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Tax System Seen as Unfair, in Need of Overhaul

Absolutely!

Three years of trying to turn the nation's economy around, of fighting at least one war that was unjust and trying to set another back on track, of trying to steer the nation away from foreign oil and onto energy independence through clearner, more efficient energy sources, and from getting ourselves too involved in the affairs of governments abroad - yeah, I'll vote for Obama again over anyone in the Republican field.

Even though he's the bigget croney capitalist in recent memory?

How much money has he wasted on his failed policies, just to put money in his doners's pockets?
 
Do you mean they only care about getting more of it, or letting you keep more of it as a citizen?

Because liberals are the ones that want more money in raising taxes, and more power in controlling health care choices and coporate governance. Based on that it seems they would be more aligned with "more money and more power". Right?

Republicans have at least to some degree been pushing for letting citizens keep more of their money, and power....the opposite of what you appear to be trying to communicate.

How is supporting a tax system that caters more to the wealth-class than the common man allow YOU to keep more of what you earn when your marginal tax rate changes very little to support your quality of live needs?

How is insisting that the insurance industry provide standard health care benefits in ALL insurance policies based on level terms equate to the government controlling the health care system when for years its treated its clients unfairly, i.e., forcing people off insurance or charging extremely high rates?

How is forcing commercial banks to treat consumers fairly by not charging excessive banking fees "corporate governance" especially when activist conservatives and career Republican politicians have been bullying Corporate American for decades?

It's a shame how many of you really don't know how terribly influenced you've been by the Right into thinking their causes have been just. Think of how many Republicans hold their alligence not to you, the voters! But to lobbyist and GOP political activist like Grover Norquist or the Koch Brothers or other conservative media outlets. It's been going on for years but people aren't wise enough to take notice or study the issues for themselves.
 
Even though he's the bigget croney capitalist in recent memory?

How much money has he wasted on his failed policies, just to put money in his doners's pockets?

And what donors might they be?

On second thought, don't answer that here. I'd rather you NOT try to hijack the thread. Start another one on political donors and let's discuss. Meanwhile, stick with the thread topic, please. Re: taxation.
 
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How is supporting a tax system that caters more to the wealth-class than the common man allow YOU to keep more of what you earn when your marginal tax rate changes very little to support your quality of live needs?

How is insisting that the insurance industry provide standard health care benefits in ALL insurance policies based on level terms equate to the government controlling the health care system when for years its treated its clients unfairly, i.e., forcing people off insurance or charging extremely high rates?

How is forcing commercial banks to treat consumers fairly by not charging excessive banking fees "corporate governance" especially when activist conservatives and career Republican politicians have been bullying Corporate American for decades?

It's a shame how many of you really don't know how terribly influenced you've been by the Right into thinking their causes have been just. Think of how many Republicans hold their alligence not to you, the voters! But to lobbyist and GOP political activist like Grover Norquist or the Koch Brothers or other conservative media outlets. It's been going on for years but people aren't wise enough to take notice or study the issues for themselves.

Do you even know what the current tax rates are and what they were prior to the Bush tax cuts? I'm thinking you don't.
 
You realize that all tac brakets were raised, under both of those presidents. Yes?

Clinton raised taxes on the top income earners above the $200K tax bracket from 31% to 39.6%. I think he also raise the capital gains tax. Regardless, the economy flourished under his tax policy taking the wind out of the sails of those on in the "supply-side economics" camp.
 

I knew you'd come back with those two companies as solid proof that Obama's energy policy is in shambles. It's easy to highlight two examples that went bust as proof positive of things going so wrong when they were the only two energy initiative stories to garner headlines. I suggest you go back and take a look at those "green energy" initiatives that are doing well. Source: Department of Energy.
 
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Do you even know what the current tax rates are and what they were prior to the Bush tax cuts? I'm thinking you don't.

Lowest marginal tax rate for 2011/2012: 10%

Highest marginal tax rate for 2011/2012: 35%

Here's a listing of what the actuall tax rates are for tax years 2011/2012, respectively. (They're the same rates for both years.)

Here's the 2011 tax table from the IRS.

(BTW, I knew the rates beforehand, but I know how people here love links to validate their responses. The 2011 tax table is just a bonus for ya'. Enjoy! ;))
 
Clinton raised taxes on the top income earners above the $200K tax bracket from 31% to 39.6%. I think he also raise the capital gains tax. Regardless, the economy flourished under his tax policy taking the wind out of the sails of those on in the "supply-side economics" camp.

He raised taxes on all income brackets.

If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, all income brackets will go up.

This is from your source.

Until the Tax Relief Act was passed, the tax rates for 2011 were scheduled to change as follows: the 10% rate would have been collapsed into the 15% rate; the 25% rate would have become 28%, the 28% rate would have become 31%, the 33% rate would have become 36%, and the 35% rate would have become 39.6%. These tax rate changes will take effect beginning in 2013 absent further legislation.
 
