"They dodge, you pay" (again)

The BBQ Pit
1

At a rally in Columbia, MO yesterday, he again(!) brought up his view that Kerry’s rollback on the Rich Guy Tax Cuts wouldn’t work because the Rich like to fuck the country. He’s said this several times now, and I don’t understand why no one calls him on it. I know Kerry’s pounced on it, but I don’t have a cite. You’d think the poor and middle class would, assuming they heard this, be appalled.

I don’t get how this would play well to anyone (not rich) with more than 2 brain cells.

Among other things…

  1. If the Rich can just dodge taxes, WHY DID THEY NEED A TAX CUT?

  2. WHY are there so many loopholes?

  3. Hey Bush, YOU’RE Rich, how much have YOU dodged, that the middle-class schmucks who think you’re an ok guy have had to cover for?

Why don’t they realize that he’s really saying “I dodge, you pay”? What’s wrong with people?

2

  1. Everybody got the tax cut. Or, at least, those actually paying taxes got cuts. The rich dodge taxes? Have you seen how much the US collects in income taxes?!? Do you really think the poor are shouldering a major burden in this area?

  2. There are so many loopholes because the rich are writing the convoluted tax code. That includes your precious little Kerry. Ever hear of the Heinz Corporation that has most of the company jobs handled overseas as he bitches about outsourcing?

  3. My wife and I are middle-class. Granted, we don’t have the money the Bush’s have, but we haven’t had any family members that have become that successful. Regardless of that, my wife and I are paying less in taxes as a percentage than we were 2 years ago. Plus, we now own our house. Outright, no mortgage. The tax break worked for this middle class family.

3

If people can just make up strawmen, why do they need arguments? Did it ever occur to you that the notion of a tax cut for the rich is just a meme? You’ll notice that the article you quoted is talking about something different than what you’re talking about. Bush spoke, not about any alleged tax cut for the rich, but about Kerry’s proposed tax increase on the rich. That’s why he’s making the point about tax loopholes. They benefit the rich because the rich can afford to hire the accountants and lawyers to insure that they pay the least possible amount of tax. In fact, a whole industry exists for expressly this purpose. A rich person, for example, can buy a couple of cows and pen them up at the edge of his estate and call his property a “farm”, thus taking advantage of drastically reduced property tax rates. He can use amenities provided by his corporation, like jets and vacation properties, thus not having the burden of ownership directly for things he uses nonetheless — meanwhile, the corporation can write off expenses for those things because they’re used by employees for “business”. (Note, by the way, that corporate income tax is not a federal matter.) Bush’s tax plan has nothing to do with tax cuts for the rich. His plan has 6 key elements: (1) changing the tax rates from 15, 28, 31, 36 percent, and 39.6 to 10, 15, 25, and 33 percent; (2) doubling the child tax credit to $1,000 per child, and applying it to the AMT; (3) reinstating the 10 percent deduction for couples filing jointly; (4) eliminating the death tax; (5) allowing people who don’t itemize expanded deductions for charitable contributions; and (6) making permanent the R&D tax credit. The only possible way his plan can be interpreted as a tax cut for the rich is a drop in the ceiling of all taxes generally. But he is hardly the first president to advocate a lower ceiling on taxes. When John Kennedy took office, the ceiling rate was 70%. He, a Democrat, worked to get it slashed because wealth and jobs in America are created when investors take risks for return on their investment. They will not take risks when their profits are marginalized by high taxes. Jobs don’t come from magical sky fairies; they come from the formation and expansion of companies.

Because both Republicans and Democrats over the years have partnered with lobbyists and special interests to make compromises and exceptions to tax laws in exchange for campaign support and contributions, along with cushy jobs after they leave office. Plus, they create revenue windfalls for their constituencies by giving tax breaks on investments in their own districts. It is simple political expedience. This is what happens when you empower people to write legislation and then send them away to be sequestered deep in the bowels of a sprawling bureaucracy for several years. They are not androids programmed to serve you; they are human beings looking out for their own self-interest.

