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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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BTW, Dennis Hastert is the Speaker of the House of Representatives; he is not a member of the Senate.
It’s priorities. If the rich aren’t prevented from becoming rich, then it’s not that big an evil, is it? 25% versus 35% is not a massive disparity. You can go on and on about fairness, but if the effect isn’t that great, then it’s not a top priority while there are other, more important things to take care of. Come back to it when things are going well.
I don’t argue that reducing taxes provides a stimulus, but I have not seen it proven that it provides more in tax revenue than it gives up. Here’s our federal debt from 1940 on. As a percentage of the GDP, it has been on a consistent decline since WWII until Reagan came along. Clinton was the only person since then that left office with it lower than when he came in. You can argue about the reason for that, but my point is that we have not been making up the difference.
There’s also the issue of where it goes. Will a tax cut for the wealthy or for the middle class provide the most bang for the buck in terms of stimulating the economy? I would argue that the middle class are more likely to spend it, as the wealthy already have their needs taken care of. This will in turn help business; think of it as trickle up theory. You could argue that that just make the tax system more unfair, but I don’t care when there are bigger fish to fry and they’re not hurting.
The federal debt is so large that spending cuts alone will not make it up. There should certainly be some, but there needs to be tax increases as well. I’m all about pragmatism. I don’t care about pursuing an idea because your sense of fairness is offended when I’m not seeing major pain as a result from it and there are more important matters to tend to.
This isn’t a tax rebate. It’s setting tax rates for income to be earned later.
Rich people don’t stop paying taxes after the first million, so it’s not a giveaway.
Unemployment’s been dropping since the 2003 tax cuts went into effect.
>1 person making 1 million..
>OR 100,000 makinf $40,000
So you agree that it would be fairer to not have the 1% pay such a high share of tax burden. By your numbers they should only be paying 1% of the total or so. I’ll settle for 10%.
Your bottom 85% includes people making 100,000 a year.
http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new06_000.htm
49..
true, but ny top 1% are those that make 100,000,000+ per year, that hide their money or invest it, so as not to pay mush or ANYTHING..
Costs of manufactouring HAVE NOT increased in over 20 years, with the advances in Cad/cam, and newer technics and outscourcing.
Look at the price of cars, NOW and 20 years ago.
We outscource, most of the making of products, bring them to the US, and put the car together, and charge, AS IF, the car was made in the US.
We use EXPENCIVE aluminium and have to ADD ALOT of it to reinforce, what we DIDNT, with steal. the engines have gone to Plastics and aluminium and REALLy havent increased in Ability, even tho the cars are LIGHTER.
Show me a DECENT car, thats 5 years old, that gets better then 25mpg, and I will show you my 1986 Olds, that gets 35mpg STILL. With a BIG BORe engine..
I supported the national consumption tax (GST) when it came in in Canada and still do. I think we should slowly eliminate income taxes and rely on consumption taxes instead, as anyone who knows anything about economics should.
However there seems to be no end to modern conservatives stupidity. In Canada the conservatives are proposing to reduce our national sales tax while jacking up the income tax rate for the lowest income bracket!
I was a conservative in Canada untill they went American populist (stupid) on us.
This from a Prime Minister with a masters in Economics! He needs remedial education.
#47 Rich people don’t stop paying taxes after the first million…
Which brings-up another point.
I think that people believe our system rewards “rich people” because the tables which I linked to in #13:
http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=133517,00.html
… have a heading stating: “If taxable income is over–”
The key words “taxable income” are where I think a lot of the anger is generated.
If people knew for a fact that everyone making over $326,450.00-a-year was actually paying “$94,727.50 plus 35% of the amount over 326,450” – there would not be many grumblings from people in lower tax-brackets, because that’s a lot of money to the people in those lower brackets.
It is the wide-spread belief that most of the people “bringing-down the BIG bucks” are able to reduce their taxable income to much lower levels which causes the bad feelings.
e.g. Joshua’s comment in #24: “The Clintons paid barely 40,000 Dollars on a multi-million dollar income.”
the Standard, has been revised.
It used to BE…
Keep the masses happy, tax them but give them enough to do things and be happy.
NOT anymore
Flat % tax no matter what you’re income. Then add scaled luxury taxes. Challenge would be to close the loop holes that allow the rich to defer tax.
I don’t believe just because one has worked harder they must be penalized. I’m not talking about politicians taking kickbacks, I’m talking about the first person in a family that made it to college and beyond and now pulls in six figures.
