No rightwing blog - ABC News - look at these new taxes

[Frank Broughton]

Obama's Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...-budget-a.html

[Pawel Kowalski]

If you're making over $250,000 a year I really can't feel sorry that your taxes will be raised.

[Pawel Kowalski]

You might also like this story from 2002 Frank:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in325985.shtml

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Minnery, a former Marine turned whistle-blower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency's balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records.

"The director looked at me and said 'Why do you care about this stuff?' It took me aback, you know? My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job," said Minnery.

$1 trillion dollars to help americans makes your head explode, 2.3 trillion pissed away by the pentagon and not a peep. I guess the blogs you read forgot to mention this story.

[Ron]

Gee, maybe if we reined in misappropriations by all areas of government we wouldn't have to raise taxes on anyone.

Hey Pawel, let me ask you this... do you think it would be right for someone on the public dole to say: "If you're making $30,000 a year, I really can't feel sorry that your taxes will be raised."

It's all a matter of perception.

My acquaintance who has been driving around in his Lincoln Town Car (just traded in for a brand new Ford Fusion... he's downsizing to save on gas) while living in his $400,000 house (with a $40,000 mortgage) while getting government paid-for health care (we have universal health care in this commonwealth) while getting his Earned Income Tax Credit for those kids, just got an EITC tax credit increase for one of them, and since the other JUST started college, and the younger will next year, he gets another $20,000 in college tuition tax credits over the next 5 years.

He is complaining that he might not be eligible for a mortgage modification.

He lies around the house, works when he wants/needs to.

This all sound fair to you? Just wondering what your limit is. How much more should they get? Does he have the right to be de-facto retired at 50ish on the public's back and force the rest of us to pay for him and his kids? I mean, if we're gonna have the "to those according to their needs" part, doesn't the requirement of the "from those according to their abilities" also apply?

[Pawel Kowalski]

If you are making 30,000 a year you probably are living pay check to pay check. I can't take comparing 30,000 a year to 250,000 a year seriously.

There will always be small exceptions that abuse the system or get hurt by the system. Nothing you can do to change that. But overall if you are making $250K a year or more as a general rule of thumb you will be just fine if your taxes go back up to what they were under Clinton. The economy sucks, we are all pretty screwed right now, the rich had their free ride for at least the last 8 years now we will all have to pay for it. I'm paying for it by just today having my pay cut 10% and my weekly hours cut while the guy making 250K a year or more will have to pay for it in higher taxes. I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is.

My point with the pentagon article is that the goverment pisses away money all the time and we never hear these so called fiscal conservatives doing anything about it. But as soon as you start talking about investing billions in to job programs because of the mess they helped create with their bankrupt policies their heads explode. Ron, you're a smart guy, maybe you can explain to me why that is? Because I sure as hell can't figure it out.

[Ron]

To start off, I'm not comparing 30,000 to 250,000. I'm trying to get you to understand that someone who earns nothing thinks that 30,000 is a LOT of money. Me included. I remember have a conversation with a guy when I was 18 and he said he needed to make 600 a week (which is almost exactly 30,000). I was stunned that he needed so much money and surprised that he thought he could earn that much doing the job we were doing (he didn't).

Secondly, my example is NOT and I can't possibly stress this point enough, it is NOT an uncommon occurrence at all. It is not even an abuse of the system!!! It is perfectly OK with the way things are set up. I ASK YOU ONE MORE FLOCKING TIME... DO YOU THINK IT IS OK FOR SOMEONE WITH SUBSTANTIAL ASSETS TO BE LIVING OFF THE BACKS OF EVERYONE ELSE???

At just 250,000, people are already paying a shipload of income taxes, likely more than you earn per year. Couples with and PAYING FOR a family and PAYING for health care and PAYING FOR a large house that they bought and are diligently PAYING off a huge mortgage and actually PAYING for $200,000 college educations (no help for the "wealthy", right?) would like to have a life too, you know.

I heard your assertion that people making more than 250,000 should be just fine in the previous post. Repeating that doesn't make it any more authoritarian.

