These cartoons are consistently not funny and kinda dumb. Just sayin'. Is there any reason to run them...every week?
MallWalkerAugust 10th, 2012 | 3:13pm
I like em.
But I eat out of the cat box.
jimi hendrixAugust 10th, 2012 | 5:44pm
Guessing that was done by a young thing. Does young thing know that this is the year where we turned the corner to people receiving less social security than they put in?
Young thing, you like giving the MAN your money so he can use it ascollateral to borrow from China and give you back..sayyyyy.. about 50% of it....?
The government sez... "thanks for not paying attention."
non-resident taxpayerAugust 11th, 2012 | 10:05am
Absolutely right Jimi - we should give it to Wall Street instead in our private retirement savings accounts where they can more easily skim and strip us of our assets - that man is sooo much better than the gov't. "man".
Would you please source your claim that this is the year in which recipients start getting less out than they put in? Did life expectancy suddenly plunge? Or are you (deliberately) confusing total contributions to the fund/program and total payouts of the program?
Young or not, the cartoonist is right: the self-funded FICA payroll tax programs wouldn't be so consistently raided to pay for military spending in the discretionary budget if we didn't keep lowering investment and income tax rates that pay into the discretionary budget.
Why is it that the "winners" in our system pay - like Romney - 15% (or less) in taxes while working schmoes like me pay closer to 32% (when you lump in our FICA). It may be legal, but how on earth is it fair?
WogAugust 12th, 2012 | 12:05pm
@ non-resident taxpayer - Those percent arguments are totally misleading. You and I pay a larger percentage of our income for a hamburger or a gallon of gasoline than higher earners and the wealthy. So what? You think someone whose income is twice what yours is should pay twice what you pay for that Big Mac or gallon of gas? If that's your agrument, you're a leveler and a Marxist. The investment income people pay 15 percent capital gains on is paid on money that has been taxed once already or more than once, whether at 15 percent or at a higher marginal rate. So I am working past retirement age and this year face the decision of cashing out my investments, money I saved instead of buying a boat or a fancier car or bigger house, at 15 percent or waiting for the so-called Bush era tax cuts to expire and pay 35 percent whenever I take the money out. I never earned a lot, but I saved, and this president wants to punish me for that because I'm wealthy? I'm not wealthy, I have just saved for my own retirement because I have been self-employed most of my life. Of course I was working my own business which I didn't build but the government built for me according to this president.
The imaginary, all on paper, SS trust fund has been raided to pay for many things including a greatly expanded role of "disabled" persons including children with ADD whose parents spend the SSI check on anything besides medication for ADD ("I don't believe in it") and therapy for the child and "anxiety disorder" which is easily faked and (this is great) qualifies the SS Disability pension recipient for medical marijuana is some states (CO and CA just to name a couple). BTW, disability examiners are forbidden from diagnosing malingering. I know because I used to perform disaiblity exams by contract.
CaesoniaAugust 12th, 2012 | 1:15pm
@wog, the idea that different types of income should be treated differently in the tax books is really the heart of the issue. It's time for the religious and investors to start paying the same % that the bookkeeper or plumber does on earned income.
If you earn he lion's share of income, you should expect t pay the lion's share of taxes for the things that make it possible for you to be wealthy.
Besides which, the tax rate for folks in the middle is more like 45%, it most certainly isn't for the so called investor class, even after all the yachts they might buy.
The SS raid is also just more typical side issues to get a good right thinking individual like yourself off track from the bigger issue. I doubt as much money has been lost on that suggested ludicrous fraud as the cost of a single f-16 fighter jet.
And by the way, if you were doing contract jobs for the government as part of your business, then the government most certainly did build it for you. But how typical of the right minded thinkers to be such hypocrites.
By the way, I am self employed too, and I know what that means. That only gives me more reason to really despise the entire nonsesne regarding the 15% tax rate for the so called investor class.
WogAugust 12th, 2012 | 3:38pm
@ Caesonia -
I could get behind the idea of a flat tax - everyone pays the same rate on every penny coming in or on every penny spent, but of course that would mean the people paying no tax would have to pay something. One problem with taxing all income or expenditures is the govt has to be able to monitor income and expenditures which a lot of people avoid now with under the table transactions. A lot more working people than investors are part of the underground economy, stealing from their country and, by extension, all of us than ivestors who leave a paper trail.
I think we need F-16's more than freeloadoers, so I'm willing to spend for one but not the other.
I never earned more than 5% of my income from government contract work. I have done none for 20 years.
You completely ignore the part about investment income being taxed multiple times. And most of the people who now pay 15% on part of their income are not "the investor class", they're people like me who work and save.
By your "investor class" comment I see you are into the class warfare thing like the current and hopefully soon to be ex- president. That's more of the Marxist line. Marxistm teaches that the motive force of history, what drives history, is not ideas or social evolution but class conflict. So, if you want to influence history, you stoke the fires of class conflict.
Speaking of hypocrisy, you cloak yourself in the notion of fairness, but you advocate taking from producers and giving to nonproducers. What's fair about that?
RandyAugust 12th, 2012 | 9:37pm
Regarding Federal Income tax rates, lets try to be clear here with some points.
Ordinary tax rates are tiered, and are applied after the standard or itemized deductions (plus everyone gets exemptions as well). For married folks, taxable income under around $17,000 is taxed at 10%, taxable income over that and up to around $70,000+ is taxed at 15%, income between this and around $142,000+ is taxed at 25%, and it goes up from there. Thus, for somebody to actually pay an average of 25% or more in federal income taxes, you need to have a very high income, well over 200,000. Also, for a couple to pay an average of more than 15% (again, after their standard deductions), their gross income before the standard deduction probably needs to be over $100,000 (I did the math once but do not have it in front of me).
I suggest everyone go look at their 2011 tax return and do the math.
As someone else noted, investors pay the 15% rate on dividend income that has been taxed once already by the companies they invest in, that is why the rate should be lower. Capital gain taxes is also at 15% (but only for investments greater than one year) to provide an incentive to invest in stocks or other long term investments. In addition, all appreciation, including just for inflation, is taxed, and generally losses can only be deducted against gains. Interest income is taxed at ordinary rates, same as wages.
One last fact, lets not forget that employers also pay payroll taxes for their employees, and for 2010 and 2011, they did not get the reduction in payroll taxes given to employees. So for those who add payroll taxes into their tax percentage calculation, don't forget to give business owners the credit for paying payroll taxes for you and all your fellow employees as well (as someone noted, self employed people pay a higher rate on their own income).
Ponce De leonAugust 13th, 2012 | 12:29am
So lets be fair..../ why not just do like we do in a resturant.... take the total bill and divide it by all of the people.... oh thats right.... we would have to give refunds to everybody OVER 250k and giant bills to everybody UNDER 250k.. (so we can't do that)
Well lets dfo it alacarte... just bill people for what they use... so when the rich send their kids to private schools and have private security guard their homes, and build fireproof homes with sophisitacted sprinkler systems, and never use the public library, transporation, food stamps, unemployment or the Er without paying I gues we would still have to give them refunds....
If Waren Buffet buys a yacht and uses it to get other peoplr to invest and make a pile the way he did then he SHOULD be able to write it off no different than a saesman buying a client lunch. He still has to pay luxury sales taxand property taxes on it and it probaly would have a crew of ten and keep at least another handful employed maintaining and securing it, and don't fforget the 100 or so people who were involved in building it FROM NOTHING,
We really do need to define "fair" in this country. There may be a dozen bilionaires getting away with paying too little tax because of loopholes but there are MILLIONS of americans suckling the taxpayer teat (and many have done so for generations)
In the state of maryland "welfare to work" was the "law" but the liberal governments never bothered to invesitgate any claims so everybody lied and the government looked the other way. Meanwhile taxpayers in virginia's federal taxes went to tax cheats (and still do)
Christian GehmanAugust 13th, 2012 | 11:16am
That Mitt Romney would pay 0.82% of his income in taxes under Paul Ryan's Plan, according to an article in The Atlantic might seem to indicate that The Mittster is on his way to the Dukakis/Palin hall of fame ...
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/mitt-romney-would-pa...
Christian GehmanAugust 13th, 2012 | 11:28am
Is it also worth noting that taxes on the incomes of the rich and the super rich like Romney (a) are at their lowest levels in the last 50 years and (b) those tax cuts are responsible for 48% of the national debt (causing almost five times the debt load caused by entitlements); and further, that (a) and (b) make it reasonable to opine that these quasi-criminal monetary "crimes" of the rich and the super rich have bankrupted American government on many levels. You might read del Mar's analysis of the Greenback Bonds heist after the Civil War to get a cogent look at the kind of "me first" depredations that the class of thieves which probably includes Mitt Romney can bring off in a perfectly legal way by paying their lobbyists to influence the votes in Congress.
SkinAugust 13th, 2012 | 12:54pm
Christian, you are right on, the frustrating part is that the super rich and the entrenched politicians that made them so dont even give a damn that we all are aware of these facts.
