WATCH: Why We Need To Raise Taxes On The Rich

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WATCH: Why We Need To Raise Taxes On The Rich

December 9th, 2012 4:11 pm Jason Sattler

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On Sunday’s Up With Chris on MSNBC, David Cay Johnston gave an impassioned explanation of why we need to ask more of the richest Americans, who have flourished while the income of the bottom 90 percent has fallen to a level not seen since the ’60s:

The average income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans has fallen back to the level of 1966, when Johnson was president. The top 1 percent of the top 1 percent has gone from 4 million to 22 million. In 2010, the first year of the recovery, 37 percent of all the increased income in the entire country went to 15,600 households. We have created a privatized system to redistribute upwards and the reason people at the top are sharing a larger portion of income taxes is because their incomes are growing at an enormous rate, but their burden is falling. To suggest we don’t need to raise more revenue by applying it to people whose success depends on this government and living in this society with rules that make it possible to make that money is outrageous.

Tags: Bush Tax Cuts, David Cay Johnston, fiscal cliff, tax rates

nobsartist

It looks like it is time to eat the rich. I find it appalling that Americans have been so stupid over the last 50 years.

If 3rd world is what you want, its here.

http://twitter.com/meepmeep89 carol peacocke byram

You took the words away from my fingers: it’s close to a third world economy where 2% of a country have 90% percent of the wealth. We have been so stupid and trusting. And sadly, the rich are no doubt devoid of any nutritious benefit whatsoever.
http://www.facebook.com/dominick.vila.1 Dominick Vila

The most amusing part of their argument – hypocritical is a better term to describe it – is claiming class warfare when people who have nothing or are losing the little they have because of policies designed to help the rich get richer, complain about policies that allow a few thousand families control most of the wealth in this country. I guess their wealthy patrons must have a subliminal right to benefit from corporate welfare and tax breaks, and the rest of us ungrateful souls should be ashamed of ourselves for daring to complain about not enough crumbs to survive on.
The truth is that at the rate things are going it will not be long before there is no middle class to speak of. Instead of expanding, the American middle class is in rapid decline and the socio-economic consequences of that may be worst than a lot of people realize.

nobsartist

I believe that it is still possible to cure greed.

But it stems from DC.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Myers/100001512942781 Jim Myers

Replying to nobsartist -

Unfortunately, greed, like the lust for power, will NEVER be cured.

http://twitter.com/LostAnarchist S-3

It’s going to take, violence, guns and swords, and a lot of dead bureaucrats and politicians to make the middle and lower class(es) relevant again, period.

http://twitter.com/LostAnarchist S-3

Anarchy or violent revolt in the US!! Either way, EAT THE FUCKING RICH. I don’t care – THEY ALL NEED TO FUCKING DIE!
dalnb

THRU THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WHILE OUR ECONOMY WAS FALLING APART, PEOPLE WERE LOOSING THEIR HOMES AND THEIR SAVINGS AND THOUSANDS WERE GOING ON UNEMPLOYMENT WAGES FOR OUR SENATORS AND CONGRESMEN INCREASED BY 39%! In 20110 the averege wages for CEOs also increased by 39%; that is the same perod of time Republicans were spreading the word that it was no time to be starting a new buinsess, expanding a business or hiring new employees.

http://www.facebook.com/dominick.vila.1 Dominick Vila

An economic system that allows the top 10% to hold two third of all the financial wealth in the United States, while the remaining 90% struggle to make ends meet on the remaining one third of our wealth and, on top of that, demands the retention of irresponsible tax breaks for people who do not need them is doomed to failure.
People claim class warfare when someone has the audacity of suggesting a more equitable system, but see nothing wrong with an elitist socio-economic system designed to favor the wealthy using the pretext that the more money they have the better off the little people at the bottom will be.
The only tangible results that can be discerned from the Bush tax cuts is that the surplus he inherited evaporated within one year, and job creation was a dismal one million new jobs in eight years.
Not surprisingly, the GOP likes to ridicule anyone who blames W for the malaise we have experienced. Alas, I would too if I was in their shoes. The tax breaks passed by Bush, the Republican insistence on trickle down economics, and deregulation brought our economy – and the global economy – to its knees.
If people are truly concerned about deficit spending, borrowing, and accumulation of debt, they have no choice but to support a combination of additional revenues and spending reductions.

sigrid28

I agree with what you conclude, with one further distinction. I think we need to force higher wages to come from corporations, especially those that have leveraged enormous tax advantages for themselves AND those like Google who are squirreling income away in overseas tax shelters. THE MINIMUM WAGE HAS TO BE A LIVING WAGE. David Cay Johnston says the idea of characterizing the Fiscal Cliff as a deficit problem was created by Republicans acting on behalf of the super rich to paper over any inkling that there is an unequal distribution of wealth, and should not be the defining term of the current negotiations. Better, he advises, than any spending reductions at all at this time, especially those harming the most vulnerable in our society, would be a huge economic stimulus created by retaining the Bush tax rates for the 98%, reducing pay roll deductions (except for the rich, who should start to pay more for Medicare and Social Security), and creating jobs programs to restore the countries infrastructure and upgrade its public buildings. Lawrence McDonnell had a great piece on his program last night showing how Newt Gingritch introduced the term “job creators” back while he was fighting the Clinton tax increases that led in the last period of prosperity we experienced, before the Republicans took it all away.

