The poor little darlings!  My heart bleeds for them!  It means they will have to make hard choices such as whether or not they can afford to fly the private jet to Kentucky for the derby.  That's just unthinkable!  Cuts will have to be made somewhere else!  Pedro, Conchita, and the rest of the Hispanic slaves will just have to do without a raise this year.  And if they object, ICE will take care of them!  There are a million more low wage servants where they came from!

The religious right goes apeshit over lust, but you never hear them say anything about greed.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

Wow, almost exactly the opposite of the number of federal dollars consumed by each person as direct payouts to welfare, housing subsidies, medical insurance coverage, transportation subsidies, etc.

Of course poor people won't "save" as much from a tax cut. Few of them pay any taxes at all. That's already a pretty nice tax cut.

How is that a "tax cut?" 

The top 1% of "earners" now get 24% of ALL income in the US.  I'm not going to cry for them if their marginal tax rate reverts to what it was in the 1990s.  If anything, they should be paying more.  They are busily using their excess income to buy enough votes in congress to get their tax cuts extended, and right now it looks like they could succeed.  The current trajectory will give us an income-gap profile like the antebellum south, with a permanent aristocracy having no estate tax ever due.

ah297900 wrote:

GooberMcNutly wrote:

Of course poor people won't "save" as much from a tax cut. Few of them pay any taxes at all. That's already a pretty nice tax cut.

You're right. The poor in this country have it too sweet, living off the backs of the rich, who are struggling to get by day to day. Somebody making 10,000 dollars a year should kick in at least $2,000 of that for taxes. If we can squeeze 2k out of 10 people making 10k a year each, that's $20,000 that a person making $1,000,000 a year doesn't have to chip in. That way, the rich person can take home 2% more money, and the 10 poor people can move from poverty to destitution. It's a win-win, right?

I mean, all of the rich people deserve all the money they earn, and the poor people all deserve to be poor because they're lazy and stupid, right? A massive, heaving underclass of poor people is but a small price to pay for the kind of society we all dream of, wherein the rich can finally get a taste of justice and fair treatment.

Thank You Ah, you made my morning.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

Of course poor people won't "save" as much from a tax cut. Few of them pay any taxes at all. That's already a pretty nice tax cut.

The fact that they don't earn enough to feed themselves doesn't register with you though and you enjoy ignoring sales tax and usage fees that absorb a disportionate amount of their so-called income.

Please try to comprehend that you cannot squeeze blood from a turnip; you can't tax what they don't make.

A number of years ago I had the honor of waiting on the Kennedy's (Ted and family) at a plush resort in south Florida. They ran up a tab of over $1200. The generous tip of $14 they left me was much appreciated. As I was rushing to thank him, with the thought of throwing the money in his face, my boss stopped me by physically holding me back. "But they are some of our best customers" he told me. For one week I waited on some of the richest of the rich, and the numbers I had to show for my efforts added up to less than $200. I quit after that as I could make far more money working in the kitchen than I could waiting on the people I thought would tip the best.

You can talk about the rich paying our wages, buying our products, creating our wealth, but that is bullshit. Most of the money earned by Americans comes from the middle class. Not those top earners.

Currently I work for a man worth in the area of $2.4 billion. He turned me down for a raise after two years working as the executive chef in one of his fine dining establishments. I created over $3 million in gross earnings last year for him, yet a raise was out of the question. "The economy just won't allow it right now" was his answer.

I make a modest living but am by no means well off. And I pay about 1/3 of my earnings in taxes. Income tax, sales tax, property tax, just to name a few. So don't tell me someone making $40 k pays nothing in taxes. That's just crap. Being considered a single man, even though I have had a partner for more than 20 years, means I pay far more than a married man who has married and divorced a couple of times, fathered several offspring with different spouses, and helped to fuel the overpopulation problem. He gets to write off those little bastards.

choad wrote:

doesyourpussyhurt wrote:

I quit after that as I could make far more money working in the kitchen than I could waiting on the people I thought would tip the best.

Hah. I fled into the kitchen 40 years ago prompted by the same entitled, cheap fuck cunts. Made far less money and didn't care. One way or another, we all gotta pick the white man's cotton.

The people who tip most reliably are people who used to wait tables. 

Goobs, Dusty's got your number.

