Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Herbert Hoover didn't do anything during the depression, because governments role was to "stay out of the way" and he's blamed for making the depression worse.

Besides there is an assumption that "taxing the rich" is a redistribution of wealth or is some sort of hand out for the poor. You know what taxes pay for and it's not welfare. All you guys that support a millionaire subsidy still haven't said what sort of things you'd cut from the budget to pay for it - which btw is why we have a deficit because the resident doesn't have the leadership to cut anything either.

[ February 05, 2003, 02:21: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">HUH!

W used Enron's plane to fly around the country during his campaign and Enron and Ken Lay were W's biggest contributors.

The reason Ken Lay supported Kyoto was because he was afraid of stricter regulation - Kyoto was a compromise.

Enron donated 3x as much money to republicans as democrats.

http://www.commoncause.org/publicati...n02/011102.htm

EDIT: It was Gingrich's "Contract on America" that caused all the problems with Enron because of the deregulation that occurred blaming Slick for Enron doesn't make any sense.

[ February 05, 2003, 02:25: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">How bout Lay's involvement in the Bush/Cheney's Energy Plan. The energy companies got nice subsidies and tax breaks and the plan was written with the "help" of Enron and the like.
It was being investigated by the Government Accounting Office (whoever they may be).

And if its the whole process then that really sux. Never trust the establishment no matter what they say.

Askan

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Um... and here I was thinking the Senate all but scrapped the Kyoto treaty.
(Hint: if the President signs a treaty, it is not binding until the Senate ratifies it. At best a Presidential signature means "we'll consider it". Which is apparently something that many people living inside and outside the US do not realize.)

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">FDR, who did a lot during the depression, did not make the economy better in any way. In fact, before WWII began, the economy was getting steadily worse. WWII is the only thing that saved the country from the Great Depression. So, Hoover didn't throw money away and massively inflate the national debt, and the economy didn't get better. FDR threw tons of money away and vastly inflated the national debt, and the economy did not get any better. Looks like Hoover's plan was better to me, because at least the national debt was not increased and money wasn't wasted.

People that blame Hoover for making the Depression worse need to take some basic history and economics classes again to learn how they are dead wrong.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Huh?

Do you believe what your saying or is it just rhetorical?

Well I guess Coolidge who was even more laissez faire than Hoover, was more responsible, but Hoover pretty much sat by for two years and watched thing get from bad to worse until even he felt that he had to intervene and that's why he is mostly blamed for the suffering of the depression.

I just pulled out my trusty history book and here is an excerpt:

". . . In his second term, Coolidge continued to be sympathetic to business. He appointed William Humphrey to the Federal Trade Commission, who systematically refused to investigate various monopolies. Coolidge also passed the Revenue Act in 1926 this act chopped taxes on high incomes with very little cuts for middle incomes. In 1924, after a decline in business, the Reserve banks created over $500 million in new money. Because of the fiscal policies, banks could now lend out over $4 billion. The enormous credit expansion sowed the seed for the stock market crash in 1929, the depression, and the New Deal. (sound familiar? lower taxes on the wealthy make people want to borrow by lowering interest rates)"

The main cause of the depression was lack of regulation of the stock market and banking institutions.

As far as Roosevelt spending money - (if you read your history books - I agree - there is a lot of debate whether Roosevelt's policies were effective) - still there was very much a possiblility that the there could be a revolution there was up to 20% unemployment 80% in some industrial cities and war veterans were marching on Washington - I guess trying to help these people doesn't fit into your philosophy, but a revolution probably would have been worse - and the New Deal helped alleviate the tensions.

As far as the deficit goes - where did you get your info or did you just make that up? The deficit didn't start ballooning until the eighties when a Reagan passed HIS millionaire subsidy. There was a spike during WWII - but based on how you feel about war that shouldn't bother you.

[ February 05, 2003, 21:44: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Explain to me how requiring the rich to pay less taxes is a subsidy to them? Personally, I think it is shameful how we are exploting the rich and using class warfare to justify it. Even with Bush's plan, many people with kids will end up RECEIVING money from the government instead of paying income tax. A family of 4 with two kids that makes 40k a year will pay almost no income tax. The top 50% of those in the US pay almost all of the income tax. (See www.rushlimbaugh.com for figures and analysis (he quotes the IRS I believe))

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Well this chart is income tax this chart does NOT include Social Security tax.

