The liberal vultures are circling.

[DumbAss Tanker]

I never said that the poor are being soaked by our income tax structure.  I said the poor are soaked by our tax structure.  Sales taxes, property taxes, sin taxes, gasoline taxes, and government fees all hurt the poor a lot more than they do the rich.  As a percentage of their total income (from whatever source), the poor carry the heaviest tax burden of us all.

It's the middle class that's most heavily punished by our current income tax structure.  Buffett's secretary is hurt a lot more by having to pay her income taxes than Warren Buffett is, as he freely admits.  It appears to me that the people in this thread (like me) who are middle-classed and complaining about our income taxes prove his point.  We are hurt by income taxes much moreso than the wealthy.

It's not less in raw numbers, obviously.  But it is much less as a percentage of income.  Income taxes hurt middle-classed people more, even if, in raw numbers, a given middle-classed person is paying less in income taxes than someone who is wealthy.  It's hard for me to believe that you're trying to gin up sympathy for Warren Buffet, but I think he will do fine, even if we were to dramatically increase his tax burden.

-Laelth

Well, you're kind of moving your goalposts around in that argument, since all your discussion is about income taxes.  Whatevs, I doubt you will find much support even in your own party for moving to 'more progressive' taxation in all those other areas, essentially pushing the lower two or three quintiles' non-income-tax burden onto the net payers in our progressive income tax system.  What you would likely get then would be capital flight of 'Atlas Shrugged' proportions and a government so desperate to seize resources to maintain its revenue stream that the ensuing confiscations would make even Lenin wince.

[Doc]

Yes, those who make the most income pay the most income taxes. But income is not the only thing that is taxed. If you look at sales taxes, property taxes, sin taxes, gasoline taxes, government fees, and all the other forms of taxation we pay, it's clear that the poor pay the highest percentage of their income in taxes of all of us. The middle-class is not much better off because we pay income taxes too (and our income taxes hurt us a lot more than income taxes hurt the wealthy).

I should also add that the government could tax wealth if it wanted to. While I am not sure that this is a good idea, it has been dne before and it is being done now. Property taxes, for example, are a form of "wealth" tax.

-Laelth

Unfortunately most liberal zealots (like yourself) miss one very important consideration in their grand schemes to "create fairness", through progressive taxation, demonization of the rich, and redistribution plans.....the simple fact that wealth is "portable"........case in point: whenever my wife and I were certain that the current group of liberals/progressives/socialists were going to come to power here in the US, a substantial portion of our "wealth" was simply and easily transferred elsewhere, out of the jurisdictional grasp of the US government.

Many individuals and corporations have already also done so, or are now in the process.  Even Obama's buddy, the CEO of General Electric, said recently in a conference in Rome, that his company was rapidly transferring their "wealth" out of the reach of the US government, and that the present administration could only be described as the "enemy of private enterprise".  Simple economics will dictate that the jobs will follow the "wealth".

Perhaps the best example that I can cite of the effect of rampant "liberalism", and the total failure if such policies is the City of Detroit.  I went to undergrad school in the area in the sixties, and for the most part, Detroit had a vibrant economy, and was overall a fairly decent place.......in the intervening five decades, the effects of unions, affirmative action, welfare, corrupt liberal politicians, and an ongoing desire to continue to feed billions in taxpayer dollars into one failed effort after another yielded what can only be described as an area that is akin to most cities in third world shitholes around the world. The worse crime, is that even now, they refuse to admit that their efforts have failed, and continue to cry and whine about the "poor", and more taxpayer funding is needed to support them.

The "poor" will always be with us......making them wards of the state does nothing to improve their overall lot.  My parents and grandparents lived through the "great depression", and were dirt poor during that period.......there were no "social safety nets", perpetual unemployment checks, section eight housing........they did what was necessary to survive, and in that survival, became fiercely independent, and determined to succeed and prosper, which they later did.  Government programs and abusive taxation to create "fairness" were not involved, and America emerged as a stronger nation as a result.

