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Think the leaders of Congress are in touch with working families? Here’s Dennis Hastert, R-IL, in action — worrying about tax cuts for the people who really matter to him.
No comment. At least not anything I care to put into print.
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They would be paying a bit less than $4K, assuming standard deductions and no large credits. Maybe he does consider this nothing. I would think that $70 some a week would mean something the that family. Disclaimer; I’m no tax expert and there could be and probably are large errors in my gestimations.
Its amazing how hes more worried about cutting an entire family’s gross income for a year off of someone already netting a minumum 15 times more than that.
Dont find a way to help the small family eat. . . . Find a way to buy an extra car for the lone man. Brilliant!
of the rich for the rich!
Well just look at how much $$$ you need to even run.
That is such horse dookie. You tell me if it’s easier to live on 40k a year or 640,000 a year. Hell, I’m a single 24 year old male. Earn about 34k a year and 1/3 of that is sent in for taxes. I got a grand total of 1700 back for taxes from last year. Yes, lets give tax cuts. What swine.
Wait a minit I make 35,000 the I paid 8000 last year ith 2 kids? I wonder if I can get his accountants name?
I think they (Senate) are assuming you can file the long form and take deductions. If you have 2 children and are making $40K per year then you don’t have a heck of a lot left. That is you probably don’t own a house – a major tax deduction with the interest and property taxes. (Owning a $100,000 home with $75,000 mortgage and poperty taxes means about $7,200 in tax deductions plus children and parents.) I bet those in that income bracket don’t predominately own homes!
Thus the $7,000 to $8,000 a year in Federal, State, and local taxes is probably about correct for family of 4 earning $40,000 a year.
Yes, the rich do pay a large amount of taxes. That is true, but I am more insulted at the ignorance of the Senator. (not surprised, just insulted at how uninformed he is.)
The tax system is meant as a means to raise revenue for the government, not to be an extension of the welfare system. People should NOT get a larger total refund than they had withheld during the year; which is exactly what happens thanks to refundable credits such as the Earned Income Credit and the Child Tax Credit.
Paul: It’s not the rich who are reviled (usually) but the unnecessary tax cuts for them. Our country’s financial state is horrendous. These people aren’t hurting, so why are we throwing money at them? I feel the same about the oil companies. They’re certainly important to our country, but they’re immensely profitable right now so why are we giving them additional tax breaks and subsidies?
It’s not a question of these people being evil, but of completely misplaced priorities.
Nice piece of sophistry, Paul. So, are you consistent within your own system?
Should the largest collectors of dollar$ — corporations — pay no more than individual wage earners?
Yes, it’s a rhetorical question because the sort of politicians who grope each other with tax questions do a superb job of taking care of corporate loopholes. The last year I worked in Louisiana, I paid more taxes to the Feds and the sovereign state of Louisiana than did Dow Chemical — a significant presence in that state.
How about if we cut social security…Technically I am the first example.
Technically I didn’t pay any federal taxes, but Social Security was a huge chunk of change that I will never get back.
#10 shouldn’t everyone pay the same proportional amount?
Yeah, a flat tax does seem “more fair” than what we have now:
http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=133517,00.html
The only problem I see is when that “same proportional amount” is set at something low – like the 15% pitched by Steve Forbes.
The people paying 0 or 10% would have to pay more, while the people in the 25, 28, 33, & 35% brackets would be having one heck of a party.
Problem is: the current 15% bracket gets nothing from the deal, and – to make-up for reduced revenues – everyone has to give-up their write-offs.
No more refund checks, no more write-off for mortgage, etc.
“When pigs fly…” comes to mind, as much as I would like to see us get away from the current arcane, manipulated system.
Paul assumes that rich people are all working for their money. GWB was a multi millionaire by his 10th birthday. What did he do to earn it?
And don’t forget that every single American has a $140k debt…
• the savings per household has reached the record low since the great depression in the 30s…
• the deficit is at a record high…
• the housing boom has stopped…
• inflation increases faster than expected…
• the dollar is decreasing in value.
• a large part of your country is now owned by Asian coorporation due to the record debt (rediculous that people were upset about the tiny Dubai port deal, get used to it!!!)…
AND your great government is doing nothing about it! Instead they are keeping you happy with some patriotic war. Even better, Americans are not even as upset about this catastrophic economic situation as they were about their former president lying about getting a bj from an intern! LOL
So it’s good I’m short on the QQQQ. Muahahhaha, muahhaha!
Who could safe you?
Hmmm, it’s time for William Shatner to run for president 🙂
PS: I want America to be strong, i don’t wanna learn Chinese. But stupid is as stupid does.
The devolution will not be televised. It would violate homeland security.
So Paul agrees with me. Bush did nothing to deserve his money.