Jim Lou

The myriad tax code benefits those who are able to take advantage of it. That is usually those of very high means. I certainly couldn’t take advantage except for my house.

http://profile.yahoo.com/UHE4MJP5FHMFIEAOGEQHETUGDQ Rvn_sgt6768

And how is the value (price) of your home?Is it a good investment today or has the screwed up tax code killed any chance of your ever making a profit?

http://openid.aol.com/psychicpersona pat mackondy

O.K…..time to stop the greed….let’s go back to AMERICANS FOR AMERICANS….The bottom 30% of americans are poor…they’re not as smart as the top 30% and are limited to earnings potential….years ago, the rich paid their fair share gladly cause they are americans caring for americans. That is the wonderful policy that are country grew on….Let’s bring it back….you’re only around for an average of 74 years…enjoy the warmth of helping all americans while you are here….GOD WILL LOVE YOU FOR YOUR CARING AND NON-GREED.

ObozoMustGo

Pat….. how stupid can you be? Really. Just how stupid can you possibly be?

Exactly how is it greedy for me to want to keep MY EARNINGS, and it’s not greedy for you and politicians to take MY earnings under the threat of imprisonment?

How stupid can you be? And this fantasy you claim about “Americans taking care of Americans” has NEVER been in existence in a free country that was founded based upon individual liberty, private property, free market economics (by the way inseparable from individual liberty and private property), and individuals taking care of themselves. It is a fantasy for you to romanticize some socialist panacea that has NEVER existed here, nor has it ever worked anywhere on earth where it’s been tried. It is a failed ideology. It will not work here.

Have a nice day!

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure,
the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy,
its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery..”
– Winston Churchill

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Myers/100001512942781 Jim Myers

Replying to ObozoMustGo -

And, “TINKLE DOWN” has never worked. Never has, never will.

ObozoMustGo

Jim, you have no clue what you are talking about. Really, you have no friggin clue. You must be either an academic, a union worker, or government worker to be as ignorant as you are. I have written on this topic before, and I will do it again.

You leftist nutjobs use the term “trickle-down economics” as if it is some form of derogatory term. That’s a hell of a lot better than the DemonRATS ideas of “trickle up poverty”. The truth is, supply-side economics is the only true way to build a company and an economy. I know I’ve told this to you before, but I’ll do it again: Supply-side economics works.

Where did Microsoft come from? Where did Cisco come from? Where did 100 thousand other companies, most of whom you’ve never heard of, come from? Are the tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of people employed by and because of them just a mirage? Are the over 10,000 millionaires created by Microsoft just a fantasy? Tell me rusty, how did those companies come to be? Magic? A government program? uhhhhhhhh………..NO!

Microsoft, Google, Apple, Cisco, and countless other examples of companies were started by engineers or scientists with an idea and then were funded by rich guys with money, many of them venture capitalists who aggregate rich guys’ money. That money from rich guys trickled down to employees and other companies that serviced them. And it trickled down to their private lives and paid painters and doctors and people that sell or make clothes. What is so damned hard to understand about this? This is the way free market economics works.

I personally know this is how it works and my personal earnings are some rich guy’s investment funds. I do consulting to small, venture backed and pre-IPO companies in the energy related businesses. My checks every two weeks come to me because some group of rich guys decide to take a chance and invest in a business plan that a couple of engineers throw together for some new kind of technology like, for example, a transformer that will make the electric grid more efficient. They take the money and they hire people who can make a go of bringing their idea to reality. Along the way, every so often, the company must go back for another round of funding from those same rich guys and more rich guys. They keep hiring more people, using my services and paying me. When I take my truck for service, those rich guys’ money has “trickled down” through me to my mechanic. When I take my kids to mini golf, those rich guy’s money “trickles down” to the guy that owns it and the teenagers that staff the place and then to the company that makes the ice cream cones we buy.

This is the way the world works. To think otherwise is a colossal bout of ignorance. But I get it. You’re a wide-eyed leftist freak that really doesn’t have much of a clue about the real world. Only the world that you wish could exist if only we could stamp out racism, genderism, xenophobia, islamophobia, homophobia, whateverotherphobia, and differences between classes of people. If only we could do that, the world would be a perfect place where no one was poor and no one was discriminated against and there would be no wars, right? WRONG! No one but the most hardcore dedicated socialist actually believes that bullsheet. And if they really do, they are not just ignorant of the past 100 years of history, but they are just simply a fool.