Corporations are not "villians", nor are they unlimited sources of usurpable funds to be confiscated by politicians for redistribution to the masses.......they are entities designed to make products and services, and in doing so, provide profits for their owners and stockholders.  Corporations do not have "consciences", and are not designed to have "empathy" for political causes.....efforts to make them do so, will only result in their migration to areas that will allow them to operate in the manner that THEY choose to do, to minimize the meddling of governments.

Ultimately, liberals will have to come to grips with the fact that in order to have an "economy", jobs, products and services, companies are essential, and they are going to require the latitude to accomplish those goals.

It is said that "nature abhors a vacuum", and if the current crop of liberals/progressives/socialists in government creates one for business here in the US, it will simply be satisfied elsewhere......and rightly so.....we all see how well the extension of these policies to their logical conclusion is working out in countries like Venezuela, don't we.......

doc

[Texacon]

Bravo Doc!  Outstanding post.

KC

[Ballygrl]

Laelth, I've read this whole thread and unless I'm missing something you ARE the typical liberal and yes I know some.

What makes you typical?  You have not once in this entire thread advocated for less government spending.  All you've advocated for is taking the rich to the cleaners.

No, I don't feel sorry for Warren Buffet but at the same time I don't begrudge him his wealth.  Most rich people have earned what they have.  Just as YOU are trying to do.  As I stated up thread I don't think you'll be singing this same tune if/when you hit the big lawsuit that pays you millions.  I really don't.  I think you will find a way to cry about how you worked for years making nothing and you deserve to keep what you earned because of those years.

We need the government to stop spending NOT figure out how to bilk the American people out of more money.  We also need to figure out how to get the losers off the government payroll.  As a liberal you like to talk about how much the rich are stealing because they aren't paying enough yet the poor who are on government benefits payrolls are paying nothing and you won't admit they are stealing far more than the rich because everything they get comes straight out of the working mans pocket unlike the rich who ARE paying into the system.  That's some ass backward thinking right there.

KC

Very very very well said!

[USA4ME]

Bravo Doc!  Outstanding post.

KC

Agreed.

There's just no reasoning with those who get this "rich and corps are evil" mantra into their heads.  Their whole worldview has to be bent and shaped in order to accomidate that belief.  It's why the majority of people who are the movers and shakers in the world just go on about their business and don't concern themselves with these types.  What other choice is there?  You can spend all day going in circles with them knowing they aren't going to change, and productive people just don't have that kind of time.

.

[Ballygrl]

Unfortunately most liberal zealots (like yourself) miss one very important consideration in their grand schemes to "create fairness", through progressive taxation, demonization of the rich, and redistribution plans.....the simple fact that wealth is "portable"........case in point: whenever my wife and I were certain that the current group of liberals/progressives/socialists were going to come to power here in the US, a substantial portion of our "wealth" was simply and easily transferred elsewhere, out of the jurisdictional grasp of the US government.

Many individuals and corporations have already also done so, or are now in the process.  Even Obama's buddy, the CEO of General Electric, said recently in a conference in Rome, that his company was rapidly transferring their "wealth" out of the reach of the US government, and that the present administration could only be described as the "enemy of private enterprise".  Simple economics will dictate that the jobs will follow the "wealth".

Perhaps the best example that I can cite of the effect of rampant "liberalism", and the total failure if such policies is the City of Detroit.  I went to undergrad school in the area in the sixties, and for the most part, Detroit had a vibrant economy, and was overall a fairly decent place.......in the intervening five decades, the effects of unions, affirmative action, welfare, corrupt liberal politicians, and an ongoing desire to continue to feed billions in taxpayer dollars into one failed effort after another yielded what can only be described as an area that is akin to most cities in third world shitholes around the world. The worse crime, is that even now, they refuse to admit that their efforts have failed, and continue to cry and whine about the "poor", and more taxpayer funding is needed to support them.

