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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by printdust, Jul 13, 2011.

Page 146 of 214
  1. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Bone away.
     
    The Big Ragu, Aug 5, 2011
    #1741
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Like I've said before, there has to be a progressive income tax. That ship has long since sailed. I'm not sure that YF would agree even to that much.
     
    Dick Whitman, Aug 5, 2011
    #1742
  3. LeCranke

    LeCranke Member

    So, can someone give me a thumbnail explainer on what the GOP plans to do to bring back jobs in the next few months?

    Just askin'. Seriously.
     
    LeCranke, Aug 5, 2011
    #1743
  4. Greenhorn

    Greenhorn Active Member

    I suggest we sell naming rights to all federal buildings to help ease the budget crisis. The Sonic Smithsonian, the Lincoln Lincoln Memorial, the Pringles Pentagon......
     
    Greenhorn, Aug 5, 2011
    #1744
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    The U.S. has one of the most progressive income taxes in the world -- if not the most progressive (and it probably is the most progressive).

    More than half of Americans don't pay any Federal income tax, and somewhere around 70 percent take more -- in entitlements and social welfare programs -- than they pay in.

    We could still have a highly progressive tax system and expand our tax base quite a bit.

    I believe that everyone should have to pay some tax. If more people paid, they'd realize that the $3 to $4 trillion budgets we are running actually cost money, and sentiment toward a lot of it would turn negative, and we might see real pullbacks on the size of our corrupt Federal government. And even if I am wrong about that, in order to run the entitlement boondoggles everyone treats like these sacred cows, we need to bring in a lot more than we do. Expanding the tax base would help, so we don't run the large deficits we have been.

    It wouldn't be the best thing for our economy, in my opinion, but it would be instructive for people to feel the cost of a $4 trillion government coming out of their pockets, rather than relying on the "let the rich pay for it, and run debt to make up the rest," attitude that class warfare politics relies on.
     
    The Big Ragu, Aug 5, 2011
    #1745
  6. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Aww, that's cute. It's the "poor people don't pay taxes" BS.
     
    deskslave, Aug 5, 2011
    #1746
  7. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    The other side of "class warfare" is the rich and corporate interests spending millions on lobbyists to get lower taxes and loopholes so the little people, as Leona Helmsley famously put it, pay taxes. Or getting rid of the corporate welfare and pitting locales against each other that have corporate interests extracting massive tax breaks in order to build.

    The rich are just as bad, if not worse, in believing that they somehow should be exempt in the cost of running a government. And it's not like the poor pay no taxes -- for example, they pay sales tax, the most regressive tax we have, and if they do own any property, they pay taxes on that, too.
     
    Bob Cook, Aug 5, 2011
    #1747
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    You are correct. And no arguments about what you said about special interest politics, and the weight it puts on our economy by interfering with our markets.

    But that isn't just a rich people buying all the breaks thing, you know. Head over to opensecrets.org (GREAT website). Go to their heavy hitters list -- the top lobbyists. The top 10 givers to political campaigns since 1989 are not dominated by "the rich" as you classify them. It is ActBlue. It's a bunch of labor unions: The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, The National Education Association (teachers union), The Service Employees International Union, The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, The Laborers International Union of North America, The American Federation of Teachers. All in the top 10 donors to politicians since 1989.

    If the point was to decry special interest politics we are on the same page. Whether it is AT&T -- which essentially only has a business anymore because of political kickbacks -- or a labor union that has no leverage on its own, so pays off politicians to buy legislation that gives them an upper hand in labor negotiations, it hurts our economy.

    But if you want to make that argument about special interest politics and the corruption it creates in D.C., realize that special interest politics spans a gamut of interests from professional organizations to corporations to labor unions (which dominate the lobbying arena -- look at the full list, and ask yourself what they are buying with those campaign contributions).

    And at the end of the day, even with all that corruption, our tax system STILL is the most progressive in the world, with the people you'd classify as "rich" paying, what, 75 percent of what ends up in the treasury's coffers?
     
    The Big Ragu, Aug 5, 2011
    #1748
  9. printdust

    printdust New Member

    You're shocked by this? Many of those on here speak the same language. It explains the media bias.

    And we're living in a real dream world when we think the ultra rich are going to give up any more tax money without making someone below them pay for it. It's part of a moral-ethical-values dilemma dealing with what's mine and what's yours and what's theirs...(re: GREED) and of course, the left has been a soldier-marching leader in taking morals and ethics out of everything public if it has anything to do with something that can be found in a majority religious institution. We're suffering from matters of conscience, and will pay a dear price for it, top to bottom.
     
    printdust, Aug 5, 2011
    #1749
  10. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    "The Left"

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    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
    Dick Whitman, Aug 5, 2011
    #1750
  11. printdust

    printdust New Member

    Madame Pelosi said her colleagues should vote their "conscience."

    If you don't understand it post-vote, you'll never get it.
     
    printdust, Aug 5, 2011
    #1751
  12. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    The "rich" also make the lion's share of the money, and an ever-increasing amount of it. I don't think you can argue the "rich" pay too much without declaring how much the "rich" make. Depending on what study you read, the upper 1% control one-quarter of the nation's income, and 40 percent of its wealth.

    http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105

    So the argument for why the rich needn't have their taxes raised often ends up sounding like Patrick Ewing, "We make a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money [on taxes already]."

    You are correct that lobbyists of all interests are spending a lot of dough to make sure their constituents are taken care of. But this argument of the poor rich having to pay so much in taxes, while so many don't pay, is a reflection of the wealth gap in America, not a reflection of poor people selfishly sucking the American teat. Class warfare is also stories about "welfare queens" and assaulting the morality of the increasing population of the poor -- many who, until the banking system put us on the edge of an abyss a few years ago, were once gainfully employed people paying taxes.
     
    Bob Cook, Aug 5, 2011
    #1752
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