"Many people think that the rich are able to weasel their way out of taxes, but they actually pay an overwhelming majority of the taxes in the United States.
What’s more, their share of the tax burden is increasing.
The top 10 percent of taxpayers paid over 70% of the total amount collected in federal income taxes in 2010, the latest year figures are available, according to the Tax Foundation, a think tank that advocates for lower taxes."
“Just hope that asshole STFU.” Hey - I tried being polite. Didn’t seem to work. BTW - didja know you can say fuck in the Pit? Whassamatta? Did I take your hypothetical bullshit in an uncontrolled direction?
Let’s take another look at this. You have posted some unadulterated bullshit in defense of your position. You have been swiftly debunked. Sure, a few bombing runs may come out of the DOD budget, but what is underway now very well may lead to something like the previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which by no means were paid for by the DOD budget- they were paid for with massive debts, debts which were vociferously leveraged by conservative politicians to attack programs like Social Security, food stamps, education funding, infrastructure maintenance, the ACA, and so on. Another full-scale war will certainly increase the national debt, which further threatens programs which benefit our own vulnerable citizens. The alternative is… :smack: pay for the goddamned war! That way we can kill the bad guys AND take care of our own. This is extremely obvious IMHO.
Your response is utterly typical of the modern right, even though you claim not to be a Republican- parrot some bullshit, then dodge any attempt to get to the heart of the matter via facts and reasons. Your anti-cite position is laughable at best, closer to contemptible. This may not be “G fucking D”, but if you don’t know what you are talking about, everyone can tell. Facts can get beyond mere opinions, a lesson I think you ought to have learned by now.
These figures are utterly irrelevant when taken in the context of the plutocratic wealth/income inequality present in our country/world today. 10% of the population controls something like 90+% of the nation’s wealth. If they are only paying 70% of the taxes, then clearly they are not paying their fair share. What part of that do you not understand? The only reason they are getting away with it is their purchase of so many members of national and state governments, along with their near-total control of the media, manipulating the public system to private ends. If you don’t understand this, you really need to talk less and read more.
My point stands. Someday when you start your own thread, you can make your own rules. This is my thread, and the rules are: if you don’t agree to pay for bombing ISIS as laid out in the OP, then you have to STFU. Get with the program.
One the one hand, there is a clear distinction between an air campaign and some kind of invasion. OTOH, the discussion has turned to air strikes inside Syria. The Assad regime commands a formidable air defense system supplied by the Russians, and they are not working with us wrt to airstrikes inside their territory. Remember the commercial jet and also the fighter jets shot down over Ukraine? Syria has the same capability, maybe more so. So, the distinction blurs if your point is that an air campaign alone grants our forces some kind of immunity from harm- it doesn’t. We’re putting our troops into harm’s way if we send them on this mission.
The Soviets shot down our U2 plane in the depths of the Cold War. What if the Syrians start shooting down our planes as we bomb ISIS targets? What if they capture our pilots? What if they treat our actions as a declaration of war? Do we send in ground forces to rescue the captives, or what? War is war. Air war can seem cheaper at first, but in the long run the thing has a chance of escalating into the full shit-show.
So- I dunno if we are on the same page. I don’t think there is such a clear bright line between air war and war- one bleeds into the other, at least potentially. Congress really ought to vote on whether or not we engage with this war, but of course Congress can’t be counted on to do jack shit, contrary to what our friend Jimbuff says. They aren’t closing any tax-evasion loopholes, and they aren’t debating any propositions of war and peace. They’re worthless slugs because they are full of plutocrat-funded conservative dipshits whose only concern is perpetuating the plutocracy.
Yes, well, we’ll have to wait and see what they do. Half of me believes that once things get going, the mission is going to creep into whatever the generals want, or will be forced into a wider conflict by changing conditions. I just don’t expect it to be a small thing- I’d like to be wrong.
Why on earth would the Republicans want to pay for another war? Another unfunded war is just one more step in reaching their long-term goal of upending federal goverment. “See? This 'federal govt” thing just doesnt work! We tried it and look what happens!"
Corporate taxes are taxes on non-wealthy persons, primarily. The wealthy avoid most of the impact of corporate taxation due to spending such a small portion of their income and any ownership interest in a corporation is treated very beneficially from an income taxation perspective.
So, you’re promoting a wealth tax? Higher capital gains taxes? Or what? (maybe a carbon tax, maybe ending the mortgage deduction in exchange for cutting income taxes on middle earners and below?) The pessimism in me says these problems are intractable, and the only real solution is to become rich oneself. Obviously this doesn’t address the issue of the vulnerable poor who can’t/don’t become rich. Or, of course, putting the burden for bombing ISIS on the people who are most able to actually pay for it. Raising marginal rates on high earners to this end seems fairly direct- I’m sure smart dopers will explain the work-around soon enough.
Well, there are new calls for an expanded military role in Iraq and Syria against ISIS, from here:
I’m not saying that ‘rolling back’ ISIS’s gains is a rotten idea. ISIS strikes me as a terrible organization that very well may be worth opposing. But I’d like to repeat my mantra wrt to this conflict: agree to pay for bombing ISIS, or STFU.
I thought it was a mistake to mess with Assad, as he was the somewhat tolerable devil we knew. Turns out that was correct. These bastards are the enemy of civilization. I could get by increasing revenues and arranging for them to meet their virgins after a trip to the solitude of the desert. These guys are bad news. Plus they mess up my memories of The Mighty ISIS, one hot goddess babe from the 70s. (I cannot believe my mother let me watch that crap.)
Wow this OP is chock full of a myriad of debatable topics…probably could be split into a numerous threads…
With regard to the tidbit quoted above, it sounds more like you have been listening to media sound bites as opposed to really understanding the issue. Companies with foreign headquarters still pay US taxes on the income they generate in the US. They pay foreign taxes on the income generated in foreign jurisdictions. What the US is unhappy about is that foreign generated cash is kept in overseas bank accounts and not repatriated back to the US, which if it were brought back, then would be subject to US taxes offset by foreign tax credits, i.e. the difference between the higher US tax rate and the lower foreign tax rate. Even with US headquartered companies, there is no requirement to bring foreign earnings back to the US.
Again it is clear that you don’t really understand the issue, but it sounds good to complain about in an anti-corporate media stance.
And they use accounting tricks to shift US profits to those foreign headquarters. Since you understand the issue so much better than the rest of us, you surely knew that right?
Again, calling it tax avoidance is a political sound bite. Transfer pricing is governed by taxing authorities in both jurisdictions the selling entity and the purchasing entity. Subject to audit and review by those authorities. It is legal and governed by the respective tax codes.