Hell have you seen a D.C. car tag lately, Across the bottom it reads, "Taxation without Representation"
To quote Thomas Jefferson:
"The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants"
Christian GehmanAugust 13th, 2012 | 2:09pm
Don't look now, but you've pretty much already lost your right to freedom of assembly (and you've lost that right totally -- anywhere the Secret Service may be present).
Christian GehmanAugust 13th, 2012 | 2:13pm
@ Ponce - despite the lack of investigation which no notice in Maryland, about 80% the federal deficit derives from (a) tax breaks for the rich and the super rich and (b) "defense" expenditures. Entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, use up, by contrast, a rather reasonable 10%, and most of the money is actually paid either directly to human beings or to service providers (about 85% of this latter being int he form of wages). Money paid to human beings as entitlements or as wages trickles up through the economy seven or eight times, creating demand, before it comes to rest at last on a corporate balance sheet.
WogAugust 13th, 2012 | 10:30pm
A very thoughtful and stimulating exchange for which I thank The Hook. Every community needs a public forum. I wish I were here (there) more often
Christian GehmanAugust 13th, 2012 | 10:40pm
@ skin -- it's a habit. people can't quite believe how badly they've been ripped off -- can't quite let go of the lies told by the likes of Mitt Gaffney who, by the way, made $20 million last year (partly on substantial overseas investments) and who would pay 0.82% on his income if Ryan's plan is adopted. The problem now is not "entitlements" or "welfare" -- it's how the rich and the super rich plunder the public purse. Never more so than now .... We're living through the next Depression, and the only difference is that Social Security, Railroad Retirement, Medicare, Unemployment and yes, even welfare keep some money flowing into the economy. I'd hire a million people to put a sidewalk next to every country road in America. Keep 'em busy for three years. The problem is very simple: lack of jobs, and the wages are too low. Mercantilist attack from China dovetails nicely with Mitt Gaffney's attack on the American working class and the American middle class. "Free Trade" means asking American to compete for jobs with Chinese factor workers making $2.00 an hour with no benefits. It's TIME FOR A TARIFF.
WogAugust 13th, 2012 | 11:37pm
Following Christian - How could anyone think free trade (thank you Slick Willie) would pull the third world up and not pull the first world down. Unchecked, the dissolution of borders, physical, economic, ideological and otherwise has to move us from heated, air-conditioned, 9 room houses and 2 cars and good access to health care to something closer to the dirt floor hut with no running water and inadequate public health typical of much of Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:32am
The Lying Mattress:
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/the-welfare-gambit/
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:33am
Maybe the lying Mattress will be this this year's George Dukakis? It is fair to point out, however, that George Dukakis never sold out the American worker by exporting jobs to China ....
Bill MarshallAugust 14th, 2012 | 11:21am
Christian....Raising the taxes on the rich will cover the government spending for eight days... when are you going to address the other 357 days????
You have no answer because the answer is for the government to cut back spending.
It is insulting for the government to assume that if they cut back welfare people would starve in the streets without charitable people stepping in to help.
The problem you have is that you want to FORCE people to help others against their will and that was outlawed by the 14th amendment.
even jesus said "let me lead you to prosperity" not "have a seat and we will bring it to ya"
The rich are not the problem as their wealth is out in the market place working.. (ask anyone who has a loan of any kind or buys a product made by a stock corporation)What difference does it make if 40 people or 400000000 people own wal mart stock to the consumer or taxpayer? None.
The problem is americans had it easy and now that the rest of theo world has figured out how to make a buck we want to stop them because their prosperity hurts ours... It is ironic that the same people crying about putting tarrifs on are the same people who want to save the world and demand human rights etc etc..... You can't have it both ways.
Question: If Virginia has a lower cost of living than California and google wanted to relocate here are we "stealing " jobs or since we are all americans it is ok? (except of course to those in california who lose their jobs because they cannot afford to relocate or don't want the lower wages Va can offer because we are not bankrupt from liberal spending )(yet)
What are you going to do about the other 357 days?
GeekAugust 14th, 2012 | 1:53pm
" Christian....Raising the taxes on the rich will cover the government spending for eight days... when are you going to address the other 357 days????"
You keep talking about that Bill. Can you give some sources?
What's more, when Bill Clinton left office this country did have a plan to pay down the deficit, and was meeting it current obligations. That included forecasting into the future with an aging population. The tax cuts were shown to contribute extensively to the increased deficit afterwards and then lets add on the two wars. Those tax cuts were shown to benefit the extremely wealthy, not the average shmoe.
When are you going to address any of that?
When are you going to address Halliburton, and Blackwater, and all those wonderful government contractors who increase the deficit at the expense of the taxpayer? You know, jobs that servicemen and women did for a lot less, and now suddenly need to be done by buddies of the small gummint peeps like yourself?
When are you going to address that it was a small government man named Ronald Reagan who said Deficits don't matter?
When are you going to address that for he last 40 years, Republicans have been the biggest deficit creators while they stuff their noses in the trough for tax dollars in big government contracts?
Bill MarshallAugust 14th, 2012 | 3:31pm
geek
here is one link but there are plenty of others as the facts are indisputable and not denied by Obama.
http://www.libradex.com/viewArticle.aspx?id=98
Secondly, Bill Clintons projections were not as rosy as projected because they did not forsee the dot-com bubble of 1999/2000 and although you are correct about the war machine and defense contractors raping the treasury Clintons projections did not include 9/11 which would have had SOME military response that would have cost money and also it was Clintons housing actions that caused the mortage bubble which Bush tried to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcCs1yGO6aA
Third, I have ALWAYS said spending needs to be cut INCLUDING the Pentagon. ALWAYS.
My point is that there are 356 days that need to be dealt with and Obama wants to blame it all on some rich guys like it will fix the problem. It will not ,he knows it, and that makes him a liar. His lies will allow us to go further in debt until we are just like greece.
Stop spending THEN ask for a raise in your allowance.
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 6:08pm
Porold Bill --
Twas the Bushwa man who deregulated the mortgage markets and who allowed the securities industry stepped to sell asset backed securities based on home mortgages -- and AIG theoretically was insuring all the risk with Credit Default Swaps until .... it all came unraveled. Bushwa, Bushwa ... that little jug-eared monster stole 20 years of prosperity from his fellow Americans. And we're still cleaning it up. Meanwhile the Chinese are chortling all the way to the bank. There's a good argument to be made that America is now a debt-ridden third-world agricultural country (with nukes). Meanwhile, you still can't quite believe that asking the rich and the super rich to pay tax on their all their income, no matter form what source it derives, at the same rate paid by the middle class and the bottom half of the economic spectrum would at least be a good start on paying down the debt. Inflation at 20% might be a better option at this point. A tariff aimed at the Chinese and the Indians would be beneficial for restarting the American jobs machine. The big unanswered question about the health care mandate is: Where will the back office jobs live? Will the insurance companies be allowed to send them overseas? Anthem sent quite a lot of jobs to India despite Governor Bob's order not to do that. Anthem parked the jobs in Illinois for a while before sending them onward. No one really noticed. The bigger question might be, how much of their reserves will Anthem's Indian owners be able to park in uninsured Indian banks? If you don't see the danger of a huge heist, maybe you're blind.
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 6:37pm
And thank you, Geek. President Clinton was as master of the bond deal. Even Whitewater was a bond deal - gone somewhat awry, but ... still a bond deal. I haven't heard of those bondholders complaining much. Romney made $20 million on his investments last year. How much of his income total derives from overseas investments? How many jobs DID the Mittster - who is known around my house as "the Lying Mattress" actually send to China and India? Worked out pretty well for him, though -- didn't it? Looking out for Number One, I mean. We're living through the second Great Depression -- whose effects are only somewhat ameliorated by Social Security, Railroad Retirement, Medicare, and other "entitlement" programs - which, in total, contribute about 1/8 as much to the annual Feral deficit as tax cuts for the rich and the super rich and defense spending -- which is another reason the rich and the super rich are doing so well: they own the corporations that "fasten all the triggers for others to fire." War and oil are both very profitable businesses. There's very little wrong with the economy right now that cutting two dollars off the bloated price of a gallon of gasoline wouldn't fix in a heartbeat. War with Iran will mean gas at $6.00 or maybe as high as $10.00. It's time for sidewalks next to every country road in America. Alternatively, we could just borrow $100 trillion from the Chinese and then let the dollar inflate at 20% until repayment seemed feasible. You might love Alexander del Mar's book A History of Monetary Crimes is available online at the Hathi Trust. The best monetary crimes are ... always ... perfectly "legal." Maybe we can start asking the Chinese to export Fuller domes for us ... since we can't make them ourselves. You might review your notions of "mercantilist attack" by comparing the current importation of Heroin and Cocaine into America with the Opium Wars in the 19th Century.