Rush (conveniently) forgets to mention that everyone pays 8.9% of their income to Social Security for the first 77k of income so the %s are deceptive. So someone making $20K pays ~ $1900 BEFORE deductions and 40K pays $3800 BEFORE deductions and someone making $1million pays 77K x 8.9% (whatever that is). There are a lot more people making less than 77k.

All this is supposed to go to Social Security and theoretically your supposed to get that back when you retire BUT it is all being lumped together together in the general fund to pay for non social security line items (that is what the lock box is all about BTW for those of you who don't know) - so Rush's figure is partly right because even though it seems like the wealthy are paying a huge amount more - they are not.

So since the tax cut applies only to income tax not Social Security tax someone making 20k doesn't get any tax cut but still pays the same rate of 8.9% for social security. Someone making a million dollars gets a 3%(?) tax cut.

Voila the millionaire subsidy.

EDIT: If the resident had been sincere about giving "the people back their money" he would have also lowered the Social Security tax but he didn't. Why not? The Social Security tax is 44% of revenue AND is mostly paid by lower income people.

[ February 05, 2003, 23:40: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

OK, I will agree that everyone does pay other types of taxes. You could also have mentioned the gas tax as well (and probably the employer side taxes as well). So long as the cost of Social Security don't decrease, I don't see a reason to decrease the Social Security tax (in fact with the prescription drug benefit maybe we should be thinking about expanding it). In my opinion, the Poor/Middle Class should pay Social Security tax as it is a benefit that they are receiving, just like I paid into a 401k plan for my retirement as well. One other reason that social security and gas taxes have not been discussed in a reduction is that they haven't been raised recently, unlike income tax. In a lot of ways, Bush's tax cut is a repeal of Clinton's tax hike, who IIRC, placed the lion's share of the tax increase on the "rich." So this is the way it always seems to work. On a tax increase, most of the tax increase is placed on the rich. On a tax refund, people complain if most of the tax increase goes to the rich. As a result, the difference between the wealthy at 39% and the poor at 10% has become severe (forgive me if I have the tax brackets wrong). And with inflation people keep getting pushed up to higher and higher tax brackets.

Bottom line: If we like to raise taxes against the rich, then we should also reduce their taxes when we are looking at a tax refund.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

O.K. Let's say the millionaires deserve a tax cut because they have been taken advantage of by the system.

W is claiming that EVERYONE is getting a tax cut. What he is doing, however, is giving the top 5% a tax cut and financing it with the money collected through the social security tax which is meant to be used for social security.

If your in the top 5% make over 128k I suppose you'd want this, but if your not then your being duped into thinking that your getting a tax cut and the money your putting into social security and supposed to get back is being spent.

As I mentioned Social Security amounts to 44% of revenue which people forget and it is NOT being put away for social security.

EDIT: If you don't care about Social Security fine just tell people that the money they're paying for Social Security isn't for Social Security and call it what it is: Income Tax.

[ February 06, 2003, 00:50: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

"O.K. Let's say the millionaires deserve a tax cut because they have been taken advantage of by the system."
OK, we agree here. (:

"W is claiming that EVERYONE is getting a tax cut. "
My understanding is if you pay income tax, OR have children, you are getting a tax cut. To be honest, if you aren't doing either, and are at a workable age, you are a drain on society, and certainly don't deserve to be getting even more money from the government.

"If your in the top 5% make over 128k "
I probably make just under 100k a year, so no, I am not in the top 5% by your numbers. I am not pushing this because it benefits me. I push it because it is the right thing to do. If I ever do make it to the top 5%, I would like to think I was treated fairly.

"but if your not then your being duped"
More of this class warfare argument. Rich versus poor. Well, in America the Rich are the ones persecuted, because they make a smaller voting block than the poor. I for one, would like it to stop, and start giving back to them some of the money that has been taken away.

"If you don't care about Social Security fine just tell people that the money they're paying for Social Security isn't for Social Security and call it what it is: Income Tax."

