OK. To those who say we do not need to raise taxes because cutting spending will be enough to balance the budget. My question is where specifically would you cut spending. Remember social security and medicare have a separate source for funding and any cuts would not effect the general budget deficits. So here is a detailed look at the budget. So tell me what you would cut. Stopping waste, fraud and abuse is a pipe dream and well never happen.
Should the Bush taxcuts be extended?
- Thread starter Straight Shooter
- Start date
xfire
New Twitter/X @cxffreeman
"Wasteful spending" is another clever teabagger slogan that doesn't mean anything because wasteful is a subjective term, but hey, it sounds great. You betcha, cut that wasteful spending. (Palin is such a moron.)
Ear marks are such an insignificant part of the budget that it's laughable to "go after" them as if it would make any meaningful difference.
There's no good argument for maintaining Bushes top 2% tax cuts. Republicans are great at bamboozling the middle class sheep that vote for them, though and trick them into supporting a rich man's agenda with those clever slogans.
Ear marks are such an insignificant part of the budget that it's laughable to "go after" them as if it would make any meaningful difference.
There's no good argument for maintaining Bushes top 2% tax cuts. Republicans are great at bamboozling the middle class sheep that vote for them, though and trick them into supporting a rich man's agenda with those clever slogans.
PlasmaTwa2
The Second-Hottest Man in my Mother's Basement
Somewhere, Hellraiser just got a boner.
meesterperfect
Hiliary 2020
it was a direct response and very clear.
look at your own posts before you talk about me being biased.
democrat democrat democrat.
democrat good, republican bad
youre like a one way street.
at least i have the reasoning ability to see the faults in both parties and to know that they are both in bed with each other for the most part.
xfire
New Twitter/X @cxffreeman
You bash democrats and defend republicans. Now you're going to have the gall to claim you have the "reasoning ability" to see faults in both parties. That's rich. It's obvious that you don't see the republican party for what it is and hey, that's fine, but don't pretend you're some above-it-all philosopher. At best you're a "libertarian". Libertarian- all of the bitching none of the responsibility. Why don't you just embrace anarchy while you're at it.
I'm biased because I've done the work to come to my positions. I've voted since '92 and didn't come to my positions without due diligence. I bought that nationalist crap the GOP sells when I was a kid. The more threads I pulled at republican positions the more they unraveled. I don't wholesale endorse the liberal agenda but there's a whole lot more that I agree with on the liberal side than there is on the conservative side and the liberals don't have to lie, character assassinate, and make hollow emotional appeals to scare people into voting for them. Republicans prey on peoples fears and prejudices to gin up support. They wrap themselves in the flag and hide behind Jesus to further their ridiculous social agenda, which itself is merely a tool used by establishment republicans to further their only true interest; tax cuts for the wealthy. Republican economics have a long track record of failure. If you can't comprehend history there's really no use arguing with you.
I'm biased because I've done the work to come to my positions. I've voted since '92 and didn't come to my positions without due diligence. I bought that nationalist crap the GOP sells when I was a kid. The more threads I pulled at republican positions the more they unraveled. I don't wholesale endorse the liberal agenda but there's a whole lot more that I agree with on the liberal side than there is on the conservative side and the liberals don't have to lie, character assassinate, and make hollow emotional appeals to scare people into voting for them. Republicans prey on peoples fears and prejudices to gin up support. They wrap themselves in the flag and hide behind Jesus to further their ridiculous social agenda, which itself is merely a tool used by establishment republicans to further their only true interest; tax cuts for the wealthy. Republican economics have a long track record of failure. If you can't comprehend history there's really no use arguing with you.
R
RogueAlan
Guest
ok, i'm puzzled how they contributed to the problem.
the problem occurred when banks lent to homebuyers who could not possibly pay the loans, then lumped the losing mortgages together and sold them back and forth to protect their own money while generating a deeper and deeper debt burden... essentially a banking Ponzi scheme that would land you or i in the Penn.
the top 1% of wage earners already pay more than 80% of taxes. I agree that there has to be a 'floor' below which people should not pay taxes. AND i agree that people making more then some agree upon amount should pay more taxes. The idea that anything more then 50%, though, is frankly ridiculous, so long as you have any significant portion of the population paying zero.
Frankly, i am surprised that ACLU has not twigged to the reality that tax law is unfairly targeting a minority (and a minority that could help fund their other legal endeavors). Pushing the 'ceiling' to 1 or 2 million annually simply means a smaller minority is treated unfairly by Uncle Sam.
In addition to protecting EVERYONE from higher taxes when spending freeze and return to spending levels of just 3 years ago could almost totally resolve the issue are viable alternatives, i would argue the return of 'estate' taxes is, like Capital Gains taxation, DOUBLE taxation... those monies/ or values have already been taxed, and expecting to receive up to 50% of those values for continued government spending that has not been shown to improve the economy or the average life of Americans is a throwback to the taxation standards that prompted the creation of a nation separate from Britain.