The "poor" will always be with us......making them wards of the state does nothing to improve their overall lot.  My parents and grandparents lived through the "great depression", and were dirt poor during that period.......there were no "social safety nets", perpetual unemployment checks, section eight housing........they did what was necessary to survive, and in that survival, became fiercely independent, and determined to succeed and prosper, which they later did.  Government programs and abusive taxation to create "fairness" were not involved, and America emerged as a stronger nation as a result.

Corporations are not "villians", nor are they unlimited sources of usurpable funds to be confiscated by politicians for redistribution to the masses.......they are entities designed to make products and services, and in doing so, provide profits for their owners and stockholders.  Corporations do not have "consciences", and are not designed to have "empathy" for political causes.....efforts to make them do so, will only result in their migration to areas that will allow them to operate in the manner that THEY choose to do, to minimize the meddling of governments.

Ultimately, liberals will have to come to grips with the fact that in order to have an "economy", jobs, products and services, companies are essential, and they are going to require the latitude to accomplish those goals.

It is said that "nature abhors a vacuum", and if the current crop of liberals/progressives/socialists in government creates one for business here in the US, it will simply be satisfied elsewhere......and rightly so.....we all see how well the extension of these policies to their logical conclusion is working out in countries like Venezuela, don't we.......

doc

That's an amazingly good post!

[Ballygrl]

Doc made an especially good point about Venezuela, the poor are worse off now then they ever were before, that can be said about Cuba and North Korea too. Has how chasing out the rich helped the poor in those Countries?

[Hawkgirl]

Laeth, you seem to be cherry picking posts here.  Firstly, you didn't respond to BEG's post and secondly you skipped over my comment about the Corporate tax BEING THE HIGHEST IN THE WORLD.  (Second only to Japan, by a very short margin)  This will ship jobs overseas....What say you about that?  Unemployment will skyrocket if this country keeps penalizing success.

[Thor]

Yes, those who make the most income pay the most income taxes.  But income is not the only thing that is taxed.  If you look at sales taxes, property taxes, sin taxes, gasoline taxes, government fees, and all the other forms of taxation we pay, it's clear that the poor pay the highest percentage of their income in taxes of all of us.  The middle-class is not much better off because we pay income taxes too (and our income taxes hurt us a lot more than income taxes hurt the wealthy).

I should also add that the government could tax wealth if it wanted to.  While I am not sure that this is a good idea, it has been dne before and it is being done now.  Property taxes, for example, are a form of "wealth" tax.

-Laelth

Hey, I don't make much money as I subsist off of a military retirement. It ain't much, let me tell you. However, I can't afford to go out and buy a new car, a boat, and luxury items like that. Sure, I pay sales tax on some items that I buy but only because the state forces me to do so, and that's about it. I don't own a home, so I don't pay any property tax, either. I only buy stuff that I pretty much need. So, your  premise that the poor pay more taxes doesn't wash. It's simple, the poor pay less taxes because they can't afford to buy many of the luxury items that a wealthy person can. Hell, I consider it a "luxury" that I can even afford parts to build a new computer as my current ones are rapidly becoming dinosaurs and are ten years old.

This wasn't always this way and I've experienced the wealthy side of life, but that went away when the Real Estate market died.

[AllosaursRus]

Doc made an especially good point about Venezuela, the poor are worse off now then they ever were before, that can be said about Cuba and North Korea too. Has how chasing out the rich helped the poor in those Countries?

LilithTheLefty doesn't acknowledge Greece going Bankrupt, Spain soon to follow, and at the latest G2 summit when Bummer put forth the idea to keep spending, they all told hm to pound sand!

If her ideals would work so well, why is the rest of the world waking up to the fact they are sending them to hell economically?

