Question: Does Ayers Matter? Why or Why Not?

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RoamingMadness
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Post by RoamingMadness »

I may be wrong. But you already don't pay taxes if you make less than 16,000 a year. You also don't really pay taxes if you're in school, or paying off student loans.

So basically, if you make over $8 an hour, you are paying taxes. If you make less than that (and how you could survive making less than that is beyond me). Mikey think's it's unfair that the people making less than $8 an hour, could get a check.

Honestly, it is a little absurd to give them money. But its a small percentage of people, who are probably at the poverty level anyway.

You want to talk about wealth redistribution. Social Security.
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Post by Kadian »

Social Security is something you pay into your whole life and then get paid back when you retire or are disabled, I don't see how that is wealth redistribution at all....

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Post by RoamingMadness »

Not really. The money we pay in now, isnt set aside for us. Its paying the current people on social security. If you die, it isnt like you get cut a check because you didnt draw all your funds. And you cant draw on it as you like.
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Post by Kadian »

By that reasoning insurance is also a redistribution of wealth, because you pay into it and if you do not have some sort of accident or illness you might never get any back (except for life insurance of course), but those people who do need it do get some of the money you paid in. So in my opinion Social Security is like an insurance policy that pays out to people who get old or disabled. I still do not think that this is the same thing as a redistribution of wealth just because you don't get the benefit of it if you die young.... There are a lot of things you don't get if you die young, it's not really the same as what we are talking about.

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Post by RoamingMadness »

You don't have the option of paying social security. It's wealth redistribution. And insurance companies are casinos. Evil, evil casinos.
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Post by Kadian »

Well, I disagree

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Post by Mikeyrat »

First off,on the on the insurance discussion, Kadian, you're paying someone to take the risk that you will need a lot more money than you pay in. It rarely works out that way, and insurance companies manage the risks and premiums so that not only do the premiums collected usually pay for all risks paid out, but there's profit for the company, too. In a situation like redistributing income through taxation/welfare, there's no chance for the person being taxed to recover his money. Only difference with insurance, you have a choice on whether to pay someone to take the risk for you, or to take it yourself. Taxes are collected at the point of a gun (if you need me to explain that turn of phrase, I gladly will.)

Secondly, I read the Obama tax plan, and yeah, it certainly sounds reasonable to me.... It would to anyone who doesn't know all the facts, and who believes in the statement "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

I have always believed that the income tax withholding system is the biggest scam perpetrated on Americans EVER. Most Americans, because of this, have NO IDEA how much taxes they pay. They believe that if they don't have to write a check on April 15, they didn't have to pay any taxes. They think the refund check is either a gift from heaven, or a payback on some nifty savings plan they put into all year. They just don't realize their return is just a small fraction of the money that was taken without their realizing it. Now Obama even wants to figure your taxes for you too! Just let the IRS figure them for you and you sign it, TADA! The the other half of America will be even more in the dark on what they pay in taxes! The dumber Americans are in such things, the better for us all, right? Ya the tax code needs simplified. But goddam, people need to take responsibility for themselves, and KNOW and LEARN what their place in society is, and how government affects them.

Next, Obama's plan either lies, or at least decieves. He keeps saying that he'll raise taxes on only those making $250k or more, but if you read his plan, it says he's raising the top two tax brackets only. Well, the second bracket down starts at incomes beginning at $184,200. This point was made by none other than Paul Krugman, liberal icon of the NYT editorial page, and recent Nobel Prize winner for Idiocy (I mean economics).

Finally, when it comes to small businesses and cutting capital gains taxes and corporate taxes and all that stuff, again, Obama is either ignorant, or lying, either of which disqualifies him. Most of the small businesses in this country, like the one I had for instance, so I know first hand how this works, are LLCs or S-Corps. These businesses don't pay corporate taxes, they pay personal taxes. And many of them will be impacted by Obama's policies. I know it sounds unreasonable that many would be, because $250,000 sounds like a lot of money, but the way things work with those small businesses is they have to report that income, then many of them put it back into the business as capital to buy equipment or whatever. If they don't have the money to do that, the business never grows.

The real problem with all this though is ideological. The belief that government knows better how to spend your money is absurd. And, lastly, you should really read the REAL BULLSHIT in the Obama document and I quote:

"Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of the taxes they have received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal responsibility."