Have a great day!

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure,
the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy,
its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery..”
– Winston Churchill

http://www.facebook.com/people/Charlie-Watkins/100001075495857 Charlie Watkins

You, as usual have no idea what you’re talking about;

In the 1992 presidential election, Independent candidate Ross Perot called trickle-down economics “political voodoo.”
the Labour Party campaign launch video for the 2011 general election, called trickle-down economics “the rich pissing on the poor”.
A 2012 study by the Tax Justice Network indicates that wealth of the super-rich does not trickle down to improve the economy, but tends to be amassed and sheltered in tax havens with a negative effect on the tax bases of the home economy. – Wikipedia

“When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the U.S. economy sank into the Great Depression, the idea of giving tax breaks to the wealthy was an unpopular policy” – How Stuff Works

“ If trickle-down economics worked, then lower tax rates during the Reagan Revolution should have increased the lowest income levels. In fact, the exact opposite has occurred. Income inequality has worsened. Between 1979 and 2005, after-tax household income rose 6% for the bottom fifth of income earners. That sounds great, until you see what happened for the top fifth — an 80% increase in income. The top 1% saw their income triple. Instead trickling down, it appears that prosperity trickled up! “ – About……com

“ indicating that a reduction in the tax rate will not in fact pay for itself as claimed by conservatives. However, CRS did find that decreasing top tax rates did correlate to a statistically significant degree with increasing income disparity. Note that although the disparity correlates, it does not necessarily indicate that low incomes fall — just that top income growth outpaces growth in the median income.” – Minnesota Daily

“Reich argues Boehner’s strategy couldn’t possibly reduce the deficit: “Even if they were to come up somewhere down the road with some loophole closers, some deduction limits, that’s still mathematically not going to do it. The middle class creates jobs through their spending, through their consumption. That’s the way an economy works.” – Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley

“Writing in The New York Times in July, Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu, authors of The Gardens of Democracy, wrote: “Lasting growth doesn’t trickle down; it emerges from the middle out.”
It always defied logic and many of not most of the people pushing it knew it was absurd but also knew it was a great scam for taking from the middle and giving it to the rich. Businesses do not hire people because they get tax breaks, they hire people when there is demand for their goods and services. A healthy economy depends on a healthy middle class – it’s not trickle-down but middle-out economics.” – The Moderate Voice

“Looking at data over a period of 65 years, the CRS concluded that neither saving and investment, productivity growth nor per capita GDP growth shared any strong statistical relationship with top tax rates. That means that lowering top tax rates does not improve economic growth. The CRS concluded that there is a strong statistical relationship between income disparity and top tax rates. Over the last 65 years, the reduction in top tax rates has gone hand in hand with the rise in income disparity. Reducing the top tax rate for high income earners is in no way related to lower unemployment. It would therefore seem that this threat of “job creators” forgoing job creation is an empty one. Trickle-down economics has been put to the test and has wholeheartedly failed. As Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz writes in his book, “Globalization and Its Discontents,” “trickle-down economics was never just more than a belief, an article of faith.” – Congressional Research Service (CRS)

“TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS IS THE LONGEST FAILED EXPERIMENT IN MODERN AMERICAN HISTORY
I also wonder if we’ve reached the end of a failed half-century experiment in ever-lower tax rates for the wealthy.Since the 1950s, the top federal income tax rate has fallen from 90 percent or more to 35 percent. Capital gains tax rates have been cut by more than half since the late 1970s. Financial tycoons now often pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries.All this has coincided with the decline of some public services and the emergence of staggering levels of inequality (granted, other factors are also at work) such that the top 1 percent of Americans now have greater collective net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent.” – Class Warfare Exists

“The “trickle-down” economic theory makes no sense. Goods and services have no value unless there is demand for such. Demand is based on the ability and willingness of consumers to buy, not the willingness and desire of businesses to produce.” – The Tennessean
ObozoMustGo

Chuckie… only quoting from leftist freaks and liberals does not an argument make. You obviously did not read what I wrote. My post clearly indicates that I personally live the benefits of what you derisively refer to as “trickle down economics.” My personal earnings come from wealthy people who invest their money in start-up companies. I take my earnings and pay for my house, my kids athletics, my landscaper, the lady that cleans my house (my wife that is), my mechanic, the restaurants I frequent, etc. etc. etc. They don’t know where the money I am paying them comes from, and I can assure you they half of them would be just as stupid as you to say that “trickle down economics” doesn’t work as they took the money from my hands.