Get this through your thick skull Lilith, there is no more ****in' money. Your savior is printing money at a rate never before seen in the history of our country! Your Messiah and his partners in crime, trying to send us into a socialist hell, put forth programs they have no chance of funding. If that wasn't bad enough, they're doing it at a time when we have close to zero growth!

Do you have children? I hope you're not polluting the gene pool with this nonsense, but if you are, how are you going to explain to your children they are going to have to pay for the bills your philosophy has burdened them, and their children with?

All you libbies think the answer is to tax everyone to death and all will be well with the world. Sure looks like the economy of Greece and Spain, with it's so called "Green Job" economy, are in direct contrast to your solutions to make the poor dependent upon you! After all, it's all about the power you people want to have over the working class in this country. Nothing more!

None of your rich buddy politicians are going to give up any of their ill gotten gains! They're just going to take it from us!

ETA:

I should also add that the government could tax wealth if it wanted to.  While I am not sure that this is a good idea, it has been dne before and it is being done now.  Property taxes, for example, are a form of "wealth" tax.

-Laelth

Do you seriously believe congress critters will tax themselves? BJ and Hitlery were middle class until they gained political power. Now their frikkin' millionaires! You really believe they are going to give up any of that wealth? Sister, you are living in never never land!

There's a long line of politicians that went from the middle class to the millionaire club thru their positions in office! The only way they would give any of it up would be by the barrel of a gun! Hell when they're caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they invent non-taxable foundations and take donations in order to not have to dip into their stash!

[USA4ME]

Please feel free to look over this primitive's journal:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Laelth

You'll find his beliefs to be as mainstream DU as they come, and you all know what that means.

.

[TheSarge]

I am not advocating flat pay.  Nor is any other liberal, to my knowledge.  I am arguing for a fair tax structure, however.  Nor am I arguing for state control over the professions that one may enter.  Nor, to my knowledge, is any other liberal.

The tax structure you argue for is neither fair nor very well structured.  A fair tax system is one where EVERYONE pays the same amount.  Not the class warfare you advocate.

If you were to get the "soak the rich" tax structure you so desire...you'd see more of the state doing what it's done to certain firms and corporations that have made their deal with the devil and taken the bail out money.  The state is very much telling their hard working executives how much they can and can't make.  By leaps and bound more than any other Democrat administration with the exception of FDR this administration is making a hard left towards Socialism bordering on Communism.

And YES every Liberal I can think of believes and advocates for state control of everything womb to tomb.

Liberals are not socialists.  There is a very big difference.

-Laelth

Not in 2010 in the United States there isn't.

[TheSarge]

If the rich could make the same amount of money without producing any jobs at all, that's what they would do.  If they could just have a machine that did all the work, and still allowed them to profit, then that's what they would do.  To them, creating jobs is a necessary evil.  I don't give them any credit for that any more than I give them credit for breathing.  They do it only because they have to.

But I wouldn't abolish them either.  We need them, and we need the jobs that they begrudgingly create.  I would take away the incentives they have to ship those jobs to India, however.  I would tax them fairly.  I would regulate them carefully.  I would try to make sure that their profit-making enterprises didn't hurt us too much (i.e. the Gulf of Mexico).

But, as I have also noted, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party has any interest in protecting us from big business now, and I wonder what we're willing to do about this.

-Laelth

Ok now after two days of reading your propaganda talking points I have just one question for you.

Which Democrat member of Congress are you working for?

Only a paid political shill or a staffer for a Leftist Congress Critter would keep repeating this Socialist tripe in the face of mountainous evidence to the contrary.

[TheSarge]

Why should those who enjoy the greatest benefit from this society pay the most for its maintenance?

Beacause that would be fair?

What better reason do you want?

-Laelth

How about an honest one...not more Liberal class warfare rhetoric.  No where in the founding of this country was it ever said that with all the freedoms we were/are granted...was there ever anything said about things being "fair".

We were all granted the right to the right to life liberty and the persuit of happiness.  No one ever said it would be handed to our and no one ever said life would be fair.