My understanding is that when you go into deficit spending (which we currently are), you do raid Social Security funds. For a while there when we had a surplus, we were not raiding Social Security funds. It therefore appears to me (and in case you haven't noticed yet, I am not an expert in federal budgets, but my guess is you aren't either (: ), that the 44% of the money that is SS, is not considered a part of the budget money. Only a small fraction is raided when you run into deficit spending. George Bush's plan is that this tax cut will spur the economy which will raise tax revenues, which will make borrowing from SS unnecessary. If we can actually manage to avoid deficit spending for some time, we might be able to better analyze whether the current SS taxes are too high based on the demand of the SS system. If we find, that we can meet the needs of SS with a lower tax rate on it, I am all for cutting it. However, at this point, there is more concern that SS will be inadequate and therefore the tax rate raised. If that occurs, cutting it right now for "everyone" would be sending the wrong message about Social Security.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Here something I don't understand. How is W's tax policy different from Bush seniors? I don't think they call it "trickle down" economics anymore (its "supply side" now, right?), but I can't tell how it is different, if it is.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Maybe you need to read an economics text book too. Those 2 things are in no way directly related. Lowering interest rates does not _always_ cause problems. In fact, sometimes it is the best thing to do for the economy. It depends on the current issues at hand. And, the president has NO influence/control over interest rates.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, that is not true. There were many things that caused the depression, not just 2. Overproduction as a result of WWI caused a lot more damage than lack of regulation. Regulation in no way equals prosperity. Too much regulation does more harm than not enough regulation (unless you want to support the huge corporations at the expense of small businesses, of course).

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't pretend to know my philosophies based on an occasional post or two.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">My argument was that FDR's actions did nothing to help the economy. The GDP continued to fall throughout most of the first and second New Deals. Only WWII saved us from the depression.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Let's see... overspending + low tax revenue = deficit.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And how do I feel about war? I have made no Posts indicating how I feel about war. What do you base this on?

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
Now thats funny. If they are persecuted why don't we get rich american boat people down here, instead of poor iraqi/afghani/pakistani ones?
They might be a small part of the voting block but I've got this suspicion they're somehow getting their own way, based on the facts that they own every fricken thing and continue to get richer and richer.

Askan

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

People with no money can't buy things. How could the poor by a lot of things? Only the ones with money can make purchases. It only makes sense that the rich own more per-person than the poor. But, the rich do not own _everything_.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The point I was making is that the situation now is analogous to the situation before the depression: Cut taxes on the wealthy, induce spending. And the President may not sit in the Fed meeting, but he certainly has influence over what the fed does.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's a matter of opinion: some people would argue that the reason we haven't had a depression again is because of regulation - overproduction might have been a factor, but if overproduction were the cause of a depression then there would have been a worse depression after WWII.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You're right I shouldn't draw any conclusions from your Posts.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You may be right - I am not going to look up the number, but the New Deal was instituted because there was a genuine fear that the government might collapse.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You implied the deficit was a problem, during the depression it wasn't, it didn't become a problem until it ballooned in the 80's.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ok, now your just being a bit too fastidious. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
The rich own/control pretty much everything.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ok, now your just being a bit too fastidious. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
The rich own/control pretty much everything.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That is how it is everywhere. That is how it has always been. Why is the US so special in that regard?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Except that the economy is not so simplistic as it has to be for that to work.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There was less overproduction after WWII than there was after WWI. I did not say that overproduction was the only cause, only that it was more important than the 2 things you mentioned.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't take what I said out of context. That is worse than drawing conclusions about things I never mentioned.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The deficit did not magically become a problem in the 80s. It was a problem long before then. The 80s are only when it became popular for people to complain about it.

[ February 06, 2003, 02:57: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

ohhh those poor rich lobby Groups...

Business does not want the tax removed from dividends...

Now every yahoo will want dividends...

But sorry this whole point that rich people are the minority thus they in the minority because of voting...

Ummm.... I do not see this to be a problem in the USA or Canada or any other country for that matter.

The majority of people do not want levies on cdr's... but still we get them...

Govn't is run by money , influenced by buisness and their lobby Groups.

The day where you and I made a difference in voting on country wide issues and policies are long gone. But still I vote as it is my right to vote.

where is this going... Bah I do not know...

But I do know that were we are in life is where we will remain. Once you realise that the carrot on the end of the stick was really just a stick and no carrot , or string...

The great wheel of beaurocracy controls all in Canada and USA.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Here, I have a solution.
Elect me supreme ruler of Earth. Everything will be fixed in about 3 months! <-- My campaign promise

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship, providing I am that dictator.

Askan,
Apologising to Plato.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

There is no such thing as benevolent dictatorship.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And why is that?

