 You’ll help to keep one of three Paul Allen mega-yachts afloat. Yay! |
Obama Stimulus Saves Microsoft Billionaire Hundreds Of Millions — Apparently Paul Allen will be a bigger beneficiary of the Obama plan than you will.
Allen owns a majority stake in cable provider Charter Communications. Charter Communications this month said it would reduce its debt load by $8 billion and enter Chapter 11. Normally, partners at a firm like Charter Communications would have to pay taxes on the amount of debt forgiven in this process, which is, in a sense a one-time income windfall. Tax law calls it a “deemed distribution.” But under the new bill, companies like Charter Communications will be able to avoid paying taxes on forgiven debt until 2014. Even then, Paul will have until 2018 to pay it completely off. Paul owns about half of Charter, so his share of the Charter Commuincations’ $8 billion debt forgiveness is around $4 billion. At a tax rate of 25%, Allen could avoid paying as much as $1 billion in taxes until 2014, tax expert Robert Willens told the WSJ.
Hey, wait a minute. I thought George Bush and Republicans were the ones out to help the evil rich at every turn.
Ha! Well, no surprise; the ‘compromise’ that Obama pushed through, in order to get zero R votes, basically stripped out all of the help for the poor, all of the alternative energy research, and most of the useful maintenence and upkeep items.
So, what was left? Tax breaks for the rich! Is it a surprise? That’s the American solution to every problem! Surplus in Washington? Tax cuts for the rich! Deficits? Tax cuts for the rich? Booming economy? Tax cuts for the rich! Busting economy? Tax cuts for the rich? Is Rush’s dick rotting off from some horrible venerial disease he caught from a 14 year old Dominican prostitute? Why, a tax cut is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Investing in Gold is for the optimist. I suggest investing in food and ammo, ’cause the collapse is going to be long and hard.
You watch, the useful idiots that voted for OBAMA will make excuses supporting this while they get $13 a week….
Funny to call this the Obama stimulus. It was voted on by congress (the opposite of progress). And, I thought it was the repugnicans who insisted on so much of the “stimulus” package (about a third) being in the form of tax breaks, no?
#1,
You may as well stop posting if you’re going to use that alias. It means you lose any argument before you start it and end any thread on which you post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law
Here is a stimulus package that would really work. I call it the 80/20 stimulation.
The law would call for the top 10% and the bottom 10% of taxpayers to pay 0% tax.
That is, do not tax the rich, and do not tax the poor. We appease the Republicans and we appease the Democrats.
The middle 80% get their taxes hiked 10% and America is saved.
Looks like we’re still hearing from the McCain losers who thought the wealthiest Americans should be the only ones getting tax breaks.
Of course, Allen is getting taxes deferred which might be useful if investments were paying anything. Thanks to the Bubba-brigade, they ain’t. And he’ll still have to end up paying the taxes.
Unless the Republicans regain complete control.
# 4 Misanthropic Scott said, “Funny to call this the Obama stimulus.”
Maybe you should check with Obama?
Obama on the stimulus bill he signed and pushed:
“This morning, I’m pleased to say that after a lively debate full of healthy differences of opinion, we’ve delivered real and tangible progress for the American people,” Obama said.
“This is a major milestone on our road to recovery, and I want to thank the members of Congress who came together in common purpose to make it happen. Because they did, I will sign this legislation into law shortly.” Obama said.
#4. “Funny to call this the Obama stimulus”
Who’s in charge Scott?
#7 – Paddy-O,
Exactly my point. If it’s Obama’s, why is he thanking congress for passing it? Sounds like it took the house, the senate, and Obama to get it through.
#8 – McCullough,
Who’s in charge Scott?
The corporations. The change we’re getting isn’t THAT real a change. Obama is still very much a mainstream politician. He’s the best we’ve had in my adult life and probably my entire life. But, he’s still a mainstream politician.
Yes indeed, let’s shoot the useful idiots! God knows that anyone who voted for Bush/Obama does nothing but make excuses for them. Be it torture/stimulus or tax cut/tax cuts, we’re all cookoo for cracker/chocolate deception!
Divide and conquer. Give them the illusion of a contest, and they’ll submit to their mugging with a smile on their face.
#9 Give it up. It’s his. His presidency now hinges on his plan succeeding. Done deal, for good or ill.
“Republicans and Democrats offered starkly different assessments of President Barack Obama’s newly renegotiated economic recovery plan Saturday, as the Senate held a rare weekend debate in advance of a key vote on Monday.”
How so? Are there not a lot of people in charge that are for tax cuts under every contradictory circumstance? Did Obama not just give us the largest 2 year tax cut in history under a deficit, after Bush gave us the biggest continuing tax cut in history while under a surplus? Please, do explain my naivete.
Now sarcasm? Oh yes, I certainly was being sarcastic on purpose.
So one extreme example is enough to generalize the entire plan as bogus?
Didn’t the republicans pass a $700,000,000,000 package? How is this one different? If it’s that this one is too much to add to that one. Make the arguments based on that merit. I’m sure that one had just as many flaws as this one does.
A sweeping generalization about the plan is a cheap trick to get everyone fired up. The title of the article is inflammatory and really says very little about why the package won’t work.
Your love or hate of Obama shouldn’t have anything to do with if you think the plan is a good one or not. People need to start thinking for themselves.
# 14 edwilli said, “Didn’t the republicans pass a $700,000,000,000 package?”
Nope. The Repubs have been unable to pass anything in Congress for the last two years. Only Dems could (and can) pass anything.