If we all had to mail checks to the Fed instead of having the money 'withheld' our elected leaders would face stiffer opposition to ear marks and runaway spending without accurate accounting and outcomes evaluation.
Now if i could just win the lottery so I was one of the hideously wealthy who have to worry about this!
Pax
RA
the problem occurred when banks lent to homebuyers who could not possibly pay the loans, then lumped the losing mortgages together and sold them back and forth to protect their own money while generating a deeper and deeper debt burden... essentially a banking Ponzi scheme that would land you or i in the Penn.
the top 1% of wage earners already pay more than 80% of taxes. I agree that there has to be a 'floor' below which people should not pay taxes. AND i agree that people making more then some agree upon amount should pay more taxes. The idea that anything more then 50%, though, is frankly ridiculous, so long as you have any significant portion of the population paying zero.
Frankly, i am surprised that ACLU has not twigged to the reality that tax law is unfairly targeting a minority (and a minority that could help fund their other legal endeavors). Pushing the 'ceiling' to 1 or 2 million annually simply means a smaller minority is treated unfairly by Uncle Sam.
In addition to protecting EVERYONE from higher taxes when spending freeze and return to spending levels of just 3 years ago could almost totally resolve the issue are viable alternatives, i would argue the return of 'estate' taxes is, like Capital Gains taxation, DOUBLE taxation... those monies/ or values have already been taxed, and expecting to receive up to 50% of those values for continued government spending that has not been shown to improve the economy or the average life of Americans is a throwback to the taxation standards that prompted the creation of a nation separate from Britain.
If we all had to mail checks to the Fed instead of having the money 'withheld' our elected leaders would face stiffer opposition to ear marks and runaway spending without accurate accounting and outcomes evaluation.
Now if i could just win the lottery so I was one of the hideously wealthy who have to worry about this!
Pax
RA
meesterperfect
Hiliary 2020
EDIT: Unnecessary abusive language. Deleted being off-topic.
then save your speech for someone who it applies too.
i'm not the poster child for the republican party.
youve done your work to come to your positions, like i havent?
youre the only one right?
i do side with republicans more often then democrats on many things and i hate the democrat politicians more than the repubs but i also know that both parties dont have the best interest of the common working class on their agenda.
you side with the dems on most but i could also say the same thing you just said and apply it to the democrats.
in fact i thought you were talking about the democrats.
democrats dont lie, character assassinate,make hollow emotional appeals ect ect ect........see youre in denial sir.
youre on the democrat plantation.
so i\m glad you can relate so much to the party of oprah, whoopi, and all the other extreme libs and also 99% of the lifelong welfare folks in america.
the democrat party is great ok.
lets not respond to each other any more because your just another internet pest looking to argue.
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This seems like a reasonable compromise, which means it will never happen because a) it's reasonable and b) the party of NO would sooner see us hit bottom than compromise.
The Bush tax cuts for the rich should be allowed to expire. They will NOT help the economy or create jobs as so many republicans claim. The evidence is right here right now. We currently have the Bush tax cuts in place. Why have so many big companies laid people off and sent their jobs overseas? The Bush tax cuts aren't working now and they won't work later.
The greedy rich are the reason this country is in the shitter right now. Fuck them and fuck them hard.
The greedy rich are the reason this country is in the shitter right now. Fuck them and fuck them hard.
That's just not true at all.
xfire
New Twitter/X @cxffreeman
Republicans only have one agenda, meester, making the rich richer. Everything they do is to that end, regardless of how they get there. Anything you "agree with republicans" on is nothing but a false flag operation by the bosses in the GOP. Hey, side with those motherfuckers if you want to. Until you start applying that awesome "reasoning ability" you possess you won't see the truth. Let's look at a couple of key "republican" issues- 1) "National Defense". Republicans don't give a fuck about national defense, they just care about funneling tax payer dollars to fat cat defense contractors on equipment that we don't necessarily need. 2) Abortion. Just one of many planks in the social conservative platform the republicans use to gin up the support I was talking about earlier.
I could go on but instead I'll address this issue of "welfare" you seem to have such disdain for. I'm not on welfare nor shall I ever be. I work hard and encourage personal responsibility out of everyone. Sure there are people that try to take advantage of the system, but living on welfare is no kind of life. I work in and around the system every week and if you think welfare provides an enviable standard of living then you really don't know anything about it. You are more likely talking about criminals as opposed to people that are on welfare. At any rate, what you've done is invoke more of those clever little teabagger slogans instead of addressing any real problems.
So, let's hear it, friend, what are the issues you take exception to Democrats on? I doubt if you're willing to discuss them because teabagger sloganeering is so much more fun. Teabaggers bemoan the deficit but these are the same people that sat back and acquiesced while Bush bled the treasury dry with tax cuts for the wealthy and two wars that were put on the credit card. These people have no credibility on the issue so why should anyone give a hoot what they think? Teabaggers have no solutions, just complaints, so instead of bitching they ought to go jump off a cliff.