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I knew you'd come back with those two companies as solid proof that Obama's energy policy is in shambles. It's easy to highlight two examples that went bust as proof positive of things going so wrong when they were the only two energy initiative stories to garner headlines. I suggest you go back and take a look at those "green energy" initiatives that are doing well. Source: Department of Energy.

A government website? Lot's objectivity there, i'm sure! :rofl
 
:D I think you are hitting the 'like' button by mistake as you mean to hit 'reply'. alltold, however, this is a good discussion :)

LOL. No, I'm liking your posts because they're well thought out and evidenced.
 
that isn't really accurate. you are depicting a gap in revenue due to a rate cut that must be made up by cutting spending on medicare. putting aside for the moment that you could just as easily offer to "cut" cowboy poetry festivals and the like with that "reduction in revenue" (and that therefore the argument is specious), whether or not we actually see losses to revenue from rate cuts (especially over time) is an open question, and history seems to indicate precisely the opposite.

Yeah. There are three possible ways we can pay for the tax breaks for the rich. We can undo them, we can increase the debt or we can cut spending. The first one is the only one that doesn't hurt middle class folks for the benefit of the rich.

which they will continue to do under our current model which utilizes the worst of both words and depends for its' financing on that third form of financing I described - spending other people's money on yourself. however you want to describe it, the fact remains - Medicare will not survive in its' current form.

there is one portion of Medicare that has managed to keep it's annual inflation to around 1.2%..... and that is Medicare Part D. Which operates similarly to premium support in that it utilizes competition in order to do so.

that's not the President's plan, mind you. The President's plan is to start cutting availability and care by reducing the number of providers. Now, that works as an expenditure cutting mechanism - but at a high human cost.

I agree that prices will keep going up under the compromise plan we have in effect today, but the core of the president's proposal was to increase competition and the number of providers by adding a public option. The root problem appears to be that the major insurance companies aren't competing on price. It's an industry that it requires 10s maybe even 100s of billions to get started in, so they know that as long as they work together they can keep raising prices and no new players are going to jump in. That's why they charge us 2, 3, even 8 times as much as they charge people in other countries for the same products and services- because in other countries they have to compete with a public option or negotiate with a single payer that has radically more leverage than a bunch of uncoordinated individuals. As tired as everybody is of the health care debate, that needs to be the main thrust of Obama's second term as well. We can't stop until we get at least a public option or prices will continue shooting up.

in fact, when you ask which industries have higher profit margins than health insurance in the United States of America, the answer is 83 of them. with a profit margin of 3.3%.

Two things on that. First, while profit taking is one reason for the prices going up, it isn't the only reason. A lack of price pressure means they become less efficient too. But, second, those profit statistics are a scam. Health insurance companies have to hold massive amounts of money in the stock market at all times so that they can be sure that they can pay off any bills that they have committed to. During the Bush recession they lost billions and billions in the market. Those profit margins are the amount of profit they made in those years after covering all their investment losses.

ah. well then worry no more - because taking less away from one person and giving less to another is precisely the opposite of the definition of redistribution of wealth. (whew!), glad we could get that monkey off your back. :-D

Say, for example, that the government passed a law tomorrow saying "teamosil no longer needs to pay taxes and we are cancelling cpwill's social security". Is that not a redistribution of wealth from you to me?

it's not a moral standard - it's an objective one. Not taking from someone is not the same as giving to them

Still just semantics. What words you print on the check you send them doesn't matter. It has exactly the same effects- more money in their pocket, more government debt. The people involved all have exactly the same interests in it... There is no practical difference. It's just a rhetorical difference. Maybe if you gave a tax cut to every person equally or something that would be different than giving an entitlement to individual people, but that isn't what we have here. They are saying- person A gets a tax break and person B does not and we will cut spending that affects person B, but does not affect person A.

when in trouble deny all reality?

Deny all reality? You're attempting to show that one variable has a particular relationship to another without controlling for all the other variables. That's just bad logic. It's like trying to figure out what impact the length of a person's hair has by charting the salaries and hair lengths of a 19 year old girl with long hair that works at a super market against a 60 year old CEO with short hair... The noise overwhelms the signal. You need to control for at the very least the dozen or so other massive variables before you could possibly draw any conclusions on the relationship between tax rate and revenue. Economists do that all the time and while they differ on the details, they all agree that there is an optimal tax rate. Go above that and the economic impacts outweigh the higher percentage. Go below that and the low percentage outweighs the economic impacts. If you're just looking for a binary "lower taxes better" sort of position, it doesn't exist. My contention is that taxes were generally too high from the 40s up until the 70s. We hit the sweet spot somewhere in the 80s or 90s. Then we went too far in the 2000s and our deficit exploded while our economy collapsed.

if the government were better at allocating resources than the private sector, then government allocation of resources would have succeeded.