So Obama plan now preserves Paul Allen’s yachts?
Dvorak – this is one of the weakest connections yet to undermine the stimulus plan. It’s quite ridiculous.
I now conclude that conservatives have truly run out of stupid excuses. Hopefully, it’s time to move on.
# 16 Dallas said, “So Obama plan now preserves Paul Allen’s yachts?”
Yep, according to the law as signed by Omama, it does.
#15
My bad, thanks for the correction.
#17 Your ridiculous logic suggests your purchase of dildos from Bush’s $130B giveaway last year was also approved by Bush.
# 14 I fail to see how congress can be held responsible for the first bailout, when the treasury and FED were threatening martial law if the congress didn’t pass it. . . I suppose I could be a smartass and say, “Who was in charge? Who signed the law?” but since it has been the banks and corps all along, I doubt I would score any partisan points. If I were a partisan. lol
#4, If Obama didn’t write the bill (which I agree he didn’t) then why are people so outraged that a cartoon depicts the bill’s author(s) as being a chimp?
# 19 Dallas said, “Your ridiculous logic suggests your purchase of dildos”
One can see into your life & mind by your posts. LOL
#21 – Sea Lawyer,
#4, If Obama didn’t write the bill (which I agree he didn’t) then why are people so outraged that a cartoon depicts the bill’s author(s) as being a chimp?
Sorry, what? I seem to be missing something here, like A) a connection between this and my post and B) a frame of reference. I had not heard about that cartoon.
Personally, I usually assume that any comparison between humans and other animals is offensive … to the other animal. That said, chimps may be an exception. They are as evil as we are, but luckily for them not as good at it. Perhaps they’ll have a chance at survival if any are left when we all die.
So they helped companies going through bankruptcy. Of course the wealthier ones will get the bigger savings. Is the provision itself valid?
Perhaps if they had slowed down the stimulus package and split it up into pieces, things like this wouldn’t have passed.
Change you can believe in.
Any tax cut will always benefit the rich.
It turns out that the rich pay more than half the taxes.
And, since the poor don’t pay taxes (or get a net benefit) the tax cuts don’t help them at all.
Oh, BTW, Paul Allen is not get an extra $1 billion tax refund. His company (Charter) is going bankrupt, and was losing $8 billion. Because the debt is forgiven, all that’s happening is that he doesn’t have to lose another $1 billion paying the IRS.
Think of this a different way: Imagine if the government came up with a scheme to save all those poor homeowners getting foreclosed. The government steps in and pays off their mortgages. Then a week later the IRS shows up on the front door demanding they pay income tax on the “wind-fall” they just got from having their mortgage paid off.
(Now that I think about it, that’s probably a better plan than the stimulus package.)
#2–Li==quite right.
Obama is acting just like a repuglican. He is raising speaking out of both sides of his mouth to high rhetoric.
Troops aren’t the whole answer to political problem===but===more troops to Afghanistan.
Country needs a stimulus===but===nothing but more tax cuts and pork not really aimed at job creation.
I think Obama has lost it right out of the gate.
Sad, I was looking for “real change” on these two critical issues.
His third bullet to the foot, leg, now groin is the proposed homeowners bailout. If the homeowners and banks do take a haircut along with government support, I suppose it can be justified and a stabilization==but I haven’t seen the government act with competency at the application level in a long time, especially with a new program that is geographically dispersed and subject to case by case analysis.
Playing politics while Rome Burns/USA goes into the crapper.
Government cannot provide a “stimulus” to the economy, simply because it has no magic pile of money to spend. Every $1 “spent” by government is $1 (or more) _not_ spent by the private sector. That’s true whether the money comes from taxation, borrowing, or printing cash.
The only way a plan like Obama’s and the Democrats could possibly have a positive impact is if you believe that government can spend the money better than we can. And I’d love to see someone argue _that_.
HA HA!
I would say hate to so say it… But gleefully TOLD YA SO!
#29–Mark==actually a proper stimulus breaks the egg so that others can make the omelet.
Government can build an electric grid and private industry is then stimulated to build power sources==hydrogen, solar, bacterial as the market decides.
and so forth. You probably think it is impossible because it is so rarely seen.
Yet it is possible. I’m still waiting to see it.
#31 – Bobbo: if the private sector decides to invest in a power grid (or anything else), then you can be certain that someone has analyzed it and decided that there’s a return on investment. And if they’re wrong, it’s their money that’s been wasted.
If government decides to build a power grid (or anything else), however, then it’s taking money away from private investors who might make the investment (or others) themselves. And either the project isn’t warranted, in which case government is pursuing it for purely political reasons, or the project _is_ warranted (i.e., will provide a return), in which case government is merely replacing the private sector. Certainly, _some_ folks might benefit from government “investing” in something like a power grid, but it’s only at the involuntary cost to someone else.
Government is a necessary evil, in that we need to have an impartial entity to secure our rights. However, it must be remembered that government is simply that entity with a monopoly on the use of force in a given geographical region. It’s not particularly intelligent, it has no special knowledge, and it is simply not the same as a private entity when it spends money.
You’re assuming something close to omniscience on its part if you assert that government can spend money better in _any_ aspect of the economy than the private sector would spend itself. And we’re all experiencing the impact of government trying to stimulate the economy in other ways, such as via the Fed’s nearly decade-long inflation of the money supply.