Ron Paul 2012!!! Your thoughts on who we should pick for our "Cause"?

[DiscoBiscuit]

Lol if you think income tax funded those things you are seriously misinformed...

They were funded by the "federal" reserve

That debt is being paid back through user fees like gasoline tax

You think gas tax revenue is fed money?

Avoid the temptation to homogenize treasury and fed to make a point. Tax revenues fund our domestic spending and are managed by treasury. Fed loans to private entities qualified for the prime lending rate. Fed's QE has expanded that role after the housing bust but not for stimulus. Stimulus went toward our deficit and ultimately our debt.

Gas tax goes to roads but doesn't fully fund roads. That's why our roads are so poor in many places of the country and why we mandated gas taxes exclusively for road repair and construction.

 

[ShroomDr]

Where are all the 'champions of liberty' to defend against this guys quote?

"It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth. The states must see the rod.” -Thomas Jefferson.


WHAT A TYRANT.

[/tongue-in-cheek]

I guess its not all black, and its not all white....

===========================

Anyone see Santorum on MTP this morning?

He was arguing that corporate welfare for manufacture is necessary in this time of need, but individuals need to learn self responsibility, and effectively shorter unemployment benefits.



'We the Corporations, united together to privatize our profits, and socialize our losses' <--- does that sound about right?

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[dagnabit]

IMO, driving over a new road surface that used to bounce out my tooth fillings is progress.

in the allocative process interstate road maintenance costs are covered by the federal excise fuel tax. this is a consumption model that works.

I know better than to politicize bean counting. It's a poor excuse. I can handle the idea you'd prefer less revenues generated, thus less spending and irrevocably less progress. Can't overlook that flat taxes would make our happy rich class even happier.

i don't advocate a flat tax and the www.fairtax.org would actually RAISE revenue,close loopholes and make the rich pay "their fair share"
the 100,000 page us tax code makes the rich happy. if it did not they would have bought a new tax code by now.
raising income rates will never make the rich"pay their fair share" it will however prevent the middle class from ever being anything other than.
nice try though

 

[whodare]

Where are all the 'champions of liberty' to defend against this guys quote?

"It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth. The states must see the rod.” -Thomas Jefferson.


WHAT A TYRANT.

[/tongue-in-cheek]

I guess its not all black, and its not all white....

===========================



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http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa&cc=moa&sid=95e3f6e828e116b80d4cccd93c806bc1&view=text&rgn=main&idno=ABJ5511.0001.001

Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Mr. Adams of the 11th of July, 1786, on the subject of providing a naval force of 150 guns to chastise the Barbary powers, urges as an additional reason for such a step, that it would arm " the federal head with the safest of all the instruments of coercion over its delinquent members, and prevent it from using what would be less safe," viz., a land force. Writing on the same subject to Mr. Monroe a month later (11th of August, 1786), he answers the objection of expense thus: "It will be said,'There is no money in the Treasury.' There never will be money in the treasury, till the Confederacy shows its teeth. The states must see the rod, perhaps it must be felt by some of them. Every rational citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both."

Way I read it he was trying to say the state needs a method of coercion that is effective but put as little risk on people's liberty as possible...

Rational and still for liberty

 

[ShroomDr]

raising income rates will never make the rich"pay their fair share" it will however prevent the middle class from ever being anything other than.
nice try though

HUH?

FWIW Obama is not trying to raise taxes on the middle class (If the GOP WASNT they would quit putting a 6 month expiration deadline on the middle class cuts/ quit tying them to the wealthy.).

If you taxed the first $10,000 cap gains at 0%, and anything higher at 50% how would that hurt the middle class?

Hell, make the 'zero percent window' up to $50,000.

RP wants to make it a flat ZERO. Mitt Romney will pay vitually ZERO taxes; he (and Buffet) dont take salary (like the rest of us).




These assholes are complaining about paying 30%, which if they made 5% profit on his $200 million, would still only amount to a tax of 3 million.

Guys playing with $200,000,000, and bitching about a 3 million vig.





I dont know what worse, bitching about it, or confusing the populace into supporting it (or the populace championing for something that harms them).

Again, money isnt real, its is not unlimited, it is fiat money, one guy owns boardwalk, park place, all the green and all the blues, and he bitches when he has to pay $200, and everyone else want to quit playing (settle for an $800 welfare check).




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[whodare]

You think gas tax revenue is fed money?

Avoid the temptation to homogenize treasury and fed to make a point. Tax revenues fund our domestic spending and are managed by treasury. Fed loans to private entities qualified for the prime lending rate. Fed's QE has expanded that role after the housing bust but not for stimulus. Stimulus went toward our deficit and ultimately our debt.