The only idiots that are dumb enough to actually claim that taking more of the fruits of one’s labor, aka. a person’s earnings, through higher taxation are the same idiots that believe a large centralized government with power over all facets of life is a good thing. The philosophy is that politicians are capable of spending a nation’s resources better than the private citizens are capable of spending their own resources. Clearly, this is the nuttiest notion of all. There is NO evidence in history to support such a claim. You have been duped, Chuckie. Duped!!!

I get where you are coming from, though. You think I don’t, but I do. You see, your interest in seeking out the quotes above that you have posted (maybe you took them from the leftist freak site Media Matters or one similar) indicates that you have this feeling inside you that it is somehow fundamentally unfair that one person have more financial success than another person. And somehow, you see it as government’s duty to “reduce this inequality” in society. I am correct on this point. I also understand that your motivation for feeling this way is a deep seated affliction of jealousy and envy. Those emotions are the wellspring from which all of your political views erupt. The hallmark of socialism is exactly that… jealousy and envy. This is why you focus on this so-called “income/wealth gap”. You lefitst freaks cite this garbage as though it’s a real problem, when it’s actually not. What you fail to acknowlege with such a stupid premise is that WHO makes up the wealthy in America actually changes over time. People who were poor in 1980 may be rich today, and those who were rich then may be poor today. In a free market economy, individuals move up and down the ladder of success. But you leftist freaks don’t like talking about that. You’d rather keep the discussion based upon a false notion of inequality at a high level that can be sold emotionally, and not at a factual and individual level that breaks your emotional argument down into the false, strawman argument that it really is. Too bad, I’m not buying it, and hopefully others reading this will question the premise, as well.

Finally, think of it this way. Ask yourself a question: In what type of political environment are the lower classes most likely to NEVER get out of that lower class? Let’s contrast 2 ends of the spectrum. North Korea or America? And which of the 2 is a lower income class person most likely capable of moving up the ladder?

I am interestd in your answer…..

Have a nice day!

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure,
the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy,
its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery..”
– Winston Churchill

http://profile.yahoo.com/RFEPMKNCBVGJYV2X7LBNDGRUEY William

I see there is no limit to how stupid you can be.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Charlie-Watkins/100001075495857 Charlie Watkins

Why do you keep ranting about Socialism, I don’t even think you know what Socialism is. Look Up The Definition of Socialism. When and if you do, you will find that America has never been and can’t be Socialist, nor has the US ever had a Socialist Leader. There have been Politicians that believed in Socialism in the Government, but they’ve never been able to sell their ideology to the American People. In order for this to become a Socialist Country, the US Constitution has to be thrown out. That’s NOT going to happen. Socialist and Capitalistic economic policies are not compatible. In order to make a Socialist idea work in a Capitalistic society, some fundamental changes have to be made, the result can no longer be called Socialism.
“Americans taking care of Americans” is not a fantasy, I believe the idea comes from the Christian beliefs of our founding fathers. It is not an ideology, but a belief. One that has never worked any where on earth because there have always been too many “unbelievers” like yourself. One of the reasons America was created was to give this idea someplace to take root

ObozoMustGo

Charlie…. you’re not being honest, and you know it. Socialism doesn’t have to be an all or nothing concept. Rather, there are absolutely varying levels of its implementation. Certainly, it cannot be imlemented all at once, either. But it creeps upon a society in other insideous ways. Usually with some nice sounding promise that convinces people to give up some of their liberty in exchange for just a little bit of security. Witness SS being passed as just an insurance policy that was voluntary when it first began. Yet today, it now dominates the retirement plans of millions, is completely broke with nothing but IOU’s in the box, and a forcast for collapse in 10 or 20 years depending on whom you listen to. Witness Medicaid, and Medicare. Same thing, but forcasted collapse sooner.

And don’t think for a second that we actully live under our Constitution any longer. We are now in a post-Constitutional period where Congress is growing more and more irrelevant, the President is becoming dictator-like through the use of 35 -40 unelected, unconfirmed “Czars” as well as legislating through executive order. The Patriot Act under Bush, and the NDAA under Obozo. 4 years without a budget. A judiciary that legislates from the bench that which cannot be passed legitimately through the Congress. A national debt that exceeds our GDP. Interest payments on that debt is the 5th largest component of our Federal spending. Deficits exploding into the Trillions, and a legislature that is incapable of acting like adults to do the right thing to prevent collapse of our currency or economy. If you want a Constitutional Republic to be reestablished, Charlie, you should join the Tea Party. That’s the only place you are finding people interested in a Constitutional Republic guided by the Constitution for small limited government, and fiscally responsible government. It’s why the left hates the Tea Party. Because the Constitution stands in the way of their socialist goals. Socialist ideals and hatred for Constitutional conservatives goes hand in hand, my friend.

Thanks for the good discussion, Charlie.

Have a nice day!

