The stock market means nothing to most people's quality of life, none of my home buyers have had any problem getting their loans (zero money down, 5% fixed with a 620 credit score), unemployment is about the same as when Bush left office, housing values have corrected to their true value so people are buying them again, Crooked banks are wisely being allowed to fail, poorly run businesses are folding and making room for wiser businessmen, Iraq is still a devastated hellhole of death and misery that will stain America's image for decades to come (thanks to Bush whom Obama opposed), and the myth about ammo supplies being somehow short is nothing but a national sales campaign with no actual shortage anywhere that I know of. I just stocked up for hunting season and having inherited my Dad's guns last year I ended up buying 30.06, .338 magnum, 12 ga., 20 ga., 410 ga., .22 short, .22 long rifle and .30-.30 ammo. Oh, and some arrows for my crossbow. One-stop shopping at Bi-Mart. All in all, things are looking pretty good and it appears that the economy is heading in the right direction after years of abuse by mental midgets.
From your link: So if you took all the money (it's actually wealth, a different thing) from those 400 people, it'd pay the deficit for a year, and then everyone will be poor. On our way to the 3rd world.
Uh no... those 400 people would be poor. On the radio this morning I heard that the top 1% of the people in US make 50% of the money. I just don't get why so many Republican's want low taxes for the rich... I guess they buy into the trickle down stuff. The don't even pay *equal* taxes based on rate. When one of the richest people in US (Warren Buffett) says the sytem benefits him too much... I believe it. So let me get this right... we should extend the Bush tax cuts? And we should do this to benefit the economy, even though one of the few ultra rich says it is hurting the economy? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece
I'm not generally a fan of the big corporations, but... Corporations (and other entities like LLCs) in general provide liability protection. Without them, you and I would not likely want to become business partners because you might default on your home loan and your bank would come after me as your partner. Now consider that you and I want to innovate with some new kind of business. But it takes far more money that you and I can contribute. How do you go about raising the money needed? Say we need $10M to fund the business. Are we going to raise $10 each from $1M investors? That would make us a publicly traded company by SEC rules, and a whole lot of our focus would be on financial issues not related to our innovation. Plus I don't see any way to take a startup company public right away, without a few years of audited financial statements. Or wouldn't it be easier to raise $10M from one investor, or $2.5M each from four? (The latter, I say). If you don't have people with the $2.5M to invest, our innovation is in fact stifled. Notice that Buffett talks about wealth. It is not the same thing as income. A guy like Bill Gates made $500K in salary running Microsoft for most of the years that company was growing into a powerhouse and was already making $billions in sales. His WEALTH was on paper, in the form of stock certificates that weren't cashed in. I think your top 1% figure is off by a bit. The top 20% of the people own 50% of the wealth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States The top 5% of income earners makes $157K or more.
This link says top 1% in wealth own as much as bottom 95%... perhaps the radio said wealth and not income... but Buffet did mention taxes which is based on income and not wealth. http://www.socialvibes.net/HTMLarticles/IncomeRankAmerica.html (no idea where the info behind this site came from because it doesn't list references and really doesn't look all that reputable)
Since every candidate, at least everyone who wins an election, pledges to "follow the Constitution" and since a lot of them support forcing every woman to carry every pregnancy to term under every circumstance, which could only happen if every pregnancy was monitored, I'm not reassured. And if you follow the Constitution as originally written, Miss O'Donnell could not run for office. Or vote. In fact, we would not elect Senators at all, and oddly enough that's one of the Amendments many "Tea Partiers" want to eliminate from the document they profess to love so much (along with no religious test, and birth citizenship, and the right of Congress to levy taxes).
Income tax as a % of the national income (GDP) fluctuates between 8% and 10% over time. Top 20% pay more share of the taxes than the remaining 80% combined. That top 1% seem to be paying for half of everyone else's government services.
Again... that makes sense if their income has gone up and the lower incomes have not... which is exactly what we have seen recently... rich are getting richer... poor are getting poorer. They may be paying 99% of the taxes pretty soon. =)
As far as I'm concerned, the rich should be the only ones paying taxes... but... The trend towards the rich paying more % of the taxes might really be because when they lower the tax rates across the board, the people at the bottom end of the pay scale end up not having to pay any tax anymore.
Enabling him to avoid paying taxes on nearly ALL of what is actually his total income. Kinda like hiding it under his mattress.
Wait a second. Who the hell are you and what have you done with Denny Crane!?! Seriously now, that is in sharp contrast to any post you've ever made about taxation.
Exactly. They're getting a (nearly) free ride. They should be paying 99% of "everyone else's" government services. Who made them rich? "Everyone else".
If you buy a house for $100K, and over the next few years it increases in value to $500K, should you pay taxes on the $400K you've not realized? What happens when you've paid taxes on that $400K and the value decreases back to $100K. Hint: you've realized no gain, but paid taxes on some mythical "income" that was never income.
It's not inconsistent with any posts I've ever made. I'll try to be clear so you understand me. Cutting tax rates means more people at the bottom end do not have to pay any taxes at all. In fact, many end up getting a negative income tax, or a refund check. There's no reason to be unfair about cutting taxes by excluding some. Everyone should get a tax cut. Everyone should pay less, and govt. should be WAY smaller and live within its means. When they cut taxes across the board, they cut the upper tax rate from 39% to 36%, or about 10%. They cut the lower tax rate from 20% to 10% or by about 50%. At least the tax cuts are progressive.
