Total taxation in the US is one of the lowest in the developed world

Moderate Right · Jan 5, 2017

joG said:
1. You will notice that I mentioned a system of Medicaid, Medicare and ER. I did not say anything about Medicaid patients using ER as a prime supplier. BTW, they are having a hard time in Germany right now, because so many are using ER instead of going to their GP. The reasons are manifold.
2.3. Germany has a plethora of Krankenkassen which are financially backed by the regional governments and run through an intransparent system of oversight with different premiums and to an extent coverage. A thus ensured person can take out supplemental private policy to get better and more costly treatments. Many do this because the public coverage is not good and its quality is being reduced. Next to this you can take out only private insurance, if you earn enough. These policies offer a wide arrange of different coverage mixes.

Since I have a chronic condition I have talked to people all over the world (including Germany) and have heard a uuuuuuge bevy of complaints from all of their UHC systems and many of them have to purchase extra insurance if they want better care. Most of them think that their system is far better than the US because they hear the horror stories about people going bankrupt due to medical conditions, without realizing that those horror stories, while true, make up a very small minority of the population. They also mistakenly believe that only the rich can get good care and the poor are thrown out in the street to fend for themselves, not realizing that most of the poor actually get free care, even before Obamacare. Statistics liberals often like to quote are just statistics with no input of the real world and the human factor. As in your example, liberals would say that Germans have better healthcare than here in the US because they have UHC and we don't, without really realizing the nuts and bolts and the human factor such as you describe.

Brewdog · Jan 5, 2017

Apparently, some here are unable to comprehend how I and others pay more than 50% of their income to taxation. They can't understand how I can work half of my life just to pay for my government to steal that money and then waste it. Perhaps that's why you're a liberal, sorry you don't like that word any more, "progressive." Progressive sounds fancier than saying liberal or commie, doesn't it? Perhaps the reason you can't fathom how I pay more than 50% of what I earn is because I am on the paying end, while "progressives" are always on the receiving end of government theft.

So, let me explain it more simply. As if perhaps I were talking to a complete retard. I sometimes forget that liberals are retarded imbeciles.

The last few years, the government has taken 32% to 33% out of my paycheck alone. That's one third for those of you liberals that have not the education to comprehend what 33% means. When I spend any of that money that my government benefactors so graciously allowed me to keep out of the money that I earned from the sweat off my back, I have to pay another 7% in sales tax. Embedded into the price of everything I purchase in the USA is an added 23% due to the highest corporate tax rate in the world and also due to import tariffs. And that adds up to way over 50% that I pay in taxes every year. And that doesn't include my property taxes, gasoline tax, licenses, etc that I also pay every day of my life.

So please, show us some more charts from Vox.com and Huffington Post telling me - someone you don't even know - how I am not paying more than 50 goddamn percent of my wealth to the government every year. If you can know so much about my financial obligations without even knowing me, then surely you'd make the world's best tax accountant.

Incisor · Jan 5, 2017

Moderate Right said:
Everyone over the poverty level should be paying federal income taxes = more taxes collected.

Then why did you cut their taxes?????? Now you want to raise them after you cut them? Make up your mind!

Incisor · Jan 5, 2017

Moderate Right said:
That's your biased liberal opinion because you are stuck in a feedback loop.

It's business. I thought you were some kind of expert in business because you ran one or something...labor is cheaper in Third World Nations. In order to maximize profits, companies will look to find the lowest labor costs and move there. And that's precisely what they did.

Moderate Right · Jan 5, 2017

Incisor said:
Then why did you cut their taxes?????? Now you want to raise them after you cut them? Make up your mind!

I didn't vote to cut them. Nobody asked me my opinion.

Moderate Right · Jan 5, 2017

Incisor said:
It's business. I thought you were some kind of expert in business because you ran one or something...labor is cheaper in Third World Nations. In order to maximize profits, companies will look to find the lowest labor costs and move there. And that's precisely what they did.

Why are there any businesses left in the US at all if labor is so cheap in China? Answer: Many companies, including one percenters, are perfectly fine with paying higher wages. It's when you start putting the screws to them that they start saying screw you.

Critter7r · Jan 5, 2017

Moderate Right said:
Why are there any businesses left in the US at all if labor is so cheap in China? Answer: Many companies, including one percenters, are perfectly fine with paying higher wages. It's when you start putting the screws to them that they start saying screw you.

Because it's hard to sell lumber to U.S. homeowners from your Home Depot in China.

Moderate Right · Jan 5, 2017

Critter7r said:
Because it's hard to sell lumber to U.S. homeowners from your Home Depot in China.

So, you are saying that Home Depot positions are currently the highest paying jobs left in America?

Critter7r · Jan 5, 2017

Moderate Right said:
So, you are saying that Home Depot positions are currently the highest paying jobs left in America?

Gee, Wally, I don't know. Did you ask if Home Depot positions were currently the highest paid jobs in America?