[AllosaursRus]

Ok now after two days of reading your propaganda talking points I have just one question for you.

Which Democrat member of Congress are you working for?

Only a paid political shill or a staffer for a Leftist Congress Critter would keep repeating this Socialist tripe in the face of mountainous evidence to the contrary.

I think you've hit TX! How in the world these libbies can keep defending these policies with the oh so evident failure of them to work, borders on insanity!

Only brain washed sheep can still believe in them! Their argument of "it just hasn't been administered the right way yet" is ignorant!

The very thing that keeps them from ever working is the left's insatiable need for power over the rest of us. It means them first absconding with the wealth and then passing out just enough to keep us under their thumbs. All the while looking down on us from their penthouse suites with their illegal alien servants waiting on them hand and foot, jet setting around the world in private jets, and driving their SUVs down to the local 7-11 for more cheetos! Do as I say, not as I do! I'm exempt because I need these

They have no desire to give up their wealth in order to advance the socialist utopia, but they sure as hell expect us to!

[Laelth]

And yet you don't recognize that Obama's and the liberal tax policies and class warfare rhetoric is absolutely DESTROYING consumer spending.

LOL.  Obama is no liberal.  He's as much a Republican as Bill Clinton was.  I am a liberal, and I know the difference.

And as for tax policy, I agree.  That might be killing consumer spending because the poor and the middle class have very little to spend these days.  Tax policy might have something to do with this, but liberal tax policy?  That I do not see.  I see conservative tax policy in action ... cut taxes for the rich, soak the poor and the middle class with taxes.  That's what I see.

-Laelth

[AllosaursRus]

Ok now after two days of reading your propaganda talking points I have just one question for you.

Which Democrat member of Congress are you working for?

Only a paid political shill or a staffer for a Leftist Congress Critter would keep repeating this Socialist tripe in the face of mountainous evidence to the contrary.

I think you've hit TX! How in the world these libbies can keep defending these policies with the oh so evident failure of them to work, borders on insanity!

Only brain washed sheep can still believe in them! Their argument of "it just hasn't been administered the right way yet" is ignorant!

The very thing that keeps them from ever working is the left's insatiable need for power over the rest of us. It means them first absconding with the wealth and then passing out just enough to keep us under their thumbs. All the while looking down on us from their penthouse suites with their illegal alien servants waiting on them hand and foot, jet setting around the world in private jets, and driving their SUVs down to the local 7-11 for more cheetos! Do as I say, not as I do! I'm exempt because I need these things in order to reign supreme over the masses!

They have no desire to give up their wealth in order to advance the socialist utopia, but they sure as hell expect us to!

[AllosaursRus]

LOL.  Obama is no liberal.  He's as much a Republican as Bill Clinton was.  I am a liberal, and I know the difference.

And as for tax policy, I agree.  That might be killing consumer spending because the poor and the middle class have very little to spend these days.  Tax policy might have something to do with this, but liberal tax policy?  That I do not see.  I see conservative tax policy in action ... cut taxes for the rich, soak the poor and the middle class with taxes.  That's what I see.

-Laelth

That's because you haven't listened to any of the facts in this thread! Go back to Uranus! It's clear no amount of debate will ever get you to land on any other planet where there is daylight!

ETA:

You didn't answer the question either. Which DemonRat do you work for?

[TheSarge]

I have to say that you're going to win very few allies with this argument.

I've got every Conservative in the country as an ally with my argument.

You want me to feel sorry for poor Warren Buffett who had to pay 15 million in income taxes but still had 45 million left?  Sergeant, Warren Buffett sill made in one year more money than you and I are likely to make in our entire lives.

First off it's Staff Sergeant.  Secondly I wasn't trying to garner any kind of sympathy from anyone for Buffet.

He made a shit ton of money.  Good for him.  I don't begrudge him one cent.

