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People's Budget.

Do you support the People's Budget?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 11 52.4%
  • No.

    Votes: 10 47.6%
  • Unsure.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    21
It has some good aspects, but there's too much in here that I cannot agree with to vote "yes." Specifically their ideas toward corporate tax (which is already regressive, and would become even moreso under this plan) and their ideas toward itemized deductions (which they propose capping at 28%, thus adding to the complexity of the tax code, rather than just eliminating most of them entirely).
 
To vague on the main article but it seems that much of their plan is to raise revenue by raising taxes and little to about cutting spending (other then ending wars). It also seems to increase spending in some areas. I would have to say no.
 
It is a lie that this budget will only tax the rich more. It will tax the middle-income people a lot more and the tax increases for billionares will give ver little revenue. They are just symbolic. For instance the bottom tax bracket was reduced from 15% to 10% under Bush tax cuts.

Also, there are going to be higher taxes on companies, meaning higher prices. I suggest we combine removing Bush tax cuts with proper spending cuts.
 
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Looks pretty reasonable, so of course it'll never pass.
 
No, that would destroy our economy.

Gas would go up, prices for everything would go up, jobs would decrease.

all highly inefficient methods that we all are familiar with from government.. still continuing. One big money dump.
 
Here's a snippet from, I suppose, the formal plan. I can't find that it ever made it to the legislative language stage. It's a Lib Wish List.

Overview of Our Policies

Individual Income Tax Policies
• Allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012, but extend marriage relief, credits, and
incentives for children, families, and education
• Immediately rescind the upper-income tax cuts in December’s tax deal
• Index the AMT for inflation for a decade (the AMT patch is fully paid for)
• Schakowsky millionaire tax rates proposal (adding 45%, 46%, 47%, 48%, and 49% top rates)
• Tax all capital gains and qualified dividends as ordinary income
• Progressive estate tax (Sanders’ estate tax, repeal of Kyl-Lincoln)
• Limit the rate at which itemized deductions can reduce tax liability to 28%for high earners
• Replace the tax exclusion for interest on state and local bonds with a subsidy for the issuer

Corporate Tax Reform
• Tax U.S. corporate foreign income as it is earned
• Eliminate corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies
• Enact a financial crisis responsibility fee
• Financial speculation tax (derivatives, foreign exchange)
• Reinstate Superfund taxes

Health Care
•Enact a public option
• Negotiate Rx payments with pharmaceutical companies
• CMS program integrity and other Medicare and Medicaid savings in the president’s budget
• Prevent a cut in Medicare physician payments for a decade (maintain doc fix)

Social Security
Raise the taxable maximum on the employee side to 90% of earnings and eliminate the taxable maximum on the employer side
• Increase benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side

Defense Savings
• End overseas contingency operations emergency supplementals starting in Fiscal Year 2013,
providing $170 billion in FY2012 to fund redeployment, while saving more than $1.8 trillion
from current law spending levels over ten years.
• Reduce baseline defense spending by reducing strategic capabilities, conventional forces,
procurement, and R&D programs
Comprehensive Jobs Program
• Invest $1.45 trillion in job creation, education, clean energy and broadband infrastructure,
housing, and R&D
• Infrastructure bank
• Surface transportation reauthorization bill ($213 billion)

Here's the rest

http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The CPC FY2012 Budget.pdf
 
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Since we are having a new budget debate over the debt ceiling how do you all feel about the People's Budget? I firmly support it For the people worried about the debt it cuts the deficit by 5.6 trillion

only if you score taxes statically. which is to say, that it will work just like communism does - on paper.
 
only if you score taxes statically. which is to say, that it will work just like communism does - on paper.

Looks to me that corporations would flee the U.S. even faster than they currently do and millionaires and above would become virtually non-extent in the U.S. as they would move to countries who are friendlier to them. Yeah, now there is a great plan! I guess that is another way to get the poor into the middle class.
 
