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You guys are right, the Bush administration sucks! Look at what he's done now. (pg. 4)
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| Shakka |
| I'm sure the minute your idea gets a legitimate backing, the other side will chime up and say it's simply too expensive to undertake a project like that and the cons would outweigh the pros. Not saying I agree or disagree, just that we live in a country where nothing ever gets done to completion unless there's a minor miracle invovled! |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| Shakka, what do you mean by your last post? Do you mean that nothing ever gets done unless there is a real reason behind it? Clarify. |
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| Shakka |
I mean we live in a country where dirty, selfish politicians control most of the decisions and legislature that ever gets passed in this country. They are selfish and greedy, and exist solely to sell themselves out to their constituents to garner their vote so that they may spend another 2 or 6 year term to merrily waste more taxpayer money wasting time and building statues simply to garner more votes for their next whoring out term. They are perpetually in a state of gridlock, and when a majority does exist, there's rarely an even bigger supermajority to stop a fillibuster.
Whether or not there is a real reason behind something or not is generally irrelevant to the function of our congress unless it's something monumental like what happened after Sept. 11. Important things rarely get done successfully because the system is flawed because the foundation is built on greed and selfishness.
Which is why term limits on Congress would probably not be a bad thing as it would at least curb some of the greed. |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| Definitely agree with you Shakka! |
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| LiquidX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Dj_Irish
^^^^Wouldn't it actually be a lot more expensive for the US government to turn all those illegal immigrants into legal ones? I mean, suddenly this huge group of people would have to have the same social benefits as averybody else and they would also have the right to earn at least minimum wage for whatever work they are doing. Keeping them illegal is keeping them cheap as far as labour and costs for the society goes. |
Not at all, because every imigrant will pay a fine, those will be millions of dollars for the US, and yes, lots of people will have the same benefits, but they will pay also, they will buy more supplies, they will consume more, and actually become more educated and have that opportunity, instead of leaving them on poverty and cause more poverty and have the gov't pay for their free education. So basically, if they become legal, they will actually pay for the taxes and stuff. And keeping them illegal for cheap labour cost sounds to me more like exploding them.. he, they can be better then working on that he hehe.. |
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| trintiy |
| Dj_Irish I do have an answer for you and I fully intend to reply to your post, it's just really hectic around my home at the moment, and I don't have the time to give a thought out rebuttal. |
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| Dj_Irish |
| quote: | Originally posted by trintiy
Dj_Irish I do have an answer for you and I fully intend to reply to your post, it's just really hectic around my home at the moment, and I don't have the time to give a thought out rebuttal. |
It's ok bro. I'd prefer a thought out rebutal anytime over some quick shallow agreement, no matter how long it may take to get it up :) |
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| trintiy |
Ok, I by no means am a Federal tax expert, but hopefully this will answer many of your questions. I’ve tried to summarize many points here so if something needs further explnation just ask. Also I did not copy this from any right wing pro-Bush media paper.
Here’s what’s currently happening to Bush’s tax cut plan. If you want to derail a tax-cutting plan, just tell the public that it’s nothing more than a "rich get richer" scheme; support for the plan will dry up in a hurry. The rich make for an easy target on this one: It’s not hard for crafty critics to present just about any proposed tax cut as a prize to the wealthy. What’s lost in all the fuss is the larger truth: Excessive taxes hurt everyone – the rich, the poor, the in-between.
To not cut taxes is the same as raising them. It’s true. Without periodic cuts, our income taxes are being raised all the time. Here’s how.
The U.S. uses a progressive tax system. The more money you make, the greater portion of it you must pay in taxes. Right now we’ve got five rates: 15%, 28%, 31%, 36%, and 39.6%. These rates are assigned to income brackets. For example, if you’re single and your taxable income is under $26,250, you pay 15% of that in tax. If your taxable income is above that, but under $63,550, you pay the 15% on the $26,250 and 28% on the rest. (The remaining rates for single people kick in at $63,550, then $132,600, then $288,350, respectively.)
The good news is that you don’t have to pay your bracket’s rate on all your taxable income – just on the portion that falls within that bracket. The bad news is that it’s possible to get pushed into a higher bracket than last year, even though you’re making less money.
| quote: | | According to something I read here, the tax cut doesn't really help low-income families at all. You could even say they get hurt by it. This according to the article, and I cite "According to data from the Tax Policy Center, the bottom fifth of households will receive tax cuts from the legislation that average just $1 in 2003, while the next-to-bottom fifth will receive tax cuts averaging $38. This contrasts with the average tax cut of $93,500 that will go to people with incomes of more than $1 million." |
It’s called bracket creep, this is what they’ve manipulate to prove the point in the article you read. If you get a five percent raise in a year that inflation was 7%, you’re actually making two percent less money in terms of what you can buy with it. That’s because the cost of everything – food, gasoline, housing and so on – rose faster than your income. If the raise puts you into a higher bracket, you’ll pay more in taxes, even though you’re poorer than you were before. Every year, millions of Americans find themselves in this very condition, pushed into a higher bracket through no fault of their own.
