Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Bill Gates was born in 1955. He was 13 in 1968.

In 1968, the top rate was 75.25 percent for incomes over $200,000.

http://ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html

Yeah, that really stopped him from dreaming.

 

If all people paid some tax, then you'd be having more people going hungry and living in cardboard boxes.

You want everyone to pay some tax. Then the private sector needs to step up to the plate and pay their workers before.

I got ripped on another thread for suggesting that Wal-Mart cut their net profits by 1/3 and pay their workers an average of $2.50 an hour more. Heaven forbid, those workers don't NEED that $2.50 an hour to ... maybe buy groceries or get their car fixed or something like that. Several people said that nobody would want to invest in a company that ONLY would have a net profit of $10 billion as opposed to $15 billion, both numbers of which are larger than the gross domestic product of at least a few countries in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_future_GDP_(nominal)

Heck, that $15 billion is greater than the gross domestic product in Afghanistan. You know, where we have a nice large number of troops.

But nope. The Waltons need another corporate jet, while screwing over their employees on their health care to the point where they have to get Medicaid.

EDIT: I mean pay their workers more, not before.

 

The enemy ideology has invaded and conquered yet most of us don't even realize it.

 

OK. I'll bite. What "enemy ideology?"

 

The ideology of the staredown.

 

Want to see a bad idea?
How about replacing the income tax with an age-based tax that everyone pays regardless of their income:

http://johntreed.com/headline/2011/04/25/abolish-the-income-tax/

"All persons above the age of 24 will pay the following annual federal tax:

Age, tax

25 to 29 $8,737.85

30 to 34 $10,162.06

35 to 39 $11,399.17

40 to 44 $11,546.04

45 to 49 $11,956.38

50 to 54 $12,222.44

55 to 59 $11,286.99

60 to 64 $9,673.30

65 to 69 $7,434.87

70 to 74 $5,840.37

75+ $4,286.08"


Thank God that will never happen.

 

Epic, nosepicking douchery.

How do these people get access from laptops at the mental hospitals?

 

"Luke. May the force be with you."

 

This is the essence of the ideology of the staredown:

I’d like to share this anecdote about how former Middleweight champ Vito Antuofermo felt his staredown with Marvin Hagler helped him defend his belt: ”Most of the opponents I fought, they don’t like to look at me. Maybe it was my stare. Some people say I have a very mean stare. And I knew I had a mean stare and psychologically it helped me. So if I tried to stare them down, it made me feel good. An example – I remember when I fought Hagler. I remember all the while before the fight, I used to get together with him, take pictures, press conferences, he knew and I knew we were gonna fight each other someday. We’d always stare at each other. He never backed down and I never backed down either. At the fight itself, I remember before the first round at the referee’s (Mills Lane) instructions, he stared at me for like ten seconds. Then all of a sudden, I saw his eyes go down. And for some reason I felt so great at that. When he couldn’t look at me no more. I said, Wow, I felt great, confident.”

 

I don't like this either but complaining doesn't change the problem.
So tell me, what's the fair tax and what's the route to balancing the budget? Ideas, please.

 

Raise taxes.

Cut spending.

Done.

 

What's interesting is that one of the stated reasons the market shit itself was BECAUSE of the feeling that tax increases were completely off the table. Combined with back-loading any cuts in the debt deal, there was a feeling that Congress, particularly the supposed deficit hawks in the Tea Party, weren't serious about reducing debt.

In this case, I think the markets are right.