It has some good aspects, but there's too much in here that I cannot agree with to vote "yes." Specifically their ideas toward corporate tax (which is already regressive, and would become even moreso under this plan) and their ideas toward itemized deductions (which they propose capping at 28%, thus adding to the complexity of the tax code, rather than just eliminating most of them entirely).

Why would you want to eliminate itemized deductions?
 
Why would you want to eliminate itemized deductions?

. . . thus adding to the complexity of the tax code, rather than just eliminating most of them entirely
 
. . . thus adding to the complexity of the tax code, rather than just eliminating most of them entirely

You can't tax the gross income. It won't work. How many times do you have to told that?

Example:

a business earns a gross income of $100,000 a year.

The business spends approximately $80,000 on operating costs. (payroll, equipment, repairs, etc.)

That company falls into the 34% tax bracket, per the U.S. tax code, which means they will have to pay $34,000 in taxes with your new and improved tax code.

$80,000 + $34,000 = $114,000 and the company only makes $100,000 to begin with.

I would love for you to explain to us how that's supposed to be a good idea, unless your mission is to destroy private businesses, that is.

You've simplified the tax code, alright...there won't be anyone left to tax! :lamo
 
You can't tax the gross income. It won't work. How many times do you have to told that?

Example:

a business earns a gross income of $100,000 a year.

The business spends approximately $80,000 on operating costs. (payroll, equipment, repairs, etc.)

That company falls into the 34% tax bracket, per the U.S. tax code, which means they will have to pay $34,000 in taxes with your new and improved tax code.

$80,000 + $34,000 = $114,000 and the company only makes $100,000 to begin with.

I would love for you to explain to us how that's supposed to be a good idea, unless your mission is to destroy private businesses, that is.

You've simplified the tax code, alright...there won't be anyone left to tax! :lamo

I thought you guys wanted a flat tax?

True flat rate income taxA true flat rate tax is a system of taxation where one tax rate is applied to all income with no exceptions.

In an article titled The flat-tax revolution, dated April 14, 2005, The Economist argued as follows: If the goals are to reduce corporate welfare and to enable household tax returns to fit on a postcard, then a true flat tax best achieves those goals. The flat rate would be applied to all taxable income and profits without exception or exemption. It could be argued that under such an arrangement, no one is subject to a preferential or "unfair" tax treatment. No industry receives special treatment, large households are not advantaged at the expense of small ones, etc. Moreover, the cost of tax filing for citizens and the cost of tax administration for the government would be further reduced, as under a true flat tax only businesses and the self-employed would need to interact with the tax authorities.

Flat tax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wasn't making my arguement above, which is why I didn'tadd anything but merely highlighted what I think was his stated argument. However, as long as there are a lot of things that can be called deductions, business effectively reduce their tax responsibility to the point of being meaningless, like GE actually making money instead of paying taxes. There hs to be more control, and it does have to be simpler. How we do that? There is reasonable room for debate.
 
I thought you guys wanted a flat tax?

True flat rate income taxA true flat rate tax is a system of taxation where one tax rate is applied to all income with no exceptions.

In an article titled The flat-tax revolution, dated April 14, 2005, The Economist argued as follows: If the goals are to reduce corporate welfare and to enable household tax returns to fit on a postcard, then a true flat tax best achieves those goals. The flat rate would be applied to all taxable income and profits without exception or exemption. It could be argued that under such an arrangement, no one is subject to a preferential or "unfair" tax treatment. No industry receives special treatment, large households are not advantaged at the expense of small ones, etc. Moreover, the cost of tax filing for citizens and the cost of tax administration for the government would be further reduced, as under a true flat tax only businesses and the self-employed would need to interact with the tax authorities.

Flat tax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would love a flat tax...minus deductions. Not on the gross that would be totally idiotic, not to mention it would destroy private companies.

