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Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue

j-mac said:
Not at all. There are plenty of regulations on business now, that unions have become little more than organized thugs is apparent today. Tell me, when was the last time you can remember that a union strike had anything to do with safety in the workplace? Or for that matter child labor? No, they are nearly 100% today about strangling the business for ever more until that business can no longer sustain their business, then that business either goes under, or moves out of country, and the libs blame it on greed.....It's greed all right, greed from a small percentage of the total workforce that are only recognized as the workers of America by the democrat hacks that cater to them.

j-mac
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idiocy. pure idiocy. the unions are certainly NOT about that, they are about negotiating a fair wage for a fair days work. tell me why the unions would want to strangle the companies that pay them? idiocy.
 
Grant said:
But Barrack Obama will try to follow no matter where you go, in order to get your money. Some countries have acquiesced to US pressure, like Costa Rica (which may go back to ignoring them), others have fought back, like Canada.

Canadian finance minister tells IRS to back off - Bill Mann's Canada - MarketWatch
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The people the IRS are going after are people with DUAL citizenship. These dual citizenship people want to have their cake and eat it to. They want to keep their U.S. citizenship AND live in Canada.
 
liblady said:
idiocy. pure idiocy. the unions are certainly NOT about that, they are about negotiating a fair wage for a fair days work. tell me why the unions would want to strangle the companies that pay them? idiocy.
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What is idiocy is allowing pap like this 'fair wage, for fair work' crap go unchallenged. Tell me how much you think pushing a broom in a factory is worth? $30 an hour? More?

And how do you think all this high priced labor costs America in the global economy due to its purposely inflicted pricing disparity among like products? Don't be blind.

j-mac
 
TheNextEra said:
The people the IRS are going after are people with DUAL citizenship. These dual citizenship people want to have their cake and eat it to. They want to keep their U.S. citizenship AND live in Canada.
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And the IRS wants to investigate bank accounts in Canada. That's not going to happen any more than Canada could go on exploratory trips in US bank accounts.

There are many wealthy Americans moving up up Canada, the government is trying to encourage more, and I suspect that was also a message that their bank accounts will be safe.
 
liblady said:
idiocy. pure idiocy. the unions are certainly NOT about that, they are about negotiating a fair wage for a fair days work. tell me why the unions would want to strangle the companies that pay them? idiocy.
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The Unions were told many times in Detroit that their demands would break the companies but the Unions, in order to impress their members, bled them for anything they could anyway, or the plants would be shut down.

These threats worked for a time and the consumer, not knowing any better, was forced to pay for these gas guzzling unsafe cars until competition arrived, something the unions and the companies, were unused to.

The lesson is that reality will eventually conquer fantasy, that you cannot get something for nothing in this world indefinitely.
 
TurtleDude said:
why should I care?

and why would I have any belief you could understand his rational if he did?
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If you are just worried about your own wealth then you probably don't care.

If you care about the wealth of our nation then you would know that real wealth is create by taking raw materials and creating finished goods, not by importing them from China and all points east.

Look at the balance of trade Turtle.
 
Gill said:
Pssst........... Federal Unemployment tax (FUTA) is paid by the employer, NOT the employee.

The only two federal payroll taxes that employees pay are FICA and Medicare.
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Correct. Employers just reduce wages by that amount.
 
Misterveritis said:
You are not alone in thinking that the Commerce clause gives the government unlimited power. It is a shame. I believe it means the eventual demise of the United States. I wonder what will come next.
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The reality is that it pretty much does. When the founders wrote it interstate commerce was a pretty limited phenomenon, so the ability to pass laws necessary for the regulation of interstate commerce was a fairly limited power. Almost all commerce was intrastate in those days and almost all activities would have had no impact on interstate commerce. But over time interstate commerce took over. To the point where just about anything you do has some tie in to interstate commerce. It creeped into every aspect of our lives, and as the sphere of the activity expanded, the power to regulate expanded with it. It isn't some tricky interpretation or something. The words are 100% clear. Congress has the power to pass whatever laws are necessary and proper for the purpose of regulating interstate commerce. That is how the courts have always interpreted it.