Any tax reduction or rebate to middle class incomes will be negligible to the economy. It will defiantly hurt the deficit. The middle class has been holding the American economy afloat for several years now, and as a consequence, as a group have personal debt over their heads. The majority of Americans are one disaster from bankruptcy. Be it a medical emergency or losing a job.
The last tax rebate didn’t help the American economy, but it sure helped Wal-Mart’s bottom line and the Chinese economy.
corporations are actually just collections of people. so, all of those people who work for the corporation *already pay taxes*. a corporation isn’t a “someone”. it’s an artificial construct. taxing that artificial construct is simply this: an excuse to double-tax the people who comprise the corporation.
Paul, that is complete and utter bull crap. I have taxes deducted from my pay. Then when I put gas in my car, I pay more tax. When I get on the Toll Road, I pay another tax. If I stop to buy a snack, I pay another tax. So please explain why it is wrong to “double tax” a large company but OK that I am “quadrupled taxed”*.
And forget about the “artificial construct”, Wal-Mart, Boeing, General Motors or GE are just as real as I am. They get to sue and be sued. They may own property in their own right. They may hold copywrites, patents, and trademarks. They can hire a lawyer, accountant, or landscaper as easily as I can. They can do anything I can except with my wife.
*Hey, I also pay property taxes and so many other hidden taxes I couldn’t count them all.
…
re my final encomium about thanking the evil corporations, of course one doesn’t owe the corporation once one has bought their goods or services. i was using a colloquialism…
No, wrong again. You were being sarcastic. Neither moss nor I have referred to any “evil companies”. Sarcasm is a form of irony, where one thing is said but another is meant. Colloquialism is informal speech that is between slang and accepted proper English. And although I can’t speak for moss, I am sure he doesn’t, and I know I don’t, have spittle dripping onto our keyboards.
companies GOVe when it LOOKS good, this is not for ALL of them.
Many raise there prices to the AMOUNT they give, they can give MORE, but it SHOULD be FROM their profit margin, NOT our pockets, esp sence its ALSO a tax deduction to THEM.
Advertising should ALSO come from their profit margin, and NOT our pockets… Compare Shasta , to pepsi and coke… I DONT need to see PEPSI on everything I SEE, and every 15 minutes on TV. For what Pepsi SELLS their product for, I can buy 5 times the amount in shasta.
Dont know if its WELL, know…
But, being a senitor, or Representitive, after 2 terms(?).
during their time, they Pay no Social security, but after they retire, they get a pention, EQUAL to their Working wage, and it comes out of Social Security.
Paul said: (“Democrats may tax and spend, but at least when we had a democratic president, he managed to spend less than he taxed!”
you’re delusional if you believe that.)
Thus Paul, in his infinite wisdom, has diagnosed people who bother to read the GAO budget reports and other various governmental reports which clearly show just that as suffering from a mental illness. All evidence of surplus turning to record deficit be damned, those fancy numbers lie!
I suggest we get about housing such dangerous mental defectives in some place where society at large can be protected from them. A new round of ward building should help the economy, after all.
Since this group would include most all of our elected officials in Washington, and their aids, I suggest we start there. That’s a mental health initiative I could certainly get behind! Unfortunately, I’m afraid we’d still have to go about impeaching the president to get rid of him, as I’m sure he’s not a member of this group.
All sarcasm aside, this is the best example yet of the utter failure of partisans. People who’s whole world view is based upon an adversarial dichotomy that assumes the worst of the opposition, no matter what form this takes (soccer, politics, computer choice, hypernationalism ect.), leads to large groups of people spouting utter nonsense. Now, before you write me off as some lefty-liberal, I’ve been a conservative all of my live: I believe in small, limited government, the utility of flexible local governmental control and the right for people not to be interfered with so long as they cause no harm. Oh, yeah, according to the partisans, that does make me a liberal now, since the glorious leader has decided that conservatism is a word with no actual meaning, much like the word “torture.” The neoconservative movement has ran up more debt than all previous administrations combined, with years yet to go. That is a fact, and claiming that it is not so against a tide of evidence deep enough to drown in is the very definition of delusion.
and you’re still wrong about my encomium.
An encomium is praise. You didn’t praise moss, you belittled his points. You were still sarcastic. Sugarcoating it with the silver dollar words won’t change their meaning or what you intended.
…the sensibility behind his comments makes my inference of that meaning palpable.
In your own mind maybe. He didn’t say it, you did. As a cacophemism you paraphrased Moss as saying something he hadn’t. You substituted your own dysphemism in an attempt to belittle his argument. Hhmmm sounds like something a Republican would do to his opponent. Here, let me give you some encomium and state you have always been such a lucid Libertarian.