Lots and lots. But you are presuming an hypocrisy where none exists. He has not condemned the rich for what they do; after all, they are obeying the law. What he is condemning is the law itself. So long as the loopholes are available, he would have to be a real hand-wringing fool to insist that his family be the only wealthy family to file a 1040EZ. If you would stop to think for half a second, you would realize that the reason wealthy Democrats are always advocating higher taxes on the rich is twofold: (1) it sounds good to dummies that don’t understand how the whole thing works, and (2) they know they can continue to dodge paying anyway.

4

Mostly ignoring whose tax plan is wiser [sup]John Kerry[/sup], I think this line is just bizarre and depressing.

I get that this is aiming towards his “folksyness quotient”. The reaction he’s going for has gotta be something like “That’s some plain talking. We’ve always supected we’re fucked no matter who’s in charge, and now we have a Prez who admits it. We’ve gotta re-elect that magnificent bastard!”

And no denying it’s true that the more money you have the better you can work it, taxes included.

It’s one thing to hear that from someone with your same level of influence and economics. “they screw you on the interest”, “if you make that claim, your insurance rate will just rise”, “You can negotiate a great credit card rate right now…if you can afford to call them up and threaten to close your account”.

But I wouln’t willingly buy a used car from the guy with slogan A
Insurance from the guy with slogan B
or open a credit line w/the guy who tells me C.

Even though all three statements are frequently true, and even though neither this Prez nor the next is likely to substantially affect that.

If my boss-to-be tells me the company motto is, “you work, we profit”, I don’t care if it’s true in the larger sense, it says a hell of a lot about the attitude of said profitters.

It’s just fucking disrespectful.

Also I’m having some cognitive dissonance between this and the whole George W. Bush is an Optimist! theme.

Wish he’d include some more home truths in his speeches.

“They dodge, you serve” springs to mind.

“They can afford to pay for their kid’s ivy league education, you can’t.”

"They spend a weeks at a time at “the ranch”, while you’ve had no vacation days in the last 2 years since you’ve been working with no paid vacation due to repeated layoffs.

(Last one’s a bit of a mouthful, but I’m leaving it in honor of the prospect of my first!paid!vacation! in 2 years this month. Or unpaid, for that matter.)

5

Bush has now given this spiel about how the rich dodge, and the rest of us pay, quite a few times. I’ve identified about a dozen for-instances; it’s time to search whitehouse.gov again, now that it seems to have made the leap from the “Ask President Bush” events to his regular speeches. I’ll see what I can do later. Meanwhile, check my previous thread on the topic.

One has to ask why he hasn’t cracked down on the dodges that the rich use to evade taxes. Maybe he likes it that way? He seems to be trying to create a sense in people that trying to tax the rich is just plain futile; there’s no point in even bothering, since they’ll always figure a way out.

Exactly the point. Bush is lying. (Again.) The rich do pay taxes, despite the various loopholes.

Bush’s three tax cuts have added a great deal to the complexity of the tax code, FWIW. And now he’s running on simplifying the tax code!

“Hey, I made a mess of things my first term. Now give me four more years, so I can clean up after myself.”

Re Kerry: he holds what position in the Heinz Corp.?

The plural of anecdote isn’t data, and this is only one anecdote. The WaPo ran some numbers awhile back showing how most middle-class people basically broke even, once state and local taxes were tossed in.

6

:smiley:
Will someone send that to the Kerry camp please?

7

Not only does he not run Heinz, and not only does his wife not run Heinz, a company having jobs done overseas isn’t the same as outsourcing in the first place. Why should Heinz pay to have tomatoes picked in the US and shipped to, say, Venezuela, when they can just pick the tomatoes and sell the ketchup in Venezuela? Snopes long ago pointed out that Heinz does most of its business outside the USA, when people started making this dumbass attempt at a “Kerry’s a hypocrite!” claim.

So, would you care to explain why the fuck we’re talking about Heinz?

8

[QUOTE=duffer]

That includes your precious little Kerry.

[QUOTE]

How clever of you, duffer! Did you think this up all by yourself, or did somebody assist you?

9

Given, that’s not a tax cut just for the rich. It’s still stupid math, since if your number are right, the idea is to reduce revenue by 5, 13, 6, and 3 percent respectively across the board, while running a massive debt.
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. But moving on.