Ponce De leonAugust 14th, 2012 | 6:55pm
First off, the mortgage crisis and the multi trillion dollar debt are two entirely different things... The mortgage crisis was caused by middle class americans biting off more than they could chew and choking on it. Those that did so are DIRECTLY responsible for the downturn because when they stopped spending money in retail stores those stores laid off people who could then not pay their mortgages, and then when they stopped spending, it all cascaded and the subsequent defaults caused the banking crisis. If these people had not lied on their loans then the artificail increases in housing prices would not have occured and people would have not spent so much money on JUNK and all the busineses would not have expanded with borrowed money. You can't blame that on George bush, he didn't force you to buy a BMW.
As for the debt.... it is only a burden now because we finally have to pay it back... while congress (both sides) were on a spending spree all those trillions went directly into the american economy and gave a false boost to the system. Now that we have reached an unacceptable amount of debt we need to sober up and cut spending. We need to go on a diet and look at every check the government writes to see if it makes sense. .
That is why the stimulus did not and will not work, the economy was already artificailly inflated by government trillions that should never have been spent.
We waste so much money that it is out of control. The rich do not have enough earnings to tax. Mitt Romney made 20 millionj last year. The government spends 20 million in less than 7 minutes.
If your job goes elswhere than that is life. Nothing lasts forever. Deal with it and prepare for it by having a transferable skill or build a nestegg so you can move or retian yourself for something else. perhaps you could get together with other unemployed people asnd stasrt your own business. (or perhaps thats too hard with all the regulations liberals have put in place)
LiberalaceAugust 14th, 2012 | 7:06pm
You can always tell the anti-Republican posts by their condescending (elitist?) tone (Porold Bill, for example), their love of things like the WPA (you know, their god FDR), and their personal attacks like "jug-eared monster." I thought our current president was going ahead with shovel-ready jobs so we'd have a "sidewalk on every road."
Practically speaking, if I were a super-rich evil businessperson, and my government suddenly raised my taxes radically (sorry about that word), what would I do with my money? If I were a Second Amendment fanatic, and the feds suddenly pushed for citizen disarmament, what would I do? I'd horde, hide, move and render my precious assets inert. Taxes have long been initiated just as much to influence behavior as to fund the government.
There is a solution, but I doubt bringing the "super-rich Beelzebubs" into a new tax rate will magically make the deficit--or problems--disappear. Perhaps we could start by bringing the poor up to the 20 percent rate that Obama paid on his million dollars of income last year.
As Ozzy says, "I love you all!"
R.I.P.: Ray Bradbury
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:13pm
Right, let all the panhandlers pay income tax -- I'm with you on that. And the homeless. Get a life, Lace -- or at least a cogent point of view.
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:20pm
But actually, L*ace, from my point of view the entire world, and certainly all Americans would be better off if all Americans paid tax on their income at exactly the rate Romney Fils would pay under the Ryan plan 0.82%. Of course, most of the lower half of the economic spectrum pays a substantially higher percentage of their income than that already - in sales tax and licensing fees. "Soak the poor" doesn't work very well as a taxing strategy -- leads to revolution, they don't have much anyway -- and taxing the Rich and the Super Rich is an idea thoroughly discredited by their lobbyists, who encouraged Congress to give them what amount to "criminal" tax breaks justified by the flawed "creates jobs" theory that has caused our deficit to soar into the troposphere. Here's looking at you, kid ... **V**
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:21pm
Maybe we should just elect George Romney President for Life ??
WogAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:25pm
"Tax the rich to feed the poor until there are no rich no more" - Alvin Lee, Ten Years After circa 1973
WogAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:27pm
"The Taxes on the farmer feeds us all." - Woody Guthrie circa 1933
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:40pm
@Ponce -- this idea of yours is totally wrong: "gave a false boost to the system." No boost is false. You don't understand the trickle up power of circulating money. If anyone really wanted to pull the economy out of its current slump BEFORE THE ELECTION, it would be quite simple to "lend" every taxpayer $500 a month for the next year -- to be repaid over the next 20 years (collection to be handled by your favorite government agency, the IRS) ... this would handily fix the liquidity crisis at the bottom, and would stimulate demand enough to inspire some hiring of American workers. But since the Bush administration and the Mattress have managed to export our manufacturing capacity -- we might like to specify that the money must be spent on domestic manufactures or services. Right now THERE IS NO MONEY AT THE BOTTOM. The Middle is doing okay. The Extra Rich are doing as usual great -- in large part because they pay scarcely any taxes, compared to their secretaries. Romney won't let go of his tax returns until they are sanitized to hide the huge overseas investments -- a startling (and very damaging) bet against America.
Christian GehmanAugust 14th, 2012 | 9:42pm
@ Ponce -- Pluck the Rich (for a change) would be my best advice to all Americans.
Christian GehmanAugust 15th, 2012 | 6:25am
@ Lace I see the Bandar-log will be out in force today, throwing dirt from their cages and repeating their favorite slogan: "We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true!" ... "read some books" might be a good idea.
Bill MarshallAugust 15th, 2012 | 11:37am
christian how can you say with a straight face "Right now THERE IS NO MONEY AT THE BOTTOM."
What the hell do you call all the welfare programs like food stamps section 8 free school lunches, pell grants, free cell phones, medicaid, free job training bus passes, free access to government ameneities, taxpayer sudsidies to a zillion programs for the homeless, etc etc
Your idea of borrowing money from china to give every american 6k next year to be paid off over 20 years will not do any good other than to keep a few heads above water and add another 1.8 trillion in debt which is absure BECAUSE the government won't stop spending.
Now if you would like to loan all the people on welfare the money and make them pay it back instead of just giving to them that would be nice.. except for the fact that they are not interswted in looking for a job and certainly would be less interested if they knew the government was actually going to garnish it for what the wasted last year(or 19 years ago 20 years from now)
You still have not come up with a solution for the other 356 days (unless you call spending an extra 1.8 trilliion without cutting spending a solution.)
The top 20% pay 80% of the taxes.... so if you go out to dinner with 9 other people and the check is 100 dollars then the first couple throws down 80 bucks, the second two people throw down 15 bucks, one person kicks in 5 bucks and the other 5 get up and go home and complain about the government giving tax breaks to the rich....
Warren Buffet pays 120 times the amount of taxes as his secretary regardless of the "percentage" Does he get 120 times better police fire ambulance, library or military defense for his money? How much is enough for one man to pay... Personlly I think 12 MILLION dollars a year is more than enough for one old fat guy to have to cough up so lazy people can sit home in air conditioned apartments and cry about how hard life is. Warren buffet is 84 and still gets up and goes to work everyday.
THe only person stopping any indiviual from workiing in this country is the government with all its rules.
If you are hungry and can't feed your kids go knock on doors and offer to do ANYTHING legal to get them fed. rake some leaves, pick up sticks, wash a car, clean a toilet.
Americans will help Americans and the odds are that most people will let you work for two minutes and then feed you or pay you ten times what you asked just because you tried.
You can tax the rich and feed the poor and when there ain't no rich no more what are you gonna do?
Christian GehmanAugust 15th, 2012 | 1:43pm
Yep, new ideas are scary for people like you Bill. You're probably been listening to Rash Limbaugh demonize the people on welfare. They aren't really hogging the harvest, though -- we leave that to the rich folk who don't pay tax, on all their income, no matter from what source it derives, at the same rate paid by their secretaries. That's just simple fairness. Fifty years of tax breaks for the ultra rich have pretty much bankrupted American government. There's really no reason why the IRS can't issue advance refund checks -- $500 a month -- to any taxpayer who wants to take the money. This probably would cause some inflation. But -- more importantly -- it would jump start the economy by creating demand. Demand creates jobs. Right now there's no demand because the bottom half of the economy is just scraping by. You rich cats are doing very well, I guess. But maybe Mitt Romney, known around my house as "That Lying Mattress," thinks he's paying too much: because, under the budget Representative Ryan proposed, That Lying Mattress would pay 0.85% on his income of twenty million per annum -- much of which derives from overseas investments that created jobs in China and India. That those jobs used to live in America doesn't concern you. That Romney sent the jobs overseas and doesn't want anyone to see how many Americans he sold down the river seems only natural to you -- because you really don't want anyone to know that information either. Or do you? I don't like to assume I could ever guess what you'll be thinking next -- maybe you'd like to propose sending the poor Americans overseas to look for those jobs? I see the Bandar-log are out in force today: they all believe the rich should pay tax at a lower rate than the poor pay. That point of view is faded, and jaded. It's a cynical attack on the notion that all men are created equal. If you actually believe that asking the rich to pay tax at the same rate as their secretaries "won't make any difference" then ... why are you struggling so hard against the notion? seems silly to me ....
Bill MarshallAugust 15th, 2012 | 3:30pm
christian .... when are you going to address the 356 day question? Is it because despite your hatred for people who possess more than you the income that could be derived from them won't cover more than 8 days... and even if you doubled that it would only cover 16 days?
You completely IGNORED the FACT that Warren Buffet pays 120 times as much MONEY into the tax system as his secretary..... the government cannot pay its bills with percentages... and the rates are all twisted to look like they don't pay taxes because of people like you who think the definition of "fair share" is more than 120 times more than your secretary.
