ACTUAL change HURTS.
The real change that is needed would REALLY HURT.
Politicians are too big of narcissistic self-interested pussies to do what needs to be done or needs to be said. Obama likes to furrow the brow, raise his chin. and get the big dawg frown on, but his presentation is empty.
We really should not make fun of the people that bought into the hope....errr...hype. They are just not pessimistic enough. Good for them, they will enjoy life more. Pessimism is a good bet in politics though.
I thought the argument there was qualitative: that Obama has somehow taken it to a new level. Maybe the enhanced scrutiny the White House now receives from the other side of the aisle makes this plausible to people. It seems like more of the same to me.
Agreed. Status quo. I guess if someone wanted to point out that using the Olympics was a new spin, then I wouldn't disagree. But it's still the same game that's been going on forever and no different than a politician showing up at the groundbreaking of a new library for a "look at what I have done for you" campaign moment.
Agreed. For the record, McCain would have been doing the media dump just as much as BHO. Either way, I think it is wrong and should not be accepted as status quo. It can always get worse. If Bush was in office, and he was mediadumping I would have thought that it was wrong. If Republican House and Senate Majority Leader were having votes that will alter our entire economy, on the week of thanksgiving or saturday night, I would have a problem with it.
I don't blame the corp.'s or think they are conspiring to destroy our country. They have an interest in making their co. more profitable which create or save jobs. I think congresspersons should have an open dialogue with someone who is responsible for a large amount of jobs. However if you are to put blame on corporations, then you would have to include unions, elitists, and career politicians (with the latter being the worst). Kids in college getting political science degrees, life revolving around only politics, thinking they know all the answers to all the problems plagueing society. Also the lawyers, who have and will always be overrepresented in our elected officials.
Partisanship cannot be so easily explained away.
Ooook. So corporations do not own our government, then? No, its more that we as an entire people are responsible for our plight? PoliSci grads are ruining us, in conjunction with unions and politicians? No one is more to blame than anyone else, am I right?I don't blame the corp.'s or think they are conspiring to destroy our country. They have an interest in making their co. more profitable which create or save jobs. I think congresspersons should have an open dialogue with someone who is responsible for a large amount of jobs. However if you are to put blame on corporations, then you would have to include unions, elitists, and career politicians (with the latter being the worst). Kids in college getting political science degrees, life revolving around only politics, thinking they know all the answers to all the problems plagueing society. Also the lawyers, who have and will always be overrepresented in our elected officials.
that. Corps shape every policy made in this country, end of ing discussion. A politician doesnt blink unless his contributors run out of fake tears. Every good politician, yes even Dr. Paul, is a slave on a leash to someone for something. You dont win national positions on the merits of your character or message, you win it on the amount of $$$ you have. And when your opposition has more $$$, less brains and is more corrupt, they win, you lose. Very simple.
Also, being a politician almost requires being a lawyer because it bars entry. The games that are played behind the scenes are dirty and corrupt, all at the behest of law and order. Politicians can, will and do use the Judicial system against each other, drafting laws that favor current power structures (re-districting) and the maintenance of power-holders in general.
What you see on every level of government is Free Market Law Making. Highest bidder makes the laws...and seeing as having tons of money is a requirement, the elite are the only ones shaping policy. Sure, they have philosophical differences like anyone else, but they agree on far more than they disagree.
Like:
Corporations being legal in the first place. They werent always legal and they shouldnt be today. Corporations are not people, yet they are seen as one in the eyes of government and law. This is inherently wrong in every sense of the word, but as a society and culture, we accept it as a truism when in fact its a relatively new law.
Tax structure, development and implementation. Its very, very true that the wealthy pay by far the most taxes in the country. But they have no right to because the wealthy make up less than 20% of the population, yet they own 90% of the nation's wealth. Of course theyre paying more...they ing own it all! How do they own it all? See Corporation. The tax structure makes no sense and it never has. Did you know modern Americans pay more in taxes, relatively speaking, then at any point in the history of this country? Corporate taxes have wild swings in how much at what time, but average Joe taxes have been one increasing curve as a ratio of income.
Economists will show you graphs that say otherwise, because in total dollars, they are right. But what theyre not saying is that the cost of living has outpaced wages by wide berths for nearly a generation, so the amount of net dollars a family is inherently less by quite a margin. yet taxes have stayed the same...ie too much. What theyre not saying is they are only soldiers in a greater idealogical war of ideas about the way society should operate.
I have more to say, but its taking too long and I just dont care enough any more. There are always wayso to improve but we as a country choose not to because our monetary situation says we cant.