Okay, that’s across the board cuts for those married and with kids. I won’t benefit, but no basic objection other than my standard “who’s going to pay for it” questions. Is it Social security? Defense? Headstart? Congressional salaries? No Child left behind? Homeland Security? 1-ply toilet paper in all gov’t offices? What?

All wealth is relative. But I gotta point out, even with the “death tax” that was in place when GWB took office, you didn’t actually have to pay to die.
When you did die, you could leave up to 1 MILLION dollars completely federal tax free (state taxes are another matter). The “death tax” only started kicking in for amounts over that.

Starting this year with the GWB tax cuts that are already in place, that amount
for 2004 is now 1.5 MILLION.
In 2006 it will be 2 MILLION
In 2009 it will be 3.5 MILLION
In 2010 it will be phased out completely and be UNLIMITED (so kids, make sure you pull the plug in 2010!)

And then sadly, the “death tax” will return in 2011, well past any GWB term limits, back to that measly 1 MILLION tax free.

Even a measly 1 MILLION in my economic circles is the kind of number that only rich people have in their bank accounts, and the day I have that amount in mine, I will consider myself steenking rich with great glee.

No prob w/ number 5

But number (6) is flat out corporate welfare. Might be justified under job growth, but that it’s still a tax cut for business entities that are richer than the average american. And gotta wonder how much the self-employed or small business owner spends on R&D versus the industry leader who’s already posting record profits. Corporate profit hasn’t been doing too shabby. Business week article on record Corporate profit growth in 2003

10

Hold on a minute, let me get this straight – Bush is slamming the rich because they get away with paying fewer taxes, and yet Bush is the one that cut taxes for the rich? And now he’s trying to blame Kerry for wanting this?

Welcome to Bizarro World.

11

**Karl Rove: ** Hey, George?

**George W: ** Huh?

**KR: **I was thinking.

**GWB: **Idn’ that what I pays you for? So’s I don’ have to?

**KR: **Thaaat’s right, George. Listen: I think I can crush the flimsy skulls of two wussy little birds with one blood-spattering smash of a huge rock.

**GWB: ** We goin’ hunt’n?!

**KR: ** No, George, the campaign, the campaign.

**GWB: ** (disappointed) Oh.

**KR: **Voters hate the rich, right?

**GWB: **I guess so.

**KR: ** You needthe rich, right?

**GWB: ** Hail no, I’m a cowboy! Looka this here hat! I don’t need nobody. I will kick the whole ass of any man, woman, or chile who says— !

**KR: **George! Now focus. Do I need to get the puppets out again, or can you try to follow me without them?

**GWB: ** OK, whatever.

**KR: **So. We need to harness—

**GWB: **I’m a cowboy! Any harnessin to be done around here—

**KR: ** George. Please.

**GWB: ** (pouts)

**KR: ** We need to harness the peasants’—the *people’s *hatred of the rich, but do so without alienating the rich.

**GWB: *** (narrows his eyes) *You tryna tell me the rich are aliens?

**KR: **No George, I just mean we have to appear to go along with the common—the voters, without angering the rich people any more than we have to.

**GWB: ** Cuz I’ll kick the ass of any man, woman, or chile who says the rich are aliens! Cept Barbra Streistein, a course. She got a nose like that one dude in Star Wars, the one who—

**KR: **OK George. Anyway. So I have a plan. Phase one:

GWB: ** (brightens) Should I go get my phaser?! The one that with the little lights, that beeps? (Shoots an imaginary apple off of Rove’s head): Doozh! Doozh Doozh! P’khew! P’khew!

**KR: ** Phase one, George: We buy the rich off by giving them a big tax break.

**GWB: ** Cool. How we gonna pay for that?

**KR: ** (sighs) George, what do you pay me for?

**GWB: ** OK, Karl, you’re the boss.

**KR: ** Then, after a while, when the tax break has faded into the background, when you’re out on the campaign trail—

GWB: ** I thought we were gonna go birdhuntin! P’khew! P’khew!