Dmtdust wrote:

Face it.  Goob is willfully ignorant.  He has had no real contact with the class he defends, pardon him as he is truly ignorant.  It is called the Stockholm Syndrome, and he suffers from it in spades.

Rich. You know nothing of my situation.

DYPH: So if someone doesn't tip (an optional gratuity) you as much as you consider yourself worth, what's the answer? Mandatory gratuities, ala France? That has sure made them much better at serving their customers. And, for the record, the only time I ever tip less than 20% is when the service is shitty, and I always give the server a chance to fix it. Some do, and are rewarded, some don't and get a 25 cent tip. I also used to work in a restaurant and know that it's hard work that doesn't usually pay well. But I went to school, busted my ass, took chances and am now comfortably in the middle class.

And you boss won't give you a raise? Who bitches about not getting raises these days, Dagwood Bumstead? Either you are worth more money or you vote with your feet and go find someone who will pay you what you are worth. Not what you think you are worth, what you can command on the open market. But I can see that, like the rest of the proles, you all prefer the no-effort option: Put a gun to Mr. Rich Guy's head and make him pay you more money. Because he doesn't understand your great inner worth.

How many of you own your own business? I'm curious. I do and have run it full time for 15 years. I work in the software business, one of the most competitive and least subsidized businesses in America. In good years I might make $125k, last year I made $45k. But I go to bed happy because I know that I out competed my peers for every one of those dollars. It's given me the freedom to have a stay-at-home wife and raise my daughter. I'll pay less this year in taxes because I made less, but I have paid up to the 35% marginal rate in the past. I was writing checks to the IRS for $20k, after withholding. But under your Brave New World my wife would have to work full time to pay the taxes while a government worker raised my child as part of some jobs program.

And to say that I don't "understand" the other side, that's BS too. The in-laws live in Murtha-town, where Federal gumdrops grow on the Earmark trees, lovingly harvested by the unionized government workforce, so it's not hard to spend years bouncing from one program to the next without ever getting "better". My sister in law has worked 18 months in the last 10 years and she is a healthy middle-aged woman with an 8 year old daughter. My father-in-law is retired now but worked 40 years in the mining and smelting industry for nearly minimum wage and every company he has ever worked for has dished his pension and healthcare to government oversight. Now he spends his days pinballing around government offices trying to get paid or find a doctor that will see him or find out where his check will come from next week. Brother-in-law works for the county government, but moonlights for H&R Block to make ends meet. I own the house they live in because otherwise it would have been taken away when my Mother in law had to declare bankruptcy. If it had been taken away, they would have immediately qualified for rent assistance to get another house, but it wouldn't have been as nice as the halfway decent house they had. Call it a $25k "direct tax" on a single taxpayer, but I was happy to pay it.

I also own another house in one of the poorest counties in Virginia. It costs 10 times what my in-laws house in PA costs and I pay 1/10th as many taxes on it because it's a fiscally conservative county that would rather fire half the public works department than raise taxes on people in a down economy. So people volunteer to paint and landscape the county park instead. I would rather work twice as hard on a voluntary basis than be threatened with jail for not paying for services that the county can't afford.

I'm not rich. Just comfortably middle class after a long run of scrapping for clients and keeping expenses and overhead down. But I don't get my economics education from Scrooge McDuck comic books. I just recognize that you can't tax yourself into prosperity.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

I just recognize that you can't tax yourself into prosperity.

No, but you can tax someone right into the poorhouse. That someone is not making $250K either. What you can do is make sure people (and especially corporations) pay a fair amount of tax, which is what we're talking about here. There are just some items needed by the public that are better paid for collectively. My hometown is a haven for right-wing nutjobs and stadium church carpetbaggers, not to mention a hugh military presence, and it can't afford to keep the streetlights lit at night. Or so they say...

Tall Paul wrote:

What you can do is make sure people (and especially corporations) pay a fair amount of tax, which is what we're talking about here. There are just some items needed by the public that are better paid for collectively.

I prefer the Eisenhower approach, lower business taxes and increase personal taxes; this approach encourages business owners to reinvest rather than pull the money out.   As a side bonus it would also put the damper on merger mania.

Emmeran wrote:

GooberMcNutly wrote:

ala France?

That's all you had to say right there, how quickly you display your ignorance.