“if you make ‘too much’ by some arbitrary measure, we can simply confiscate the excess”.
Hyperbole. Progressive taxation has never prevented anybody from becoming wealthy, even obscenely so. No one’s proposing forcibly making everybody financial equals that way. Weren’t you the one whining about “the sky is falling” posts in here before?
What were the Democrats saying in 2004? That we should roll back the Bush tax cuts and go back to what we were paying under Clinton. We had a good economy then. You could certainly argue that the situation’s changed now and that we needed the extra stimulus, but my point is that they were neither proposing something extreme nor something that has in the past prevented the economy from booming or people from becoming wealthy.
Fairness? Certainly in the abstract, yes, a flat tax would be very fair. But as #13 points out, implementing it would raise taxes on the poorest people and/or deprive the government of huge amounts of revenue. Also, the ungodly squeeze we’re putting on the rich amounts to 35%. You make it sound like it’s 75%.
The fairness I see is asking the people who profit most from this country to give a little more back, simply by the virtue that it won’t hurt them as much to do so.
should corporations – the largest creators of goods and services, …
Sorry Paul, but you got it wrong. Companies, businesses, corporations, limited partnerships, etc. DO NOT create goods and services. The people who work do. Some commie suggestion? Not on your life !!! A company might hire and exploit resources to sell goods and services, but that is different then creating them. The day I can enter a McDonald’s, order and pay for a meal that has never touched human hands will be the day I will agree that a company CREATED something.
The same is true of the military. Regardless of how brilliant and resourceful the Generals are, if they don’t have any troops under their command, they are useless.
When I get my paycheck, I too disperse it to the various businesses, such as my kid’s allowance, her babysitter, the grocery store, the gas station,…. No different then what you claim a corporation does, excepting size.
The idea that someone shouldn’t need to pay taxes because… is bull. Hey, maybe because I’m so good looking I shouldn’t pay taxes either. If you want companies to get off tax free because they “create” wealth, then why may I not incorporate myself and claim myself a private corporation while still working for company XYZ?
say moss – whatcha using to post here with? if it’s anything other than a lump of charcoal, then you can thank those evil corporations for creating the means with which to post.
I would like to think that moss, the same as I, and possibly even you, paid for our computers. I owe nothing to the manufacturer. The same as what I did at work last week, after I received my pay the company owed me nothing.
Single men and woman pay more taxes. Thats a fact jack. If you want to be pissed off, be pissed off that you are penalized for slowing population growth, because *families* get the most tax breaks.
The Bush’s paid well over 100,000 dollars in taxes last year. The Chaney’s paid over 6 million. The Clintons paid barely 40,000 Dollars on a multi-million dollar income. Gore paid even less than that.
If your a family of 4, and you paid federal taxes of 7 or 8 thousand on a 40,000.00 dollar income and didn’t get all or 95% of it back, fire your accountant.
3% of the population pays 80% of the federal income taxes. 50% plus, don’t pay ANY federal tax, and most of them get back money they didn’t pay. 5% of the working population pay 95% of the federal taxes. Thats those making more than 125.000.00 dollars.
The Democrats call anyone making more than 37,000.00 a year as middle, middle class. The Republicans say anyone making more than 75,000.00 a year is middle, middle class……who’s being fair?
Paul — you might consider knocking off the coffee by about 2 PM?
so, the ends justify the means? that people manage to become wealthy under the yoke of obscene taxation makes the obscenity okay?
I don’t believe 10% more than the middle class is obscene.
you’re comparing two dissimilar things. you know, apples and oranges. and throwing in a third unrelated issue.
You missed my point by quoting the lesser part. “…my point is that they were neither proposing something extreme nor something that has in the past prevented the economy from booming or people from becoming wealthy.”
rather depends upon how it’s implemented, woudn’t you agree? it’s possible to make an equitable change to taxation that is *fairer* while not putting an enormous burden on the poorest among us.
Then you’re choosing the “or” of “and/or”. If you lower everyone’s taxes to the level of the poorest people, then your choosing “deprive the government of huge amounts of revenue.”
which is the justification that’s always used. ‘give a little more’. ‘give just a little more’.
As I said, I don’t believe 35% instead of 25% is unreasonable. And as I also said, people are just proposing returning it to a past level which didn’t cause them undue hardship, which was the point of that paragraph.
the problem is, they aren’t being *asked* to *give*.
I’ll be a big boy and concede on the semantics of that.
#17 And don’t forget that…
… our payroll taxes for Social Security – since the SS intake is still currently greater than outlays – the excess goes straight into the trus.. uh… general fund.
Instead of tax cuts on income, I would like to see reduced payroll taxes – since we are paying-in more than is needed to run the program.
Wouldn’t that pull the rug out from under the the three-card-monty game which is our national budget process???