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C. S. Lewis

http://profile.yahoo.com/ZJ5BBSQIGTUMERPZFALES6HQNY Bill

hey Bozo you amy want to take a look at how the Scandanavian countries like Sweden, Norwya and Denmark are faring. They are mostly Socialist but the people there are doing very well and the education system there is superior to ours.

I always thought that “Caring for others “was a basic tenet of Christia so I guess you aren’t a Christian or just a hypocrite.

Have a nice 4 MORE YEARS!!

ObozoMustGo

Billy boy…. First off, not all is utopia in Scandanavian countries. The rate of suicide, drug use, and alcholism is off the charts in those places. As well, their national finances are NOT in good shape. One positive thing they did do, however, was to radically reduce unemployment compensation periods a number of years ago. Here’s some proof written by, of all people, Larry Summers, advisor to Clinton and Obozo. [replace the (dot) with a period, of course]

www(dot)econlib(dot)org/library/Enc/Unemployment(dot)html

As to “caring for others” a baic tenet of Christianity… of course it is. But that’s an individual responsibility, not a collective responsibility. In fact, if you believe that outsourcing your “caring for others” to politicians gets you off the hook for your individual responsibility to care of others, you are sadly mistaken. There’s a reason conservatives are waaaayyyyyy more generous in their money and time for charitable reasons than you leftist freaks ever will be. It’s true. Google it. Arthur Brooks did an exhaustive study on the topic and wrote a book about it.

BTW.. you have no idea how much or how I give.

Have a nice day!

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” – Ronald Reagan

http://twitter.com/RockMollica Rock Mollica

The Clinton rates created more jobs than the Reagan, and both Bush administrations. Math doesn’t lie. Trickle down doesn’t work, never did, never will. Only Demand creates jobs. Companies don’t hire until the demand outpaces their production.

alumahead

Try getting that through to a Republican mind. They are supposed to be the party of business, yet they can’t accept that their policies stand in the way of true business growth. Immorally siphoning unearned money to the upper ranks while destroying the middle class is not the same as being business friendly.

http://profile.yahoo.com/RFEPMKNCBVGJYV2X7LBNDGRUEY William

Why do anything when the GOP will make you richer doing nothing.

ObozoMustGo

Rock… it’s apparent that you have rocks in your head. All of you stupid morons that actually believe that “demand” drives growth, are telling yourselves half truths and lies. The fact is that all demand begins with basic human instinct to survive. It has nothing to do with government. The need to survive drives people into economic activity…. that is growing food, making shelter, making clothes. Simple stuff. As the ability of a person to do provide for his needs grows stronger, he may create surpluses. It’s those surpluses that become the “currency of trade” for other people’s surpluses to supply for other needs. You leftist freaks have this idea that no one demands anything until the government gives them money. Therefore, the answer to all problems for you morons is to take from one and give to the other. That somehow “Rob Peter to Pay Paul Economics” is the way to grow the economy. You have to be complete fool with no understanding of the real world to think this way. Don’t be an idiot.

Have a nice day!

“You cannot make the poor man rich by making the rich man poor.” – Winston Churchill

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Myers/100001512942781 Jim Myers

Replying to ObozoMustGo -

The class warfare that you have described has been going on for over 30 years. Unfortunately, the only ones who benefitted from it are the wealthiest people the earth has ever known.

It is true that investment provides goods and services.

However, there is NO basis to the your insistence that demand does not drive growth.

Without demand, there can be no growth. (And, yes, the government DOES provide demand. For the military-industrial complex, infrastructure, medicine, education, etc.)

Also, cutting taxes on the wealthiest serves ONLY the wealthy. George the Second, and his trusty sidekick Dick proved that.

“TINKLE DOWN” has never worked. Never has, never will.

http://profile.yahoo.com/ZJ5BBSQIGTUMERPZFALES6HQNY Bill

Jim

Ignoring Bozo the Idiot is the best thing to do. He usually justs copies and pastes quotes and a cartoon but every once in a while he shows his true stupidity. The other day he made a claim that President Obama was the worst president in 100 years. Tell me how he’s worst than these former presidents – Warren G Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard M Nixon, Gerald Ford, George W Bush.
Harding famous for the Teapot Dome scandal,
Coolidge for ???,
Hoover for the 1929 Stock Market crash and Great Depression,
Nixon for Spiro Agnew, Watergate and Impeachment (oh that’s right he resigned),
Ford for inflation, pardoning Nixon and WIN (Wip Inflation Now)
and of course your favorite W for 2 wars, surplus to over a Trillion $ deficit, huge job loss.

So how do these guys rate better than President Obama, the answer is that they don’t but you will never admit it because like other right wingers rather believe Fox than the truth.