I'm curious. How so? Every restaurant I have ever eaten at in France that had a tablecloth automatically added 15% to the bill as "service". A few little pastisserie or walk-up counters didn't itemize, but most of them sold things in increments of a Euro (or Franc in the early days) but I'm sure it was backed out at some point. I usually just left whatever jingly change I had left over from the bill.

I am all against corporate welfare just as much as individual welfare. It's just as easy to start small and snowball until the recipient can't live without it.

How would you feel if EVERYONE had to pay 15% of their income (earned or investment) each year? I would totally be behind that. But sticking it to the guy who manages to save some money just because he's richer than the guy who doesn't sounds more like a mugging to me.

I drive a car made in 1998. Do you drive a car newer than that? Is that fair? Perhaps someone should force you to let me drive your car a couple of days a week, to be "fair". Mine is musty and smells of spilled coffee, but that's not really my fault is it? No, I choose to drive a shitbox because it puts an extra $300 a month in my pocket. Did YOU sacrifice for that money? Did you help me rebuild the head when the cam belt broke? No? So why do you think you should have a piece of that $300?

I really don't have a lot more to say. (Obviously you don't either if all you can respond with is one-liners and image shots) If you want to keep believing that progressive taxation rates are the way to really help someone out by kneecapping them once they actually make something of their financial lives, there isn't much I can do to enlighten you. Ill leave you with these two:

Winnie wrote:

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

How would you feel if EVERYONE had to pay 15% of their income (earned or investment) each year? I would totally be behind that. But sticking it to the guy who manages to save some money just because he's richer than the guy who doesn't sounds more like a mugging to me.

Winnie wrote:

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

1) I'm a student, and I make $10,000 a year. There's no fucking way I can come up with $1500 a year every year. That wouldn't even cover only the rent and food. I wouldn't be able to do this whole higher learning thing on $8500--just wouldn't have happened.

2) Nobody's talking about taxing savings. It's an income tax. I would have more savings, but I invested a lot of it in my education (see #1).

3) You do realize that we tried not having a progressive income tax, right? Do you know it was a fucking disaster? It was bad enough that 2/3 of both houses of congress and 3/4 of the states agreed to change the goddamn constitution to redistribute the wealth because not doing so was intolerable. Before that kind of socialism snuck into American society (approved by super-majorities of the population), we looked a lot more like industrialized China does today--a heaving underclass of people paid enough to survive, and an extremely wealthy upper class. After we addressed that imbalance through progressive taxes, we got the largest middle class in the world, and had ourselves a Golden Age or two.

I'm sorry, but higher taxes for your bracket means not living in the kind of economy we had before the 16th amendment. We are all better off not living like that.

4) Sometimes people have enemies just because they are assholes. I'm not saying you're an asshole; I'm saying that quote makes no sense if you think about it.

Last edited by ah297900 (2010-09-22 19:08:00)

See Goob, the point you miss is that I work in the investment industry; I am in the tax bracket that will feel the bite win the Bush Tax Hike takes effect.  But I've also served my country and I understand what it takes to be the richest and most powerful country in the world; it takes sacrifice and everyone doing their part.

So the poor pay very little income tax however the poor pay a vastly higher income percentage in sales taxes and usage fees than the rich; not to mention social security and medicare fees (which are capped on an annual basis).  In fact when all taxes and fees at every level are accounted for the bottom 50% pay much more into the overall system than the top 50%.  So we have a graduated income tax to level the field a little, pay for those roads, armies and internets which are provided free of charge to the corporate moguls to benefit from.

To make it even more enjoyable the rich are able to lobby for tax loopholes (see Hedge Fund Partnerships and Zero Internet sales tax) which benefit them greatly even before they cash in their stock options which are taxed only as Capital Gains and at a much lower rate than income on any level.  Do you know so many CEO's take $1 as salary?  Let me help you, becuase they get a 60% tax discount for taking their comp as cap gains or dividends.

So then you bring France into it, France is divided into various administrative regions; think of them as provinces.  Each region does things a little differently and just like the rest of the world the tourist area normally have mandatory gratuities.  It's just a fact of life. 

However I smacked you because it is boringly typical of the Ultra-right to try to bring up France as a bad influence all the while ignoring the fact that our lovely little Republic wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for France.  Don't bring up France, they are the one country with the balls to do what they want when they want; if we had half their sand we wouldn't have an immigration problem - we'd handle it with an iron fist just like they do.


