whole premise of the government helping business rests on government doling out our money. A fail from the start.

She didn't rewrite it at all.

The Boston Tea Party was a result of the Tea Tax...

Which the British levied so they could use the funds to subsidize a corporation.

Those are the facts. Look em up.

 

[Vast LWC]

That's because the top 20% of the nation owns 85% of the wealth. And that's not even including the money they've been hiding overseas

If you exclude unrealized equity in their homes and the NPV of their retirement accounts, which are the primary assets of the 80%, then they have 15% of the wealth. Wow, you're onto something...

Why would you exclude any of that?

Are you suggesting that wealth should not be counted because it's invested in something that will make the owner more wealth?

 

[kaz]

See if you can wrap your head around this...

The corporation lobbied the British parliament to levy a tax, so the British government could use the funds garnered to subsidize the corporation's operations.

Which is extremely similar to half the shit that goes on in Washington today.

Ding, ding, ding. True. Though you're ignoring the same problem occurs with Unions and other both right and left wing special interest groups as well.

Now, let's consider our approaches to this problem.

I want to weaken government, which weakens their ability to do anything regardless of how much they lobby.

You want to strengthen government while whining that people with money are lobbying it to do things you oppose. Strengthening government will protect us.

Say huh?

And yes, the founding fathers did in fact hate the East India Company. Jefferson hated corporations with a passion.

This contradicts nothing that I said

 

[kaz]

That's because the top 20% of the nation owns 85% of the wealth. And that's not even including the money they've been hiding overseas

If you exclude unrealized equity in their homes and the NPV of their retirement accounts, which are the primary assets of the 80%, then they have 15% of the wealth. Wow, you're onto something...

Why would you exclude any of that?

Are you suggesting that wealth should not be counted because it's invested in something that will make the owner more wealth?

Um...OK. ???

I'm saying your chart is excluding and and it shouldn't. Hint, that's what I said.

 

[edthecynic]

This is the left's classic "straw man" argument, arguing against positions that conservatives don't even take. Check this out... The Ultimate Takedown:



Do read the entire article though. It really does leave them with 'no leg to stand on'. (pun intended )
The idea that we're all some sort of anarchists is their invention. The conservative position is NOT that there should be "no government", it's that our federal government should be smaller and limited to functions enumerated by the U.S. Constitution.

Furthermore, as we read down Zombie's piece, we find that the federal dollars provided that would "go to projects and programs that benefit the general public and entrepreneurs", only amount to less than a quarter of what is spent.. and that's a more than generous accounting.

Our leftist friends have NO ARGUMENT. Their candidate has let the socialist cat out of the bag at a crucial moment in the campaign and there's just no way to spin it.
Of course, that leaves them testy and vitriolic, but their only alternative would be to re-think their entire ideology.

As I posted yesterday, you can't macromanage a society without micromanaging lives. And we can't have both a negative (what the government can't do TO you) Bill of Rights and a positive (what the government must do FOR you) Second Bill of Rights. They cancel each other out.

Something rarely heard of in the talk of onerous tax burdens and the need to trim government largess in order to relieve us of big government is the host of government expenditures included within the welfare state that benefit the wealthy and corporations to a greater degree than they do ordinary citizens. A few examples are an educated workforce funded or subsidized by taxes, research and development for drugs pharmaceutical giants have patented and sold back to the public, and the medical and ecological agencies that cure, alleviate, or clean up after corporate damage, malfeasance, and waste.

Honorable mention must also go to the courts that regulate and litigate business transactions, the US military, which is used to control and “stabilize” (or destabilize, they don't care which) the world for global trade, and the police who protect the uppity crust from the ever more disenfranchised, disenchanted, and disgruntled rabble down here at the bottom

Hartman, Thom, Screwed: the undeclared war against the middle class-and what we can do about it, 1st Ed., Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, US 2006, 2007, 67-69

Are those your words or a book quotation? Without a quote box, it's hard to tell.