Gas tax goes to roads but doesn't fully fund roads. That's why our roads are so poor in many places of the country and why we mandated gas taxes exclusively for road repair and construction.

Gas tax revenue isn't fed money so to speak it goes into a trust fund.

It has been tapped into more than once though

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

in the allocative process interstate road maintenance costs are covered by the federal excise fuel tax. this is a consumption model that works.

We're regulated from using highway revenues for purposes other than highways. That said, the gas tax doesn't fund all repairs and new construction. There are countless examples of tax funded infrastructure that qualify as progress.

Besides, "progressive" in progressive tax system doesn't denote improvement. It denotes increased rate as income rises. Progressive - it goes up. Progressive - as opposed to flat.

i don't advocate a flat tax and the www.fairtax.org would actually RAISE revenue,close loopholes and make the rich pay "their fair share"
the 100,000 page us tax code makes the rich happy. if it did not they would have bought a new tax code by now.
raising income rates will never make the rich"pay their fair share" it will however prevent the middle class from ever being anything other than.
nice try though

Even when the nominal rate was 91%, loopholes effectively made it 52%. I'm all for fair taxes but I'm not ideologically opposed to beneficial tax breaks. Tax breaks can be used to spur new growth, among other areas. It's also an area to exploit and IMO, the exploitations are what need reform.

If the rich are for paying-their-share under the fairtax plan, can't see why the noisy ones balk at a return to the Clinton rate structure. IMO, we should also reform the laws that allow 68% of US corporations to pay no tax. A few of em get refunds.

Same thing happened in the years leading up to the depression. The nominal rate was so low that we eventually established 91% to net 52. Rather than chase the never ending tail of corporate lawyers who live their lives lowering their employers' liability, we could hit em hard and let em jump through all the hoops they wish.

 

[ShroomDr]

What i think a lot of you fail to see, is that we all agree the tax cuts for the rich can help them create jobs and stimulate the economy.

What you also fail to see is that these jobs will be created in the third world and simulate the third world economy, and this does nothing to help AMERICANS. This is the downward spiral we have been in since Eisenhower left office, and its time to wake up to REALITY.

 

[whodare]

What i think a lot of you fail to see, is that we all agree the tax cuts for the rich can help them create jobs and stimulate the economy.

What you also fail to see is that these jobs will be created in the third world and simulate the third world economy, and this does nothing to help AMERICANS. This is the downward spiral we have been in since Eisenhower left office, and its time to wake up to REALITY.

I personally believe jobs went overseas due to a high corporate tax rate, high cost of labor (spurred to rise by inflationary monetary policy), lack of costly regulations in other countries, cheaper to corrupt governments, and a high percentage of people in poverty (hard to get out with the dollar as the reserve currency and the fed running an inflationary policy) who will gladly take a buck an hour.

 

[MadBuddhaAbuser]

I think a.lot of people are operating under the flawed logic that we would still be spending money at the rate we are with rons theoretical loss of income revenue.

" Afghan War Costs Compared to State Budget Shortfalls June 27, 2011

A recent report by the Center for Budget and PolicyPrioritiesfound that41 states and the District of Columbia are projecting budget shortfalls for Fiscal Year 2012 totaling $102.9 billion. This amount could be wiped out entirely by the amount spent on the war in Afghanistan this year ($122 billion in FY2011). Further, the amount contributed by each individual state to the war's cost would wipe out that state's shortfall in roughly 80% of the states projecting deficits. In some cases a state's war contribution exceeds its projected shortfall by billions of dollars."

Thats 122 BILLION in afghanistan alone. The iraq war had received over 50 billion.

The DEA received over 2 billion in the last fiscal year. This is money that is not only crappy wrong to spend, but is unsustainable.

As for social security (which ron isn't planning on getting rid of immediately, like three media likes you to believe, that program will be broke by 2022, and that is assuming an economic recovery with millions if added jobs and increased pay for everyone, two things not happening.

As for welfare, it is not entirely federal, and in fact some states pay more than the federal govt does.(ny state is about 50/50, while NJ pays 65% of in state recipients. It would not disappear. In fact the stares would still keep it going through things like STATE income tax, most seem to forget they pay state income as well.

tariffs, corporate income tax, property taxes, sales tax etc would still exist.

detractors make it out to seem as if all revenue streams would vanish.

Oh yeah, they nj turnpike, parkway, the roads and tunnels into nyc were built on tolls. The tolls were supposed to be phased out when it was paid off, but remain and go up every year for "maintenance costs" while the.trust funds are. Continually raided for things like the new pa building in manhattan.