This effect is cumulative. If over several years your income rises but inflation rises faster, your declining condition will nonetheless look like increasing wealth to Uncle Sam, who will push you into a higher bracket and take an even larger portion of your smaller stack of cash.
Most people fail to understand how this sneaky problem works. So they don’t find it the least bit strange when someone in government demands raising the minimum wage to keep up with inflation, then in the next breath argue against making a similar adjustment to taxes. For those bent on expanding government services, bracket creep is a wonderful thing: They get an increase in tax revenues every year without ever having to say those ugly words, "tax hike." It’s automatic, thanks to inflation.
Because no cut at all is the same as a tax hike, the only fair solution to taxpayers is to periodically lower the rates or raise the tax brackets to compensate for inflation. In other words, to cut taxes. Yes, some rich people will benefit from such an adjustment. But because everyone is in one bracket or another, all taxpayers benefit – including those who are rich only according to an out-of-date tax table.
Here’s another idea tax-cut critics love to blame on the rich: cutting corporate taxes (which is what Bush’s bill does). If you lower the tax on corporate profits, won’t they just pocket all the savings?
Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not that simple. Like every other cost of doing business, a corporation’s tax bill is passed on to its customers in higher prices, its employees in lower wages, or its shareholders in lower value. And who are those shareholders? Since about half of all Americans now own stock in some form, either directly or through a mutual fund or retirement plan, it’s us. In the end, humans pay taxes, not corporate entities. Rich people who own lots of stock pay a large share of those corporate taxes, and will therefore benefit from a cut. But so will everyday consumers, employees and other investors. When critics of such a cut claim that it’s just a bonus to the rich, well … they’re lying to us.
For eroding support of a tax cut, nothing is more effective than convincing people that such a cut will allow the rich to get away with paying less than their "fair share." Ironically, no argument is further from the truth than this one.
It’s true that the rich are most likely to benefit from a tax cut, but that’s because they already pay the lion’s share of taxes in this country. Indeed, they pay so much more than their fair share that it’s pretty hard to assemble a tax cut plan that doesn’t benefit them. Here’s some proof from the IRS records of the 1998 tax year, the most recent set of complete figures I could find:
The richest one percent of Americans made 18% of the income, yet paid nearly 35% of the income tax. To say it another way, a third of all the income tax paid that year came from people who paid nearly twice their "fair share." By the way, you were among them if your adjusted gross income (AGI) in 1998 was above about $269,000.
The richest five percent, with an AGI above $171,000, paid 54% of the income tax, yet made only a third of the money. And the richest 10 percent (AGI above $83,000), paid two thirds of the income tax, yet made 44% of the money.
No matter how you slice it, the rich pay way more than their fair share. Think of it this way: Everyone below the top 10 percent – that’s the vast majority of our fellow citizens – make over half the money in this country, yet we have to pay just a third of the income tax that funds our federal government. I’d call that a bargain. A bargain, at least, if you’re not among the rich. If the wealthy – they’re the ones getting the short end of this deal – would like us to consider a fairer split, I don’t blame them. |
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| Shakka |
I'm sure many of you have seen this email that circulated a while ago. Nobody benefits when they're only concerned with "keeping up with the Jones'" America is about equality of opportunity, not equality of income/outcome.
If you think the tax cut plan is unfair, read this
rebuttal/analogy that appeared in the Sunday, March 4
Chicago Tribune. By the way, the ratios are roughly
accurate; 10% of the taxpayers pay about 60% of the
taxes collected, 30% pay 37%, and 60% collectively pay
only 4%.
Every night, 10 men met at a restaurant for dinner. At
the end of every meal, the bill would arrive; they
owed $100 for the food that they shared.
Every night they lined up in the same order at the
cash register to pay the bill.
The first four men paid nothing at all. The fifth,
grumbling about the unfairness of the situation, paid
$1. The sixth man, feeling a little put out, paid $3.
The next three men paid $7, $12 and $18, respectively.
The last man was required to pay the remaining
balance, $59; he realized he was paying for not only
his own meal but the unpaid balance left by the first
five men.
The 10 men were quite settled into their routine when
the restaurant threw them into chaos by announcing
that it was cutting its prices.