In either case, if you'll open the link I posted above, you'll find that the author (more generous than I, to be sure)... already pretty much concedes all that. He gives you the entire DoD, for example. He still finds that this type of federal spending is less than 25%. It's just not possible to say that the business community is profiting more than they pay. At best, they're only benefiting by 25% of federal spending, but the top 1% account for 37% of revenues.

Obama's argument fails on every level, but it fails most of all in basic honesty. Because he KNOWS that he could confiscate every dime from the so-called rich and maybe.. maybe.. fund one year of current spending, leaving nothing for any subsequent year. This is political division, created for the sake of garnering votes.

We should ALL be pissed about that. This guy RAN on unity.

Maybe the in your link can deceive a gullible fool like you, but his slick lies have no chance with a Cynic.

As you can see from the highlighted part, he claims that BUSINESSES benefit 25% but when he tries to lie about BUSINESS overpaying taxes the slick professional deceiver SHIFTS to the top 1% of WAGE EARNERS. If he were honest he would compare the share of CORPORATE taxes paid to the federal government. Corporate taxes account for 7.4% of total federal revenue.

Table 1 Sources of Federal Revenue (billions of 2003 dollars)
Capital gains tax 45
Corporate income tax 132
Individual income tax 794
Social Security taxes 713
Total revenues 1,782
Source: Historical Tables: Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2005 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 2004), Table 2.1, p. 22. Capital Gains from CBO.
Note: Columns do not add because not all sources of federal revenue are shown.

 

[Vast LWC]

You do of course realize, that taxes are mandated with the force of law behind them. If you don't pay your taxes and if you persist in resisting paying your taxes, eventually some uniformed officer is going to come and pick you up, take you to jail, and if you give him any guff about it, you'll go there at the point of a gun.

"Cheers" are not mandated, and the suggestion that people engage in a round of applause does not carry the force of law.

Ahh, but corporations and rich investors are rewarded in cash, are they not?

Whereas athletes are rewarded with fame and respect.

Therefore, it is appropriate for each to give back some of what they relied on their community to procure...

Gyms get to put up signs in their windows about how they trained the Gold Medal winners. Restaurants advertise that "Mark Phelps ate here". Athletic programs that the medalists were a part of get more donations due to the success of the athlete.

 

[Katzndogz]

If the democrats think that telling people they didn't achieve on their own is working for them, they should continue to run with it. obama should give another speech telling people how they don't deserve what they have because the government gave it to them.

 

[Barb]

By all means, let's take a look at your argument then. Show us where Zombie is wrong.

Look at your own (or zombies) math above in what you quoted. 1% make up 37% of intake, and 1% use up 25% of outlay. Now, that intake doesn't account for the contribution to their coffers via the industriousness OR the education of the American workforce (at an all time high mind you despite record losses in real income), the loopholes in our tax code, the fact that workers are taxed immediately on every dime of income while the wealthy are allowed (by the tax code and the wealth that insulates them from the need to access income immediately) to DEFER what little tax they pay, and all the offshore tax havens where so MUCH can be hidden from the (ever fewer) accountants in the IRS who supposedly look to see that they're paying what is legally due, which is nowhere near their fair share.

The hole in your argument, Barb, is that the 1% who cover the cost of that infrastructure aren't the only ones making use of it.

The top 20% of earners pay 94% of the federal income tax. That means that the bottom 80% are paying virtually nothing. And those small business owners are typically a part of that 20%. It's not true that the"1% use up 25% of outlay". If it was, they'd be the only ones allowed to use the infrastructure and the only ones protected by national defense. But they MORE than pay for it, as we see.

What's more, and I'd really like to see somebody, anybody, provide an answer to this question.... This administration has behaved irresponsibly with our tax dollars to begin with. We have NO budget and NO attempt to reform our unsustainable entitlements, which are eating up two-thirds of federal spending. Instead, they've given us another, even more expensive entitlement, costing three times what we were told it would. And they've driven the national debt to nearly 16 trillion.

WHY should even one American, no matter how filthy rich, give another red cent to this administration when it's obvious that they're not doing the job they were elected to do???