No need for applause, I'll be right here in the middle pissing on both parties all night...

doesyourpussyhurt wrote:

Why do you insist on the red herring approach?

It's because he (and/or whoever feeds him his talking points) knows he's wrong.

taffy wrote:

Gosh... I'm having a really, really hard time feeling bad about rich people paying taxes.

As long as you never desire to be anything but lower-middle class, well fed on a diet of processed food and laugh-tracks, then you shouldn't.

For the first time since the Great Depression the current generation has the expectation that their lives will not be better than their parents. That just sounds like defeatism. Maybe it is just easier to go home, watch reruns and let your children figure out how to pay off the debt that you are running up.

DYPH wrote:

I fully understand that I could go somewhere else and make a much better salary. But then the price of living would increase proportionately, I wouldn't be living in a place I love, I wouldn't have the quality of life I currently enjoy, etc.

So chalk that up as part of your compensation and be happy about it. Don't whinge that The Man is keeping you down with low wages. I also live where I live because it costs less than in the DC suburbs, where I used to live. My house costs half as much (though my property taxes are twice as much, go figure...) Food and transportation cost less. But I also make less. It's my CHOICE, not pushed on me by anyone. Much like your CHOICE of employments and employers. What business of your's is it how much your boss makes? Why do you feel entitled to something that isn't yours?

DMT, as another self-employed person, perhaps you can enlighten me how "The rich make their money off the backs of everybody else"? Sure, "the rich" (actually, mostly small businesses, as they create most of the new jobs in this country) expect to earn a profit. But show me a business that has higher profits than the salaries they pay to their workers. If I hire someone to work for me, if they felt "exploited" they are welcome to pack up their desk and go find somewhere else to work. By agreeing to work for me for the salary that I pay, they implicitly agree that their time is worth *exactly* what I pay them. Who would go to the trouble (and risk) of running a business if there were ZERO profit margin? It's in MY interest to pay as little as possible for the talent I need and in THEIR interest to get paid as much as possible. We meet in the middle and everyone is happy. Sure, a 10% profit margin on each of 10 employees is like I am making as much as one of them without "working", but they aren't being asked to pledge their house as collateral on a loan. If my business fails they go find another, but I have lost everything I have.

Em, we could go back and forth all day comparing Income and Property Tax (the rich pay more) and Sales tax (the poor pay a higher percentage of earned income, but the rich pay more per capita) but everyone is really missing the point. Why are we fighting about where to get the tax money? Because we need more and more and more of it every day. It's like oil. If we used less than we generated we wouldn't be fighting wars half a world away. But we can't keep our hand out of that cookie jar any more than we can out of the public coffers. So we circle each others like hyenas fighting over the last scraps of a carcass that is nearly picked clean.

PS: It's not the de Tocquevilles that I think of when I think of France. It's the Robespierres that worry me, ready to wield the bloody axe in the name of E'galite'. I lived in Europe for three years, my experience with the French is a little more personal than some dumb Hannity diatribe. Perhaps DYPH should move there where they pay waiters a real wage but don't expect tips in return. Then maybe he will feel motivated to provide good service.

Really, arguing about where the taxes are to come from is fighting the symptom. If we weren't spending more as a society than we can afford it wouldn't come to this kind of infighting between the haves and the have-mores. Is there a sob story that we won't throw money at? A "cause" that doesn't need public support? A tin-pot "democrator" that we won't prop up? A business that we won't subsidize to buy votes? A lot of people at every economic level are addicted to the strongest drug of all: spending other people's money. Why can't we Just Say No (tm)? You can't believe how happy I would be if we were fighting over 15% of our incomes. But between the spending at all levels of government we ALL pay closer to 50% of our cash to support services and products that we have decided that we can't live without, even if it means buying them on credit.

I guess I'm a bit of an anachronism, but the only loan in my life is a mortgage on my house. I have no credit card debt, car loans, student loans (anymore!), etc. (Student loans really go in the "investment" column instead of the "loan" column.) I don't have a cell phone contract because pay as you go works better for me. I always save BEFORE I spend. In our family we call it "saving ourself into poverty" where, after taxes, housing and food, savings is our largest expense, nearly 20% of gross income. (I saved 20% of my income as a bag-boy while in school, even if it only amounted to a few dollars a week.) Only after that comes "fun money". But I guess I have discipline, whereas some people would rather be the grasshopper than the ant.