You obviously think that Obama getting 5 million from Buffet and spending it on a bridge to nowhere or some more food stamps for fat people will do more for americas future than whatever Warren Buffet would do with it by investing it in the economy.
You continue to ignore the fact that if the rich divested itself of assets so that instead of the top 10 percent controlling 80 percent of the wealth 30 perecent controlled it, the bottom half would still pay 4 bucks for a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas... It makes NO DIFFERENCE who owns the stock in wal mart. The price is set by the consumers ability to pay... (which sort of tosses your whole lets lets not create jobs because we hate anybody but us theory) It is in the riches interest to have people working. look at how much they made when the unemployment rate was 5.5% (under bush... whoops)
You really are just coming off as a frustrated underachiever who thought he was going to get a trophy just for showing up. Life doesn't work that way.
You can hate the rich but the simple fact of the matter is as long as Obama is in office they will not put their money at risk because he is the one dealing the cards from the bottom of the deck. Ask the preferred bondholders at GM who had thier collateral confiscated and given to the Union in exchange for votes.
If you want america to start growing again than encourage the government to slow down spending (including the pentagon)and make sure regulations are not too burdensome on not only busineses but the consumer. (example: Tire pressure monitors are now required on all cars... they estimate to save mileage by as much as 5% so if you spend 2000 bucks a year they will save you 100 bucks a year or 300 bucks for every set of tires..(give or take) . so the next time you go to get a set iof tires installed look at how much they now cost to mount because they have TPMS sensors .. mount and balance was 8-12 bucks per tire now it is 40-80 bucks per tire and if a sensor breaks it is 120 bucks PER SENSOR and tire stores do not guarantee they won't break because they are flimsy. So now it can cost up to 600 dollars more per set of tires to save 300 bucks on fuel. (and that assumes that nothing goes wrong with the tpms computer in the dash and that we ignore the 300 bucks that the required system added to the price of the car in the first place)
So to extrapilate further.... when a poor persons car fails inspection because it has a bad TPMS sensor or computer... but the car drives fine... will the Government (a) let the poor person check their own tire pressure, (b) require they get it fixed and not buy their kid school clothes or (c) will they tax the rich and give out "obamacar" subsidies for those below the povery line?
The rich are not the enemy.... Congress giving everyone who asks 50% of what they want (which is still twice what they really need)so everybody always feel cheated and comes back for more is the problem... The government is not santa claus and a democratic republic does not mean those with wealth have to pay tribute any more than it means we can enslave those who contribute nothing.
The answer is on the spending side first... than we can talk about the revenue side. Fix the foxhole in the henhouse before you refill it with more chickens....
WogAugust 15th, 2012 | 3:38pm
@ Bill Marshall - Well said
Bill MarshallAugust 16th, 2012 | 5:08pm
Here is another example of Obamas malfeasance..
He runs around the country claiming saving GM was a success...
@ BM -- how many jobs has Mitt Romney sent to China? Or India? I remind you under the Ryan plan for America's future, Romney would pay a tax rate of ... is it really .082% on his income of "around" $20 million? Which is all you really need to know -- right?
Ponce De leonAugust 16th, 2012 | 10:15pm
1) mitt romney stated TODAY that he paid taxes each and every year for the last ten years and never paid less than 13%. If you add back in his charitable contributions it rises to 20%. So he paid about 26 million dollars in taxes in the last decade... But I guess thats still not enough for you.
2) Your .082 percent is a liberal twist on a reasonable proposal. Anyone with a lick of sense knows it is a fabrication. ( but if it WERE true and we rounded it down to zero for arguments sake the romney would be paying the same" rate" as EVERYBODY on welfare. So I guess that would be fair right?
3) Overseas jobs are a chicken and egg argument. Does an employer move jobs overseas to stay profitable or does he wait until the overseas products come here and put him out of business because the price of the products is too low to meet using amrican labor and regulations.? We live in a global world. Get used to it.
GeekAugust 16th, 2012 | 11:44pm
"The mortgage crisis was caused by middle class americans biting off more than they could chew"
Oh, now that's the game. Before it was ll the poor people taking the liar loans. Only...that didn't float. Turns out the banks were being pretty darn dishonest, and those weren't Freddie Fannie loans either.
Hey, in a true free market, it isn't just the borrower. It's the lender.
No. It was the flippers and their financiers, and the jerks who floated derivative after derivative on another derivative, and wall street selling investors crap. It isn't a one way street pal, and like the whole S&L scandal, you'll always find some chiseling I hate regulations creep pushing it along. Why, the one fishie who got away is peddling his stuff right in Cville paying garbage wages. One that did time is now one of those motivating factors behind so called private education chiseling students, that was behind the whole UIVA oust Sullivan scandal.
But you will just keep buying it. It's always the fault of the average schmoe who honestly goes to work every day. You do realize that bankers lie more than politicians right?
Christian GehmanAugust 17th, 2012 | 6:52am
Read these for more information:
Alexander del Mar, A History of Monetary Crimes;
Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super Rich. The first tracks some of the more startling monetary crimes in history -- currency rackets that diminished the prosperity of the people. The second tracks America's history of tax breaks for the rich and the super rich -- a racket that diminished AND CONTINUES TO DIMINISH -- the prosperity of the people. Romney, known around my house as That Lying Mattress, won't show off his tax returns because until recently he was heavily invested in the same companies that offshored or exported millions of American jobs. You might see my post on The Secret King at www.novelismo.blogspot.com. And don't forget that the monarchists were a majority even during the American Revolution. Cheat the People is the motto of the lying Mittster -- "and tell them it's for their own good."
WogAugust 17th, 2012 | 7:52am
@Geek and Christian - There a lot of people lying and scheming and conspiring against you aren't there?
Bill MarshallAugust 17th, 2012 | 8:31am
Nobody forced anybody to buy a house, a big screen tv or a brand new car....
Blaming a banker for loaning you money don't qualify for is like blaming the car salesmen for convincing you you would look good in a convertible and blaming budweiser because when you downed a 24 pack supermodels didn't flock around you like on TV.
If people had taken advantage of the free education they were given at school they would have known better. Trying to pay a 2500 dollar mortgage payment when you take home 2600 dollars a month is not rocket science.
Why does everyone want the government to make it so that RESPONSIBL people have to jump through eight thousand hoops because IRRESPONSIBLE poeple don't want to do basic math?. This was not "fine print" This was utter stupidity compounded by selfishness which extrapilated into kaos for those that were smart enough not to spend three times what they make.
We used to have a rule of thumb on this... LET THE BUYER BEWARE.
I have no problems prosecuting the bankers for fraud for conspiring with people to defraud the lenders and investors. Send em to jail. BUT if you lost your house because you thought it was going to double in value AGAIN in a few years then you deserve the loss like any other IGNORANT investor. Everybody acts as if this was a surprise. It was not. There were books written on the upcomong crisis and a lot of peole bet the other way.
I am not against regulations, I am against over regulation that chokes the economy so we can make sure some idiot doesn't ever make a bad financial decision. Everybody on the playground shouldn't have to wear a helmet on the slide because your kid is not smart enough to go down the slide feet first.
Stop whining and build a better mousetrap.
Christian GehmanAugust 17th, 2012 | 8:58am
@ Wog - No one is conspiring against me. But, conspiring to plunder the public purse and get off scot free as to paying their fair share of taxes, yes -- plenty of people are doing that. Let the rich and the super rich pay tax on their incomes at the same rate the middle class pays. Clearly, you ain't yet actually read any of del Mar's History of Monetary Crimes. You can find his analysis of the Greenback Bonds Scandal at Alderman. Though you seem disinterested, it's worth nothing that del Mar's History of Monetary Crimes is online at the Hathi Trust:
http://babel.hathitrust.or/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3241866;size=125;view=image;pa...
And you might like to augment your previous understanding of some common elements of government corruption demonstrated from the earliest days of the republic by reading Yazoo: Law and Politics in the New Republic: The case of Fletcher v. Peck by Peter Magrath. To start understanding currency wars in the context of mercantilist attack, try Wool, Cloth and Gold by John H.A. Munro. A little information about the history of money, wealth and political corruption might help give you a better-informed perspective in your efforts to sort out some of the issues in contemporary politics.
GeekAugust 17th, 2012 | 9:30am
I thought you were the on this thread complaining about the lying and scheming poor WOG. All those SS cheats stealing money for their ADHD kids right?
Yes, there was a lot of lying and scheming going on in the mortgage scandal, only it wasn't necessarily the schmoe getting the loan when they had the actual income. Sure, I know people that I sat down with and warned about what they were signing onto, and they shouldn't have. But to this day, the most bankruptsies are caused by medical issues not the middle class biting off more than they can choose.
I suggest you read Liar's Poker, so you get an good isight into the mentality of traders on Wall Street and the damage many of them are happy to do the financial system. Thee is a reason between the start and end of Glass-Steagall this country had no financial crises.
Christian GehmanAugust 17th, 2012 | 11:15am
@Geek -- you gotta read del Mar's History of Monetary Crimes.
