Tax hike proposal graph, comparison by party

[MoltenRock III]

Have you ever lived paycheck to paycheck? That $10 can mean the difference between eating and not eating.

Have you? Don't you live at home with your parents while they pay for your school? Additionally, the extra $10 per week or $520 per year scenario, is only on those making $200,000 to $500,000.

If you're making $250,000 or $350,000 or $450,000 per year and $10 per week might break your bank account, you're spending too much damn money and need to dramatically cut your expenses.

 

[JB3]

I don't understand where this majority of economists stuff is coming from. Do you have a source that states that the economists of the nation were polled and came up with a reliable and simmilar solution?

major and reputable would be different... then we get to people like welsh, greenspan, geithner, stockman, all are for letting the taxes expire completely.

and as if that is not enough, there was a statement by 450 economists in 2003 that the bush tax cuts would in fact create the deficits and debts that we are experiencing...



450 economists signed onto that and ten of them were nobel laureates...


http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/econ_stmt_2003/

Geithner supports the expiration of only the top 2-3% tax cuts, not the full package.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalp...ich-expire-will-not-slow-economic-growth.html

Greenspan wants them expired for his own personal reasons. He's hardly a reputable voice any longer on economic issues.

Stockman, similarly, is hardly reputable. The cycle we're now in can be traced right back to Reagan, so I have a hard time taking anything the man says at face value. The era of massive government spending and suspect fiscal policy began right under his nose, and here he is lecturing the world.

And I'm not arguing against the economists that signed that. YOU have to understand, however, that the tax cuts they are referencing are the top 2-3% of tax cuts that most economists are now saying should expire as written.

 

[JB3]

Have you? Don't you live at home with your parents while they pay for your school? Additionally, the extra $10 per week or $520 per year scenario, is only on those making $200,000 to $500,000.

If you're making $250,000 or $350,000 or $450,000 per year and $10 per week might break your bank account, you're spending too much damn money and need to dramatically cut your expenses.

They don't pay for anything. I have a full-time job and live paycheck to paycheck.

 

[MoltenRock III]

They don't pay for anything. I have a full-time job and live paycheck to paycheck.

Which I assume you make less than $200,000 per year given you don't have your degree yet. So therefore you're not paying an extra $10 per week. Meaning that complaining about a tax raise above and beyond $10 per week is only for everyone making over $500,000 per year. Do you really feel all that bad about those people?

Additionally, with all the "entitlement spending" for students allowing one to borrow money at nearly 0% to complete their schooling means you are a bit of a hypocrite if you complain about entitlement spending, no?

 

[JB3]

Which I assume you make less than $200,000 per year given you don't have your degree yet. So therefore you're not paying an extra $10 per week. Meaning that complaining about a tax raise above and beyond $10 per week is only for everyone making over $500,000 per year. Do you really feel all that bad about those people?

Additionally, with all the "entitlement spending" for students allowing one to borrow money at nearly 0% to complete their schooling means you are a bit of a hypocrite if you complain about entitlement spending, no?

Considering that all of my loans are private, no.

And I have never said that the tax rates for the top tiers should not be raised. As a matter of fact, I have said the complete opposite.

 

[MystikWizard]

It's actually an incentive for business owners who employ people.

No it isn't.

We've already seen that trickle down economics simply doesn't happen.

The mentality is "Well, we have to cut John so Bill will have to do the work of two people."

... 2 years later

"Oh, I am getting some tax relief now ..... well, Bill is stressed doing the work of John, but we can get by. I'll just pocket the rest of that money and keep things the way they are."

 

[HenryReardon]

We had finally reached the point that we were paying on the national debt.

Say what? Why are you still telling that 'big lie'? The total National Debt has increased every year for half a century or so.

The mythical Clinton surplus was a 'budget surplus' achieved with - smoke and mirrors combined with fancy accounting.


http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

 

[MoltenRock III]

Say what? Why are you still telling that 'big lie'? The total National Debt has increased every year for half a century or so.

The mythical Clinton surplus was a 'budget surplus' achieved with - smoke and mirrors combined with fancy accounting.


http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

Oh lookie who belched up to repeat the lies and disinformation you have for years, and the multiple threads where you deny reality, and refuse to acknowledge all those other threads where you have been discredited. One only needs to Google HenryReardon national debt justusboys .

 

[MoltenRock III]

The same reason why the Stimulus and Bailout did not induce banks to perform as well as expected.

It's a fault paradoxically of both right- and left-wing economic policies in the United States.

Third parties just lose.

JB, not to point out the obvious but remember Obama didn't run the original TARP funds. It was Bush'tard and his retarded minions that gave banks nearly $400 billion with no strings attached for lending or any other function other than stabilizing the banks.

They also forced banks that were quite healthy like US Bank to take the funds so that the other banks wouldn't have a run on their stock prices and deposits. Funny how those conservative banks in the midwest were all fine after the bank failures, while the coastal banks collapsed upon themselves, isn't it?

 

[HenryReardon]

Oh lookie who belched up to repeat the lies and disinformation you have for years, and the multiple threads where you deny reality.

