Senate GOP pledges to block all bills

[Centexfarmer]

he is talking about income versus income tax payment.

I am talking about income after tax payment gains versus gross taxation rates.

Help me out here.

You and I clearly aren't "Corporate Executives."

However, any benefits or gains that we might be privy to are best done "pre-tax" for the maximum benefit.

Correct?

So when you are I say that we made $30,000 last year that's what we made "pre-tax."

When in reality our "take home pay" was actually around $26, or $28,000.

What's the difference say you?

 

[Supersix]

How could you say that?!?Those are obscene profits!!! Whaaaaaaaa!!!

That aside, I wish I had the inside info so I could invest and sell at the right time........

 

[BostonPirate]

The percentage of income gain is completely irrelevant. Whether or not the tax system is equitable (and I would argue it isn't because the bottom 40% pay nothing at all) is not the issue. The percentage of income taxes paid by each income group is the matter at hand. The rich pay most of the income tax in this country, that's a fact.

but if they hold too much of the wealth then there wont be money available to banks for loans. there will be no small business growth, and we need a new job sector or we wont ever lower the unemployment rate.

remember, the job loss we are facing is a correction, not a dip or bounce.

 

[opinterph]

December 2nd, 2010, 02:18 AM #63

Dude, you should invest a little time to figure out how using some basic HTML can spice up your posts.

 

[jackoroe]

you dont enjoy herding cats? ha!!!

I cant get Jack to understand the standard model for tax equity that keeps an economic system operating.

He is throwing statistics at the wall without understanding what they really mean, seeing what will stick. But really, thats how republican economists have been doing it since Bush one muttered the words "Voodoo Economics".

This is not about tax equity. It's about who pays what. I know that the left doesn't like that kind of discussion, because we see that the rich pay the lions share of income tax.

If you'd like to discuss another more equitable tax, like a flat tax or a national sales tax, that's something I'd be willing to do in another thread, being as this is an on topic thread.

 

[BostonPirate]

Help me out here.

You and I clearly aren't "Corporate Executives."

However, any benefits or gains that we might be privy to are best done "pre-tax" for the maximum benefit.

Correct?

So when you are I say that we made $30,000 last year that's what we made "pre-tax."

When in reality our "take home pay" was actually around $26, or $28,000.

What's the difference say you?

its a moving paper fantasy

the figures I am talking about are after taxes, and he is talking about the ones before taxes... but he is comparing them to the overall national tax debt without considering how that happened.

in laymens terms...

they are paying more in taxes. they are paying less of a percentage. that means they are making more than ever before while there is less money than before the market collapse. they are sucking fluid cash out of the system.

 

[jackoroe]

but if they hold too much of the wealth then there wont be money available to banks for loans. there will be no small business growth, and we need a new job sector or we wont ever lower the unemployment rate.

remember, the job loss we are facing is a correction, not a dip or bounce.

Very good, we're finally out of the ditch. You are correct. If the wealthy hold onto their money, as many corporations are now doing due to this tax uncertainty, you will not create jobs. We agree on that. So, what to do? How about lowering the corporate tax to maybe half of what it is now? It's currently second highest in the world and the proximate cause of much of our job losses.

 

[BostonPirate]

This is not about tax equity. It's about who pays what. I know that the left doesn't like that kind of discussion, because we see that the rich pay the lions share of income tax.

If you'd like to discuss another more equitable tax, like a flat tax or a national sales tax, that's something I'd be willing to do in another thread, being as this is an on topic thread.

this is about the republicans demanding that the top two percent get a continued huge tax break or not letting any other bill go forward.

this is what that looks like if it is allowed.

You are talking about personal equity, and I am talking about a viable economic model that wont collapse. I know conservatives have a hard time understanding this, due to their chronic case of the " me me me"s but the bottom line is this...

if the economy isn't fixed it will be over and out. the currency wiull plummet and all that extra cash wont matter.

You have to make sure the system is healthy or it simply will stop existing.

That is what killed the soviet union. Not war... their economic system collapsed.

 

[jackoroe]

Dude, you should invest a little time to figure out how using some basic HTML can spice up your posts.

I have to mark this on my calender. You made a funny!

 

[Centexfarmer]

but if they hold too much of the wealth then there wont be money available to banks for loans.

I'm sorry this is where you and I are going to have to fundamentally disagree.

There's a quantifiable difference between money that's "available" and what the Federal Government has "budgeted" for based upon Tax Income/Revenue.