I wasn't making my arguement above, which is why I didn'tadd anything but merely highlighted what I think was his stated argument. However, as long as there are a lot of things that can be called deductions, business effectively reduce their tax responsibility to the point of being meaningless,

A business expense is a business expense and business expenses should be deductable.


like GE actually making money instead of paying taxes. There hs to be more control, and it does have to be simpler. How we do that? There is reasonable room for debate.

GE paid income taxes. Stop believing the propaganda.

The truth about GE's tax bill - Fortune Features
 
I thought you guys wanted a flat tax?

True flat rate income taxA true flat rate tax is a system of taxation where one tax rate is applied to all income with no exceptions.

In an article titled The flat-tax revolution, dated April 14, 2005, The Economist argued as follows: If the goals are to reduce corporate welfare and to enable household tax returns to fit on a postcard, then a true flat tax best achieves those goals. The flat rate would be applied to all taxable income and profits without exception or exemption. It could be argued that under such an arrangement, no one is subject to a preferential or "unfair" tax treatment. No industry receives special treatment, large households are not advantaged at the expense of small ones, etc. Moreover, the cost of tax filing for citizens and the cost of tax administration for the government would be further reduced, as under a true flat tax only businesses and the self-employed would need to interact with the tax authorities.

Flat tax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wasn't making my arguement above, which is why I didn'tadd anything but merely highlighted what I think was his stated argument. However, as long as there are a lot of things that can be called deductions, business effectively reduce their tax responsibility to the point of being meaningless, like GE actually making money instead of paying taxes. There hs to be more control, and it does have to be simpler. How we do that? There is reasonable room for debate.

I do agree with you partly... if you are talking about closing tax loop holes and such. If tax loops are closed completely and the system was revamp to be much simpler. Then i think at the very least we could cut the taxes by half without any lost immediate revenue from taxes.
 
I do agree with you partly... if you are talking about closing tax loop holes and such. If tax loops are closed completely and the system was revamp to be much simpler. Then i think at the very least we could cut the taxes by half without any lost immediate revenue from taxes.

I think that is all that is being said, no matter how inarticlualtely.
 
I would love a flat tax...minus deductions. Not on the gross that would be totally idiotic, not to mention it would destroy private companies.

Your leaps are neither his fault nor mine. Try to stay with what was actually said.


A business expense is a business expense and business expenses should be deductable.

Depends on how liberally you use that word. Golf balls for playing golf really shouldn't be a busniess expense, for example.


GE paid income taxes. Stop believing the propaganda.

The truth about GE's tax bill - Fortune Features


Maybe, but you miss the point. Regardles sof whether they paid no taxes, some taxes, or just less taxes, they still, according to your link, ". . . for decades has been an aggressive tax-minimizer, and could have averted this mess by explaining things simply and clearly to the Times and us and others. It either couldn't or wouldn't do so." To often people try to side track by saying they aren't as bad as first noted. This is rarely the actual point.
 
BTW, you should read your article more:

It's been 25 years since the last big tax reform legislation, which cut the corporate rate to 34% from 46% and eliminated a lot of deductions and tax breaks. But a quarter-century of pushing by businesses -- of which GE has been among the most aggressive -- has left us with both the lower tax rate (now 35%) and lots more deductions and shelters and other tax-reducing tactics than the 1986 legislation envisioned. GE's current idea of "reform" as expounded by John Samuels, the head of its tax department, is to cut the rate, but to allow some of GE's major tax-minimizing maneuvers to remain in place. It's hard to imagine anything like that happening now.

Samuels said at a tax forum in February that GE needs a tax system that will let it compete effectively with giant, foreign-based multinationals like Mitsubishi, Siemens (SI), and Phillips. However, their effective tax rates for earnings purposes last year were 40%, 31% and 26% respectively, compared with 7% for GE. (GE says its tax rate's been artificially low the past few years, and will soon rise.)

So, to compete with tax rates of 26 - 40%, they need less than 7%. And some actually buy that argument. :2dance:
 
Your leaps are neither his fault nor mine. Try to stay with what was actually said.