Have a nice 4 MORE YEARS!!!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Charlie-Watkins/100001075495857 Charlie Watkins

“All of you stupid morons that actually believe that “demand” drives growth, are telling yourselves half truths and lies.”
I can’t believe a person that uses his head would actually say something like that.
No one is going to produce a product unless someone wants it (demand).
If enough people want a product, an employer may have to hire more people to keep up with this increased DEMAND (job creation and growth).

“It has nothing to do with government.”
The Government has demands of it’s own. – During the War, the Government needed more tanks (demand), so the auto companies had to hire more people to meet this Government Demand (job creation and growth).

” The need to survive drives people into economic activity…. that is growing food, making shelter, making clothes. ”
Increased economic activity=Increased Demand, which leads to increased hiring (job creation and growth).

“You leftist freaks have this idea that no one demands anything until the government gives them money”
YOU are the ONLY one I’ve ever heard say that, therefore you must be the leftist freak.

“You leftist freaks have this idea that no one demands anything until the government gives them money”
Closing the income gap between the haves and have not’s, is an entirely different subject, that has little to do with Supply and Demand.

ObozoMustGo

Charlie… the debate is not over whether or not demand influences business. Certainly it does. The debate is over the SOURCE of that demand and the order in which it influences commerce. The traditional lefist ideology sells the concept that if government robs Peter to pay Paul, well, then Paul will demand more products then. In other words, it places government control over capital at the heart of demand generation. My point is that this is a false premise because the most basic of individual needs exists outside of government. Those basic needs are the orignination of economic activity. Maybe I was not clear enough for you, or maybe you’re committed to the concept of government centrality in economic activity. Whatever it was, you should understand better now.

Reading your other comments makes me think that maybe you are not a lefitst freak after all. Maybe you’re just a liberal that’s confused a bit. I can work with that. LOL But you’re gonna have to get off of this false premise of an “income gap” as being a problem. It’s not. It’s only a leftist freak strawman argument used to stoke your emotions of jealousy and envy. Read my other response on this topic for more detail on this issue.

Thanks for the discussion, Charlie. I mean that.

Have a nice day!

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm– but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” — T. S. Eliot

http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Federman/100001308611208 Paul Federman

You have to be the biggest fool I have ever come across in my 63 years. The rich do not create jobs, What creates the jobs, is a healthy economic ecosystem surrounding the company, which starts with the company’s customers. Consumers demand drives growth which create jobs. 97% of all consumers in this country are middle class. Yet, the middle class is shrinking as the recession continues to get worse. Taxing or not taxing the rich has a small effect on job creation. Any rich guy can hire people and start a business, but lets see how long it lasts without any consumers. If the middle class has more money to spend, that helps the rich. Henry Ford understood that. Which is why he made sure all of his workers earned enough salary to be able to purchase one of his own cars. The rank-and-file employees of America’s corporations are also mainstream American consumers — the folks who account for ~70% of the spending in the economy. Almost every dollar these folks earn in salaries gets spent — on food, clothing, houses, education, entertainment, cars, and other goods and services that big American companies produce.
You might think that voluntarily helping employees by sharing more profits with them would be something corporations would be very eager to do. American companies are now so obsessed with profit maximization that they are content with millions of their full-time employees being below the poverty line (Walmart, Starbucks, McDonalds, et al). Think about that for a minute. Some of the richest, most revered companies in this country — companies that are currently generating record-high profits — pay their full-time employees so little that they’re poor. Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. One reason companies are so profitable is that they’re paying employees less than they ever have before. And that’s what led to the Great Depression.

ObozoMustGo

Paul, how’d you make it 63 years without wandering out into traffic? You obviously have no clue what the hell you’re talking about. You must have been either an academic, a union thug, or a government worker because it’s clear you have no understanding of how business works.

Your comments about McDonalds giving employees profits demonstrates this stunning breadth of ignorance I speak of. Don’t you know that the vast majority of workers for McDonalds do not actually work FOR McDonalds Corp.? Rather, they work “Smith’s Restaurants” or similar small business people who are independent, but pay franchise fees for the right to sell the McDonald products under the McDonalds label. The other companies you cite happen to be retail companies that employ a massive number of part time workers. Those who are full time, like managers and such, DO participate in profits through bonuses, stock options and grants, 401K match, and other incentives and perks. Retail does not lend itself to over compensation of part time employees because no one will shop in their stores if they raise their prices to accomodate such largess. You probably only understand this concept when it’s your own money you are spending and you look for the best deal you can get. But on a macro level, there’s a disconnect with you, as there is for all leftist freaks who are confused about the way the world really works. If only we could pass more laws and have more bureaucrats to enforce them, right? The world would be perfect, wouldn’t it?