We are a sovereign nation. We are not beholden to anyone or anything. We really arent in debt at all, if we choose not to be...especially having the American Armed Forces at our side. It is my suggestion to only honor foreign debt to other countries, namely China for buying all our Treasury Bonds floating us through this crisis. Honor that debt and probably a couple others. Tell everyone else to get ed. Tell corporations who produce their products in other countries to be then sold back to the American consumer to get ed. Youre in or youre out, good luck. Burn the American dollar for the absolute negative value attached to every penny in circulation and re-print a new currency backed only by the national production power and Legislative responsibility of our federal government, not the banking establishement's mechanisms of debt slavery. Take an honest stock of what America is and bring change toward that direction with no eye for periphery concerns.
No, this isnt some PoliSci students fault nor is it th work of lawyers or Unions. If blame in this was a 100% value, you could add alllllll the blame of every American no matter his occupation including lawyers, PoliSci grads and Unions and it wouldnt even add to a fraction of the blame Corporations, Banks and Politicians have. These three en ies are responsible for everything and yet they probably compose less than 1% of the population.
They rape us, our land and our government and you stand there and equivocate the actions of average Americans to the actions of them?! They steal $3 trillion dollars from the average American and its our ing fault in any- ing-way?!
*shudder*
If you are an indicator of America's preference for compromise, that you would shoulder even some of the blame for reasons I am not even capable of understanding, then we are already lost and youre too much of a coward to doing anything about it.
Last edited by DarkReign; 11-20-2009 at 01:10 PM.
Flat tax would solve that.
No it wouldnt. It would uequally take money away from the non-rich and transfer it to the already-rich.
Why is that hard to understand?
God you're an idiot..However if you are to put blame on corporations, then you would have to include unions, elitists, and career politicians (with the latter being the worst). Kids in college getting political science degrees, life revolving around only politics, thinking they know all the answers to all the problems plagueing society. Also the lawyers, who have and will always be overrepresented in our elected officials.
Did you know, or should I say I have heard, that the British dont even use the word "trillion"?
They say thousand-billion.
How would it take from the non-rich?
Are you rich? That is, a single person earning above $250k a year? Or a household earning more than $400k per year?
Yes? No?
Regardless, are you still paying taxes?
Thats how.
I am making up here because I am not a tax attorney, but for example.
If a single person earns say 40k per year, they pay something to the tune of 18% in taxes (guessing, might be 10%).
Thats $7,200.00 to taxes, whether city, state or federal for a net income of $32,800.00.
Not bad, not horrible, not good, wish it was less, but meh, right? 32k to pay for your house, car, fuel, food, recreation, health and retirement (investments, 401k, whatever).
Well, lets look at what a richer goes through.
Single person earning $300k. Probably pays to the tune of 35% in taxes. Maybe a little more, I am guessing here...no more than 40%.
At 35%, he nets $195k. This is to pay for house(s), car(s), fuel, food, much recreation, health and retirement is a foregone conclusion at this point.
Tell me, who is affected more adversely by their taxes? Obviously, one pays exponentially more than the other, but that other needs his money exponentially more by comparison.
Point is, richers need to shut the up. Yes, youre rich, successful and I am pretty sure most of those earners are hard-working college grads. But, in your grace and infinite wisdom, you have an entire system trying to keep the rich...rich. They are rich after all, and they do pay the most taxes after all. But does this en le them to keep increasing the tax burden on those less successful individuals?
Because that is whats happening. Cost of living goes up, up, up! Wages stay the same, same, same or down, down, down or gone, gone, gone. So the rich now have $195k minus a couple grand (-$5k more in taxes). But yet one would have the audacity to ask the same rate increase on the lower incomes?
So now the guy who cleared $32k now goes home with $29k? Energy prices are skyrocketing, pay at the pump is outrageous, everything around them is becoming more and more expensive...
One group of people are far more adversely affected by taxes than others. A minute subsection of the American population is basically immune to all tax differences beyond the annoyance of having to pay more. Yet I see no relief in sight for the middle class which is being priced right out of existence (by design, imo).
This country is going to find itself in a situation where it doesnt pay to work anymore for a vast majority of people. Because no family can live on $25k a year....and dont give me some bull about education and bettering oneself. If everyone bettered themselves, what then? Lawyers making minumum wage, thats what.
Do you see the paradox here? When we say "educate yourself, better yourself", the only way to judge this improvement is against your fellow countrymen. Your neighbor's ignorance is your gain. You are in direct compe ion with those you pretend to be loyal to. They'd like to make you think youre competing with Jose from Mexico, when in reality, unless your profession is lawncare, Jose isnt on your radar. You are, on the other hand, competing with Ahmed from India for just about every technical field there is. Accounting, finance, engineering (mechanical and electrical), etc. They do it better, faster and cheaper.
