Predictions for Obama's Second Term

The top 1% pay around 40% of the income tax. The bottom 75% of Americans pay 15% in total. IN TOTAL.

Who's not paying 'their fair share' here?


Now, don't get me wrong, I personally want to see ZERO income tax. What I'd like to see is Community Currencies - this way, it really doesn't matter what some fat cat in New York has for 'money'. It'd be no different than someone in Japan making billions.

Notice how Americans don't give two shits about how much the Japanese are paying in tax. Not a care in the world actually.

 

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Funny, you guys like to focus only on the "federal income tax" which is paid mostly by the wealthy and ignore the lion's share of the tax base, payroll taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, etc. that are mostly paid by your average Joe and Janes.

Here is another fact you like to ignore, the wealthy also make most of the income and pay a lower share of their income in taxation than your average Joe and Jane.

 

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Which is why we're getting away with our horrible fiscal policy, so far. But there has to be a limit, and if we keep adding a trillion dollars a year to our tab we will eventually find out what it is.

Being taxed to pay back money spent on a war is different from paying taxes to support an ever expanding welfare state. There is no end to the demand of the welfare state for money. Furthermore, raising taxes "a bit" on "the class of citizens who most benefited" isn't going to generate anywhere near enough revenue to close the deficit. We need to cut spending.

Certainly there is some infrastructure work that needs to be done, but can that money be allocated rationally and fairly? How much infrastructure did we get from the stimulus package, the single largest such package ever passed?

If you think more spending is the answer to our education problem, you are sadly mistaken. We already spend more per child than anyone else with shit results:

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Perhaps another "grand bargin" can be struck to loosen the death grip the teacher's union have on our schools. But simply throwing more money at the problem will not solve it.

We could probably cut defense as well as foreign aid.

The war on drugs is idiotic, counter production, and a violation of basic human rights. End it. End it now, and not only will we save money not enforcing an idiotic and unjust law, we'll make money by taxing the drugs.

I agree with this as well.

With you to a point.

I liked Romney's plan. Lower rates with fewer deductions. Better yet, a flat tax with no deductions whatsoever. If you don't tax the first 15-20k, that would amount to a fairly progressive system.

Agree 100%. But good luck getting that past the Democrats.

Agree again, but again, the Democrats will demogogue that and never let it pass.

No arguement from me, but see above.

Ild probably support that, would need to see the specifics.

I'd trade a full repeal of Obamacare for a public option with a tax that you'd be excempt from if you had your own private insurance. I'd also want tort reform and a removal of state barriers when buying insurance.

Could not agree more.

 

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The top 1%.

 

Re: Education Sending.

Now, show me a graph on the most impoverished schools in the USA? See, a little statistic that is left out is that about 40% of American school kids go to THE BEST schools on earth. The best. That is: they either go to private schools because their parents can afford them or they go to wealthy public school districts that are extraordinarily well funded. About another 20% get good education. The remaining 40% go to under-serviced schools that have gigantic class sizes in dilapidated buildings. Thus, we aren't spending enough. Oh, sure, we're spending tons of money on nice suburban schools . . . but nowhere near enough on inner city schools that cannot afford books, heating or IT equipment . . . oh, yeah. Or like my local "poor" schools (Lorain Ohio), they cannot even afford their teachers.

Well, I also want tort reform too, good luck again.

Agreed.

I'd trade a full repeal of Obamacare too. It sucks. But it's one of those "journey of a thousand mile" things.

We already agree both ethically and legally that medical treatment is a civil right (1986 EMTALA). No hospital can turn away a person for non-payment. We already agree that anybody can walk into our hospitals and that the tab will be picked up by the USGov. Since people have figured out that they will just go to the ER twice a week for their regular treatment and that the ER cannot deny them service, we're spending massively more because -- as you know -- ER's cost a lot.

Might as well just let them see a doctor during regular visiting hours and pay $175 than the ER and pay $1000.

~String

 

More of what they've been doing for thirty years, in other words.

Which is one more reason there is no economic downside at all, in the US, to raising their taxes dramatically. Even the bs about them creating US jobs with their tax break profits, never a reality based assertion, has now been abandoned by the rightwing apologists.

You never had the slightest comprehension of Keynesian economics, or any other kind. It's an intellectual field whose basics you have never bothered to consider. If you had, you would hardly be posting stuff like this:

The current debt's interest rates are (mostly) fixed. Only new debt - of which Obama even under current policies would not be the main source, as most of it would be legacy obligations not funded by their creators - would be incurred under new interest rates. And that is simply handled by paying for new government expenditures through sufficient new taxation. And the blame for this required taxation would of course be placed on those who incurred the obligations - Reagan, W, chief among them.

or this:

Romney never devulged his plan - neither you, nor anyone, has any idea what it would have been. That is something you would have noticed if you had approached his assertions with a basic comprehension of economics, in which "lower rates" are not balanced by "fewer deductions" unless both the rates and deductions have been specified.

Note that Romeny's assertions and claims were familiar - the same as Reagan's and W's, called "Reaganomics", an economic "theory" that has never acquired a shred of empirical support or patched a single one of its many and blatant holes of logic and reason. It is the "theory" that wrecked the US economy, culminating in the crash of '08. Have you forgotten that?