Christian GehmanAugust 17th, 2012 | 11:17am
@Bill Marshall -- are you now claiming that some of the bankers and assorted "financiers" who got rich of selling tranches of CDOs and caused the American economy to spiral into its current slightly improving pit of gloom -- you're telling me some of them actually WENT TO JAIL? Can you name a few names for me, please? And indicate the jail time they got for so pluckily plundering the public purse?
Bill MarshallAugust 17th, 2012 | 2:08pm
I have zero problems prosecuting the fraud...Perhaps if Obama had done that instead of shoving Obamacare down americas throat we would be on our way to recovery. Legitamate businessmen need protection from the crooks too because they steal customers away with false promises. BUT legitamte businesssmen need the ability to function in the marketplace without over burdensome regulations that have to be put in place because people are too lazy to read the fine print and too selfish to save instead of spend.
The government provides everyone with a free education in a heated and air conditioned classroom, If you choose to not take advantage of it then you are reaping what you sow and getting taken to the cleaneres is mother natures way of saying "I told you so"
regulation in moderations causes very few complications in almost all situations
by the way Christian.... when are you going to address the other 356 days?
linda sherman
50 comments
These cartoons are consistently not funny and kinda dumb. Just sayin'. Is there any reason to run them...every week?
I like em.
But I eat out of the cat box.
Guessing that was done by a young thing. Does young thing know that this is the year where we turned the corner to people receiving less social security than they put in?
Young thing, you like giving the MAN your money so he can use it ascollateral to borrow from China and give you back..sayyyyy.. about 50% of it....?
The government sez... "thanks for not paying attention."
Absolutely right Jimi - we should give it to Wall Street instead in our private retirement savings accounts where they can more easily skim and strip us of our assets - that man is sooo much better than the gov't. "man".
Would you please source your claim that this is the year in which recipients start getting less out than they put in? Did life expectancy suddenly plunge? Or are you (deliberately) confusing total contributions to the fund/program and total payouts of the program?
Young or not, the cartoonist is right: the self-funded FICA payroll tax programs wouldn't be so consistently raided to pay for military spending in the discretionary budget if we didn't keep lowering investment and income tax rates that pay into the discretionary budget.
Why is it that the "winners" in our system pay - like Romney - 15% (or less) in taxes while working schmoes like me pay closer to 32% (when you lump in our FICA). It may be legal, but how on earth is it fair?
@ non-resident taxpayer - Those percent arguments are totally misleading. You and I pay a larger percentage of our income for a hamburger or a gallon of gasoline than higher earners and the wealthy. So what? You think someone whose income is twice what yours is should pay twice what you pay for that Big Mac or gallon of gas? If that's your agrument, you're a leveler and a Marxist. The investment income people pay 15 percent capital gains on is paid on money that has been taxed once already or more than once, whether at 15 percent or at a higher marginal rate. So I am working past retirement age and this year face the decision of cashing out my investments, money I saved instead of buying a boat or a fancier car or bigger house, at 15 percent or waiting for the so-called Bush era tax cuts to expire and pay 35 percent whenever I take the money out. I never earned a lot, but I saved, and this president wants to punish me for that because I'm wealthy? I'm not wealthy, I have just saved for my own retirement because I have been self-employed most of my life. Of course I was working my own business which I didn't build but the government built for me according to this president.
The imaginary, all on paper, SS trust fund has been raided to pay for many things including a greatly expanded role of "disabled" persons including children with ADD whose parents spend the SSI check on anything besides medication for ADD ("I don't believe in it") and therapy for the child and "anxiety disorder" which is easily faked and (this is great) qualifies the SS Disability pension recipient for medical marijuana is some states (CO and CA just to name a couple). BTW, disability examiners are forbidden from diagnosing malingering. I know because I used to perform disaiblity exams by contract.
@wog, the idea that different types of income should be treated differently in the tax books is really the heart of the issue. It's time for the religious and investors to start paying the same % that the bookkeeper or plumber does on earned income.
If you earn he lion's share of income, you should expect t pay the lion's share of taxes for the things that make it possible for you to be wealthy.
Besides which, the tax rate for folks in the middle is more like 45%, it most certainly isn't for the so called investor class, even after all the yachts they might buy.
The SS raid is also just more typical side issues to get a good right thinking individual like yourself off track from the bigger issue. I doubt as much money has been lost on that suggested ludicrous fraud as the cost of a single f-16 fighter jet.
And by the way, if you were doing contract jobs for the government as part of your business, then the government most certainly did build it for you. But how typical of the right minded thinkers to be such hypocrites.
By the way, I am self employed too, and I know what that means. That only gives me more reason to really despise the entire nonsesne regarding the 15% tax rate for the so called investor class.
@ Caesonia -
I could get behind the idea of a flat tax - everyone pays the same rate on every penny coming in or on every penny spent, but of course that would mean the people paying no tax would have to pay something. One problem with taxing all income or expenditures is the govt has to be able to monitor income and expenditures which a lot of people avoid now with under the table transactions. A lot more working people than investors are part of the underground economy, stealing from their country and, by extension, all of us than ivestors who leave a paper trail.
I think we need F-16's more than freeloadoers, so I'm willing to spend for one but not the other.
I never earned more than 5% of my income from government contract work. I have done none for 20 years.
You completely ignore the part about investment income being taxed multiple times. And most of the people who now pay 15% on part of their income are not "the investor class", they're people like me who work and save.
By your "investor class" comment I see you are into the class warfare thing like the current and hopefully soon to be ex- president. That's more of the Marxist line. Marxistm teaches that the motive force of history, what drives history, is not ideas or social evolution but class conflict. So, if you want to influence history, you stoke the fires of class conflict.
Speaking of hypocrisy, you cloak yourself in the notion of fairness, but you advocate taking from producers and giving to nonproducers. What's fair about that?
Regarding Federal Income tax rates, lets try to be clear here with some points.
Ordinary tax rates are tiered, and are applied after the standard or itemized deductions (plus everyone gets exemptions as well). For married folks, taxable income under around $17,000 is taxed at 10%, taxable income over that and up to around $70,000+ is taxed at 15%, income between this and around $142,000+ is taxed at 25%, and it goes up from there. Thus, for somebody to actually pay an average of 25% or more in federal income taxes, you need to have a very high income, well over 200,000. Also, for a couple to pay an average of more than 15% (again, after their standard deductions), their gross income before the standard deduction probably needs to be over $100,000 (I did the math once but do not have it in front of me).
I suggest everyone go look at their 2011 tax return and do the math.
As someone else noted, investors pay the 15% rate on dividend income that has been taxed once already by the companies they invest in, that is why the rate should be lower. Capital gain taxes is also at 15% (but only for investments greater than one year) to provide an incentive to invest in stocks or other long term investments. In addition, all appreciation, including just for inflation, is taxed, and generally losses can only be deducted against gains. Interest income is taxed at ordinary rates, same as wages.
One last fact, lets not forget that employers also pay payroll taxes for their employees, and for 2010 and 2011, they did not get the reduction in payroll taxes given to employees. So for those who add payroll taxes into their tax percentage calculation, don't forget to give business owners the credit for paying payroll taxes for you and all your fellow employees as well (as someone noted, self employed people pay a higher rate on their own income).
So lets be fair..../ why not just do like we do in a resturant.... take the total bill and divide it by all of the people.... oh thats right.... we would have to give refunds to everybody OVER 250k and giant bills to everybody UNDER 250k.. (so we can't do that)
Well lets dfo it alacarte... just bill people for what they use... so when the rich send their kids to private schools and have private security guard their homes, and build fireproof homes with sophisitacted sprinkler systems, and never use the public library, transporation, food stamps, unemployment or the Er without paying I gues we would still have to give them refunds....
If Waren Buffet buys a yacht and uses it to get other peoplr to invest and make a pile the way he did then he SHOULD be able to write it off no different than a saesman buying a client lunch. He still has to pay luxury sales taxand property taxes on it and it probaly would have a crew of ten and keep at least another handful employed maintaining and securing it, and don't fforget the 100 or so people who were involved in building it FROM NOTHING,
We really do need to define "fair" in this country. There may be a dozen bilionaires getting away with paying too little tax because of loopholes but there are MILLIONS of americans suckling the taxpayer teat (and many have done so for generations)
In the state of maryland "welfare to work" was the "law" but the liberal governments never bothered to invesitgate any claims so everybody lied and the government looked the other way. Meanwhile taxpayers in virginia's federal taxes went to tax cheats (and still do)
That Mitt Romney would pay 0.82% of his income in taxes under Paul Ryan's Plan, according to an article in The Atlantic might seem to indicate that The Mittster is on his way to the Dukakis/Palin hall of fame ...
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/mitt-romney-would-pa...