Ok, sure...here is what was actually said:

It has some good aspects, but there's too much in here that I cannot agree with to vote "yes." Specifically their ideas toward corporate tax (which is already regressive, and would become even moreso under this plan) and their ideas toward itemized deductions (which they propose capping at 28%, thus adding to the complexity of the tax code, rather than just eliminating most of them entirely).

Then I responded with:

Why would you want to eliminate itemized deductions?

Then, before you know it, ya'll were really talking about a flat tax and omitted deductions out of the conversation all together.




Depends on how liberally you use that word. Golf balls for playing golf really shouldn't be a busniess expense, for example.

They're not. Try again.





Maybe, but you miss the point. Regardles sof whether they paid no taxes, some taxes, or just less taxes, they still, according to your link, ". . . for decades has been an aggressive tax-minimizer, and could have averted this mess by explaining things simply and clearly to the Times and us and others. It either couldn't or wouldn't do so." To often people try to side track by saying they aren't as bad as first noted. This is rarely the actual point.

Still doesn't take away from the fact that they did pay income taxes and attempts at insisting that they didn't is a lie.
 
BTW, you should read your article more:

It's been 25 years since the last big tax reform legislation, which cut the corporate rate to 34% from 46% and eliminated a lot of deductions and tax breaks. But a quarter-century of pushing by businesses -- of which GE has been among the most aggressive -- has left us with both the lower tax rate (now 35%) and lots more deductions and shelters and other tax-reducing tactics than the 1986 legislation envisioned. GE's current idea of "reform" as expounded by John Samuels, the head of its tax department, is to cut the rate, but to allow some of GE's major tax-minimizing maneuvers to remain in place. It's hard to imagine anything like that happening now.

Samuels said at a tax forum in February that GE needs a tax system that will let it compete effectively with giant, foreign-based multinationals like Mitsubishi, Siemens (SI), and Phillips. However, their effective tax rates for earnings purposes last year were 40%, 31% and 26% respectively, compared with 7% for GE. (GE says its tax rate's been artificially low the past few years, and will soon rise.)

So, to compete with tax rates of 26 - 40%, they need less than 7%. And some actually buy that argument. :2dance:

What about it? How much was your tax bill for 2010? Or rather, how much was your rebate?

GE's rate is probably at 7%, because they make estimated tax payments every month/quarter.
 
However, as long as there are a lot of things that can be called deductions, business effectively reduce their tax responsibility to the point of being meaningless, like GE actually making money instead of paying taxes.

pardon?

Regardles sof whether they paid no taxes, some taxes, or just less taxes, they still, according to your link, ". . . for decades has been an aggressive tax-minimizer, and could have averted this mess by explaining things simply and clearly to the Times and us and others. It either couldn't or wouldn't do so."

come again?

To often people try to side track by saying they aren't as bad as first noted.

they do?

I think that is all that is being said, no matter how inarticlualtely.

LOL!
 
Why would you want to eliminate itemized deductions?

Most of them serve no legitimate purpose in the tax code, and they're just handouts to some special interest or another. I mean, does the federal government really have any interest in encouraging employers to include commute costs in the employee's compensation? Or encouraging people to take out mortgages they can't afford? Or encouraging biomass fuels? If so, are those goals worth the cost? These itemized deductions are virtually indistinguishable from traditional government spending (except they're usually far less efficient at actually helping people).

Furthermore, they needlessly complicate the tax code and greatly increase compliance costs. If we're going to have any deductions in the tax code, they should be used VERY sparingly. About the only ones I'd allow would be charitable deductions and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
 
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What about it? How much was your tax bill for 2010? Or rather, how much was your rebate?

GE's rate is probably at 7%, because they make estimated tax payments every month/quarter.

You're not answering the point. You're seeking to divert attention away from the point. Allow me to repeat it again:

So, to compete with tax rates of 26 - 40%, they need less than 7%. And some actually buy that argument. :2dance:
 
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