As well, your foolish comments about companies paying people more so they will demand things is just as ignorant. Henry Ford did not pay his workers more money specifically so they could afford his cars, per se. I can assure you that he did percieve the only market for his cars to be his employees. Rather, he saw the world as his market, and discovered that his concepts of manufacturing gave him a huge competitive advantage at serving the growing transportation market. As such, his employees were worth more to him, and he paid them more. If the competition was beating his brains in, I can assure you that he would have cut wages in order to reduce costs and survive.

Further, your inability to grasp the most basic of economic concepts such as demand origninating with basic human need is laughable, at best. You see, companies do not employ people for the purpose of giving them jobs and money so they can afford to buy their products. That is a common thought in the effed up minds of you leftist freaks, but it’s not true. A company is formed when it’s founders believe they can first meet a need in the market place that is either not being met, or they can meet that need with a better product/service at a better price than the competition, AND make profits, hopefully what you leftist freaks call “obscene” profits. The goal is for the founders to take risks and hopefully reap the rewards of becoming wealthy. It’s not anymore complicated than that.

While we are on this topic, how do you think new companies are started? I can assure you that they cannot start without capital… money, that is to you leftist dopes. Where do they get the money? Some from their own savings, of course, or family and friends, if they need only a small amount. But where do they get capital when what they seek to accomplish will cost millions to develop over a long period of time? Where does that money come from, Paul? Do you know? Do you have a single clue? I’ll tell you where it comes from since I know you are too stupid to rationalize this. It comes from those evil rich people. That’s right, it does. SURPRISE!!!! This is where venture capital and private equity come into play. Rich guys pool their money in funds that invest in certain kinds of businesses or industries like biopharma, energy, software, technology, and a host of other industries. Even new automotive companies that no one has ever heard of have been funded by rich guys investing their money in them. I know this personally because I am consulting to one right now that is funded by 2 of the most widely known billionaires in the world. This IS the way it works, Paul. It doesn’t work any other way. It doesn’t work with government taking taxpayer dollars and spreading it around to political cronies as Obozo has done and has burned billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars in failed companies that could not get private money. I know this is the leftist fantasy, but it just isn’t real. Sorry. It’s not. No matter how much you close your eyes and click your heels together, it’s not true.

Finally, companies making more profit per dollar is EXACTLY the way it’s supposed to work, you dummy! That’s called improved efficiency. You’re probably one of those idiots like Obozo that thinks ATM machines are bad because it means less teller jobs at the bank, right? What an idiot. You dopes that think like this fail to understand the industries that are born around the ATM machine. Mechanical, computer, software, services, etc. etc. etc. type jobs are created and many more jobs are created than any number of teller jobs that could have been “saved” by remaining inefficient. Do you get it? Probably not.

Most of you leftist freaks are so committed to your fantasy world view of some utopia that you’ll never open your mind to anything else. Too bad because you morons have been indoctrinating our children for too many years now where very few of them even understand basic economics. Rather, a majority of people under the age of 30 actually believe socialism is better than capitalism. This despite 100 years of evidence to the contrary, and all the benefits of capitalism that stare them in the face thousands of times each day in every aspect of their lives. It’s a joke how stupid our youth have become under the leftist freak control of our educational institutions. This is the saddest indictment of American education and a horrible indicator for the future of America.

Have a nice day, Paul, and remain oblivious!

“The difference between being stupid and being a fool: A stupid person at least has an idea about their own inadequacies. The fool is oblivious to them, and is more inclined to believe their own fantasies and lies as truth.” – ObozoMustGo

“Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.” – Winston Churchill

montanabill

I am always amazed at the comments in response to a nutty article like the one from David Cay Johnston. It is also largely incorrect.

The average income has fallen because we are in a deep recession. It was caused by a housing/mortgage boom that should never have happened. It wasn’t caused by the rich. It was caused by politicians and millions of people who should have known better.
Why didn’t they know better? Maybe the real problem is our education system.

Why does anyone think that, as Mr. Johnston writes, the rich’s tax burden is falling? It is certainly not. They are paying more in taxes than ever and their share of the total tax burden has been rising. Why does anyone think that if taxes were raised on the rich, it would help everyone else. If we weren’t so deeply in debt, the most likely outcome would be an even bigger expansion of the welfare system. Higher taxes on the rich can’t possibly help anyone in the middle class. As has been pointed out time and again, the taxes the President is proposing on the rich won’t even scratch his deficit spending. It is purely a token political move.

I do blame the educational system. People should have some basic education in economics but do not. People should be able to equate math with the real world, but most cannot. Most cannot even do basic math. The history of the United States is a quick gloss-over, edited for political correctness. The history of the world over thousands of years is taught in a short semester. Memorize a few dates and move on. Never mind the why’s and wherefore’s that created history. Logic classes are taken by a precious few in college. How many still take basic accounting?

