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REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS
Does Obama have a chance being re-elected?
Monday, September 19, 2011 5:30 PM
SIGNYM
I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.
Quote:I hold no faith on this matter. I've provided more than ample evidence to support my view
Monday, September 19, 2011 5:46 PM
AURAPTOR
America loves a winner!
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 8:26 AM
M52NICKERSON
DALEK!
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: The purpose of taxes is to fund the proper functions of government, not to equalize the wealth. There in lies your problem.
Quote:And no, the govt doesn't have the right to take what ever the hell it wants from us, simply under the guise of ' for the good of the people'.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 9:11 AM
NIKI2
Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...
Quote: There's never been a moment when I regretted voting for Obama or wished I'd voted for McCain, but I have regretted some of the things Obama has done.
Quote: Obama has made the best of an appallingly bad situation. I think a lot of Americans didn't grasp quite how bad the situation was. What's worse is that they still don't hence any action he or Congress to legislate against a reoccurence is labelled class warfare or taxing 'job creators'.
Quote:You don't want to know how much worse it could get.
Quote: To say that it could have been worse is not saying that it's the best it could be.
Quote: The REALITY is that Obama has been afraid to offend TPTB- banks, insurances, the military and its contractors... yanno, the money-men
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 1:40 PM
RIONAEIRE
Beir bua agus beannacht
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 1:53 PM
Quote:Originally posted by m52nickerson: Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: The purpose of taxes is to fund the proper functions of government, not to equalize the wealth. There in lies your problem. Your right, but if the tax code was such that all were paying there fair share the wealth gap would not be getting wider.
Quote: Quote:And no, the govt doesn't have the right to take what ever the hell it wants from us, simply under the guise of ' for the good of the people'. No not what ever they want, but they can tax, at the rate they wish for the good of the people.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 3:01 PM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: Again, you can't be serious. The tax code isn't suppose to correct the wealth gap. The GOVERNMENT has far exceeded its budget. At no fault of the 'super rich', why do you think it should be up to them to pay off where the govt screwed up ? This makes no sense.
Quote:At a rate why wish? Excuse me ? Again, it's not ' for the good of the people '. We had a bit of a revolution over this once, because some in charge taxed us as THEY wished.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 4:33 PM
Quote:The purpose of taxes is to fund the proper functions of government, not to equalize the wealth.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:22 AM
Quote:Originally posted by SignyM: Quote:The purpose of taxes is to fund the proper functions of government, not to equalize the wealth. What if the proper function of government IS to equalize wealth? Yanno, pry money from the tightfisted holders of debt, and fling it around the nation in order to get the economy going again?
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:54 AM
Quote:(Reuters) - Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said. The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005. More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said. During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study. The report did not name any companies. The GAO said corporations escaped paying federal income taxes for a variety of reasons including operating losses, tax credits and an ability to use transactions within the company to shift income to low tax countries. With the U.S. budget deficit this year running close to the record $413 billion that was set in 2004 and projected to hit a record $486 billion next year, lawmakers are looking to plug holes in the U.S. tax code and generate more revenues. Dorgan in a statement called the report "a shocking indictment of the current tax system." Levin said it made clear that "too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States." The study showed about 28 percent of large foreign corporations, those with more than $250 million in assets, doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $372 billion in gross receipts, the senators said. About 25 percent of the largest U.S. companies paid no federal income taxes in 2005 despite $1.1 trillion in gross sales that year, they said. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/12/us-usa-taxes-corporations-idUSN1249465620080812 are the facts, and there are more, if needed. The "loopholes" discussion has been going on for some time, and even the Republicans have been willing to close some of them (but only if the tax code is revised so it doesn't cost them any MONEY, of course). To argue that the wealthy and corporations pay their "fair share" is patently ridiculous, given the facts. We've been here numerous times; each time we've proven the "they pay their fair share" wrong, but it will never make a dent in the claim. So why keep going back there?
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:05 AM
Quote: WASHINGTON -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett isn’t as undertaxed as he and President Obama seem to think. Buffett recently said that he paid only $6.9 million in taxes last year -- just 17.4 percent of his earnings, compared to an income tax rate of about 36 percent paid by his employees. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice,” Buffett wrote last month in the New York Times. Such grousing was enough to convince Obama to name his latest tax-the-rich scheme the “Buffett rule.” But it doesn’t tell the whole story. And yesterday, Obama invoked Buffett’s name again in his case for imposing higher taxes on the wealthy, when he said: “Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires.’’ “It’s hard to argue against that. Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it,’’ Obama said. Buffett actually was taxed twice on his investment income. First, Buffett had to make the money he invested. Those earnings were taxed as corporate income, at about a 35-percent rate. Then, Uncle Sam took another cut when Buffett invested the money and earned a profit. That’s when Buffett paid the 15 percent capital-gains tax rate. All told, after combining corporate taxes and capital gains taxes, Buffett forked over about 45 percent of his earnings. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/buffett_math_is_bit_off_7mGzoYiwPfsJcnWaIoptFJ
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:12 AM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: The 'gap' has next to nothing with how much folks pay in taxes.