I'm truly sorry your pay is down 10%; my income is down substantially as well, but that doesn't make me wish to confiscate more from those who are the most productive members of our society. People who have spent many years paying for and accomplishing high levels of education, paying their dues in years and years of hard work laying the foundation to get to the point where they are at, to have some lazy SOBs sit on their butts and leech off of them.

As for the rich (top 5%) having a "free ride", their stocks have lost 50% of their value, their homes are down 30%, their bonuses have been slashed or eliminated and the top 5% have paid more than 60% of all of the income taxes paid during this period. Some free ride.



PS I got news for ya -- $30,000 puts you in the top 50%, $60,000 in the top 25%.

In fact in 2006 (last figures available), about 4 million returns had incomes above 200,000 out of a total of 93 million for about 4.37% of all returns. That 4.3% paid $544Billion out of the 1.024 Trillion collected in taxes. 53%. People earning over $100,000 already pay 74% of all income taxes. That's going to go up even more as rates are increased on the top and 150 billion dollar "stimulus payments" and tax breaks and cuts go to the bottom. Do you realize that the 360 billion dollars in tax cuts are mostly offsetting the less-than 500 billion the bottom 96 percent are paying??????? Why not just increase the taxes of those over $100,000 by a third and anyone making under a 100 grand, about 90% of all Americans can pay 0???

All the returns with incomes up to $40,000 (42% of all returns) pay a grand total of 5.2% of income taxes. That's 40 grand of ADJUSTED gross income, after their (standard or itemized) deductions and exemptions.

Source: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/06in32tt.xls


Look, you have a really bad habit of completely ignoring questions posed to you. I asked:

This all sound fair to you? Unanswered.

Just wondering what your limit is. How much more should they get? Unanswered.

Does he have the right to be de-facto retired at 50ish on the public's back and force the rest of us to pay for him and his kids? Unanswered.

I mean, if we're gonna have the "to those according to their needs" part, doesn't the requirement of the "from those according to their abilities" also apply? Unanswered.

Until you start to participate in a conversation it is pointless for me to continue to reply to anything you write.

[jason]

Who are the people pumping the most money back into out economy under normal circumstances--the people making $30k a year or the people making $250k a year?

When costs go up, whether it be because of a weakened dollar, poor supply, increased taxes, or even fears of any of the above, discretionary spending goes down. Whether you make $30k or $250k, you have a certain lifestyle that you are accustomed to living and whenever something threatens that lifestyle the natural response is to shore up spending to have the least impact on it. Maybe that means going a few extra years before buying the new car. Maybe that means not investing in that new business venture. Maybe that means cutting back on gifts at the holidays. No matter how big or small these cutbacks are, they all mean less money is being put back into the economy, which means less money will be there to find its way into our pockets.

Pawel, I'm sorry that you're facing a pay cut. I wouldn't wish such a thing on even my biggest enemy. Regardless of how our economy got screwed up, it did, and because of that spending is down across the board. Raising taxes on those that already pay most of the taxes, however, is just going to freeze up spending even more than it already is and that's going to trickle down to all of us in the form of lower wages, higher prices, and fewer jobs.

--Jason

[Spathiphyllum]

Pragmatically, we can look at this redistribution in all sorts of manner. Politics will be played whatever the direction. I, of course, believe our expansive government routinely restricts our freedom by moving wealth discriminately and without legitimacy even if they set the rules of what defines "fair" and legitimate.

However, I think this boils down to something much simpler and baser. Did those with assets earn their money illegitimately, i.e. did they partake in crooked activity or violate the letter or spirit of law to acquire more, if not significantly more, than others under the same economic system? If not, then those who wish to even the field are just envious and are willing to punish others via state-sanctioned confiscation to rationalize their own shortcomings.

How arbitrary the definition of wealth can be. That politicians so willfully move those goalposts to accommodate their professional advancement or stature does not absolve us as individuals of this "sin" of envy.

[thecoalman]

At just 250,000, people are already paying a shipload of income taxes, likely more than you earn per year.

An interesting number I came across while researching Exxon profits was they pay more in income tax in one year than the bottom 50% of returns combined. That's eye opening. If I remember correctly in 2007 they paid $30 billion on $70billion net profit before taxes.

[Pawel Kowalski]

...

Ron, did you just accuse me of not answering your points while completely ignoring a lot of what I had to say? I answered all your points, you just didn't like my answers so lets go over this again.