Again, this is binary thinking. There are some problems that the private sector is better at addressing and some that the public sector is better at addressing. The private sector is great at making the best goods at the lowest cost if the market is functioning properly. But it doesn't account for externalities at all. For addressing problems involving externalities you need government.

those figures are k-12. ;-)

Right, but where in the 70s they were more preparing people to go into entry level jobs in K-12, now we are preparing them to go on to higher learning. That's a much bigger challenge.

that is incorrect -those are against a fairly stable standard model. Todays students are in many ways worse off than students of the 1960's. one third of college freshmen have to remediate high school.

Not sure how you think that shows that students are worse off now. College gets harder and more complex all the time too.

meanwhile, the story is the same in the states. More Spending =/= Better Academic Performance.

Again, you aren't controlling for other variables.

every country is spending more?

I said that every country is spending more now than they did in the 70s, not that every country is spending more than the US does.

bloc-granting education dollars from the Federal government would have the effect of allowing the states to experiment and the winning systems would become obvious.

I'm against Bush's no child left behind. It's ludicrously simpleminded and causes all kinds of problems as a result. That said, we know what happens when states experiment with a totally free hand on education- education in red states collapses.

in terms of measuring GDP, 100 man hours spent replacing functional windows with eco-windows rather than making widgets is 100 hours wasted.

Of course not. That means less money blown on energy, it means lower energy costs for everybody, it means less pollution which can be very costly, less global warming, etc. A penny saved is a penny earned.

if they were in the net habit of putting money in companies that do poorly, they wouldn't be millionaires - generally they put money into their own businesses.

but your model is flawed as well - you brought up the example of Amazon, which didn't turn a profit until... what, 2001, 2002? Yet it's sales skyrocketed as it made those losses.

Not sure what you think that shows. Ultimately our economy needs both investment and consumer spending. Investment enables companies to grow faster than their revenues would allow, which is often a good thing. For example, it would be almost impossible to do long term commercial scientific research if nobody was willing to invest the money up front. But, ultimately, companies that don't make actual revenues collapse. We need to be striving to find the right balance between stimulating investment (giving the money to the rich) and stimulating consumer spending (giving the money to people who work). When you error too far in the side of consumer spending you tend to get "stagflation" like we had under Carter. When you error too far on the side of investment, you get bubbles. Investment money floods in causing companies to be overvalued, but ultimately they can't produce the actual revenues to justify those values and the bubble bursts. You tell me, which have we been experiencing the past 11 years?

no, it's not. Jobs are a means, not an end in themselves.

so your argument is that a business can hire more people with $80 than it can with $1000?

I think you're missing something here. Scenario one- an investor invests $1m, in a company. They use it to expand their operation. They hire 10 people and buy 5 more machines. Scenario two- consumers spend $1m at a company. It needs to hire 10 people and buy 5 more machines with that money to satisfy the demand.

it may not be as large as you would like, but larger (and thereby progressive) it remains - meaning that we have effectively reached a method that meets both sides primary goals.

The goal isn't just to be able to say "hey, we technically have progressive taxation"... The goal is to actually have meaningful progressive taxation so that we're more efficiently distributing costs given the diminishing marginal utility curve. The optimal solution would be for taxes to progress at about the same pace as the utility of that money diminishes. Having a system that is flat above $20k isn't really any closer to that goal than one that is flat all the way up. At least not enough closer to warrant mention.
 
How is supporting a tax system that caters more to the wealth-class than the common man allow YOU to keep more of what you earn when your marginal tax rate changes very little to support your quality of live needs?
Our current federal tax system has the wealth-class paying the vast majority of the entire federal tax burden. I don't understand your plea in that context.

How is insisting that the insurance industry provide standard health care benefits in ALL insurance policies based on level terms equate to the government controlling the health care system when for years its treated its clients unfairly, i.e., forcing people off insurance or charging extremely high rates?
If I don't have a choice, that's in the "controlling" department. Not sure why you're confused on that.
For example, I might want to be on a plan that only covers XYZ and only admits people like me who lead a relatively healthy, and safe lifestyle. Why is forcing me to subsidize someone who eats 20 pizzas a day, anything other than irresponsible, unethical, and destructive? (i.e. subsidizing eating badly, punishing healthy living).

How is forcing commercial banks to treat consumers fairly by not charging excessive banking fees "corporate governance" especially when activist conservatives and career Republican politicians have been bullying Corporate American for decades?
I don't think there is a single bank fee that was not signed agreed to by consumers. You use force incorrectly here, and you refuse to use "force" when it's appropriate in the above two. You do see why it's not politics that I have the issue with here...

It's a shame how many of you really don't know how terribly influenced you've been by the Right into thinking their causes have been just.
Don't talk about things you don't know anything about and you can solve that mistake.