Quote:The rich PAY far more than their fair share. It's not even debatable.
Quote:I'm so fucking sick of the lies and false premises that the Left puts out, pitting Americans against Americans, just so they can promote the socialist utopian b.s.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:19 AM
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:23 AM
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:27 AM
Quote: The top 1 percent of earners receive about a fifth of all American income; on the other hand, the top 1 percent of Americans by net worth hold about a third of American wealth. ..... Wealth-related inequality has also been relatively stable over the last few decades, whereas income-related inequality has been growing since the ’70s. Why is there more inequality in wealth than in income, both today and yesterday? Remember that wealth accumulates over time. The highest earners are able to save much of their incomes, whereas lower earners can’t. That means high earners can accumulate more and more wealth as time goes on. Higher-earning Americans also have the resources to pay for better tax preparation, which helps them reduce their taxes and save even more money. On the tax front, note also that people who have already accumulated wealth stand to earn a lot in capital gains, which are also taxed at a lower rate. But as I noted above, most of the attention paid to economic inequality pertains to what people are making each hour or each year, not what they already have stored up or what kind of cushion they have to fall back on. Perhaps that’s because most people don’t have a firm grasp of how much they’re “worth,” but they can always look to their paychecks to see how much they have coming in, and can make easier comparisons to their neighbors.
Quote:The richest 10% own about 95% of all US wealth. The bottom 90% own about 5% of all US wealth. Does that mean the richest 10% work 19 times harder than the bottom 90%? Of course not. In fact, the hardest working people I know are often poor. So why do conservatives defend this status quo by claiming that liberals are simply lazy? Or envious? Do they really fail to see any other alternatives? Do they think the ultra-rich simply work THAT much harder, or can cons admit that the ultra-rich manipulate the system to their advantage in ways a middle class American never could?
Quote:At this stage of the game, lot's of the ultra rich did NOTHING to get their wealth other than having been born to industrious or clever parents who were able to earn their dough through any number of combinations of what you suggest here.
Quote:They got their money in many different ways. Some earned it, but if you are talking about super rich, most inherited at least enough for a startup. Pointing to some welfare mother cheating the system out of $15000 a year is a diversion to take attention from the trillions we spend to subsidize business and the trillions of abuse they heap on top of that.
Quote:You got it in one, they manipulated politics and the legal system
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:28 AM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: There is no direct correlation. None, what so ever.
Quote:Taking more $ from " the rich " won't make everyone else better off. Not by a long shot. The problem you continue to have is that you think this all has more to do with $ being taken from the poor and given to the rich, which is a complete fallacy, and instead continue to turn a blind eye to the real issue. The govt is spending too much money. Period.
Quote:The rich do pay more than their fair share, and it has been shown. They pay more in taxes as a % than the income they take in.
Quote:I know what socialist means, which is exactly why I used it. Trying to insult me to win your argument is simply a sign you've already lost.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:37 AM
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:50 AM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: This is pointless. You're impervious to facts, logic, and reason. And your lack of understanding this country's history is a pretty big hindrance as well.
Quote:The European countries are having to cut spending BECAUSE they spent too much in the past. Look at Greece ! For you to even think that we're not spending enough, it only shows you have no clue of what you're talking about.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:58 AM
Quote:Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors. Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent. If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot. To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot. ..... In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 8:15 AM
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 8:27 AM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor:Govt is spending too much, and the politicians are looking to the dumb masses to help bail their sorry butts out of a jam by pandering to the class warfare zealots.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 8:38 AM
Quote: See you keep saying government is spending TOO much, but don't explain why government spending is TOO high. Before you say it, it is not because it spends more then it takes in because increasing the tax rate would deal with that.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 9:16 AM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: The list of things the govt is wasting our $ on far exceeds my patience to delve into here.
Quote:And I said government, not JUST Obama. If Bush wasted our tax $, does that make it more or less acceptable for Obama to come along afterwards and waste even more ?
Quote:I have no real idea what the hell you're even trying to say here... Govt SPENDS more than it takes in? ( Yes, that's true...) increasing the tax rate would " deal with that " ? Are you out of your ever loving mind ? WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO TAX ENOUGH TO PAY FOR THE DEBT WE HAVE !!! Unless you're for 100% tax rates, even that wouldn't " deal with that ".
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