I could go on but instead I'll address this issue of "welfare" you seem to have such disdain for. I'm not on welfare nor shall I ever be. I work hard and encourage personal responsibility out of everyone. Sure there are people that try to take advantage of the system, but living on welfare is no kind of life. I work in and around the system every week and if you think welfare provides an enviable standard of living then you really don't know anything about it. You are more likely talking about criminals as opposed to people that are on welfare. At any rate, what you've done is invoke more of those clever little teabagger slogans instead of addressing any real problems.
So, let's hear it, friend, what are the issues you take exception to Democrats on? I doubt if you're willing to discuss them because teabagger sloganeering is so much more fun. Teabaggers bemoan the deficit but these are the same people that sat back and acquiesced while Bush bled the treasury dry with tax cuts for the wealthy and two wars that were put on the credit card. These people have no credibility on the issue so why should anyone give a hoot what they think? Teabaggers have no solutions, just complaints, so instead of bitching they ought to go jump off a cliff.
It's a fairly easy scapegoat, but "rich people" are not the reason America is in bad shape... that kind of rhetoric belongs to the dusbin of history, not a valid analysis of our current economic problems.:2 cents:
maildude
Postal Paranoiac
Yes. But only for the wealthy. That way they will spend lots of money on stuff, and the companies will say, "Damn! Lookit all this money!", and they'll just right up and hire a lot of people and give them decent wages and benefits for their families, just because they figure they'll get more money. Oh...and the stock market will go up, and that's good for people, too, because it means rich people are making more money(see above).
The rich or greedy rich are the reason our economy is tanking. It wasn't the mortgage nonsense or Bush or Obama. It was the rich. They are the ones that closed factories and plants in order to ship our jobs to foreign countries. That was all done through greed.
Once those people were out of work it created a chain reaction that spread to other businesses. More people were out of work and the reaction kept on going. The amount of discretionary income has dropped. People don't have as much money to throw around.
It was the rich.
No offense, but that is an incredibly simplistic explaination to the mortgage crisis and the economic promblems in general. A much bigger factor to the mortgage mess was government pressuring the industry to give loans to people who couldn't get them, all in the name of trying to help people live the "American dream" of owning a house. There's no getting around reality... the same people who couldn't qualify for a mortgage could pay them once they got them. Buying a house you either know you can't afford or that your too dumb to know you can't pay for has nothing to do with "the rich."
As to your last point, people are saving more and charging less, which is about the only good side effect of the times... Saving isn't sexy, but if more people put money aside instead of buying crap they don't need, I think we'd be a little better off... how does that kind of "greed" figure into your world view?
You are correct.When I hear about "class warfare" ,mainly from the republicans,the party who is more in the pocket of the wealthy, I laugh although its really not funny.The war is over folks, and the wealthy won.They have not only seen their incomes explode over the last couple decades but seen their tax burden reduced dramatically while everyone else has seen their real wages drop.
And this idea the last crisis which involved housing was really caused mainly by giving mortgages to people who couldn't afford them is another right wing spin lie.The cause was the wall st types who saw mortgage backed securities which went unregulated as get rich quick schemes and kept selling them among themselves at huge profits on each transaction.And it worked ,many I'm sure are sitting on some foreign beach with millions in a swiss bank account laughing at the poor middle class smucks they left holding the bag and debt back in the US.Unfortunalty the rich really own both parties and not much has and is going to change anytime soon that would bring some fairness and regulation back to our economic policies.
Let it expire like milk
The mortgage crisis caused unrelated businesses to lay people off? How do you figure? Plants were sent to Mexico because people bought homes they couldn't afford? Can you seriously connect those two things in your mind?
R
RogueAlan
Guest
I stand corrected... sort of... figure I'd seen may have been top 5% of tax payers.
2009 data...
Source: IRS
The table above shows that the top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $62,068) earned 67.5 percent of nation's income, but they paid more than four out of every five dollars collected by the federal income tax (86 percent). The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $364,657) earned approximately 21.2 percent of the nation's income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 39.4 percent of all federal income taxes. That means the top 1 percent of tax returns paid about the same amount of federal individual income taxes as the bottom 95 percent of tax returns.
So it's 40%, not 80%... I should have remembered the analogy about 5 men eating dinner and two of them footing the entire bill... the rest getting upset when those men get tired of the unfair distribution and choosing not to eat with the group.
At what point are the top 1 or 5 or 10 or 25% paying a 'fair share?' I argee entirely that there need to be protections for those without for whatever reason. But endless unemployment depresses job levels, because those receiving something for nothing choose to continue receiving that something instead of taking employment (even at a higher income level than is being received) until that support is running out [Swedish study].
And throwing money at the problem as is being done for health care will not work. There is the issue of supply that is too often ignored.
In short, as long as someone is paying nothing, I do not believe anyone should be paying more than half of what they earn in a year.
Pax RA
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