If you're trying to equate basic economics based upon what banks are willing to loan based upon the largest "share-holders" within those banks, then we're talking more about campaign finance, than we are taxation, corporate gains, and the like.

there will be no small business growth, and we need a new job sector or we wont ever lower the unemployment rate.

I'd argue that one might study American History more closely, and examine what took place when a Democratic President Andrew Jackson took on the "Banking" institutions in America back in his day.

The type of shit that Corporate America, and the Banks are pulling in regard to small businesses, and jobs, and loans, is the same thing that they pulled back in the middle of the 19th Century.

remember, the job loss we are facing is a correction, not a dip or bounce.

I disagree.

You're talking a "Free Market Economy."

How can the markets be free when the Banks and Corporate America are running everything, and they have the GOP doing their bidding?

I'm pretty sure that you and I are in agreement somewhere, but I'm struggling to find it.

 

[BostonPirate]

Very good, we're finally out of the ditch. You are correct. If the wealthy hold onto their money, as many corporations are now doing due to this tax uncertainty, you will not create jobs. We agree on that. So, what to do? How about lowering the corporate tax to maybe half of what it is now? It's currently second highest in the world and the proximate cause of much of our job losses.

http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_welfare/real_tax_rates_plummet.php

that cant happen as they currently pay nothing. these statistics are dated but predate the Bush innitiatives to lower corporate taxes. so Its even scarier now than when this was written.

Eighty-two of the 275 companies, almost a third of the total, paid zero or less in federal income taxes in at least one year from 2001 to 2003. In the years they paid no income tax, these companies earned $102 billion in pretax U.S. profits. But instead of paying $35.6 billion in income taxes as the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks that they received outright tax rebate checks from the U.S. Treasury, totaling $12.6 billion. These companies' "negative tax rates" meant that they made more after taxes than before taxes in those no-tax years.

Twenty-eight corporations enjoyed negative federal income tax rates over the entire 2001-2003 period. These companies, whose pretax U.S. profits totaled $44.9 billion over the three years, included, among others: Pepco Holdings (-59.6 percent tax rate), Prudential Financial (-46.2 percent), ITT Industries (-22.3 percent), Boeing (-18.8 percent), Unisys (-16.0 percent), Fluor (-9.2 percent) and CSX (-7.5 percent), the company previously headed by current Secretary of the Treasury John Snow.

In 2003 alone, 46 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes. These 46 companies told their shareholders they earned U.S. pretax profits in 2003 of $42.6 billion, yet they received tax rebates totaling $5.4 billion. Almost as many companies, 42, paid no tax in 2002, reporting $43.5 billion in pretax profits, yet receiving $4.9 billion in tax rebates. From 2001 to 2003, the number of no-tax companies jumped from 33 to 46, an increase of 40 percent.

In 2001, the Treasury paid corporations $40 billion in tax refunds, a third more than the 1998-2000 average.

Then in 2002 and 2003, after the law was changed to expand tax subsidies and make it easier for corporations to carry back excess tax breaks to earlier years, corporate tax refunds skyrocketed to an average of $63 billion a year - more than double the 1998-2000 average.

so you cant cut a negative tax rate

 

[jackoroe]

this is about the republicans demanding that the top two percent get a continued huge tax break or not letting any other bill go forward.

this is what that looks like if it is allowed.

You are talking about personal equity, and I am talking about a viable economic model that wont collapse. I know conservatives have a hard time understanding this, due to their chronic case of the " me me me"s but the bottom line is this...

if the economy isn't fixed it will be over and out. the currency wiull plummet and all that extra cash wont matter.

You have to make sure the system is healthy or it simply will stop existing.

That is what killed the soviet union. Not war... their economic system collapsed.

I'm with you, yet again. I used to credit Reagan solely with this. Then Reagan and Thatcher. Then Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II. Now it's all of those and possibly the Chechin terrorists. They died the death of a thousand cuts. We may be seeing much the same thing happening here as well. Two wars, terrorism, and an intentional destruction of the currency.

 

[BostonPirate]

I'm sorry this is where you and I are going to have to fundamentally disagree.

There's a quantifiable difference between money that's "available" and what the Federal Government has "budgeted" for based upon Tax Income/Revenue.

If you're trying to equate basic economics based upon what banks are willing to loan based upon the largest "share-holders" within those banks, then we're talking more about campaign finance, than we are taxation, corporate gains, and the like.



I'd argue that one might study American History more closely, and examine what took place when a Democratic President Andrew Jackson took on the "Banking" institutions in America back in his day.

The type of shit that Corporate America, and the Banks are pulling in regard to small businesses, and jobs, and loans, is the same thing that they pulled back in the middle of the 19th Century.