Deny reality? Hardly that.

It is an absolute fact that the total US National Debt has increased every year for half a century. That is reality, as the numbers in the link provided prove.

So, keep your head buried in the sand if it makes you feel better.
Just remember, while your head is in the sand, your ass is exposed.

 

[Stardreamer]

The thing that drives everything here is the economy. It is the engine that provides the jobs and the goods. Taxes are a power take off (PTO) that runs off that engine to provide certain essential functions that fine tune the engine (like computer in your car and the battery) and all the extras we want. However, whatever their function, taxes are a drain on the engines performance. The last thing you want to do during the "Great Recession" when the engine is sputtering and running poorly is INCREASE the load on it. That causes a stall which NOBODY wants.

I'm not an economist or anything so putting the economy in terms of an engine helps me out to see things in a framework I can understand and makes sense.

Thinking in terms of Right vs Left, Rich vs Poor while great for political and social debate does not really address the important issue of how do we get the engine of the economy running better which benefits everyone. Taxing the rich makes for a good political bullet but if it makes the engine of the economy grind to a halt, you really haven't helped the poor.

My attitude is lets get the engine running good FIRST and then tinker with the power settings. That means no tax increases while the engine is stalling.

 

[evanrick]

It's actually an incentive for business owners who employ people.

since they are not happy with their 0% business taxes, i say we take every last dime of their ill gotten gains. sounds fair to me when taxpayers are subsidizing everything from wall-street to wal-mart.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Thinking in terms of Right vs Left, Rich vs Poor while great for political and social debate does not really address the important issue of how do we get the engine of the economy running better which benefits everyone. Taxing the rich makes for a good political bullet but if it makes the engine of the economy grind to a halt, you really haven't helped the poor.

My attitude is lets get the engine running good FIRST and then tinker with the power settings. That means no tax increases while the engine is stalling.

The "engine" will not start running until people have jobs.

Re-post my comments from another thread:

We will never recover until people have jobs.

People will never have jobs as long as we continue to ship jobs out of the country.

How many Americans would have jobs today if their job had not been sent overseas?

How many American business would still be in business if their customers jobs had not been sent overseas?

As long as this outsourcing outrage it permitted to continue is as long as the recession will continue.

and

Tax breaks need to be contingent upon not only keeping jobs in the U.S. but bringing them back as well. But even that incentive is not enough. You not only need to incent them not to outsource, you need to punish them when they do outsource. Every single dollar that goes for foreign outsourced labor should be payroll taxed at the full rate without limitation. At the very least, tax them for the lost FICA and Medicare plus a surtax to supplement unemployment insurance. Pay less taxes; Hire American workers. Pay substantially more taxes; outsource.

 

[HenryReardon]

Realizing full well that I'm addressing a mind that is closed to reality, I'll give you a link anyhow. Read it if you dare - it explains in some detail the fact that there was no real surplus under Clinton. The closest he came was a $17 billion rise in the national debt at the end of his last year in office.


http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

 

[HenryReardon]

The claim of a surplus comes directly from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Yes the externally and publicly held debt, the kind of debt that costs the taxpayers money in interest, went down significantly in the year 2000.

Don't confuse the terms "Budget Surplus" and "Real Surplus."
Much of what the federal government spends is outside of the so-called budget process. The actual 'budget surplus' was achieved solely by playing numbers games.

The total debt went down in 2000 but it did not disappear, hence no true surplus.

Which clearly puts the lie to the myth that Clinton left behind a huge surplus and Bush spent it. Bush never met a spending bill he didn't like, but that's another story entirely.

 

[MoltenRock III]

I just pointed that out in another thread not too long ago.

Great minds think alike eh?

If anything it shows moderates just how ridiculous the wingnuts have become, and simply cannot be reasoned with as they will just keep lying over and over and over again.

America needs to boost exports anyway. I say we air drop them over Pakistan's mountains somewhere.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's actually an incentive for business owners who employ people.

No, because that's not what they do with their personal income. It would be an incentive if it were a change in their business income.

not for the people that live from paycheck to paycheck... they would only make about ten dollars less a week.

The thing that drives everything here is the economy. It is the engine that provides the jobs and the goods. Taxes are a power take off (PTO) that runs off that engine to provide certain essential functions that fine tune the engine (like computer in your car and the battery) and all the extras we want. However, whatever their function, taxes are a drain on the engines performance. The last thing you want to do during the "Great Recession" when the engine is sputtering and running poorly is INCREASE the load on it. That causes a stall which NOBODY wants.

My suggestion has been stated numerous times: first, raise the individual exemption to $10,000 and the standard deduction as well, to say $7500.

After that, leave all existing levels up through the half million level. Take that back to pre-Bush rates, take the one million-plus slot back to pre-Reagan rates, and take anything over two and a half million (the rough equivalent of WW II's 200k) back to the good old "Let's get 'er done!" rate of 94%.

And if some Republican says that's cruel to the hard earners, quote him this:

"For from those to whom much is given, much shall be required."

-- Jesus of Nazareth.
(cited by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in a speech in Boston, 1961)