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

"You implied the deficit was a problem, during the depression it wasn't, it didn't become a problem until it ballooned in the 80's."

Um, I think we're mixing up deficit and debt. A deficit is just the annual bottom line. If you spend more than you took in, you ran a deficit. That's acceptable for short periods of time when you have extra money and have a specific short-term goal which will increase your income. Debt (borrowing) is only acceptable when cash (or rapidly liquifiable assets) are insufficient to cover the cost for a transaction, or when doing so would disrupt normal fiscal operation. In either case, debt must be paid off as quickly as possible, both out of moral obligation and fiscal prudence.

Congress perpetually runs deficits with no short-term goals; they borrow to cover their deficit spending; and they have no production to pay for their spending. Reagan gets slammed for "his" deficit spending. It couldn't be, of course, that the Democrat-run Congress passed the tax cuts they promised him, but didn't cut spending (like they also promised him), and then took advantage of the booming deficits to attack him. Too bad the American people saw through it and re-elected him.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

If the rich really were running the country, why isn't their tax rate lower? Maybe a flat tax? It is precisely because we are a democracy, and their vote equals the same as a poor man's that we have such a disparity in the tax rates. The poor continue to want services that they can't pay for (prescription drug benefit), and the rich are then the ones that end up paying for it.

As for the rich owning everything, I don't know if that is true. Can you provide any evidence that it is? We have a large middle class in America that owns stock, and as a whole might own more than the richest 5%.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Um . . . well actually when you factor in the Social Security tax which is just thrown into the general fund (and not in a "lock box" remember Gore "lost") the top 5% make 35% of the income but only pay 21% of the REVENUE. (Pretty good if you ask me and something conservatives seem to conveniently always forget).

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well they don't own everything, but 70% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the population. Pretty good if you ask me.

http://www.therationalradical.com/ds...stribution.htm

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">REVISIONIST HISTORY (please don't make things up!!)- the Republicans controlled the senate when Reagan passed his tax cut from (1981 -1987)- link below.

http://www.swishweb.com/Politics/USA...itics01con.htm

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The "debt" tripled in the eighties with a Senate controlled by the Republicans and Reagan in the white house because the "deficit" was ballooned. Reagan gave everything to everybody without worrying about the future. The deficit causes the debt so yes the deficit is a problem.

[ February 06, 2003, 18:16: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

If you get your information from extremely biased web sites, it can't be relied upon, period.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Yes, information from the web may or may not be valid, just as personal experience is a very poor source as well. Appeals to authority or testimonials are just as flawed.
Statistics can go either way, depends on what test you are using (Ive done some of the more insane ones -- augh) and the confidence values and ugh I dont want to talk about it.
Nevertheless, the national debt did increase significantly during Reagan's two terms.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

"Um . . . well actually when you factor in the Social Security tax which is just thrown into the general fund (and not in a "lock box" remember Gore "lost") the top 5% make 35% of the income but only pay 21% of the REVENUE. (Pretty good if you ask me and something conservatives seem to conveniently always forget)."

Once again only a small portion of SS is spent on things other than Social Security. Social Security is supposed to be a self-sufficient benefit to all citizens, so it is perfectly reasonable for the poor to pay this benefit as well as the rich. As we have discussed before, reducing the SS tax would be a bad thing, because all projections seem to indicate that we will run out of money when all the Baby Boomers retire, forcing us to raise taxes anyway.

"the top 5% make 35% of the income but only pay 21% of the REVENUE"
Not quite sure how the top 5% pays most of the income tax, their portion of Social Security, and they end up paying less than the rest? Would you explain your numbers in more detail? I believe you said somewhere else that there is a cap on SS deductions? I suppose we could change that, and instead of the rich getting a cap on how large their Social Security check, they could actually get the amount that they contributed. The thing is, I don't believe anyone would want that.

And here is another fundamental issue. Should the rich be obligated to pay for the poor? Is it the obligation of a rich person to pay for a woman on welfare with 3 kids? And if they want to reduce how much they give, do they then become evil and greedy in your view? Should the rich not instead deserve our praise for all the help that they provide for the needy? I think that jealousy is a big factor here. The poor man doesn't like it that he doesn't have a lot of money and the rich man does. He never considers the sacrifices and hard work that the rich man had to make to get that wealth. He doesn't respect the ingenuity of the rich man to succeed in a competitive market. The poor man believes that he should have as much as the rich without having to work for it. That in my opinion is envy and jealousy, and not something that I want to reward.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I know it's crazy and people refuse to believe it but in the 80s congress ordered the Treasury Department to use the money in the Social Security Trust Fund as though it were general revenue, promising to pay it back. So Social Security is just a very large tax collection tool.