The framers incorporated a ton of different approaches to constraining the federal government into the constitution. Some worked incredibly well, some didn't turn out to be so effective. The bill of rights worked very well. Checks and balances worked very well. Voting worked very well. But enumerated powers didn't really work out. If we want to give that approach another shot we could amend the constitution, but I think the reality is that that approach just isn't very realistic and the other techniques are the real winners from the ideas they had.
 
Grant said:
That's right. In the first interview he said "What it will also do, I think, is allow us to make investments in basic scientific research, in infrastructure, in broadband lines, in green energy and will allow us to give us--give some relief to middle class and working class families who have been driving this economy as consumers but have been doing it through credit cards and home equity loans. They're not going to be able to do that. And if we want the economy to continue to go strong, then we've got to make sure that they're getting a little relief as well".

He wanted the economy "to continue to grow strong" in the first interview and out of "fairness" in the second interview.
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I'm not sure what your concern is. Increasing capital gains are indeed good for those two reasons- it is more fair and it is good for the economy.
 
teamosil said:
I'm not sure what your concern is. Increasing capital gains are indeed good for those two reasons- it is more fair and it is good for the economy.
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How much investment will increase if and when the government is just going to take half of what you make?

j-mac
 
j-mac said:
How much investment will increase if and when the government is just going to take half of what you make?
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Half of what you make? What are you talking about? Obama is proposing raising the tax the uberwealthy pay just to 20% or 25%. The average American pays 27% of their income in taxes... Really, you're going to try me a river about the rich paying almost as much as the average Joe?

As for investment, if you put more of the burden on the middle class you get less consumer spending, more investment. If you put more of the burden on the wealthy you get less investment, more consumer spending. There is not "magically make the burden of supporting the government disappear" option. We have to distribute the load between the middle class and the wealthy. Both have negative implications for the economy. The smart way to do it is to keep it in balance. Right now we shifted it way too far towards the middle class, our consumer spending sucks, and so we have investors for companies that aren't making enough revenues to justify their valuations. So, we need to shift it back a bit more towards the wealthy. Let consumer spending grow even if it slows down investment.

j-mac said:
then you should be for the Fair tax.
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The fair tax!? That's no different than if we just said "hey guys, we're going to almost double the taxes on the middle class and reduce the taxes on the rich to about 1%". Obviously if they phrased it that way you guys wouldn't support it, so they dazzle you with the word "fair" and you're all over it...
 
Grant said:
It's a very quiet revolution talking place. Companies are leaving, as we all know, but so are people. More would probably leave if they could sell their homes, the main asset of most people. I spend a lot of time in Central America and the Europeans have been fleeing there for the past few years but now its Americans who are trying to escape and start a new life elsewhere.

"You've got a Republic...if you can keep it", and apparently this generation is willing to put it all at risk.
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Don't let the door hit their ass (or yours) on the way out. If they think it's better more power to them.
 
Thunder said:
President Barack Obama is neither a "boy" nor a Kenyan.
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Well said. The use of both terms is despicable and very revealing of the beliefs of that sort of far right wing mindset.
 
j-mac said:
What is idiocy is allowing pap like this 'fair wage, for fair work' crap go unchallenged. Tell me how much you think pushing a broom in a factory is worth? $30 an hour? More?

And how do you think all this high priced labor costs America in the global economy due to its purposely inflicted pricing disparity among like products? Don't be blind.

j-mac
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How much is open for debate, but what do you want the price to be for workers? In the global economy, other countries have UHC and their business don't have to provide health care benefits. You don't want that. So, we add that burden to business. And instead of actually trying to figure out what the problems we deal with are, the easy, mindless thing to do is say unions and workers are evil, lazy, no good. Business on the other hand, well, we need to appease them, but not deal with issues like health care.