Is it also worth noting that taxes on the incomes of the rich and the super rich like Romney (a) are at their lowest levels in the last 50 years and (b) those tax cuts are responsible for 48% of the national debt (causing almost five times the debt load caused by entitlements); and further, that (a) and (b) make it reasonable to opine that these quasi-criminal monetary "crimes" of the rich and the super rich have bankrupted American government on many levels. You might read del Mar's analysis of the Greenback Bonds heist after the Civil War to get a cogent look at the kind of "me first" depredations that the class of thieves which probably includes Mitt Romney can bring off in a perfectly legal way by paying their lobbyists to influence the votes in Congress.
Christian, you are right on, the frustrating part is that the super rich and the entrenched politicians that made them so dont even give a damn that we all are aware of these facts.
Hell have you seen a D.C. car tag lately, Across the bottom it reads, "Taxation without Representation"
To quote Thomas Jefferson:
"The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants"
Don't look now, but you've pretty much already lost your right to freedom of assembly (and you've lost that right totally -- anywhere the Secret Service may be present).
@ Ponce - despite the lack of investigation which no notice in Maryland, about 80% the federal deficit derives from (a) tax breaks for the rich and the super rich and (b) "defense" expenditures. Entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, use up, by contrast, a rather reasonable 10%, and most of the money is actually paid either directly to human beings or to service providers (about 85% of this latter being int he form of wages). Money paid to human beings as entitlements or as wages trickles up through the economy seven or eight times, creating demand, before it comes to rest at last on a corporate balance sheet.
A very thoughtful and stimulating exchange for which I thank The Hook. Every community needs a public forum. I wish I were here (there) more often
@ skin -- it's a habit. people can't quite believe how badly they've been ripped off -- can't quite let go of the lies told by the likes of Mitt Gaffney who, by the way, made $20 million last year (partly on substantial overseas investments) and who would pay 0.82% on his income if Ryan's plan is adopted. The problem now is not "entitlements" or "welfare" -- it's how the rich and the super rich plunder the public purse. Never more so than now .... We're living through the next Depression, and the only difference is that Social Security, Railroad Retirement, Medicare, Unemployment and yes, even welfare keep some money flowing into the economy. I'd hire a million people to put a sidewalk next to every country road in America. Keep 'em busy for three years. The problem is very simple: lack of jobs, and the wages are too low. Mercantilist attack from China dovetails nicely with Mitt Gaffney's attack on the American working class and the American middle class. "Free Trade" means asking American to compete for jobs with Chinese factor workers making $2.00 an hour with no benefits. It's TIME FOR A TARIFF.
Following Christian - How could anyone think free trade (thank you Slick Willie) would pull the third world up and not pull the first world down. Unchecked, the dissolution of borders, physical, economic, ideological and otherwise has to move us from heated, air-conditioned, 9 room houses and 2 cars and good access to health care to something closer to the dirt floor hut with no running water and inadequate public health typical of much of Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.
The Lying Mattress:
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/the-welfare-gambit/
Maybe the lying Mattress will be this this year's George Dukakis? It is fair to point out, however, that George Dukakis never sold out the American worker by exporting jobs to China ....
Christian....Raising the taxes on the rich will cover the government spending for eight days... when are you going to address the other 357 days????
You have no answer because the answer is for the government to cut back spending.
It is insulting for the government to assume that if they cut back welfare people would starve in the streets without charitable people stepping in to help.
The problem you have is that you want to FORCE people to help others against their will and that was outlawed by the 14th amendment.
even jesus said "let me lead you to prosperity" not "have a seat and we will bring it to ya"
The rich are not the problem as their wealth is out in the market place working.. (ask anyone who has a loan of any kind or buys a product made by a stock corporation)What difference does it make if 40 people or 400000000 people own wal mart stock to the consumer or taxpayer? None.
The problem is americans had it easy and now that the rest of theo world has figured out how to make a buck we want to stop them because their prosperity hurts ours... It is ironic that the same people crying about putting tarrifs on are the same people who want to save the world and demand human rights etc etc..... You can't have it both ways.
Question: If Virginia has a lower cost of living than California and google wanted to relocate here are we "stealing " jobs or since we are all americans it is ok? (except of course to those in california who lose their jobs because they cannot afford to relocate or don't want the lower wages Va can offer because we are not bankrupt from liberal spending )(yet)
What are you going to do about the other 357 days?
" Christian....Raising the taxes on the rich will cover the government spending for eight days... when are you going to address the other 357 days????"
You keep talking about that Bill. Can you give some sources?
What's more, when Bill Clinton left office this country did have a plan to pay down the deficit, and was meeting it current obligations. That included forecasting into the future with an aging population. The tax cuts were shown to contribute extensively to the increased deficit afterwards and then lets add on the two wars. Those tax cuts were shown to benefit the extremely wealthy, not the average shmoe.
When are you going to address any of that?
When are you going to address Halliburton, and Blackwater, and all those wonderful government contractors who increase the deficit at the expense of the taxpayer? You know, jobs that servicemen and women did for a lot less, and now suddenly need to be done by buddies of the small gummint peeps like yourself?
When are you going to address that it was a small government man named Ronald Reagan who said Deficits don't matter?
When are you going to address that for he last 40 years, Republicans have been the biggest deficit creators while they stuff their noses in the trough for tax dollars in big government contracts?
geek
here is one link but there are plenty of others as the facts are indisputable and not denied by Obama.
http://www.libradex.com/viewArticle.aspx?id=98
Secondly, Bill Clintons projections were not as rosy as projected because they did not forsee the dot-com bubble of 1999/2000 and although you are correct about the war machine and defense contractors raping the treasury Clintons projections did not include 9/11 which would have had SOME military response that would have cost money and also it was Clintons housing actions that caused the mortage bubble which Bush tried to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcCs1yGO6aA
Third, I have ALWAYS said spending needs to be cut INCLUDING the Pentagon. ALWAYS.
My point is that there are 356 days that need to be dealt with and Obama wants to blame it all on some rich guys like it will fix the problem. It will not ,he knows it, and that makes him a liar. His lies will allow us to go further in debt until we are just like greece.
Stop spending THEN ask for a raise in your allowance.
Porold Bill --
Twas the Bushwa man who deregulated the mortgage markets and who allowed the securities industry stepped to sell asset backed securities based on home mortgages -- and AIG theoretically was insuring all the risk with Credit Default Swaps until .... it all came unraveled. Bushwa, Bushwa ... that little jug-eared monster stole 20 years of prosperity from his fellow Americans. And we're still cleaning it up. Meanwhile the Chinese are chortling all the way to the bank. There's a good argument to be made that America is now a debt-ridden third-world agricultural country (with nukes). Meanwhile, you still can't quite believe that asking the rich and the super rich to pay tax on their all their income, no matter form what source it derives, at the same rate paid by the middle class and the bottom half of the economic spectrum would at least be a good start on paying down the debt. Inflation at 20% might be a better option at this point. A tariff aimed at the Chinese and the Indians would be beneficial for restarting the American jobs machine. The big unanswered question about the health care mandate is: Where will the back office jobs live? Will the insurance companies be allowed to send them overseas? Anthem sent quite a lot of jobs to India despite Governor Bob's order not to do that. Anthem parked the jobs in Illinois for a while before sending them onward. No one really noticed. The bigger question might be, how much of their reserves will Anthem's Indian owners be able to park in uninsured Indian banks? If you don't see the danger of a huge heist, maybe you're blind.
And thank you, Geek. President Clinton was as master of the bond deal. Even Whitewater was a bond deal - gone somewhat awry, but ... still a bond deal. I haven't heard of those bondholders complaining much. Romney made $20 million on his investments last year. How much of his income total derives from overseas investments? How many jobs DID the Mittster - who is known around my house as "the Lying Mattress" actually send to China and India? Worked out pretty well for him, though -- didn't it? Looking out for Number One, I mean. We're living through the second Great Depression -- whose effects are only somewhat ameliorated by Social Security, Railroad Retirement, Medicare, and other "entitlement" programs - which, in total, contribute about 1/8 as much to the annual Feral deficit as tax cuts for the rich and the super rich and defense spending -- which is another reason the rich and the super rich are doing so well: they own the corporations that "fasten all the triggers for others to fire." War and oil are both very profitable businesses. There's very little wrong with the economy right now that cutting two dollars off the bloated price of a gallon of gasoline wouldn't fix in a heartbeat. War with Iran will mean gas at $6.00 or maybe as high as $10.00. It's time for sidewalks next to every country road in America. Alternatively, we could just borrow $100 trillion from the Chinese and then let the dollar inflate at 20% until repayment seemed feasible. You might love Alexander del Mar's book A History of Monetary Crimes is available online at the Hathi Trust. The best monetary crimes are ... always ... perfectly "legal." Maybe we can start asking the Chinese to export Fuller domes for us ... since we can't make them ourselves. You might review your notions of "mercantilist attack" by comparing the current importation of Heroin and Cocaine into America with the Opium Wars in the 19th Century.