If you look at the US budget at:

http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy...get/tables.pdf
that's how its presented.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">(if the below is too dry for you than you can just take my word that the top 5% pay less taxes than the rest but make more than a third of the income).

People don't get this but you only pay SS tax on the first 77k of income. So someone making $1million pays same gross dollar amount as someone who makes 77k for social security tax which is 8.9%.

According to the Government report on Rush's website ( http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/men...res.guest.html ) the top 5% pay 56% of the income tax and have 35% of the income.

But the way the government SPENDS is by revenue collected. (look at link above)

44% is social security
10% is corporate tax and fees
46% is income tax.

So the 56% is really (56% of 46% of the total money the government collects and spends).

There were ~8million tax returns by people in the top 5% out of ~128million total returns.

The other 120 million paid 44% of the income tax + most of the social security tax.

If you do the math (if don't want to take my word for it look it up) then the #s you question hold up.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well first of all I wouldn't call someone who works 40 hours a week at minimum wage lazy. There is a myth that welfare is a huge part of the budget when it is less than 4%. No one is saying that the rich shouldn't be rich. But the disparity of wealth is getting so bad that it's dangerous.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I am not sure what Data your questioning:

Distribution of Wealth: The data is from the census - I guess we can argue if the census was accurate but the census tends to miss poor people.

Here is another website that says the same thing
http://www.policyideas.org/Issues/So...old_Wealth.pdf

Senators: You can look up the ratio of senators that is pretty cut and dry I don't know what argument you have with this.

The Deficit: Data comes from the website below which is a government agency.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm#history

Income information: Data also comes from a government agency.

[ February 07, 2003, 00:56: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

The web sites you had posted before that Last post were all explicitly biased, and could in no way be trusted to give even remotely unbiased information.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Guys guys guys guys!
I get enough of debates in my philosophy classes! Agh! Save me!
Haha, just kidding, but seriously, this is a deep philosophical question of the time.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So what is an unbiased source? The government and media commentators definetly aren't.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well if the poor and middle class were running the country why isn't their tax rate lower? Don't know about the US but in Australia the tax-free threshold (the amount of income your earning before you have to pay tax) has moved about 10% in the Last 20 or so years, not really in line with the cost of a loaf of bread.

The rich also benefits from the services the poor gets. ie
1) The waiter serving them food is dying from some treatable illness.
2) The guy receiving welfare isn't robbing him.
3) The person who just left school has the education and skills necessary to flip burgers in his McDonald's franchise.

See, its a win-win situation. Putting more pressure on the poor is eventually going to find its way up the chain and eventually you'll get a peasant revolt and there's nothing more annoying than when your entertaining friends at your manor and angry peasants are burning your cars. Welfare/public services benefits society as whole, not just the individuals who receive it.

As for the rich owning everything. I've clarified that, they own/control almost everything. A large chunk of American's might own stocks but they still have no say in the company they own a part of. The major stockholders do. The advertisers in newspapers have more say in the "content" of the stories than the readers.

Askan

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Less so than some web site owned by some random person.

In the US, poor people pay no to almost no taxes. They _can't_ get a tax cut without being given tax money back.

[ February 07, 2003, 03:14: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That is not true! What is your definition of a poor person? What is your definition of a tax?

EVERYONE who works pays social security tax BEFORE deductions. So a family of four making 20k (poverty level) still pays $1900 in taxes that they can't get back - even with credits. This applies even to a welfare check!!

That's a tax if you ask me.

Social Security is just a very large tax collection tool since its lumped into the general fund.

[ February 07, 2003, 04:20: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most media commentators are random people with their own beliefs.

And do do you guys have sales tax over there? How bout petrol tax? Excise taxes on smokes and alcohol? Stamp duty on the purchase of houses? No taxes at all based on consumption?

Askan

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most media commentators are random people with their own beliefs.

And do do you guys have sales tax over there? How bout petrol tax? Excise taxes on smokes and alcohol? Stamp duty on the purchase of houses? No taxes at all based on consumption?