CITIZENS DONT "RECEIVE TAXES" FOR GOD SAKES! The very language here assumes that any money you make is THEIRS, not YOURS. You get to keep what they say you can keep. And "fairness" is an arbitrary condition. To me that whole document solidified my belief that he's advocating socializing the economy completely. And invoking promises to roll back taxes to levels 20 years ago, and invoking Reagan's name in the process makes the document even more political crap. You may be too young to remember, but before Reagan, the top marginal tax rate was 78%. Reagan won a huge victory bringing it back close to reality of 39.6% It has been cut even more since then, because even 39.6% is confiscatory. But hey, at least he didn't have to roll it back to Carter days!
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Post by RoamingMadness »

You may be too young to remember, but before Reagan, the top marginal tax rate was 78%. Reagan won a huge victory bringing it back close to reality of 39.6% It has been cut even more since then, because even 39.6% is confiscatory. But hey, at least he didn't have to roll it back to Carter days!

But Reagan did that without cutting spending. Instead of taking money from you, it ran it up on your credit card. Which means you still ended up paying for it. You just had to wait till some interest was caked onto it as well.

I personally don't think the government should do almost anything. Im even starting to lean so libertarian that im not sure i agree with paying for public schools. So i certainly don't disagree with the misspending of funds.

And while i don't agree that higher taxes should exist, lowering taxes is NOT the way to fix anything. We are in debt. Not paying it off is NOT going to help. That needs to be priority #1, and mccain hasn't mentioned it.
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Post by Crow »

RoamingMadness wrote: And while i don't agree that higher taxes should exist, lowering taxes is NOT the way to fix anything. We are in debt. Not paying it off is NOT going to help. That needs to be priority #1, and mccain hasn't mentioned it.
Raising taxes just gives the corrupt politicians on both sides more money to waste. Honestly I think we need a heavier hand on the credit card companies and why they let people get into 10K+ debt and have 24% interest rates. Fix that issue and you'll help the economy.
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Post by Mikeyrat »

But wait a minute, dammit, you are BOTH wrong! Raising taxes doesn't INCREASE revenue, it slows the economy and revenues DECREASE!

http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwt ... agtxct.htm

This in particular:

"Several conclusions follow from these data. First of all, reduction in high marginal tax rates can induce taxpayers to lessen their reliance on tax shelters and tax avoidance, and expose more of their income to taxation. The result in this case was a 51 percent increase in real tax payments by the top one percent. Meanwhile, the tax rate reduction reduced the tax payments of middle class and poor taxpayers. The net effect was a marked shift in the tax burden toward the top 1 percent amounting to about 10 percentage points. Lower top marginal tax rates had encouraged these taxpayers to generate more taxable income."

"The 1993 Clinton tax increase appears to having the opposite effect on the willingness of wealthy taxpayers to expose income to taxation. According to IRS data, the income generated by the top one percent of income earners actually declined in 1993. This decline is especially significant since the retroactivity of the Clinton tax increase in that year limited the ability of taxpayers to deploy tax avoidance strategies, temporarily resulting in an increase in their tax burden."

And: "The economic benefits of ERTA were summarized by President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers in 1994: "It is undeniable that the sharp reduction in taxes in the early 1980s was a strong impetus to economic growth."

Now, if the whole idea is to *raise* revenues, then why defy history 3 times (Kennedy, Reagan, Bush) and still believe that RAISING taxes INCREASES revenues when the ACTUAL historic effect is the opposite? This is what I just DO NOT understand. If Washington wants more money to spend, pay debt, whatever, then why do something that will impinge on revenue collection?!?!? It makes no sense!
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Post by Styrofoam »

I'm with roam on this... vote libertarian...
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RoamingMadness
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Post by RoamingMadness »

Crow wrote:
RoamingMadness wrote: And while i don't agree that higher taxes should exist, lowering taxes is NOT the way to fix anything. We are in debt. Not paying it off is NOT going to help. That needs to be priority #1, and mccain hasn't mentioned it.
Raising taxes just gives the corrupt politicians on both sides more money to waste. Honestly I think we need a heavier hand on the credit card companies and why they let people get into 10K+ debt and have 24% interest rates. Fix that issue and you'll help the economy.
I totally agree with you, but do you think the money we have currently is enough to cover our current expenses? We need to stop a lot of programs in order to fix the economy. But i think it will still cost a lot. We can't fix the economy going more into debt. Where do we get the money to fix the economy from?

I dont know the numbers, we this seems like a good plan for fixing our current situation. Not for best long term growth. Not best for me (i'd rather see a system that works on a small flat tax rate for federal government and be done with it.
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