 

It turns out there are many good reasons to not implement the state exchanges. First of all, it's illegal to do so in 18 states (including my own). Secondly, not implementing the exchanges will save each state between 10-100 million dollars a year. Third, congress did not authorize any funding for federal fall back exchanges. Therefore, there may not be any federal exchanges. Fourth, by not creating a state exchange, all employers in that state are exempt from the employer mandate, which will make said state more attractive for employers.

If enough states refuse to create these exchanges and expand medicaid, and if congress refuses to fund federal exchanges, Obamacare may well be stillborn.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/333040/obamacare-still-vulnerable-michael-f-cannon​

On a brighter note (for your side), Rush Limbaugh was making the following argument this afternoon:

 

To extend this answer: the top 1% pay less percentage of their income to taxes compared to the rest of Americans. If say everyone was so poor that they had only 10 dollars and were required to give up 5 to taxation and then came a man who had $1 million and he paid only $50 in taxes, was that fair? That less then a paper cut for the rich man while everyone else has got to make do with half of there budget!

 

And let's face it, once you are collecting a million dollars or more a year, money doesn't mean as much to you as it does to those who are struggling to make ends meet.

 

I know I'm jumping in way late here, but I had to response to a point that String made earlier.

Though I agree with 99% of your stances regarding this subject, I do take issue with the claim below:

Average life expectancy in the US is 78 years old. To retire at 70 only leaves 8 years before you can confidently expect to die. That means that in all reality, you're getting about 10% of your life to relax. I don't think ANYONE should have to slave away 90% of their life only so they can enjoy 10% of it. What the hell is the benefit of that? Screw that. I think we should be able to retire at half of the rated life expectancy plus 16 (since that is the legal working age in the US). You get back what you put in. So if someone starts working at 16, they should be able to retire by 55, no questions asked. That's 39 years of work. As it stands with your policy, to retire at 70 would equal 54 years of work. Hell no. That is ridiculous.

 

First, the article you referenced in the National Review, a Republican rag, is totally and blatantly bogus. Federal law always trumps state law. Even a high school graduates know that from their high school civics class. So the argument that implementing Obamacare (federal law) is illegal because it is inconsistent with state law as argued in the article is just plain dumb. Two, Obamacare is fully funded by the federal government. Three, the existence of state exchanges or lack thereof has nothing to do with employer mandates. States opting out of creating an insurance exchange just means that the federal government will do it for the state.

 

To extend this answer:

If your income was $10 and you bought milk for $3. You spend 30% of your income on milk.
If your income is $1 million dollars and you spent $3 on milk. You spend 0.0003% of your income on milk.

Is that fair? Absolutely not. The rich must pay their fair share and pay $300,000 for the milk. Period

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That's not a good analogy, but if it's used, at least the latter scenario is more fair. It actually leads to the discussion of a national sales tax instead of income tax, where basic things are taxed low, but items considered extra are classified in higher sales tax brackets, so no one would pay a lot or any tax on milk, but a yacht would be heavily taxed.

 

Dude. Social Security is a SAFETY NET. Retirement age for 401k and personal plans would still stay at 65. The point of SS is to keep you from having to work at the point where your body is shutting down. It's not there to provide a benefit to those who want to enjoy their twilight years. If that's something you want, then save for it. Social Security is there merely to provide for the very end of life and prevent old people from having to live in the street.

In this country we now have to evaluate what we want to do as a civilized people and what we can fundamentally afford to do in a pluralistic society who's unlimited wealth died when the rest of the world rebuilt after WWII. It's not there anymore. We have to cut back. That's part of the pain of existence: it's not all fun and games.

It's not a "benefit". It's a safety net. When it was proposed, people only lived until the end of their 50's. Now we're up to the 80's.

Break down the economics of that for me.

Then save. You are a smart guy. Get a job. Put money in the bank. Get a 401k. And in the last few years do something you enjoy.

~String

 

I am not an advocate of the sales tax because of it is extremely regressive Lower income folks pay much more of the tax. You have to be careful with imposing sales taxes on higher income folks. They have the means and ability to cross national borders and purchase goods and services in lower cost countries. The yacht tax in particular was tried before. It didn't bring in much revenue and it destroyed the domestic yacht market.

 

See, here I agree and if you think taxing the top 1% is going to change that you're wrong. They will get wealthier and we will get poorer. The only solution is to not use their currency, the first step of which is stop paying income tax on our labor and then letting the USD die a death of a thousand other fiat currencies through currency competition.

 

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That is odd coming from a guy who follows the ideology financed by the top 1%. Additionally, as previously pointed out to you, there are no currencies that are not “fiat” currencies. So are you suggesting we go back to barter?

Commodity backed currencies did not stop or even mitigate inflation or deflation. In fact, as previously pointed out to you, commodity backed currencies were associated with more frequent and more severe periods of inflation and depression.

 

A gold backed currency yielded a balance of minor inflation and deflation...since going off it in 1971 its been nothing but inflation with no counter-balance.

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