Askan</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yup . . . those are other taxes people conveniently forget about - some states even have a sales tax in California it is 7.5% - that's like a VAT.

[ February 07, 2003, 06:18: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

We were talking about income tax...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes they are. I think I made a point about them earlier...

[ February 07, 2003, 09:30: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hang on, not every multi-millionaire with his finger in the political pie is a hero of capitalism. Sure, a rich guy might slog through regular 70 hour weeks but if he is doing all that work to line his own pockets and shaft the rest of the world in the process then I'd rather he stayed at home and put his feet up by the pool.

I will concede that there are plenty of rich ppl out there who pulled themselves up from the lower wage brackets to make their fortunes. As long as they got where they are honestly then I can respect them and sympathise with their claims to a fair deal.

However, these all american heroes of capitalism are probably not in the majority, and even if they are they won't necessarily have much power. That is held by another class of rich guy: The one who didn't work for his money. The rich guys currently running the world (for example... ooohhh... let's just pluck a name out of the air... say, someone like George W Bush) tend to be rich because of "old money", first established generations ago by God only knows what means.

The inheritors of this wealth all too often have no understanding of the lives of the little people they use and discard: They were handed their power on a silver spoon and because they didn't earn it they never learned about using it responsibly. All they value is their own position, and they will quite happily pollute, exploit, decieve, despoil and destroy to continue the family legacy and keep power out of the hands of the plebs.

These people should be forced to make a significant contribution to society because you can be damn sure they will be doing everything in their considerable power to dodge most of it. Until a culture emerges among the inherited rich to bring up their children into a tradition of benevolence and social responsibility they should be chased out of politics by angry mobs waving ****ty sticks and flaming torches.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, the (average) poor man just wants to have a chance to earn a decent quality of life and the assurance that if fate drops a bomb on him he won't end up homeless, starving or wasting away from a curable disease like some medieval peasant at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Not sure what any of this has to do with the US tax system, other than the fact that I wouldn't trust most politicians as far as I could spit them when it comes to introducing a fair or honest system.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Thanks for the responses about the SS and all. Personally, I think the system is fair as-is. Do you want to see a reduction in the Social Security tax?

Now in to the other person's response.

"Hang on, not every multi-millionaire with his finger in the political pie is a hero of capitalism. Sure, a rich guy might slog through regular 70 hour weeks but if he is doing all that work to line his own pockets and shaft the rest of the world in the process then I'd rather he stayed at home and put his feet up by the pool."

What rich people do is CREATE jobs. That is the best help that the poor have. I am sure that you can find those that are bad and abuse the power that money brings, but the point is that all-in-all rich people are a great benefit to people. You take the rich people out of America, you end up with lots of poor people in greater poverty with no work.

"That is held by another class of rich guy: The one who didn't work for his money. "

In their case, they inherited it. If I have a billion dollars, should I not be able to give it to my children? What is so evil about that? Would you in your righteousness take it away and give it to Uncle Sam?

"The inheritors of this wealth all too often have no understanding of the lives of the little people they use and discard: They were handed their power on a silver spoon and because they didn't earn it they never learned about using it responsibly. All they value is their own position, and they will quite happily pollute, exploit, decieve, despoil and destroy to continue the family legacy and keep power out of the hands of the plebs."

One, a rich person is not obligated to understand the life of a poor person, any more than a poor person is obligated to understand the life of a rich person. Not understanding the poor is not a sin. Accusing the rich of exploting the poor is totally unfair. We don't have sweatshops in the US. If you had the money and power, would you exploit people? I would hope the answer is no. Why do you think a rich person is any different? You have made a serious accusation against a class of people without any evidence to back it up.

It should also be noted that while their may be the "bad rich" who supposedly deserve to be taxed into oblivion, income tax is not set up to punish the bad rich. Every rich person is taxed. You are punishing an entire class of people for the sins of a few.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not necessarily, but, some people claim that the rich pay too much taxes - when in reality they pay about the same or a little less in taxes than everyone else. People use this argument to justify the proposed tax cut when in reality (if you look at the whole picture) the tax cut is unfair.