Am I not getting this right?
 
Born Free said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Born Free
I'll answer, not all companies have the ability to move to foreign labor markets. Large corporations can but not many small business, but many of the small and mom and pop businesses outsource jobs right here at home to 20 million illegals.

My post had two parts, I understand now you only referred to the last part, not the first.
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Yep. It was the only part I had anything to say about it. ;)
 
Boo Radley said:
Yep. It was the only part I had anything to say about it. ;)
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Well then this was my reply;

Quote:
"I beg to differ, a shop owner that owns a dry cleaners in Nebraska or a coffee shop in PA, is going to go to what country to outsource what. Or how is a motel owner supposed to outsource to what country to do or save what?"
 
Grant said:
So you think calling someone "The Boy Wonder" is racist?
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First of all, he didn't call him boy wonder he called him boy blunder.

Secondly he said the two comments (that he was Kenyon and a boy blunder) were despicable. He didn't say they were racist.
 
Born Free said:
Well then this was my reply;

Quote:
"I beg to differ, a shop owner that owns a dry cleaners in Nebraska or a coffee shop in PA, is going to go to what country to outsource what. Or how is a motel owner supposed to outsource to what country to do or save what?"
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Which has nothing to do with me agreeing that illegals are hiring by both small and large companies, or that I said this won't change becasue there is no will to change it, and we'll be discussing illegals a decade from now. I don't dispute that small companies don't outsource.
 
Boo Radley said:
Which has nothing to do with me agreeing that illegals are hiring by both small and large companies, or that I said this won't change becasue there is no will to change it, and we'll be discussing illegals a decade from now. I don't dispute that small companies don't outsource.
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Understand
 
Born Free said:
Wait, can you explain?
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Sure. It is more fair for obvious reasons. An investor that doesn't work that makes $50 million a year paying a lower tax rate than a person who is trying to support a family on $50k a year just strikes me as patently unfair. The investor making that $50 million a year is drawing a hell of a lot of benefit out of our society, I see no reason they shouldn't be paying their share to keep the society strong.

As far as the economics, there are two main reasons that higher capital gains taxes are a big step forward. First and most importantly debt is bad. We have too much debt and making the investors pull their weight would help dramatically on that front. Secondly, there are tradeoffs. We need to decrease the deficit by an absolute minimum of say $900 billion a year. That money is going to come from somewhere. One way or another, it will have to come from either the pockets of the rich or the pockets of the middle class. The middle class having money is what drives consumer spending. The rich having money is what drives investment. So, economically, you want to adjust the amount of tax burden carried by each class to keep consumer spending and investment in balance. Both need to grow together or whatever growth occurs isn't sustainable. Right now we're at the end of a 30 year run of tweaking things to direct more and more money into the pockets of the rich. Reaganonmics. Up to a point it worked. We stimulated investment and that was good for the economy. But we went too far. Under Bush the median income for the entire nation actually fell while the average income for the top 1% quadrupiled. We were destroying consumer spending to create more investment capital,but that doesn't work in the end. Somewhere around Clinton's second round of tax cuts for the rich we crossed the line and while investment was strong, consumer spending started to fall apart. We got a bunch of companies with inflated stock prices and weak revenues- a bubble. So, now we need to tip the balance back a bit. Let our consumer spending build back up. We'll have a bit less investment dollars, but the consumer spending we gain will outweigh that
 
pbrauer said:
It was conservatives of the time who wanted the status quo, it was the liberals who sought revolution.
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Yes, the names of things change over time. But then, you do know that don't you?
Today's conservatives want a return to constitutionally limited government, as the founders, liberals in their day, devised it.
So, are you claiming you want a return to constitutionally limited government? That was a radical, liberal idea then. How about now? Isn't today's liberal just another statist?
 
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