First off, the mortgage crisis and the multi trillion dollar debt are two entirely different things... The mortgage crisis was caused by middle class americans biting off more than they could chew and choking on it. Those that did so are DIRECTLY responsible for the downturn because when they stopped spending money in retail stores those stores laid off people who could then not pay their mortgages, and then when they stopped spending, it all cascaded and the subsequent defaults caused the banking crisis. If these people had not lied on their loans then the artificail increases in housing prices would not have occured and people would have not spent so much money on JUNK and all the busineses would not have expanded with borrowed money. You can't blame that on George bush, he didn't force you to buy a BMW.
As for the debt.... it is only a burden now because we finally have to pay it back... while congress (both sides) were on a spending spree all those trillions went directly into the american economy and gave a false boost to the system. Now that we have reached an unacceptable amount of debt we need to sober up and cut spending. We need to go on a diet and look at every check the government writes to see if it makes sense. .
That is why the stimulus did not and will not work, the economy was already artificailly inflated by government trillions that should never have been spent.
We waste so much money that it is out of control. The rich do not have enough earnings to tax. Mitt Romney made 20 millionj last year. The government spends 20 million in less than 7 minutes.
If your job goes elswhere than that is life. Nothing lasts forever. Deal with it and prepare for it by having a transferable skill or build a nestegg so you can move or retian yourself for something else. perhaps you could get together with other unemployed people asnd stasrt your own business. (or perhaps thats too hard with all the regulations liberals have put in place)
You can always tell the anti-Republican posts by their condescending (elitist?) tone (Porold Bill, for example), their love of things like the WPA (you know, their god FDR), and their personal attacks like "jug-eared monster." I thought our current president was going ahead with shovel-ready jobs so we'd have a "sidewalk on every road."
Practically speaking, if I were a super-rich evil businessperson, and my government suddenly raised my taxes radically (sorry about that word), what would I do with my money? If I were a Second Amendment fanatic, and the feds suddenly pushed for citizen disarmament, what would I do? I'd horde, hide, move and render my precious assets inert. Taxes have long been initiated just as much to influence behavior as to fund the government.
There is a solution, but I doubt bringing the "super-rich Beelzebubs" into a new tax rate will magically make the deficit--or problems--disappear. Perhaps we could start by bringing the poor up to the 20 percent rate that Obama paid on his million dollars of income last year.
As Ozzy says, "I love you all!"
R.I.P.: Ray Bradbury
Right, let all the panhandlers pay income tax -- I'm with you on that. And the homeless. Get a life, Lace -- or at least a cogent point of view.
But actually, L*ace, from my point of view the entire world, and certainly all Americans would be better off if all Americans paid tax on their income at exactly the rate Romney Fils would pay under the Ryan plan 0.82%. Of course, most of the lower half of the economic spectrum pays a substantially higher percentage of their income than that already - in sales tax and licensing fees. "Soak the poor" doesn't work very well as a taxing strategy -- leads to revolution, they don't have much anyway -- and taxing the Rich and the Super Rich is an idea thoroughly discredited by their lobbyists, who encouraged Congress to give them what amount to "criminal" tax breaks justified by the flawed "creates jobs" theory that has caused our deficit to soar into the troposphere. Here's looking at you, kid ... **V**
Maybe we should just elect George Romney President for Life ??
"Tax the rich to feed the poor until there are no rich no more" - Alvin Lee, Ten Years After circa 1973
"The Taxes on the farmer feeds us all." - Woody Guthrie circa 1933
@Ponce -- this idea of yours is totally wrong: "gave a false boost to the system." No boost is false. You don't understand the trickle up power of circulating money. If anyone really wanted to pull the economy out of its current slump BEFORE THE ELECTION, it would be quite simple to "lend" every taxpayer $500 a month for the next year -- to be repaid over the next 20 years (collection to be handled by your favorite government agency, the IRS) ... this would handily fix the liquidity crisis at the bottom, and would stimulate demand enough to inspire some hiring of American workers. But since the Bush administration and the Mattress have managed to export our manufacturing capacity -- we might like to specify that the money must be spent on domestic manufactures or services. Right now THERE IS NO MONEY AT THE BOTTOM. The Middle is doing okay. The Extra Rich are doing as usual great -- in large part because they pay scarcely any taxes, compared to their secretaries. Romney won't let go of his tax returns until they are sanitized to hide the huge overseas investments -- a startling (and very damaging) bet against America.
@ Ponce -- Pluck the Rich (for a change) would be my best advice to all Americans.
@ Lace I see the Bandar-log will be out in force today, throwing dirt from their cages and repeating their favorite slogan: "We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true!" ... "read some books" might be a good idea.
christian how can you say with a straight face "Right now THERE IS NO MONEY AT THE BOTTOM."
What the hell do you call all the welfare programs like food stamps section 8 free school lunches, pell grants, free cell phones, medicaid, free job training bus passes, free access to government ameneities, taxpayer sudsidies to a zillion programs for the homeless, etc etc
Your idea of borrowing money from china to give every american 6k next year to be paid off over 20 years will not do any good other than to keep a few heads above water and add another 1.8 trillion in debt which is absure BECAUSE the government won't stop spending.
Now if you would like to loan all the people on welfare the money and make them pay it back instead of just giving to them that would be nice.. except for the fact that they are not interswted in looking for a job and certainly would be less interested if they knew the government was actually going to garnish it for what the wasted last year(or 19 years ago 20 years from now)
You still have not come up with a solution for the other 356 days (unless you call spending an extra 1.8 trilliion without cutting spending a solution.)
The top 20% pay 80% of the taxes.... so if you go out to dinner with 9 other people and the check is 100 dollars then the first couple throws down 80 bucks, the second two people throw down 15 bucks, one person kicks in 5 bucks and the other 5 get up and go home and complain about the government giving tax breaks to the rich....
Warren Buffet pays 120 times the amount of taxes as his secretary regardless of the "percentage" Does he get 120 times better police fire ambulance, library or military defense for his money? How much is enough for one man to pay... Personlly I think 12 MILLION dollars a year is more than enough for one old fat guy to have to cough up so lazy people can sit home in air conditioned apartments and cry about how hard life is. Warren buffet is 84 and still gets up and goes to work everyday.
THe only person stopping any indiviual from workiing in this country is the government with all its rules.
If you are hungry and can't feed your kids go knock on doors and offer to do ANYTHING legal to get them fed. rake some leaves, pick up sticks, wash a car, clean a toilet.
Americans will help Americans and the odds are that most people will let you work for two minutes and then feed you or pay you ten times what you asked just because you tried.
You can tax the rich and feed the poor and when there ain't no rich no more what are you gonna do?
Yep, new ideas are scary for people like you Bill. You're probably been listening to Rash Limbaugh demonize the people on welfare. They aren't really hogging the harvest, though -- we leave that to the rich folk who don't pay tax, on all their income, no matter from what source it derives, at the same rate paid by their secretaries. That's just simple fairness. Fifty years of tax breaks for the ultra rich have pretty much bankrupted American government. There's really no reason why the IRS can't issue advance refund checks -- $500 a month -- to any taxpayer who wants to take the money. This probably would cause some inflation. But -- more importantly -- it would jump start the economy by creating demand. Demand creates jobs. Right now there's no demand because the bottom half of the economy is just scraping by. You rich cats are doing very well, I guess. But maybe Mitt Romney, known around my house as "That Lying Mattress," thinks he's paying too much: because, under the budget Representative Ryan proposed, That Lying Mattress would pay 0.85% on his income of twenty million per annum -- much of which derives from overseas investments that created jobs in China and India. That those jobs used to live in America doesn't concern you. That Romney sent the jobs overseas and doesn't want anyone to see how many Americans he sold down the river seems only natural to you -- because you really don't want anyone to know that information either. Or do you? I don't like to assume I could ever guess what you'll be thinking next -- maybe you'd like to propose sending the poor Americans overseas to look for those jobs? I see the Bandar-log are out in force today: they all believe the rich should pay tax at a lower rate than the poor pay. That point of view is faded, and jaded. It's a cynical attack on the notion that all men are created equal. If you actually believe that asking the rich to pay tax at the same rate as their secretaries "won't make any difference" then ... why are you struggling so hard against the notion? seems silly to me ....
christian .... when are you going to address the 356 day question? Is it because despite your hatred for people who possess more than you the income that could be derived from them won't cover more than 8 days... and even if you doubled that it would only cover 16 days?
You completely IGNORED the FACT that Warren Buffet pays 120 times as much MONEY into the tax system as his secretary..... the government cannot pay its bills with percentages... and the rates are all twisted to look like they don't pay taxes because of people like you who think the definition of "fair share" is more than 120 times more than your secretary.
You obviously think that Obama getting 5 million from Buffet and spending it on a bridge to nowhere or some more food stamps for fat people will do more for americas future than whatever Warren Buffet would do with it by investing it in the economy.
You continue to ignore the fact that if the rich divested itself of assets so that instead of the top 10 percent controlling 80 percent of the wealth 30 perecent controlled it, the bottom half would still pay 4 bucks for a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas... It makes NO DIFFERENCE who owns the stock in wal mart. The price is set by the consumers ability to pay... (which sort of tosses your whole lets lets not create jobs because we hate anybody but us theory) It is in the riches interest to have people working. look at how much they made when the unemployment rate was 5.5% (under bush... whoops)
You really are just coming off as a frustrated underachiever who thought he was going to get a trophy just for showing up. Life doesn't work that way.