[ February 07, 2003, 17:50: Message edited by: rextorres ]

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

I hestitate to get re-engaged in this topic, but I would like to make a point about SocSec. When it was implemented, there were something like 13 workers for every person drawing funds. Now that ratio is approximately 3:1, and will drop to 2:1 in the near future. And the funds have been used as general revenue to fund the government since the inception of the program, all the recent talk about the "lockbox" was simply the result of the concern about the changing demographics that threaten the program.
Another point is that if you consider ALL taxes, most US citizens work 5+ months out of the year to pay for the various levels of government.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Dogscoff, most of the rich people in the US are first generation money, not "old money".

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

"Not necessarily, but, some people claim that the rich pay too much taxes - when in reality they pay about the same or a little less in taxes than everyone else. People use this argument to justify the proposed tax cut when in reality (if you look at the whole picture) the tax cut is unfair."

I am going to take a look at your numbers in a bit. They still don't make sense to me. But it appears that the only tax cut solution that would be acceptable is if the poor were given even more money back from the Federal government. Instead of getting $500 per kid (is that what is it now? I lost track), maybe they should also get $500 back for themselves? Frankly, I disagree with this approach, but I would like to see how you would cut taxes.

Before looking at your SSN numbers, I am doing the folling math in my head:
Very rich pay 38% on their income tax
close to 0% of their income on SS
Total percent of their wealth given to the Federal government: 38%

Poor:
0% of their income tax
8.5% on their social security tax
Total percent of their wealth given to the Federal government: 8.5%

How else can you look at this? Any way you slice it, the wealthy are paying far more taxes than the poor. I'll look at your numbers next and see if I can figure out how you arrived at your conclusion.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

OK, I looked at your sources, and they still don't quite make sense.

First, what is your source for the wealthy 5% having 35% of the income? I couldn't find that anywhere.

Second, Rush Limbaugh is quoting 2000 data. The budget link you gave me was for 2002-2008. I also couldn't find in there the 46/10/44 breakdown that you gave me. What is your source for that information?

Even with your numbers I calculated the wealthy 5% paying 31% not 21%. Still not great, but not as bad as you were saying.

Here were my calculations:
Wealthy 5% pays 56% of taxes
Your figures state that is only 46% of total revenue. So 56 * 0.46 = 25.76% of total revenue.
Wealthy 5% presumably pays AT LEAST 5% of the total SSN revenue, presumably more since they would pay all the way up to the 77k amount while the poor be paying less. So of the 44% that SSN contributes to the government income, 2.2% comes from the wealthy. So far we are at the wealthy paying 28% of revenue. I then noticed that you were including corporate taxes for your breakdown. If you strip that out, you find of the people tax, the rich pay 31%.

Oh btw, if there are 128 million households, 5% of that would be 6.4, not 8.

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

Well I'm not American, so I don't know the ins and outs of your system all that well (though our media is dominated by American interests, so I probably know your system better than you know ours http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) --> that's a joke by the way.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I agree with this, it's been subtly hinted at for years (decades? centuries?) that if you're rich, you're bad/wrong/immoral. In some cases, individual rich guys are immoral/ungenerous, in other cases individual poor guys are jealous. The role of the gov't and the people who run it is to ensure that there is law and order, safe boarders, and nobody is starving to death - IMHO - not understand what it is to live in another demographic. Empathy is nice, but isn't a pre-requisite to morality.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Anyone reading this message has a computer, that puts you in the top 10% (or so) of the wealthiest people in The World. Hope you've made your World Vision donation, and don't shop at Wal-Mart. The fact that you live in N.A., most of Europe, etc. should make you ask yourself, do I exploit people? Me personally - I'm in the top 10% income bracket in the world, and own Nike shoes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif I don't think I should be complaining about how the top 5% spend their money. Instead I should learn to be generous, and maybe it'll catch on with the big cats.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Couldn't agree more. The question is, are people generous in helping others. The more it's required by law, the less generous people tend to become - again, totally IMO. No data to back it up, other than the observation of the "I've already helped" mentality.

-jimbob

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

I don't know about those that are forced to be generous are any less generous when it is voluntary. The US gives much to many other nations, and many US individuals still choose to help those less fortunate tham themselves. Interestingly enough, it appears (ok, I know this is true in Mexico only) that the countries where Americans help, they find that few nationals are willing to join them and help their own people.

Thanks for the support though. It is nice to know that not everyone believes the rich are evil. (:

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

http://www.theyrule.net/

need i say more

Re: OT: Rating the President
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No one said the rich are evil. The point is the tax cut is unfair.