Now dinner for the 10 men would only cost $80. This
clearly would not affect the first four men; they
still ate for free. The fifth man announced he
would now pay nothing either. The sixth man lowered
his contribution by 1/3, and paid only $2. The seventh
man deducted $2 from his usual payment
and paid only $5. The eighth man paid $9 instead of
his usual $12. The ninth man paid $12, $6 less than
before. This left the last man with a bill of $52.
Outside of the restaurant, the men began to compare
their savings, and angry outbursts began to erupt. The
sixth man yelled: "I got only $1 out of the $20 in
cost reduction, and he got $7," pointing at the last
man.
The fifth man joined in: "Yeah! I only saved $1 too.
It is unfair that he got seven times more than me."
The seventh man cried, "Why should he get a
reduction of $7 when I only got $2?"
The nine men formed an outraged mob, surrounding the
10th man. The first four men followed the lead of the
others: "Even though we weren't paying anything in the
first place, we didn't get any of the $20 reduction
in cost; where is our share?"
The nine angry men then carried the 10th man up to the
top of a hill and lynched him. The next night, the
nine remaining men met at the restaurant for dinner.
But when the bill came, there was no one to pay it |
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| occrider |
That was a great analysis of the IRS's taxing system trinity. I must admit my tax knowledge has been embarrasingly lacking. Despite my beliefs that tax cuts can be an effective tool for fiscal policy (they worked in 2001), I don't think that it's the right fiscal tool to resolve this economy at this time. Consumer confidence has been on the rise, and I anticipate that consumer spending will soon follow. What I see as a major problem right now is rising unemployment, and to resolve this I think that government spending to create jobs is most appropriate.
Shakka raised a valid point of crowding out investment, however, I don't think that we are anywhere near a situation where investment is being crowded out due to a drop in the money supply. As such I don't foresee government spending raising interest rates anytime in the near future.
At any rate I guess I wasn't so critical of the tax cut as I was critical of one specific aspect of the cut. I was concerned about the child tax credit that was not being applied to lower income families yet it was for higher income brackets. HOwever, it looks like congress will address this issue and apply the changes to lower income familiies as well.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS...edit/index.html |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
That was a great analysis of the IRS's taxing system trinity. I must admit my tax knowledge has been embarrasingly lacking. Despite my beliefs that tax cuts can be an effective tool for fiscal policy (they worked in 2001), I don't think that it's the right fiscal tool to resolve this economy at this time. Consumer confidence has been on the rise, and I anticipate that consumer spending will soon follow. What I see as a major problem right now is rising unemployment, and to resolve this I think that government spending to create jobs is most appropriate.
Shakka raised a valid point of crowding out investment, however, I don't think that we are anywhere near a situation where investment is being crowded out due to a drop in the money supply. As such I don't foresee government spending raising interest rates anytime in the near future.
At any rate I guess I wasn't so critical of the tax cut as I was critical of one specific aspect of the cut. I was concerned about the child tax credit that was not being applied to lower income families yet it was for higher income brackets. HOwever, it looks like congress will address this issue and apply the changes to lower income familiies as well.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS...edit/index.html |
I guess my biggest fault with this argument is your assumption about consumer spending. Consumers have spent themselves into record levels of debt already and the only thing supporting them has been cash out refinancing of mortgages--which is going to hit a wall before long. With unemployment still on the rise, how can you count on an already heavily leveraged/burdened consumer to prop up a weak economy? We do NEED a tax cut. The deficit isn't a short term concern, it'll get worked out as long as we don't completely forget about it, and believe me, it won't be forgotten(not that it's as major as some people try to make it). Our government is not going out of business anytime soon. If politicians were sincerely concerned with budget deficits they'd learn to reign in their senseless spending. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
I guess my biggest fault with this argument is your assumption about consumer spending. Consumers have spent themselves into record levels of debt already and the only thing supporting them has been cash out refinancing of mortgages--which is going to hit a wall before long. With unemployment still on the rise, how can you count on an already heavily leveraged/burdened consumer to prop up a weak economy? We do NEED a tax cut. The deficit isn't a short term concern, it'll get worked out as long as we don't completely forget about it, and believe me, it won't be forgotten(not that it's as major as some people try to make it). Our government is not going out of business anytime soon. If politicians were sincerely concerned with budget deficits they'd learn to reign in their senseless spending. |
Well, let me refer to my favorite source when it comes to economics :), according to the bureau of economic analysis, disposable income has actually been increasing at a healthy rate of around 2% unlike Q4 of 2001 when it was stagnant.
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/gdp103p.htm
So I don't know if the debt/equity ratio is as bad as you indicate. I think that one reason why most Americans are refinancing mortgages is because interest rates are so low. It would be silly not to buy a home or refinance right now.
But assuming that your portrayal of the finances of most americans is accurate, what happens a few months from now when the proceeds from the tax cut are spent and Americans are once again confronted with debt that inhibits spending? |
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