You can hate the rich but the simple fact of the matter is as long as Obama is in office they will not put their money at risk because he is the one dealing the cards from the bottom of the deck. Ask the preferred bondholders at GM who had thier collateral confiscated and given to the Union in exchange for votes.
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2012/07/26/obamas-general-motors-bailout-stil...
If you want america to start growing again than encourage the government to slow down spending (including the pentagon)and make sure regulations are not too burdensome on not only busineses but the consumer. (example: Tire pressure monitors are now required on all cars... they estimate to save mileage by as much as 5% so if you spend 2000 bucks a year they will save you 100 bucks a year or 300 bucks for every set of tires..(give or take) . so the next time you go to get a set iof tires installed look at how much they now cost to mount because they have TPMS sensors .. mount and balance was 8-12 bucks per tire now it is 40-80 bucks per tire and if a sensor breaks it is 120 bucks PER SENSOR and tire stores do not guarantee they won't break because they are flimsy. So now it can cost up to 600 dollars more per set of tires to save 300 bucks on fuel. (and that assumes that nothing goes wrong with the tpms computer in the dash and that we ignore the 300 bucks that the required system added to the price of the car in the first place)
So to extrapilate further.... when a poor persons car fails inspection because it has a bad TPMS sensor or computer... but the car drives fine... will the Government (a) let the poor person check their own tire pressure, (b) require they get it fixed and not buy their kid school clothes or (c) will they tax the rich and give out "obamacar" subsidies for those below the povery line?
The rich are not the enemy.... Congress giving everyone who asks 50% of what they want (which is still twice what they really need)so everybody always feel cheated and comes back for more is the problem... The government is not santa claus and a democratic republic does not mean those with wealth have to pay tribute any more than it means we can enslave those who contribute nothing.
The answer is on the spending side first... than we can talk about the revenue side. Fix the foxhole in the henhouse before you refill it with more chickens....
@ Bill Marshall - Well said
Here is another example of Obamas malfeasance..
He runs around the country claiming saving GM was a success...
Here are some facts...
http://news.investors.com/article/622168/201208141740/gm-costs-taxpayers...
@ BM -- how many jobs has Mitt Romney sent to China? Or India? I remind you under the Ryan plan for America's future, Romney would pay a tax rate of ... is it really .082% on his income of "around" $20 million? Which is all you really need to know -- right?
1) mitt romney stated TODAY that he paid taxes each and every year for the last ten years and never paid less than 13%. If you add back in his charitable contributions it rises to 20%. So he paid about 26 million dollars in taxes in the last decade... But I guess thats still not enough for you.
2) Your .082 percent is a liberal twist on a reasonable proposal. Anyone with a lick of sense knows it is a fabrication. ( but if it WERE true and we rounded it down to zero for arguments sake the romney would be paying the same" rate" as EVERYBODY on welfare. So I guess that would be fair right?
3) Overseas jobs are a chicken and egg argument. Does an employer move jobs overseas to stay profitable or does he wait until the overseas products come here and put him out of business because the price of the products is too low to meet using amrican labor and regulations.? We live in a global world. Get used to it.
"The mortgage crisis was caused by middle class americans biting off more than they could chew"
Oh, now that's the game. Before it was ll the poor people taking the liar loans. Only...that didn't float. Turns out the banks were being pretty darn dishonest, and those weren't Freddie Fannie loans either.
Hey, in a true free market, it isn't just the borrower. It's the lender.
No. It was the flippers and their financiers, and the jerks who floated derivative after derivative on another derivative, and wall street selling investors crap. It isn't a one way street pal, and like the whole S&L scandal, you'll always find some chiseling I hate regulations creep pushing it along. Why, the one fishie who got away is peddling his stuff right in Cville paying garbage wages. One that did time is now one of those motivating factors behind so called private education chiseling students, that was behind the whole UIVA oust Sullivan scandal.
But you will just keep buying it. It's always the fault of the average schmoe who honestly goes to work every day. You do realize that bankers lie more than politicians right?
Read these for more information:
Alexander del Mar, A History of Monetary Crimes;
Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super Rich. The first tracks some of the more startling monetary crimes in history -- currency rackets that diminished the prosperity of the people. The second tracks America's history of tax breaks for the rich and the super rich -- a racket that diminished AND CONTINUES TO DIMINISH -- the prosperity of the people. Romney, known around my house as That Lying Mattress, won't show off his tax returns because until recently he was heavily invested in the same companies that offshored or exported millions of American jobs. You might see my post on The Secret King at www.novelismo.blogspot.com. And don't forget that the monarchists were a majority even during the American Revolution. Cheat the People is the motto of the lying Mittster -- "and tell them it's for their own good."
@Geek and Christian - There a lot of people lying and scheming and conspiring against you aren't there?
Nobody forced anybody to buy a house, a big screen tv or a brand new car....
Blaming a banker for loaning you money don't qualify for is like blaming the car salesmen for convincing you you would look good in a convertible and blaming budweiser because when you downed a 24 pack supermodels didn't flock around you like on TV.
If people had taken advantage of the free education they were given at school they would have known better. Trying to pay a 2500 dollar mortgage payment when you take home 2600 dollars a month is not rocket science.
Why does everyone want the government to make it so that RESPONSIBL people have to jump through eight thousand hoops because IRRESPONSIBLE poeple don't want to do basic math?. This was not "fine print" This was utter stupidity compounded by selfishness which extrapilated into kaos for those that were smart enough not to spend three times what they make.
We used to have a rule of thumb on this... LET THE BUYER BEWARE.
I have no problems prosecuting the bankers for fraud for conspiring with people to defraud the lenders and investors. Send em to jail. BUT if you lost your house because you thought it was going to double in value AGAIN in a few years then you deserve the loss like any other IGNORANT investor. Everybody acts as if this was a surprise. It was not. There were books written on the upcomong crisis and a lot of peole bet the other way.
I am not against regulations, I am against over regulation that chokes the economy so we can make sure some idiot doesn't ever make a bad financial decision. Everybody on the playground shouldn't have to wear a helmet on the slide because your kid is not smart enough to go down the slide feet first.
Stop whining and build a better mousetrap.
@ Wog - No one is conspiring against me. But, conspiring to plunder the public purse and get off scot free as to paying their fair share of taxes, yes -- plenty of people are doing that. Let the rich and the super rich pay tax on their incomes at the same rate the middle class pays. Clearly, you ain't yet actually read any of del Mar's History of Monetary Crimes. You can find his analysis of the Greenback Bonds Scandal at Alderman. Though you seem disinterested, it's worth nothing that del Mar's History of Monetary Crimes is online at the Hathi Trust:
http://babel.hathitrust.or/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3241866;size=125;view=image;pa...
And you might like to augment your previous understanding of some common elements of government corruption demonstrated from the earliest days of the republic by reading Yazoo: Law and Politics in the New Republic: The case of Fletcher v. Peck by Peter Magrath. To start understanding currency wars in the context of mercantilist attack, try Wool, Cloth and Gold by John H.A. Munro. A little information about the history of money, wealth and political corruption might help give you a better-informed perspective in your efforts to sort out some of the issues in contemporary politics.
I thought you were the on this thread complaining about the lying and scheming poor WOG. All those SS cheats stealing money for their ADHD kids right?
Yes, there was a lot of lying and scheming going on in the mortgage scandal, only it wasn't necessarily the schmoe getting the loan when they had the actual income. Sure, I know people that I sat down with and warned about what they were signing onto, and they shouldn't have. But to this day, the most bankruptsies are caused by medical issues not the middle class biting off more than they can choose.
I suggest you read Liar's Poker, so you get an good isight into the mentality of traders on Wall Street and the damage many of them are happy to do the financial system. Thee is a reason between the start and end of Glass-Steagall this country had no financial crises.
@Geek -- you gotta read del Mar's History of Monetary Crimes.
@Bill Marshall -- are you now claiming that some of the bankers and assorted "financiers" who got rich of selling tranches of CDOs and caused the American economy to spiral into its current slightly improving pit of gloom -- you're telling me some of them actually WENT TO JAIL? Can you name a few names for me, please? And indicate the jail time they got for so pluckily plundering the public purse?
I have zero problems prosecuting the fraud...Perhaps if Obama had done that instead of shoving Obamacare down americas throat we would be on our way to recovery. Legitamate businessmen need protection from the crooks too because they steal customers away with false promises. BUT legitamte businesssmen need the ability to function in the marketplace without over burdensome regulations that have to be put in place because people are too lazy to read the fine print and too selfish to save instead of spend.
The government provides everyone with a free education in a heated and air conditioned classroom, If you choose to not take advantage of it then you are reaping what you sow and getting taken to the cleaneres is mother natures way of saying "I told you so"
regulation in moderations causes very few complications in almost all situations
by the way Christian.... when are you going to address the other 356 days?