First lets just get what 250K a year is out of the way. With a 30% tax that's $14,500 a month in income. The mortgage on a half a million dollar home is around $3,000 a month. The car payment on a $80,000 car is around $1,000 a month. So you could have 2 cars worth close to $100,000 each in your 3 car garage of your half a million dollar home and you would still have close to $10,000 a month left over to go crazy with. These people are not struggling right now, they never will struggle. The guy making $30,000 a year is. There is nothing relative about that. Using your argument we can say a guy making a billion dollars a year really isn't reach, he just seems rich from our perspective. It's a silly argument on your part.

In addition nobody is saying take all their money and that they don't deserve it. I'm sure most of them worked very hard to get where they are at. What the plan Obama has will do is put their taxes back to the level they had under Clinton (remember the economy under him?). You can not sit here with a straight face and tell me that these people will be hurt by it.

You bring up that these people are paying for it with the values of their stocks and homes. Well yes they are. You know why? Because if I have a box here of junk worth $20 but for some stupid reason people are willing top pay me $50 for it I can't get upset when those people finally realize that my box of junk is really only worth $20. The stock market was never worth the levels it got to, neither were those homes. Many of us were blinded by this yet we really should have known better. When my dad bought a home for $180,000 and that home went up to $320,000 within 2 years we all should have been smart enough to know it was too good to be true, but we were too blinded by the amount of money being brought in. Just thank god I decided not to buy my first home in late 2007 after much debate, a debate I was having not because I could afford the home but because I figured there was no risk involved seeing all the money everyone else was making.

Yes Ron, I am aware that the top 1% of this country pays around 25% of all income taxes. The point here, which I'm sure you are fully aware of but chose not to point out, is that they also bring in 20% of all income generated in this country. So you don't need to post fancy charts as this is really simple math, if you bring in 20% of all income made in this country then the taxes you pay in to the system will reflect that. What a shocker.

Finally, to go back again to all the things you said I didn't answer when I did. Again, some people will abuse the system. Wether it be the guy you talked about or the CEOs that had to be bailed out yet still paid themselves 20 billion dollars in bonuses. Wether it be the lady that doesn't work because she is too lazy collecting welfare or the bank that ripped off the system now being bailed out by us. You will never have a perfect system. If you want the government or any other oraganziation for that matter to be perfect before you allow it to do anything you might as well drop the entire concept. Overall most people are not living in $400,000 homes which they only owe $40,000 in. But you can not allow the entire economy to collapse because you can't get the government to be perfect. Do me a favor and find some numbers to show how widespread this absue is, I will bet you a beer it will be miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

[Frank Broughton]

You might also like this story from 2002 Frank:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in325985.shtml

$1 trillion dollars to help americans makes your head explode, 2.3 trillion pissed away by the pentagon and not a peep. I guess the blogs you read forgot to mention this story.

Let's talk about now.... that is all we can change. I am no fan of either party. I did not vote for GW Bush neither time he ran.

To help Americans - that is a joke. Borrowing money helps NO ONE! The borrower is slave to the lender - an age old truth. That is the problem with OPM style of financing. Let the government EARN the money it wants to spend, we would see the rampant corruption cleaned up if they had to earn the money like the rest of us.

Government unions are one of the big players in this messed up economic system we have. It is criminal what they get away with. It is criminal what the average LEO or postal worker (management and whoever) gets away with. Do not get me going on inner city Fire Departments - talk about organized crime.

I have a cousin who "retired" when he was only 50 from the Erie County Sheriff's Department at the tune of $76,000 a year. No system ever can sustain such crime as that.

I have a brother in law who cheated the fire department out of a couple years of income with a milked out injury. The union docs where complicit, when he was about to be exposed he quickly retired at age 50 at the tune of $2,700 a month. Ain't no way any system can maintain that level of corruption and survive. This is in the third poorest city in the country.

-----
So by showing me what you showed me you once again think you know how I think. Stop that please. I hate all corruption in government. Both parties are guilty at least one of them has some morals. With the exception of the bluedogs the Democrats are mostly pure evil! Look at the lot, how can people actually vote for most of those idiots? The lot her in NY make for an excellent freak show. "Shumer, Rangle, Nagle" shall I go on.