Oh wait, let me look up two posts and reread your question that has nothing to do with the highest paid positions.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
I didn't vote to cut them. Nobody asked me my opinion.

OK, but here's the thing...when you say you want to cut taxes, you have to realize that you can't cut when something is already cut. The design of the tax cuts was/is to benefit the top, not the middle class. The end result of tax cuts for the wealthy is that it gets made up for in excise taxes and higher fees, which fall squarely on the shoulders of the poor and middle class.

Tax cuts just don't work. They never have worked, and they never will work.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
Why are there any businesses left in the US at all if labor is so cheap in China? Answer: Many companies, including one percenters, are perfectly fine with paying higher wages. It's when you start putting the screws to them that they start saying screw you.

How are they getting the screws put to them? Corporate profits are higher than they've ever been. And while some companies may pay decent wages, many do not and rely on the taxpayers to make up that gap between what they pay, and what is necessary to survive. If you want fewer welfare spending, you must raise wages. If you want to broaden the tax base, you must raise wages. If you want to create demand, you must raise wages. A tax cut is not a wage increase because it has to be made up somewhere and somehow.

Moderate Right · Jan 6, 2017

Incisor said:
OK, but here's the thing...when you say you want to cut taxes, you have to realize that you can't cut when something is already cut. The design of the tax cuts was/is to benefit the top, not the middle class. The end result of tax cuts for the wealthy is that it gets made up for in excise taxes and higher fees, which fall squarely on the shoulders of the poor and middle class.

Tax cuts just don't work. They never have worked, and they never will work.

Where did I say I wanted to cut taxes? I actually said I wanted everyone over the poverty level to pay taxes. I'm not in favor of cutting personal taxes, just business taxes to keep jobs in America.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
Where did I say I wanted to cut taxes? I actually said I wanted everyone over the poverty level to pay taxes. I'm not in favor of cutting personal taxes, just business taxes to keep jobs in America.

Cutting business taxes won't keep jobs in America. Not when the cost of labor is so low in Third World nations, as well as increased automation. What we traditionally thought of as "working class jobs" are no more. The new working class is the service industry.

Moderate Right · Jan 6, 2017

Incisor said:
How are they getting the screws put to them? Corporate profits are higher than they've ever been. And while some companies may pay decent wages, many do not and rely on the taxpayers to make up that gap between what they pay, and what is necessary to survive. If you want fewer welfare spending, you must raise wages. If you want to broaden the tax base, you must raise wages. If you want to create demand, you must raise wages. A tax cut is not a wage increase because it has to be made up somewhere and somehow.

You only count certain business profits and ignore all of the others. You think that just because one percenters are doing so well you can apply it to all business and screw all businesses because of the excesses of the few. That's my main gripe with you guys. I don't give a crap about the one percenters but you don't give a crap about the other 99% of businesses.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
You only count certain business profits and ignore all of the others.

I am just responding with what is known and measurable, not what is anecdotal. The facts are that corporate profits are at their highest levels ever, the stock market continually flirts with crossing 20,000, 12 million private sector jobs have been created and wages finally started growing last year. The idea that business is getting the screws put to it is just pure fantasy.

You think that just because one percenters are doing so well you can apply it to all business and screw all businesses because of the excesses of the few.

Again, how are businesses getting screwed? Don't understand what you're saying. Businesses have been coddled and babied the last 35 years. We've deferred to them on how to regulate them, we've given then tax break after tax break because we were promised doing so would create jobs. Those promises are almost always broken.

That's my main gripe with you guys. I don't give a crap about the one percenters but you don't give a crap about the other 99% of businesses.

I don't know from where you get this, but it is Conservatives who have historically been the champions of big business interest and the 1%. To now swap that position out with a populist one is too little, too late.

Moderate Right · Jan 6, 2017

Incisor said:
Cutting business taxes won't keep jobs in America. Not when the cost of labor is so low in Third World nations, as well as increased automation. What we traditionally thought of as "working class jobs" are no more. The new working class is the service industry.

But there are jobs in America now, good paying ones. Why haven't they all left, leaving only Walmart's and McDonalds? Anwer: Businesses are willing to keep jobs in America rather than move for cheaper labor. Oh, I forgot, there will be Home Depots too.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
But there are jobs in America now, good paying ones. Why haven't they all left, leaving only Walmart's and McDonalds? Anwer: Businesses are willing to keep jobs in America rather than move for cheaper labor. Oh, I forgot, there will be Home Depots too.

Because they haven't left yet. I'm sure ten years ago, it was unfathomable to you that Carrier would move 1,300 jobs to Mexico. We'll see how many of those 800 jobs Trump supposedly "kept" will still be there in 12 months. I'm guessing not many.

Moderate Right · Jan 6, 2017

Incisor said:
I am just responding with what is known and measurable, not what is anecdotal. The facts are that corporate profits are at their highest levels ever, the stock market continually flirts with crossing 20,000, 12 million private sector jobs have been created and wages finally started growing last year. The idea that business is getting the screws put to it is just pure fantasy.

