Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Whew! Lots of tangents that have almost nothing to do with the original article...

I'm going to skip the Federal minimum wage aspect and touch on the Federal social programs (like Medicare, Social Security, etc). The primary reason those are paid for at the Federal level versus the state level has to do with where the two levels would get the money from. The Federal government can (virtually) always pay the obligations but the states might not be able to.

That's to say nothing of the complication of trying to manage the various programs should you move. If you've lived in six states by the time you retire and each has a non-compatible program, you have to juggle those six different programs (and hope all or most are still solvent at each of their various retirement ages).

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Where was the outrage when Bush went crazy with the vacations? (Seriously, the last time I checked the numbers, Obama had taken the least vacation of modern presidents, Bush had taken the most vacation of any presidents ever.)

hustler

iTrader: (6)

He and his wife flew together to Crawford, TX.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Bush Spent 5 Times More On Flights To Texas Than Obama

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Well, if Bush did it, than it's clearly okay and everyone to do it. You know how much I loved TARP and Jesus, right?

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Hey, you were the one who defended Bush Hustler.

The outrage over Obama's limited vacations is ******* retarded, is bereft of any factual basis, and completely ignores the reality of the costs involved when the President goes...well, ****, it completely ignores the reality of the costs involved from the President just living.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

[Deleted: lack of relevance? TMI?]

hustler

iTrader: (6)

The job market supposedly sucks, he needs to raise taxes, and he and his family vacation in Europe. That is not "just living". I have never understood why our politicians get paid vacations, they should have to pay for this **** out of their own pockets.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

And yet Bush spent substantially more than Obama ever could have considered on just his flights to Texas.

Secondly, much of the expense people are getting angry about are specifically due to required protections of the president, i.e. paying secret service members to protect him.

If Obama has to pay for his flight, hotel, etc., sure, I'm down with that. But demanding he pay his security detail, and everything else associated with being a living, sitting president is a little bit crazy - and that's what you are trying to say when you talk about his vacations.

Do you see long, angry articles about how Bush's/Clinton's/Bush's/etc. vacations cost us hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars because they takes a trip somewhere as an ex-president, and it costs the secret service big $$$ to give them protection? I don't think so. It's blatant hypocrisy, the majority of the same people screaming about Obama's vacation were the most vocal defenders of Bush's vacations.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

What does this have to do with anything?
Then don't go on vacation.
Then don't go on vacation.
Who made the law?

As long as Hussein Obamadinijad keeps telling America that we need more tax money he can cease vacationing. When I don't have a bunch of money, I don't go race the car. I know that he's a president, he's rich, blah blah blah, don't go on vacation all the god damned time if America is broken because of the tax code and a lack of tax revenue.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Pointing out hypocrisy? I thought it had -everything- to do with it.

So you are trying to tell ex-Presidents, who are not sitting presidents and have not been for years, that they cannot go on vacation Hustler?

Why, that'd be Congress.

Annnnd there we have it. Seriously, Hustler. It would have cost us, according to the GOP calculations, something like ******* 3 million or more of Obama's vacation to just have him sit in Washington anyways.

That's my point. I'm sorry to break it to you, but you are engaging in one of the stupidest arguing tactics I've seen on here lately. It's expensive to provide security for a sitting President. I won't argue that with you. But what I've gathered is you are trying to argue that we should ignore past Presidents (Of which one notably put us into our current economic situation), and we should only focus on this President.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

I don't really give a **** what Bush or any other president did in this regard.

bbundy

Both employer and employee portions of social security and Medicare are taken from the employees compensation. It is all the employees earned money going to the federal government. It is a distortion of reality to claim otherwise. All the tax you pay doesn’t show up on your tax return and only half of the FICA even shows up on your W2. But people are usually too stupid to realize that and the right wingers keep on repeating that half the people on the poor side don’t pay any tax which is a lie.

There is an income threshold for social security because at one time it was viewed as sort of a mandated insurance plan against poverty and there ought to be a limit on the amount you should have to pay for insurance. But since congress just raids the surplus anyway it really isn’t just insurance It is just another revenue stream for the government and payments out of it are just a system of social security that any civilized nation should have to take care of citizens. I don’t want to live in a nation where vast numbers of people pass through there productive working years to finish life in total poverty unless they breed like rabbits and manage to have enough kids that will take care of them.

Just doubling the threshold for social security would enable it to over fund itself into the foreseeable future. Personally I think the way we pay for it should go away. Just make it part of the income tax and tax all forms of income under the same scale whether you earned it or you earned it off the backs of other hard working people through investments. There are unintended consequences with favoring types of income. Just as there would be if we switched to a sales tax system which is inherently regressive and then start deciding some products should be taxed differently than others and then start setting up threasholds again to try and make it resonably fair.

Bob

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Given that reasoning, do you also feel that any taxes levied on corporations are just passed through to the corporations' consumers?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

I've raised this issue with bbundy before. Somehow, corporate income taxes come directly off the top, and only affect the profits that would otherwise end up in the fatcats' pockets. They have no effect on employment, wages, prices, or market viability. I can't explain this, but bbundy's arguments all imply this must be true.

bbundy

That isn’t what I said at all. I am for low corporate taxes. I am against a system where giant corporations pay negative taxes and small business get burdened much more heavy however, and quite frankly corporate taxes are the lowest level of GDP and percentage of total revenue that they have been in a very long time.

What I have said in the past is Corporate income taxes weather they are 0% or 70% makes no difference in decisions about hiring employees. Where Right wingers will argue high corporate income tax will make them not hire workers which is not true. No matter what the income tax is on profit is if hiring another worker will increase profit they will hire that worker. Now if that worker becomes expensive to hire and burdening the working class and with all the taxes involved with running a first world civilized country while letting the capitalists, the controllers of private equity, vulture capitalist, and the financial geniuses making up new Ponzi schemes on wall street extract most of the proceeds of the nation’s GDP without paying any of the taxes will certainly make American workers more costly. The workers will get very expensive because of their share of the burden. If a worker is too expensive to hire and still make a profit then they won’t be hired. Jobs will go to other countries. This is where Romney and Ryan fail at understanding the economy. Trickle down is still a failed idea and yet they want to take it more extreme levels than ever before. Zero tax for the oligarchs more tax for the workers is the solution they are pedaling. The result will be more unemployed and more deficit.

Bob

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Bob - Can you help me with this? I find reporting on taxes to be so frustrating because so many people confuse and mix up terminology (like effective vs marginal Federal income tax rates). I've seen you post some charts, and you may have cited a source, but I don't remember having a chance to look at the methodology used to come to that conclusion.

Specifically, I recently saw a chart that talked about companies "paying their CEOs more than they paid in Federal taxes." Their graphic showed CEO compensation vs Federal income tax refunds.

That, of course, is a flawed model using the language on their own chart legend. Other than Senor Perez, I would guess a majority of the taxpayers here receive tax refunds. I did. I also paid in more in taxes than I used to make in some years when I was younger, so anyone who says I didn't pay taxes is sadly mistaken or intentionally misleading people.


I'm with you on most of that: specifically, that hiring workers is based largely on current and expected future profitable demand for product. However, taxes can affect profitability, so there is some impact on the margins (i.e. diminishing returns, etc).

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Move GE jobs to China, pay negative corporate tax, kick it with Hussein.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Sorry Scrappy, I haven't received a refund in years.

Around about April, I get really angsty for a reason.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Because you haven't adjusted your Federal withholding levels to make you feel more comfortable?