Now that’s an elitist viewpoint! 
Dearest ~
ALL that matters is $.
Don’t you GET that?
MONEY BUYS: Power. Guns. Government. Men.
CAPITALISM! Come on! India, Russia, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Britain, The Americas, the North and South Poles, ALL of the ‘Stahns’, France, even Canada and ALL of ‘their people’
understand that it is money and power that ‘decides’ what goes on, on the ‘World Stage.’
The PEOPLE of the world keep on working. Keep on going to their jobs e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e morning of their lives.
Twenty, thirty, forty years. Working…
But…aahhemm…the “Simple Folk”…the “Uneducated Folk” …the stupid VOTERS who really don’t understand how IMPORTANT it is to Barack Obama and John Boehner and John McCain and Newt Gengrich and and Rohm Emanuel and Timothy Geitner and Hank Paulsen and Larry Summers and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton , to k-e-e-e-p on convincing the STUPID American voters that the Repubs and the Dems have DIFFERENT agendas.
Uh, uh.
The ‘AGENDA’ is…to KEEP the POWER and the MONEY and the MILITARY in the Service of #1.
And that is, … AMERICA.
By which Power, ‘AMERICA’ can determine, the Money, the Military Might and, THEREFORE, what Happens in the World.
Welcome, AMERICAN TAXPAYERS, to what the rest of the World thinks of us.
Thank the Congress and the Military. FOR WHICH YOU PAID! E-V-E-R-Y CENT!!
How do YOU like being Hated and Feared? (While you PAY to accomplish this?)
So hereis that data on total taxes paid by income level. The idea that the poor get a free ride is just another lie that conservatives like to spew.
These charts and numbers are the reality and they show that the government has been growing. If your perception of what’s going doesn’t match them, it is you who is out of touch. Do you seriously think that a government can just grow and grow without any consequences? (I’m not saying that a breaking point has been reached on the federal level in the U.S. yet.) Do you follow any news at all?
Factually wrong. As of 2007, top 1% held 35% of wealth, and top 20% held 85% (Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power). In addition, the taxes in the U.S. are paid based on income, not wealth. Top 1% had 22.83% of the total AGI in 2007. Top 25% had 68.71% (http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html). crazyjoe, why do you post made up numbers?
Huerta 88, I remain curious about what non-American source all of your wealth comes from. Also, I’d like your opinion about whether or not a non- or insuffiicent-taxpaying spouse should have a vote. Why or why not?
Of course, if you’ve become a proud and patriotic Argentinian, I can see where it might take some time to get your cable and internet access re-established. Via con dios, amigo!
Sure, they’re real numbers. They just don’t support a claim of individual tax burdens rising to a point of crisis. Do you have any numbers that support that party line, or is ‘baffling with bullshit’ the order of the day?
I don’t have a lot of wealth, as I’ve said before, though my income ridiculously has been targeted by people who’d like to take my money (interesting that two of the ten commandments target the inborn human sin of envy, covetousness, and desire to take that which belongs to others) as “rich.”
But my income, about 85% of it, since you ask, comes from Japanese folk whom I’ve (so far) persuaded to take the wares I’m peddling. Kampai!
My proud Castillian (not so much . . .) forebears would not be pleased if I didn’t note that you meant “vaya.”
The (so far hypothetical, but richly imagined) Argentine housemaids say “Hola amigo!”
Oh. I took your confidence in challenging others on the internet to contests of “I’m weathier than you” to be suggestive of wealth. Okay.
And the wares, where are they made and who makes them? I’m asking because I would hope that your wealth, whatever it might be, does not originate from any American resources whatsoever.
See, I would think it quite dickish to benefit from what America has offered to you and then turn around and feel you had no obligation to make sure that America exists to provide similar opportunities for others. With an attitude like that, I would prefer that you go and leech off of Argentina for a while.
Of course, if you derive no benefits from America, I would share your disgruntlement with helping to sustain it, and I would probably want to move away from it as well.
oops. mispost.
I thuink his point is that the current debt we find ourselves in is not the result of increasing taxing and increasing spending. It is the result of cutting taxes without cutting spending.
At least teh Democrats weren’t willing to increase spending without increasing taxes (taking political responsibility for their actions).
That part happened only in your imagination, to which I don’t have access, so I don’t have any response to what didn’t ever happen.
They come unbidden from my head. Rather than debate you in the fantasy world all you guys premise where I am saying I shouldn’t pay any taxes whatever, I’d prefer to stick in the world where I’ve actually conducted this debate, where I willingly (so far) pay lots and lots of taxes, but don’t especially want to pay lots and lots +1.
Bolding mine, also happened only in your imagination. The checks I cut on 4/15 and 6/15 were very real obligations, as will be the 9/15 checks. I cut them willingly. A little gratitude? Too much to ask, I know. I guess I’ll go with noblesse oblige and no good deed.
Anyone that says this immediately loses all credibility in the debate on taxes. In the extreme case, you can leave this country and renounce your citizenship and within ten years you will have no more tax liability to this country if you never set foot in it again.
The civil service doesn’t WANT this responsibility. The IRS is vilified enough when they are merely enforcing the tax laws passed by congress. If they actually started picking winners and losers themselves, they would (A) become subject to lobbying that is several orders of magnitude higher than the lobbying at places like MMS and the pentagon, (B) be vilified not only for enforcing laws, they would be vilified for making those laws.
I think it might make some sense to CONSULT the career technocrats when drafting laws. These laws are drafted by lobbyists, modified by politicians (sometimes to take out stuff where they feel the lobbyists overreached but just as frequently to insert stuff that the lobbyists didn’t have the balls to put in their proposal because it was so over the top but some big money taxpayer really wants). Then the treasury officials take a look at it (most of these guys are tax lawyers that repersented these taxpayers 2 years ago and hope to represent them again when they leave in 2 years) to give it that patina of bureaucratic approval.
Has anyone considered the fact that these tax cuts, as passed by the bush administration, were designed to expire? The law as passed was temporary? Extending this requires passing a new law. Noone is making your taxes +1, they were always going to go back to the original rates once this expiration date came to pass. This is not some new increase that is being considered, it is this tax break ending as it was originally designed to do. This was not intended to be a permanent cut in taxes, regardless of how used to it you became. Does that mean anything to you?
I’ve considered it but it doesn’t mean much. Procedural history is vastly interesting to first year law students, not so much in the real world. I could go one back and say, the top marginal rate only ever got to 39.6% through Clinton’s “millionaire surtax,” and the “real normal” was always 35%. And I’d be right, and also wrong, because who cares?
The real question real people care about is, what is the right rate/bracket structure for 2011.
Yes I understand, the real point is money is everything and greed is good.
We all get that you feel this way. We just don’t agree.
None of which I said. You people are making a very poor showing. There are real arguments against what I have actually said. Why do you feel compelled to argue against what I never said or came close to saying?
The government can grow as long as the economy of the nation grows without any consequences. In fact I think that the government probably MUSt grow as the size of the economy grows (perhaps not in lockstep but in general terms).
If you only want to count taxes other than federal income taxes, then sure I guess you’re right but if you ONLY count federal income taxwes (which accounts for almost forty percent of all government revenues) then the rich are getting soaked and noone else is paying very much at all.
its because you never say anything other than I want my taxes lower and you shouldn’t be able to vote if you don’t pay income tax! Harumph.
That is essentially all you have said in this entire thread. I don’t recall seeing any real answers to our objections about this though.