Nor am I jealous that he made it and I didn't.

But then again I'm not base enough to believe that my life is or isn't a success based on my paycheck.  There are far more important things in my life that make me richer than Gates and Buffet combined.

And you want me to feel sorry for him?  You want me to believe that he's worse off than his secretary who paid $18K in taxes but had only $42K left after taxes?  I am afraid I can't go there.  It's clear to me that the secreatry carries a lot heavier income tax burden.  That $18K loss hurt her a lot more than the $15 million loss hurt Warren Buffett.

I never said anything of the sort.

Your reading comprehension sucks.

But you keep on defending him if you like.  I suspect that most people will be on my side on this issue.

-Laelth

Perhaps you should have gone with your first instinct and not responded.  Cause no where in her have I defended Warren Buffet.

YOU were the one that brought him into the conversation and held him up as a shining example.

I showed that you...and him are full of shit.

[TheSarge]

LOL.  Obama is no liberal.  He's as much a Republican as Bill Clinton was.  I am a liberal, and I know the difference.

That one statement right there gets you an automatic nomination for the 2010 DUmmie of the year.

Ralph write this one down.

[AllosaursRus]

That one statement right there gets you an automatic nomination for the 2010 DUmmie of the year.

Ralph write this one down.

At least a candidate for "Mind Numbing Stupidity"!

[Doc]

LOL.  Obama is no liberal.  He's as much a Republican as Bill Clinton was.  I am a liberal, and I know the difference.

And as for tax policy, I agree.  That might be killing consumer spending because the poor and the middle class have very little to spend these days. Tax policy might have something to do with this, but liberal tax policy? That I do not see.  I see conservative tax policy in action ... cut taxes for the rich, soak the poor and the middle class with taxes. That's what I see.

-Laelth

Anecdotally, I notice that you have avoided my discussion of liberal taxation policies and corporations like the plague........your silence in rebuttal is deafening......

Your comment that Obama and his minions are no liberals is further damning by its presence, as it infers that you are far to the left of his policies, which have been demonstrated to be basically socialist in nature......leaving us with the impression that you have graduated from liberalism, through socialism (without passing GO) and proceeded directly to some form of totalitarianism.......speaks volumes.

And by the way, the reason that consumer spending is so low (as well as consumer confidence) has nothing to do with taxation, or lack thereof, and has everything to do with the fact that one in five Americans either don't have a job right now, or are severely underemployed.......they are in survival mode.  

Reducing the overall tax burden on someone that is earning nothing is just an empty gesture, designed to appear to the uninitiated that the present bunch in charge "cares about them", when this could not be further from the truth.

Critically evaluating all of the government (read taxpayer)  funds that have been expended in one "stimulus" or another has had absolutely no effect on the basic problem of lack of private sector jobs that will be the ultimate recovery mechanism for the economy.  In the instant case, the example of Greece should tell us what the ultimate result of depending on the creation of government jobs has on the long-term stability of a nations economy.

As was wisely stated by Lady Margaret Thatcher........."Socialism is great until you eventually run out of other peoples money" (paraphrased).

doc

[BEG]

I'm thinking Doc is kind of hot.

[Thor]

And by the way, the reason that consumer spending is so low (as well as consumer confidence) has nothing to do with taxation, or lack thereof, and has everything to do with the fact that one in five Americans either don't have a job right now, or are severely underemployed.......they are in survival mode.  


doc

This is exactly why it has taken me several months to accumulate the funds to buy the parts to build my new computer.

[Doc]

I'm thinking Doc is kind of hot.

Unfortunately, I'm far from that.......

You, however, are definitely so, madame.......

To digress, this "Laelth" individual professes to be a lawyer, ergo, fairly well educated, and infused with a modicum of "common sense".  Thus far, I have seen no indication that this is the case, and I would certainly be reticent to hire her/him/it for legal representation based on the debating skills thus far demonstrated......

doc