You cant compete with them. Yet, where is the demand for their services coming from? Are Indian companies being contracted by the emerging markets of the world? Doubt it highly. Theyre demand is created by European and American companies looking to shave costs, period.
In our country, with our cost of living, we cannot compete with them and we never will until their cost of living approaches ours....which isnt ing happening in my lifetime or in my grandchild's. By that time, it wont matter...my grandkids wont even be Americans anymore to care.
Talk about getting sidetracked...
Your question was "How would it take from the non-rich?"
Simple. Government is a public en y. Whatever revenue it has is collected from its citizens. Any money it gives was the people's to begin with. It cannot be profitable, it can only be un-profitable. What they call a balanced budget is really a way of saying "the goods a services the People demand are paid for in total by the People this year".
So, a flat tax would unfairly hinder the lower incomes.
What is an acceptable flat tax rate, SnC?
10%? 20%? 30%?
Flat Tax insinuates that everyone, every American pays the same percentage, even when that percentage isnt fair to the lower income.
18% aint on a stick for a guy making $200k. 18% puts the guy making 20k in ing poverty.
It isnt fair, and since the government isnt a profitable en y, all youre doing is transferring wealth from the non-rich (guy making 30k paying 18%) to the rich (guy making $200k now paying 18% instead of 35%).
One person got a raise, the ther took in the ass.
Thats why a Flat Tax is not fair. Nor is a Consumption Tax, unless you subsidize the living out of it for lower incomes.
Progressive Tax is the only fair way. Rich Americans didnt get rich only because theyre smart, motivated and risk takers. Its also because theyre American...where any business in the country has access to clean water (public service), a certain expected level of education from any average employee (public education), has the very best system of highways and biways in the world (public roads) and where natural resource is not public property and can be privately owned (stone, gravel, coal, salt, ore, steel, etc...all billion dollar businesses that own property that so happens to have resource on it/in it).
Nothing is fair in this world, but one can try to make it as fair as possible. This tax system is as fair as it gets from the myriad of options I have heard.
Now, if you want to argue that government spends too much, needs to much, provides too much, then I would agree...but that is not what we're discussing.
What is an acceptable flat tax rate, SnC?
10%? 20%? 30%?[/quote]
Flat Tax insinuates that everyone, every American pays the same percentage, even when that percentage isnt fair to the lower income.[/quote] Steve Forbes has it at 17% http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/1017/042.html
Which would be harder for the government to try and sell their garbage.18% aint on a stick for a guy making $200k. 18% puts the guy making 20k in ing poverty.
So then how to fix it? ALso all you are using as reasons against the flat tax is fairness. What is fair about taking 40% of what someone earns? How is that fair?Now, if you want to argue that government spends too much, needs to much, provides too much, then I would agree...but that is not what we're discussing.
The fact is it wouldn't take from the non-rich because it was never theirs to begin with. It would put a larger,equal, burden on them. I don't think that is a bad thing. VP Biden said that it is time everyone puts skin in the game.
There are two sides to a fiscal system. You can have a progressive fiscal system and a flat taxation system.
The benefits of a flat-tax are objective and value-free and have nothing to do with "justice" or "fairness". You can use others tools to achieve those goals if you actually believe that's part of the government's job.
That direction would be the best way to achieve shortages of food on supermarkets and of fuel in gas stations very quickly.
I completely agree with Dark Reign's assesment of the problems of a flat tax and would like to point out that during the period in US life that most people look back upon as being fair and affordable (40's-70's), with a healthy middle class, the richest of the rich were taxed at a rate of 95% IIRC. While I don't think that's fair either, it bears mentioning.
There's the other problem that isn't being raised, namely, that whether or not we are taxed enough, the government will spend on the things we (I use this generally, from individuals to corps) want it to.
Reagan cut taxes briefly, but dug into SS funds in order to continue to provide expected services -- IOW, he cut taxes as a political strategy, not as a fiscal conservative policy. Bush 43 super-sized that move when he gave us all back our surplus money, cut taxes, then created one of the largest gov't agencies (DHS/TSA) while borrowing shamelessly.
This isn't a partisan attack since I guarantee Clinton would have done the same had he not surfed the wave of the tech bubble his whole tenure in office.
But the question I'm asking is: if indeed we expect the government to build and maintain our infrastructure (from cops to roads to schools), we can't keep electing people who promise to lower taxes or we'll end up like California, where they wanted everything and didn't want to pay for it.
Myself, I'd rather pay higher taxes than continue to borrow from other countries and devalue whatever money Uncle Sam hasn't taken.
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