As to the bolded, it depends on percentages spent, doesn't it? VASTLY more is spent on our military industrial complex than is spent on the domestic welfare state (keeping in mind that even that has larger benefits to business than it does to those it serves individually), and not only does big business benefit from it, it also PROFITS from the outlay.


After that, your numbers are accordingly fucked, what you quoted of mine are your own numbers (go back and look them up, I plan on staying up later than usual today), and as I've shown, they PROFIT more from what little they're taxed than anyone at the bottom.

Once you've digested that, look up the definition of "entitlements" where it concerns the budget.

Once you've done that, consider the following:

In 1984, a Reagan campaign ad declared that it was “Morning in America.” The Economic Recovery Tax Act was responsible for long-term deficits and a cumulative revenue loss of $300 billion by the end of 1984 and $1 trillion by the end of 1987. Unlike the uppity crust that partied like rock stars for the previous four years, the rest of us picked up the party tab by way of a graduating Social Security tax increase among other “revenue enhancements.” This particular adjustment, overtly put into place in response to a modest shortfall of Social Security revenue covertly covered a national deficit that had already nearly tripled by 1983.
The possibility that the third rail of safety net entitlements could be unavailable a few decades into the future was a twofer for the Reagan Administration. The White House was eager to find an issue more pressing than the result of its fiscal policies and the President’s flippancy about millions of unemployed. For the first time since Social Security’s establishment, every one who earned up to the maximum wage taxed for the program paid gradually more each year than was needed to supply the current benefit spending. Through creative accounting and by overcharging the masses, Reagan kept the huge income tax cuts for the wealthiest, and masked the true depth of his administrations’ deficits.

Johnston, David Cay, Perfectly Legal; The covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich-and cheat everybody else, USA, Penguin Group, 2003, 123-128

Do you know how much MORE costly it is for people living on paychecks rather than wealth to have their income PRE taxed? They have less to spend, less to save, and less to invest. Rather than deferring their taxes, as the wealthy are able to do, every cent of their income is taxed weekly, in real time and in real dollars. Those who are paid vastly more can defer their taxes, and the longer they do that, the less they pay in real income. Those who are taxed AHEAD OF TIME pay more in REAL income.

As for the Obama administration not having a budget, that's bullshit. Like him or hat him, he was handed a shit sandwich. You might as well go to your local hotel or resort with your own bug, "find" it in your bed, get your room comped, and then stiff the maid for a tip. That's how despicable that bullshit right there is.

In my lifetime it wasn't the common laborer, skilled worker, or professional who tanked our economy. It was the captains of industry and commerce who did that by deregulating, downsizing, outsourcing, raping, pillaging, and stealing anything that moved. They were shortsighted, and continue to be, grasping, and continue to be, and contemptibly poor planners who had no idea how to build sustainability of the ecology, the economy, or a consumer base into any business plan, or why it was in their rational self-interest to do so.
This isn’t that hard to grasp. People without a job can't pay their bills, wages that don't keep up with the cost of living cause people to spend less, and people spending less and not paying the bills cost industries money in lost revenue. In the US, this idea dates back in history to the industrial revolution and solutions found at the time of the Great Depression. Shortening the workweek to 40 hours served to grant working people more leisure, opportunity, and health, while lifting more people out of poverty to gainful employment and financial stability. Not lost on at least some in the business community was the buying power of the American consumer.
Neoconservatives treat with contempt the idea that the government, by helping people meet the basic standards of survival, would help industry and commerce as well by preventing the floor they stood on from collapsing. Over and again, they burned the crops and plowed the fields with salt. It didn’t work out so well, again.
This, of course, the captains of industry and commerce took as a signal to downsize, outsource, rape, pillage, and steal anything and anyone left standing, including itself. It found its tail, and ate it. It then demanded that the government pay for reconstructive surgery. It immediately blamed the government for doing so. Any and everyone unhappy with the results of these winning strategies are accused of “class warfare.”