**KR: ** No George, your vacation time is used up for the next couple weeks. I’ll let you know, if—

**GWB: ** I know, I know: if I’m good.

*KR: ** Thaaaat’s right, George. So when you’re campaigning, you tell the lower—the voters, the voters (snaps the rubber band on his wrist)*—tell the *voters *how you can’t mess with the tax cuts, because our (snap)—because the rich are sneaky and will just find a way to get their tax cuts. And talk a lot about ketchup.

**GWB: ** Oh, I can do that. You know how I love me some ketchup. “It ain’t food if it ain’t got ketchup on it.” Don’t I always say that Karl?

**KR: ** Yes, George, you always say that.

**GWB: ** But Karl, these tax cuts the rich are gonna get their sneaky hands on; aren’t we the ones *givin *em to the rich?

**KR: ** George . . .

**GWB: ** I know, I know. What do I pay you for . . . I’ll be good.

**KR: ** I know you will George. You’re a good boy.

**GWB: I’m a cowboy! P’khew! P’khew! P’khew!

12

Genius! Bravo!

13

Seconded!

14

:smiley: Sheep don’t eat as much. :wink:

Sounds good for anyone who has kids, is married, has ever bought anything of lasting value or is the child of anyone who has bought anything of lasting value. I’m guessing that is a fair number of folks. And yet people ask, “Why would anybody vote for Bush?”

About that “death tax”. People don’t die leaving a million in cash to thier heirs. Even if they did, a million split 4 or 5 ways isn’t that much. Lets say, for argument sake your old man built a business worth substantially more. This business generates the income the family lives off. Old man croaks and family needs to liquidate to pay the tax on the balance. Family no longer has business. Almost a disincentive for investment and building for the future. Kind of a “Bic Lighter” plan- use it, throw it away, start over, repeat…

15

The assertion that this part of the tax plan “has nothing to do with tax cuts for the rich” needs to be backed up with some numbers.

Cite, please.

Cite, please.

I don’t see any mention of Bush’s cuts in the capital gains tax rate and the dividend tax rate here, either.

16

That would fly in the face of the facts, however. Two such facts:

  1. Under the pre-Bush law, estates had 15 years to pay the tax on farms and closely-held businesses.
  2. To the best of my knowledge, nobody’s been able to furnish a recent (since 1990, say) example of a family that was forced to liquidate a family business or farm due to estate taxes. And at various times this was an issue, partisans searched far and wide for such examples, to no avail.
17

Everybody? Really? Huh, guess my check from the government got lost in the mail…

Rivulus (a tax paying American)

18

Two things: (1) I mean tax cuts for the rich in the sense of the popular meme of tax cuts for the rich only — these are across the board cuts; (2) I am not defending (for heavens sake) Bush’s tax scheme — I am merely explaining it. As you know, I’d be pleased for the rates to be 0, 0, 0, 0, 0. Incidentally, a third thing: I am very please that our relationship seems to be under repair. I have seen a couple of posts from you lately with which I have agreed completely.

My own brother, a multi-millionaire, did exactly that. Two cows and a pig. Even more creative ideas are available from the link I provided in the post you’re quoting from.

Having been the CEO and Chairman of a corporation, I just happen to know that corporate income tax is paid to the state and not the federal government.

[…shrug…] I got the 6 points from the White House website. If he is indeed cutting CG and dividend taxes, then that is a good thing. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to understand that budgets consist not just of revenue, but expenses as well.

19

Huh? Then what is form 1120 - "U.S. Corporation Income Tax Return " used for then?

20

I think your complaint should be with Shrub. Considering that most of the tax cut went to the rich (and let’s not worry about if that is a good thing or not) then if the tax cut is beneficial, it must be because the extra money the rich get helps the economy in some way. If the rich are not getting any extra money, because they gamed the system in the first place, the tax cut couldn’t be beneificial. And, BTW, we wouldn’t be seeing quite as big a deficit as we are seeing today.

And while 70% tax rates are too high, I do wish you’d explain how jobs grew, investment grew, and the economy expanded under the awful tax rates of theClinton years. I know that is not the way it is supposed to work according to your theory, but maybe some day you will wake up to realize that your dogma has been falsified.

I had a rich friend who owned sheep. So this is true, but it is a state and local tax, not a federal one.