 

[MadBuddhaAbuser]

States also allocate funding to fight the war on drugs which would be much more useful in educating our children instead of arresting them and sending them to privatized prisons or for profit treatment centers.

 

[MadBuddhaAbuser]

And jj is right, there are no easy answers.

Personally I think capital gains tax rates should be untied from income rates and should.be.raised.

Mitt paying 13.9% on 40 mil is appaling.

Especially when he tries to pretend he gives a shit about the average americans problems.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

... raising income rates will never make the rich"pay their fair share" it will however prevent the middle class from ever being anything other than.
nice try though

If that were true, lowering the top rate wouldn't make the 1% any richer. They sure spend lots of money trying to keep their rates low. Must be something to it.

Not sure I want to get into the ideological definition of fair, especially quoted phrases. Raising rates raises revenues. That's why the Grover Norquist Corporation fights against rate hikes and closing loopholes.

Bush didn't have 60 votes in the Senate to make tax cuts permanent. The tax cuts had to run through the reconciliation process, garnering 51 votes in the senate. Even if it's extended, it's still a temporary measure.

So long as we have lawmakers who argue that closing this temporary measure constitutes a tax increase, the rich will disproportionally win. Pretty soon we'll vote those yo-yos out of office and it may be as early as 2012.

The middle class didn't explode when income tax rates were 35% and cap gain rates were 15%. Reference the post WWII tax rates (including the marginal 91%)

We carried a 70% marginal rate until Ronald McDonald lowered it 50%. Deficits exploded so he lowered the rate to 38.5% The national debt doubled so he lowered it to 28% in 1988, his last year as prez.

"But Reagan raised taxes 11 times!" Yep. Reagan played with the fringes of revenues because he didn't want the necessary marginal rate. Ultimately, Reagan cut 2x what he raised while defense spending exploded.

Daddy Bush raises the marginal rate 3 measly points - loses his second term.

In 1993, we cut the size of government and raised the marginal rate to 39.6%, the lowest rate of measured, sustained economic expansion since the end of WWII.

It took 2 years to produce 4 straight budget surpluses. We projected the opportunity to pay off the national debt at 11 years.

W reversed course and again, gave too much back.



You can argue about where to draw the line but there's little argument that higher rates established and sustained the best middle-class era in our history.

 

[toketronix]

I haven't read all 244 pages of this lol but skimming the last few posts ..I don't think equality is all that diffcult to implement

set a sensible maximum/minimum income/assets
max & min close enough together to prevent an economic class system
but far enough apart to motivate those that can and want to do more
use the trillions of surplus dollars left over to maintain the infrastructure of the country, free: schools, healthcare etc

its not socialism or communism just common sense and fairness

...of course for this to work you need a real democracy ..imo no country in the world has real democracy ..just the illusion of

 

[dagnabit]

If that were true, lowering the top rate wouldn't make the 1% any richer. They sure spend lots of money trying to keep their rates low. Must be something to it.

.

just because they get richer does not mean they dont pay their fair share..
the two are not exclusive.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I haven't read all 244 pages of this lol but skimming the last few posts ..I don't think equality is all that diffcult to implement

set a sensible maximum/minimum income/assetts
max & min close enough together to prevent an economic class system
but far enough apart to motivate those that can and want to do more
use the trillions of surplus dollars left over to maintain the infrastructure of the country, free: schools, healthcare etc

its not socialism or communism just common sense and fairness

...of course for this to work you need a real democracy ..imo no country in the world has real democracy ..just the illusion of

Yep. 1-man 1-vote would see the electorate exercising more math than ideology in their economic decisions.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

just because they get richer does not mean they dont pay their fair share..
the two are not exclusive.

You can focus on the math (or the language.) "Fair" is relative.

 

[dagnabit]

Yep. 1-man 1-vote would see the electorate exercising more math than ideology in their economic decisions.

you place too much faith in people who watch american idol.


one plus one is equal to 1+1

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

You take even simple concepts to new extremes. When folks find themselves spinning their wheels as opposed to working toward what we know was our best effort, we recall we're a democracy and unfortunately everyone isn't satisfied.

 

[whodare]

You can focus on the math (or the language.) "Fair" is relative.

Yea depending on which "fair" YOU want to use

[fair]
- adjective 1.*free from bias or injustice

2.*proper under the rules

3.*moderately good or large

4.*(of the weather) fine

5.*having light-colored skin and hair

6.*attractive

7.*likely; promising

synonyms fair, just, equitable, impartial, unbiased, dispassionate, objective mean free from favor toward either or any side. fair implies an elimination of one's own feelings, prejudices, and desires so as to achieve a proper balance of conflicting interests

I'm sure you are referring to equitable though right :rolleye: