I watched the game at University Hospital with my Dad. At one point I think there were a dozen nurses and doctors in the room watching the game too.
We are continuing down a destructive path. Spending is more out of control than ever and taxes, if that article is correct, are at the lowest levels since ww2. Like a skanky broad, this problem needs to be addressed from both ends.
We need to curtail our global military presence, invest a portion of that into a hardcore energy program, raise taxes on wealthy, legalize and regulate marijuana, and cut welfare programs for those unwilling to work their way out of the bottom rung.
Jmo. Tia:0008
We need to curtail our global military presence, invest a portion of that into a hardcore energy program, raise taxes on wealthy, legalize and regulate marijuana, and cut welfare programs for those unwilling to work their way out of the bottom rung.
Jmo. Tia:0008
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- Feb 26, 2001
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I agree with almost everything in this post. Military spending needs to go right NOW.
Pretty obvious answers. Why are there no politicians who understand this kind of stuff?:shrug:
I am a political know-nothing, yet it all seems elementary to me:shrug:
Of course, I am not in a position to profit by pandering to big business and special interests like the monkeys that run this country.
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Bingo! Let's hear PRO190's whine about facts like this -
Pro? Pro? Where are you? Pro?...hmmmmm...he must be off teabagging.
Duff:
I have a couple of questions regarding this chart - that you probably know the answers to.
I'm wondering if it is a bit misleading - it shows the top marginal tax rate, but what it doesn't address is the question of whether there were different levels of income that the top tax rate applied to historically?
For example, our president currently defines any family that makes $250,000 a year as being super rich, and as such, would have all taxable income above $250,000 being taxed at the highest marginal rate. Now, we all know that $250K means something different to someone living in NYC versus someone living in Fargo, ND. I don't think $250K in NYC is rich - but there are certainly doing ok.
So, again, are you proposing, by this graph, that we should be taxing 90% of the taxable income over $250K per family throughout the US? Wouldn't that really hurt the economy overall?
I'm betting that those extremely high tax brackets must have applied to a much higher income level back then (commensurate with today - probably like $5M or more). Assuming a 3% annual inflation rate since 1955 or so, that would mean back in 1955, the top 90% rate would apply to anyone making over $46K back then.
It would be interesting (if there was such a thing) to see a graph of tax rates that would apply to someone that is defined as uber-rich today ($250K a year) that is adjusted backwards for inflation - to give a more meaningful picture of what tax rates, at an inflation adjusted level of constant income, really looks like.
Again, my hunch is that this graph is very deceiving.
Found my own answer via the internet - the 90%+ margin rate in the 50's applied to taxable income of $400,000 or more back then - which would be, inflation adjusted, more like $2.1 MILLION today.
So, the graph is very misleading. It is not that we have to raise the rate on the $250K crowd - we just need higher tax brackets for higher incomes - which makes total sense.
I've never understood how income over $250K is taxed at the same rate as income over $250 million.
One other point - at the same point in time (the 50's as you seem to be very high on), the lowest tax rate was 20% or more, up to $4,000 of income (which would be like $22K today).
So, not only were there higher tax brackets, but we also taxed the lower income much higher too.
That also is something that should be done at the same time as adding higher tax rates at higher incomes. No way should 50% of our people get a pass on paying federal income tax. It creates too many disincentives at the ballot box - to just vote for whoever will give more free stuff to them.
I say go back to the 50's tax rates - then not only will everyone have free health care, we will also all have a free pony!
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its not that tax brackets are the same thats the problem
the problem is that alot of these ppl are not paying any taxes because they can hide their incomes in tax shelters and have accountants that can help them not pay anything.
I have paid every year for 10 years way too much
in taxes at the end of the year.
I am sick of it.
If I have to pay so should these welchers
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alot of ppl that work in New York do not live there.
They live in more affordable Conn and ride the train to work everyday.
So in some ways its comparable to income in Fargo
I have argued a hundred times on here that 250k family income is hardly rich. Even in Nola, with the cost of tuition, families earning that amount are leading upper middle class lifestyles.
And where exactly did Duff propose that??
The chart merely puts all the recent tea party hysteria in historical perspective.
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nice take on that
:toast:
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which is it ?
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Oxymorons appear in a variety of contexts, including inadvertent errors such as extremely average and literary oxymorons crafted to reveal a paradox.
Oxymorons are not always a pair of words; they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. The rhyme below, in which nearly every line contains an oxymoron, serves as an example of various situational oxymorons: :
The famous speaker who no one had heard of said:
Ladies and jellyspoons, hobos and tramps,
cross-eyed mosquitos and bow-legged ants,
I stand before you to sit behind you
to tell you something I know nothing about.
Next Thursday, which is Good Friday,
there's a Mother's Day meeting for fathers only,
to decide what color to whitewash the church;
wear your best clothes if you haven't any.
Please come if you can't; if you can, stay at home.
Admission is free, pay at the door;
pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
It makes no difference where you sit,
the man in the gallery's sure to spit.
The show is over, but before you go,
let me tell you a story I don't really know.
One bright day in the middle of the night,
two dead boys got up to fight.
The blind man went to see fair play;
the mute man went to shout "hooray"
Back to back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
and came and killed the two dead boys.
A paralysed donkey passing by
kicked the blind man in the eye;
knocked him through a nine-inch wall,
into a dry ditch and drowned them all.
If you don't believe this lie is true,
ask the blind man; he saw it too,
through a knothole in a wooden brick wall.
:facepalm:
Mags, could you please provide an example of Obama referring to families making $250K as "super-rich"?
Thanks.
:0corn
Scott - I agree. It's not the families that make, say $250K to $500K that have all the tax evasion options that folks that make $5M or more have...
But that is where Obama has made a big mistake, in my opinion. He has been pushing, via the rhetoric, that any family in our country who makes $250K is rich, and should be treated the same as someone who makes $250 million a year. That message in not only wrong, it doesn't resonate with people.
NOW, if he would have said - I'm not raising tax rates on folks who are not rich - but I am adding new tax brackets (with higher rates obviously) at the $500K, $1M, $5M and $25M levels, that might have been more palatable for the public at large....
Trench - the "Super" part was my add - I don't remember him using "Super" - however, he has MANY times said he only wanted to increase taxes on the "rich" - which he defined himself as families that make $250K a year or more.
Which we all know isn't true - $250K a year certainly doesn't make you rich. Certainly doing ok, and maybe even a bit well off, but not rich.
I don't think there is a lot of debate on that - it has been a constant theme since he's been elected.
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I think Obama is right on target with the 250 K
when has any other President even brought up how this is defined ?
Why dont they ?
They dont want to piss off most of their super rich friends.
You have to start somewhere.
yu cant just say well we are going to tax wealthy ppl more and not have some kind of a starting point.
This is how it has always been skated in the past.
At least Obama has had the balls to say it.