Just so you know more, I argued liberal on these forums years back, and it was on *these forums* that I was influenced into enough devils advocate to favor less political power over my life (and the lives of others). I primarily listen to NPR or ipod, and I don't watch TV, and would never intentionally watch any political partisan BS on TV even if I do, except maybe John Stewart for the comedy...but I don't have that kind of time these days.

Besides actually thinking and justifying beliefs as a result of debate, I would guess the second most influential thing was that I matured, and actually got involved in business. You know, perspective, experience, that sort of thing.
 
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9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes


The entire article
by the brilliant David Cay Johnston explains each bullet point, but here they are:

" * 1: Poor Americans do pay taxes.

* 2: The wealthiest Americans don't carry the burden.

* 3: In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.

* 4: Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.

* 5: And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.

* 6: When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same -- less taxes.

* 7: Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.

* 8: Republicans like taxes too.

* 9: Other countries do it better."
 
9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes


The entire article
by the brilliant David Cay Johnston explains each bullet point, but here they are:

" * 1: Poor Americans do pay taxes.

* 2: The wealthiest Americans don't carry the burden.

* 3: In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.

* 4: Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.

* 5: And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.

* 6: When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same -- less taxes.

* 7: Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.

* 8: Republicans like taxes too.

* 9: Other countries do it better."

Sounds to me like David Cay Johnston is an diot, if he believes any of that crap.

You can repeat those talking points as much as you want and they're still going to be inaccurate.
 
Sounds to me like David Cay Johnston is an diot, if he believes any of that crap.

Then I'm sure you'll have no problem proving that Mr. johnston is a "diot", right???
 
Then I'm sure you'll have no problem proving that Mr. johnston is a "diot", right???

His talking points are nothing but bull****. Problem solved.
 
His talking points are nothing but bull****. Problem solved.

Your bull**** opinion proves nothing. Let's examine each point:

"1: Poor Americans do pay taxes.

Gretchen Carlson, the Fox News host, said last year "47 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes." John McCain and Sarah Palin both said similar things during the 2008 campaign about the bottom half of Americans.

Ari Fleischer, the former Bush White House spokesman, once said "50 percent of the country gets benefits without paying for them."

Actually, they pay lots of taxes -- just not lots of federal income taxes.

Data from the Tax Foundation shows that, in 2008, the average income for the bottom half of taxpayers was $15,300.

This year, the first $9,350 of income is exempt from taxes for singles and $18,700 for married couples, just slightly more than in 2008. That means millions of the poor do not make enough to owe income taxes.

But they still pay plenty of other taxes, including federal payroll taxes. Between gas taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes and other taxes, no one lives tax free in America.

When it comes to state and local taxes, the poor bear a heavier burden than the rich in every state except Vermont, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculated from official data. In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more. "

Let's see your documentation that disproves the data here?
 
sorry buddy, but ALL Americans pay taxes. this is a fact.

You're preaching to the choir. You need to look in the mirror and say that to the person looking back at you. You're one of the ones that keeps crying about corporations not paying taxes and all that kind fo bull****.
 
You're preaching to the choir. You need to look in the mirror and say that to the person looking back at you. You're one of the ones that keeps crying about corporations not paying taxes and all that kind fo bull****.

no, my friend. I have NEVER said that corporations pay "zero taxes".

thanks in advance for not lying about my comments.
 
Your bull**** opinion proves nothing. Let's examine each point:

"1: Poor Americans do pay taxes.

Gretchen Carlson, the Fox News host, said last year "47 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes." John McCain and Sarah Palin both said similar things during the 2008 campaign about the bottom half of Americans.

Ari Fleischer, the former Bush White House spokesman, once said "50 percent of the country gets benefits without paying for them."

Actually, they pay lots of taxes -- just not lots of federal income taxes.

Data from the Tax Foundation shows that, in 2008, the average income for the bottom half of taxpayers was $15,300.

This year, the first $9,350 of income is exempt from taxes for singles and $18,700 for married couples, just slightly more than in 2008. That means millions of the poor do not make enough to owe income taxes.

But they still pay plenty of other taxes, including federal payroll taxes. Between gas taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes and other taxes, no one lives tax free in America.

When it comes to state and local taxes, the poor bear a heavier burden than the rich in every state except Vermont, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculated from official data. In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more. "

Let's see your documentation that disproves the data here?

By that logic, rich folks pay waaaaaaaay more taxes than anyone else. Why, when you're talking about rich folks, people don't pay enough income taxes, but then when you talk about poor people, you want to talk about all taxes, federal income, state and local sales taxes?

See the inherent flw in your argument?
 
no, my friend. I have NEVER said that corporations pay "zero taxes".

thanks in advance for not lying about my comments.

You need to talk to your friend Catawba about that, then.
 
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