Technically we don't tax people for saving money.  That's completely true if you keep it under your mattress or in a jar buried out back.  However if you want to keep up with, or stay ahead of, inflation you're going to pay taxes on the "growth."

Emmeran wrote:

Don't bring up France, they are the one country with the balls to do what they want when they want; if we had half their sand we wouldn't have an immigration problem - we'd handle it with an iron fist just like they do.

Ahem.

ah297900 wrote:

hedgewizard wrote:

Technically we don't tax people for saving money.  That's completely true if you keep it under your mattress or in a jar buried out back.  However if you want to keep up with, or stay ahead of, inflation you're going to pay taxes on the "growth."

You're taxed less for earning money from investments (15%, right?) than you are for actually working for it. This is clearly another example of anti-rich discrimination.

Depends on how you invest.  It's complicated enough that I doubt we'll solve it in here.  It's so complicated that I'm all for letting everyone have an untaxed amount and then taxing everything above that at a flat rate.  I doubt I'll find many takers.  Too many people want their mortgage interest, charity, lowering the carbon footprint, what have you, deduction.   Simple wouldn't allow the carrot and stick approach we currently have though.

Cotton Picker Extraordinare...

ah297900 wrote:

hedgewizard wrote:

Technically we don't tax people for saving money.  That's completely true if you keep it under your mattress or in a jar buried out back.  However if you want to keep up with, or stay ahead of, inflation you're going to pay taxes on the "growth."

You're taxed less for earning money from investments (15%, right?) than you are for actually working for it. This is clearly another example of anti-rich discrimination.

If the Bush tax cuts expire, capital gains go from 15% to 20% and dividends go from 15% to 39%.

That's 20 to 39% LESS money in the system to build the businesses that employ the majority of Americans.

Bullshit, as usual.  The rich do not carry the nation nor do the corporations.  Less of the Canned Faux Shite if you please.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

ah297900 wrote:

You're taxed less for earning money from investments (15%, right?) than you are for actually working for it. This is clearly another example of anti-rich discrimination.

If the Bush tax cuts expire, capital gains go from 15% to 20% and dividends go from 15% to 39%.

That's 20 to 39% LESS money in the system to build the businesses that employ the majority of Americans.

When the Bush Tax Hikes take effect money will be re-invested in the businesses rather than cashed out as fast as possible.  Investors won't suddenly start putting their money in the mattress because the tax rates return to Reagan levels, they'll just be on the road to paying a fair share of their income in taxes.  And remember the small businesses you claim will be hurt by this don't benefit from obscenly low cap gains/dividends tax; only the wealthy truly benefit from these tax rates.  Let the tax rates go back to Reagan levels.   

PS: Don't try to change the fact that Bush signed the legislation mandating a tax increase at the end of this year; it was a slick political move but it remains a tax increase that the Republican Congress passed and George Bush signed into law.  The piece of paper mandating this tax increase has George Bush's signature on it end of story.

PSS:  Fucking tax raising right-wingers

Last edited by Emmeran (2010-09-23 21:45:04)

IF the Bush tax bill is unchanged (i.e., existing law is left in place)...

But it doesn't. If nothing is done then it all goes away on January 1st. Money doesn't get invested in business, it gets invested in the black hole at the treasury department. Yeah, Fled, my numbers were a little inflated, but it's the top marginal rates that are paid by the people that make the jobs that most of us have. Unless you want to work for the SEIU or AFSCME, of course, and can just blackmail a politician into writing you a big fat bill, like those Capitalist Oppressor Pigs you so despise.

And I can't stand Fox "News". All the flashing lights and neon give me a headache and they never give you the whole story anyway. I get home delivery of 4 newspapers: The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Financial Times and, for lining the garden to keep weeds down: The Orlando Sentinel.

Well, it's all a moot pointanyway.

Congress:


Now nobody knows what will happen and they leave it all up to a lame duck congress, never known to take a firm stand on anything unless it's poisoning the well once they have lost the majority.

Last edited by GooberMcNutly (2010-09-24 08:08:54)