That’s what I like about you Paul. Your sense of proportion.
I agree with #31. There should be no tax cuts.
Its tough being in the middle class, but that category is not something that is definable by the federal government nationally overall. Shouldn’t it be based geographically on the cost of living?
Like New York City, where I live, or many of the other major cities, the cost is greater here then a lot of other parts of the country. Screw $40,000…I can barely make it now and I am making more then what this senator is talking about with one child (soon to be two).
One suggestion is probably having a federal sales tax, at least on certain things. A luxury tax perhaps? And ridiculously tax those people that refuse to buy vehicles that are fuel efficient too. Tax gasoline too in order to get people to actually use mass transit, instead of them driving their “10 mpg SUV” everyday. It’s no coincidence that people who buy and drive those vehicles that ruin the environment are well off too (not necessarily rich).
What…? Not fair for the country to burden those that consume things that do nothing but harm the rest of us with taxation…? If you don’t think that’s fair, then why the heck are places in this country imposing higher taxes on cigarettes?
Luxury comes at a price doesn’t it?
Its funny to THINK that 1 person that makes 1 million is SUPPOSEDLY paying more in taxes then the 100,000 BELOW him, ALL together.
Hmmm…really dont make sence…
1 person making 1 million..
OR
100,000 makinf $40,000= $4,000,000,000
ANd if they Paid the same amout, about 1/3 in taxes…
Rich person…..$333,334
100,000 others….$1,333,333,333
300 million people in the USA, and the top 1% think thy can pay MORE in taxes then the other 99%…NOT REALLY.
the top 15-20% might Equal qhat the bottom 80-85% MAKE… but they have places to PUT their money, besides their matress, where it WONT be taxed…
This discussion is amusing… on one side you have the “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” crowd arguing why the marxist system of progressive taxation is a good thing; and on the other side you have a few arguing that in a society where everybody has an equal stake in the government, they should also pay an equal proportional share into it.
I say that the entire system should be scrapped and replaced with a either a flat tax (with no exemptions) or a federal retail sales tax. Nobody should be receiving a benefit or a penalty from a system that merely exists to raise government revenues for its operation.
And concerning corporate taxes — for every dollar collected from a corporation or business, that is one less dollar that can be spent to a) pay a dividend to shareholders, or b) invest for future expansion, or c) pay to employees in higher wages or benefits.
Of course, that doesn’t matter so much, since all they really do is pass it on to the consumers by raising the prices of the goods and services they produce to make up for the lost profits… or they move their operations outside the country to avoid them… so every time you scream “raise the taxes on those evil corporations” you are really screwing yourself in probably more ways than one. The law of unintended consequences is a real bitch sometimes.
“I say that the entire system should be scrapped and replaced with a either a flat tax (with no exemptions) or a federal retail sales tax.”
Call me old-fashioned…but I miss the tariffs.
I think we’re arguing right past each other and I think I know why. You’re talking about your ideal tax system, I’m talking about the here and now in a more practical sense.
I’m not arguing “hooray for progressive taxes” because they’re a perfect ideal. I don’t really care. I’m arguing that they’re benign in the practical sense. It’s been set up this way for a very long time and has not demonstrably caused undue hardship on the wealthy or the economy.
What I am worried about is our enormous national debt, so any change from what we’ve been previously doing has to be looked at from that perspective. While you may cheer tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy because they move us closer to your flat tax ideal, I see a loss of revenue without anything to offset it when we’re already in debt. I see it as irresponsible. Look at my original post in #9, I view it as misplaced priorities.
I don’t view the “evil” of progressive taxation as a bigger issue than our national debt. I don’t view it as evil at all because I don’t see what problems its causing. I don’t want to see the government throw money away to chase some ideal when we’re already spiraling into debt.
If you could come up with a flat tax system that didn’t place an additional burden on the poor, that balanced the budget and even allowed us to start paying down the debt again, I’d support it. But I don’t see it. And unless it’s been implemented somewhere successfully, it’s probably unproven.
Hastart the Bastart should not be proposing tax cuts when we have to pay for a war, and the rest of the money that those “tax cuts for the rich, and spend like drunken salior” republicans have been doing.
Democrats may tax and spend, but at least when we had a democratic president, he managed to spend less than he taxed!
Geeze, if we don’t get this gang of clowns out and restore REAL checks and balances in our country, we are surely doomed to indentured servitude.
Just my three and half cents.
Roc
Well, sense it is a truth that politicians know no end to the amount of money they are willling to spend to gain favor with a segment of the electorate, we should at least adopt tax policies that promote economic growth.
The future economic troubles of the Medicare system have been discussed for quite a few years, yet that didn’t stop Bush and the Congress from adding yet another burden to the system.
I would personally like to see some form of the FairTax proposal adopted and the income tax system eliminated all together.