[Pawel Kowalski]

Pawel, I'm sorry that you're facing a pay cut. I wouldn't wish such a thing on even my biggest enemy. Regardless of how our economy got screwed up, it did, and because of that spending is down across the board. Raising taxes on those that already pay most of the taxes, however, is just going to freeze up spending even more than it already is and that's going to trickle down to all of us in the form of lower wages, higher prices, and fewer jobs.

--Jason

But if what many here are claiming, that taxing the rich is really just moving the wealth around then this money will still be spent, the only thing different will be who is spending it. If you are making $250,000 a year chances are you aren't spending every penny of it, much of it is being saved (especially in these times). If you are living pay check to pay check you have no choice but to spend this money.

The issue seems to be 1) that credit has frozen and 2) that people are losing jobs at an alarming rate. Most economists will agree that the only way to change that is by increasing government spending to put people to work and to unfreeze the credit markets. All of which can not be done without rasing taxes. We have had some of the lowest taxes in our recent history in the last 8 years, obviously that didn't work and I don't think it would be a smart idea to keep going down that same road, way too much at risk.

[Frank Broughton]

First lets just get what 250K a year is out of the way. With a 30% tax that's $14,500 a month in income. The mortgage on a half a million dollar home is around $3,000 a month. The car payment on a $80,000 car is around $1,000 a month. So you could have 2 cars worth close to $100,000 each in your 3 car garage of your half a million dollar home and you would still have close to $10,000 a month left over to go crazy with. These people are not struggling right now, they never will struggle. The guy making $30,000 a year is. There is nothing relative about that. Using your argument we can say a guy making a billion dollars a year really isn't reach, he just seems rich from our perspective. It's a silly argument on your part.

You miss the point completely about the 250k level. It is not the size of the home or the amount of cars. Many at this level have much more than those things to be concerned about. Today it will be who do they lay off. Do we take more than 10% off our payroll, how many more hours less do we give or employees. Many small business people are at this level and pay taxes via Schedule C. So it is tools for the job, supplies for next batch of equipment to make. Upgrades in training for employees. Office equipment and a whole heap more for that $10 grand!

Oh, never thought of that.

[Pawel Kowalski]

You miss the point completely about the 250k level. It is not the size of the home or the amount of cars. Many at this level have much more than those things to be concerned about. Today it will be who do they lay off. Do we take more than 10% off our payroll, how many more hours less do we give or employees. Many small business people are at this level and pay taxes via Schedule C. So it is tools for the job, supplies for next batch of equipment to make. Upgrades in training for employees. Office equipment and a whole heap more for that $10 grand!

Oh, never thought of that.

The schedule C talking point is a myth Frank. I don't have time to do the research for you, you can do this yourself. If you are claiming small business income in excess of 250K a year on schedule C you need to fire your accountant (or hire one for that matter). Small businesses claiming this kind of money on schedule C is a tiny fraction because it would be dumb to do so, like I said, you can look this up yourself. You also have to remember that we are talking about net profit, not gross sales. So in reality for a small business to make 250,000 in profit they would need a lot more in sales than that. Buying tools and all the other things you mentioned would be subtracted from those sales.

[Frank Broughton]

The schedule C talking point is a myth Frank. I don't have time to do the research for you, you can do this yourself. If you are claiming small business income in excess of 250K a year on schedule C you need to fire your accountant (or hire one for that matter). Small businesses claiming this kind of money on schedule C is a tiny fraction because it would be dumb to do so, like I said, you can look this up yourself.

You are correct on the level of schedule c payers at this level but the principle remains. Oh so what we are only ripping off a small amount of people - that is okay. What a warped way to say you are trying to help people. Why don't we just get Sherwood forest back up and running.

You help NO ONE with handouts! You rob them of an important drive man needs - the drive to succeed! Why should I work if you are going to give it to me for free! hmmmm brilliant.

What Read, Pelosi, Obey and Obama are doing is nothing more than thievery.

I will say it again - it helps NO ONE, kinda like how they think they are helping drug addicts by giving them "clean" needles. What a crock! Their sin is on them - and now - our children.