I disagree.

You're talking a "Free Market Economy."

How can the markets be free when the Banks and Corporate America are running everything, and they have the GOP doing their bidding?

I'm pretty sure that you and I are in agreement somewhere, but I'm struggling to find it.

the correction occured when the overvalued loans that were being carried by the banks all started going belly up and the real equity, the real value of the property was lower than the loan that the bank held. The insurance companies paid out and failed... remember AIG?.

We propped them up along with the banks, but the truth is, that money never really existed.

it was a market correction, not a dip.

so there can be no correction on the unemployment rate until we have a new sector that can create new jobs.

thats why the dems were trying so hard to get that small business bill through during the election days... they knew the only way to make new jobs was to grow new small businesses.

that innitiative was blocked and filibustered, I believe.

 

[BostonPirate]

I'm with you, yet again. I used to credit Reagan solely with this. Then Reagan and Thatcher. Then Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II. Now it's all of those and possibly the Chechin terrorists. They died the death of a thousand cuts. We may be seeing much the same thing happening here as well. Two wars, terrorism, and an intentional destruction of the currency.

Absolutely

It is terrifying really.

the system has to be fixed, and that means they have to do what they did the last time. WW2 during the great depression.

they raised taxes on the wealthy to 90 percent.

Now I am not advocating that extreme a measure, but really? the tax rate has to rise on the people with the cash, and that graph up there shows who is holding the cash, or the dollar will collapse.

 

[BostonPirate]

That's the difference between you and me.

I wouldn't believe a doggone word a professor of economics says, because I assert that economics is a pseudoscience. After all, weren't they the ones who insisted that we deregulate?

that hurt my feelings

I am.

>

it would be a fix but it is not politically feasable

 

[BostonPirate]

Honeybunch, they're not trying to earn money by working, they're trying to earn money by gambling, which is really all the stock market is—a glorified casino.

the stock market has its place. deriving income from it should be taxed, though. income is income.

 

[justapixel]

(Besides, I don't have any capital gains to tax.)

You want to raise taxes on a type of income that you don't receive to 50%.

Thus, you dont want to pay taxes.

You want another person to step up and pay taxes for you.

Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[MoltenRock III]

Don't say anything about what he wrote, just imply that he's an unreliable source. I'd trust a doctorate of economics who has published numerous books, than the feelings of someone who refuses to consider the opposing viewpoint.

Why should he? {Comment removed by moderator}
And that canard you and the wingnut fringe toss out about cutting taxes raises more revenue than higher taxes would have has been blown out of the water repeatedly using charts, facts, and data, dozens of times now. And in each and every fucking one of those threads the cognitive dissonance makes wingnuts flee the thread and refuse to have to then support their flatulence filled logic only to belch up on a thread a few weeks later touting the same tripe they were trounced with before. Same shit, different day, and the wingnuts never learn. They just keep repeating the lie over and over and over again. The Republican party and their supporters are cult members, no different than Mormons, 7th Day Adventists, David Koreshees, or snake handling - speaking in tongues - backwoods faux christians. It's time to take our country back and deport all of the wingnuts to North Korea.

 

[bike10]

The GOP greetings for this Christmas to the Middle Class "let them eat fruit cake."

 

[MoltenRock III]

MoltenRock, isn't it amazing?

I'm thinking SuperSix is young, about 19, and doesn't know our history.

Supersix, if you're reading this, your approach has already been tried. They lowered taxes dramatically in the 80s, and yes, it did increase revenue—but not enough to make up the slack. The percentage of revenues vis-a-vis GNP dropped dramatically in that decade, and our deficits skyrocketed to theretofore-unseen levels.

This scenario repeated itself during Baby Bush's reign.

What my colleague MoltenRock, myself, and other lefties don't understand is why y'all are still believing that this witchcraft works, when history very clearly shows that it doesn't.

It's just mindnumbing isn't it? I mean Bill Clinton raised taxes, and created 23 million new jobs in 8 years, balanced the budget, and middle class income nudged upwards for the first time in 15 years. Georgie Porgie cut them to historically insanely low levels, and only 1 million jobs were created in 8 years, deficits soared, and real wages sank by nearly 4%. Not only did they not go up, but they went down!

We've now had these low taxes for 10 years, and yet have nearly 10% unemployment! There are no jobs that will be lost by raising the tax rates raise from 35% to the Bill Clinton levels on those with adjust incomes of $250,000 and higher. (Meaning they really are making about $350,000 or more before writing off all their tax deductions.)