My class would like to say

 

[saveliberty]

Maybe the in your link can deceive a gullible fool like you, but his slick lies have no chance with a Cynic.

As you can see from the highlighted part, he claims that BUSINESSES benefit 25% but when he tries to lie about BUSINESS overpaying taxes the slick professional deceiver SHIFTS to the top 1% of WAGE EARNERS. If he were honest he would compare the share of CORPORATE taxes paid to the federal government. Corporate taxes account for 7.4% of total federal revenue.

Table 1 Sources of Federal Revenue (billions of 2003 dollars)
Capital gains tax 45
Corporate income tax 132
Individual income tax 794
Social Security taxes 713
Total revenues 1,782
Source: Historical Tables: Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2005 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 2004), Table 2.1, p. 22. Capital Gains from CBO.
Note: Columns do not add because not all sources of federal revenue are shown.

Great, now link how corporate taxes pay for roads dimwit.

 

[Barb]

So the Tea ... Tax ... was a reference to "ginormous corporations?" "Corporations" were taxing the colonists?

Yep, it was called the East India Company.

From the Wiki:

East India Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At the same time, there was commercial stagnation and trade depression throughout Europe. The directors of the company attempted to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help. This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773, which gave the Company greater autonomy in running its trade in the American colonies, and allowed it an exemption from tea import duties which its colonial competitors were required to pay.

When the American colonists, who included tea merchants, were told of the act, they tried to boycott it, claiming that although the price had gone down on the tea when enforcing the act, it also would help validate the Townshend Acts and set a precedent for the king to impose additional taxes in the future. The arrival of tax-exempt Company tea, undercutting the local merchants, triggered the Boston Tea Party in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, one of the major events leading up to the American Revolution.

Tea Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, and the corporation created the tea tax. Which is why John Adams and company were always saying, another tax? Damn, I HATE corporations!!!! Liberals really have no shame when it comes to stupid arguments, do you? Duh, a private company created a tax, the founding fathers hated corporations because they were taxing us. Then the two of you stroke each other. Get a room.

God, but you're a moron. From YOUR quote:

The directors of the company attempted to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help. This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773, which gave the Company greater autonomy in running its trade in the American colonies, and allowed it an exemption from tea import duties which its colonial competitors were required to pay.

The Crown subsidized the East India Trading Company by EXEMPTING it from taxes that local small tradesmen (small business) were required to pay, putting (drum roll, please) LOCAL SMALL BUSINESSES at a disadvantage.

It wasn't about the tax, it was about the government (the crown) putting American businesses at a disadvantage to (dum da DUMB) an overseas corporation.

jesushchristonapopsiclestick

 

[Katzndogz]

Here is a simple reality, simple enough for democrats to comprehend.

It is only democrat street operatives still claiming that businesses didn't achieve on their own. obama is trying to run away as fast as he can.

It is actually beneficial that democrats keep this going because it does point out that obama is a liar when he denies that what he said is what he meant. What he meant was perfectly understood by democrats still carrying the message.

 

[edthecynic]

Maybe the in your link can deceive a gullible fool like you, but his slick lies have no chance with a Cynic.

As you can see from the highlighted part, he claims that BUSINESSES benefit 25% but when he tries to lie about BUSINESS overpaying taxes the slick professional deceiver SHIFTS to the top 1% of WAGE EARNERS. If he were honest he would compare the share of CORPORATE taxes paid to the federal government. Corporate taxes account for 7.4% of total federal revenue.

Table 1 Sources of Federal Revenue (billions of 2003 dollars)
Capital gains tax 45
Corporate income tax 132
Individual income tax 794
Social Security taxes 713
Total revenues 1,782
Source: Historical Tables: Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2005 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 2004), Table 2.1, p. 22. Capital Gains from CBO.
Note: Columns do not add because not all sources of federal revenue are shown.

Great, now link how corporate taxes pay for roads dimwit.

So now you are saying corporations who benefit 25% from infrastructure contribute NOTHING to building infrastructure.
Thank you.