Again, how are businesses getting screwed? Don't understand what you're saying. Businesses have been coddled and babied the last 35 years. We've deferred to them on how to regulate them, we've given then tax break after tax break because we were promised doing so would create jobs. Those promises are almost always broken.

I don't know from where you get this, but it is Conservatives who have historically been the champions of big business interest and the 1%. To now swap that position out with a populist one is too little, too late.

But anecdotal is real. If you have the one percenters getting most of the profits while the other 99% of businesses just squeak by, and you look at overall statistics and then attack all businesses because "business profits are up", you implement destructive policies on a lot of those businesses that aren't screwing their workers, destroying these businesses and allowing the one percenters to make even more profits from increased market share when their competition goes under due to liberal policies. You call regular people the 99%'rs but the truth is businesses are also the 99%'rs. You need to go after the one percenters but leave all of the other businesses alone. Many of them are average Joes and Janes, living the American dream of owning their own businesses earning $35,000 per year instead of working for someone else for $35,000 per year.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
But anecdotal is real.

No! It isn't! That's what you don't get. Someone telling you something that happened to them is clouded in their own bias (which is why you had people outright lie about being victims of Obamacare). I get sick and tired of Conservatives cheating at debate by using unverifiable anecdotes as a substitute for fact. You wouldn't believe me if I told you I was Tom Brady, so why should I believe you when you make wild claims about yourself or rely second- or third-hand accounts?

If your business is struggling in this economy, it's only because Conservatives are and were determined to cater to the top 1% and their pet corporations. It's all you have been doing the last 35 years. To pretend you care about the little guy is laughable. If you did, you wouldn't be Conservative. But you are.

Like I said, your feigned populism is too little, too late.

Moderate Right · Jan 6, 2017

Incisor said:
Because they haven't left yet. I'm sure ten years ago, it was unfathomable to you that Carrier would move 1,300 jobs to Mexico. We'll see how many of those 800 jobs Trump supposedly "kept" will still be there in 12 months. I'm guessing not many.

You can't prove that they will ever leave. Many companies don't want to relocate to another country, even if there is cheaper labor there. Liberals are too blinded by their own partisan rhetoric. They can only think with their one track minds and that is why Trump beat Hillary. All she could blather out is that people should be happy they are losing their jobs.

Moderate Right · Jan 6, 2017

Incisor said:
No! It isn't! That's what you don't get. Someone telling you something that happened to them is clouded in their own bias (which is why you had people outright lie about being victims of Obamacare). I get sick and tired of Conservatives cheating at debate by using unverifiable anecdotes as a substitute for fact. You wouldn't believe me if I told you I was Tom Brady, so why should I believe you when you make wild claims about yourself or rely second- or third-hand accounts?

If your business is struggling in this economy, it's only because Conservatives are and were determined to cater to the top 1% and their pet corporations. It's all you have been doing the last 35 years. To pretend you care about the little guy is laughable. If you did, you wouldn't be Conservative. But you are.

Like I said, your feigned populism is too little, too late.

Common sense dictates that if businesses as a whole (averaged for statistical purposes) are making more profits but, as liberals constantly remind us, the one percenters are gettting richer and richer, then obviously many businesses are struggling. Liberals want to destroy all businesses using generalized data which shows that businesses as a whole are making more and more profits. You are all for the little guy but you don't give a **** about the little guy business owners. You will stomp all over them thinking that any business owner is a one percenter.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
You can't prove that they will ever leave.

1,300 already did!

Many companies don't want to relocate to another country, even if there is cheaper labor there

BS. Business is amoral. Do you know what that means? Business has no loyalty, no feelings, nothing. Only a directive to increase profits above everything else. To assign personification to an intangible is naivety. Business is going to go wherever it can maximize profits. If that means shipping jobs overseas, so be it. This has been your governing economic philosophy since Nixon. Why do you think he, Gerald Ford, William F. Buckley, and other Conservatives pushed so hard to open relations with China in the 1970's? Expressly for this purpose; allowing and encouraging companies to move production overseas in order to increase profit. Jack Kemp, famous Conservative and GOP nominee for VP in 1996, pridefully called himself "the King of Outsourcing" for a reason.

It's not even partisan rhetoric with you, it's complete ignorance.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017

Moderate Right said:
Common sense dictates

I'm just gonna stop you right there. When Conservatives fall back on the rhetoric of what is common sense and what isn't, it's usually an indication that they're about to say something completely wrong and/or unsupported by empirical evidence.

if businesses as a whole (averaged for statistical purposes) are making more profits but, as liberals constantly remind us, the one percenters are gettting richer and richer, then obviously many businesses are struggling.

And right on cue, there ya go.

Liberals want to destroy all businesses using generalized data

????? It's Friday, and I think you're out of gas.

Incisor · Jan 6, 2017