Deductions and loopholes? Are you one of those people who for the first time make over $250,000, are doing your taxes, and asking yourself: “Hey! Where are the deductions and loopholes? I know they must be there. Everyone says they are!”

If you think the economy can be grown by a shrinking middle class, ask yourself how. Do they spend more money they don’t have? Do they get a check from the government from new taxes on the rich to spend? How does a shrinking middle class get rebuilt from government policies and regulations? A new stimulus? That is like having several maxed credit cards and getting a new one so you can buy more stuff. Our government is not immune to laws of fiscal responsibility.

How about putting it on the backs of people who have businesses and money? Not by taking the money away from them, but by encouraging them to spend their money expanding their businesses. That is done by taking away the dark cloud of threatening government. How about encouraging new entrepreneurs to start companies? That is done by killing a lot of the excessive and silly regulations, and again, taking away the threat of a government that will punish your success.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1118543425 Robin O’Brien

Simple solution:
1) Tax Increase on the upper 2%.
2) Eliminate entitlement programs BUT by ‘entitlement’ I mean those affected will be oil companies and corporations that are receiving tax breaks but they show millions of dollars in profit.

Leave the middle class programs alone!!!!!!….
I work for a major airline that just eliminated our retirement health insurance, pensions, reduction in pay and increased ours to work. Upper management continues to collect bonuses….their lives have not been changed at all.

Don’t tell me that a recession is to blame. Companies are using ‘the recession’ to slam the ‘worker bees’ daily with concessions…..If there truly was a recession they wouldn’t be making their millions!

Side note:
Google the tax rates of the 60s and 70s……You’ll be shocked to see the tax rate that the 2% used to pay!!

montanabill

Show me the math, Robin. Just how would that affect the deficit?

Was your airline one of the unionized airlines, or Delta?

I’m sure you can find companies who are doing well. You can find a great deal more who are not doing so well. Technically, we have been out of the recession for quite awhile. But because there is virtually no growth, things are pretty stagnant.

Common mistake, Robin. You have to know the ‘effective tax rate’, not the IRS listed rates. There were many more deductions when higher tax rates were in effect that created for most people, a significantly lower effective tax rate.

davidfishman2001

You need to get back to reality. Middle class compensation has been stagnant since the mid 1980′s. We actually need to go back to the tax rates before Reagan. Personally I’m making the same amount in compensation as I did in 1990 and of course the costs of everything has gone up.

montanabill

What sources are collaborating your claim of middle class stagnation? Seems to me I remember folks doing pretty well in the 90′s.
What would raising tax rates to do improve anything?

ObozoMustGo

Montana… good post. The vast majority of useful idiots on this site have no clue what they are talking about. If they have any “economic education” at all, it’s most likely Keynesian fantasy as indoctrination, not critical thinking or a practical real world understanding of how the economy and incentive systems work. You will not get an answer to the question of how taking 4% more in taxes from 2% of the people will benefit the middle class. They cannot answer it because there is no answer other than “it won’t help.” The motivation is hatred. It’s just class warfare and jealousy manifesting itself in public policy. There is nothing that will come out of increased taxes. Check out my new post on here. It’s an article from Thomas Sowell on the facts about tax cuts and revenue with links.

Have a great day, Montana!

“You mean that you’re telling me that we have to go spend more money to keep from going bankrupt? Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.” – Joe Biden
lexi001

Really? I have posted before on this and will do so again for those who choose to ignore the obvious. My business, which by the way is successful, involves reviewing tax returns. I have continously given the example of the borrower whose tax returns I reviewed for three years made over 4 million dollars each and every year of those three years. Each and every year of those three years he paid ZERO taxes and each and every year he had a refund. Along with the fact that every one in four corporations pay NO taxes, most of you have no clue how many VERY wealthy people pay NO taxes. You speak from a perspective that these are the people who supposedly create jobs. That is patently incorrect. If you look at job creation since the tax breaks were given you will see that that hasn’t happened. Wages have stagnated and ARE more in line with 1966 while the wealthy have seen a 250% increase. I simply don’t understand how so many want to back up the wealthy and tell everyone else to just eat cake!! The saddest part of that is the one’s who are so virulent about this are doubtful wealthy themselves.

montanabill

I need you for an accountant. How does a man who pays no taxes on a $4M income get a refund?

Since you claim to understand corporations, you must know that they are divided into S-corporations and limited liability partnerships where any taxes on profit are paid directly by the shareholders, and C-corporations which pay taxes as a corporation and any dividends are then taxed again at individual shareholder rates. You must also understand that any taxes directed to the C-corporation are usually included in the price of their products or services so that effectively, they pay no taxes, their customers do.

As it happens, lexi, I know quite a few wealthy people. Absolutely no one I know, pays NO taxes. Most of us pay in the 33% range except for those who have no earned income. By the time you factor in state taxes, most are in the 40-50% range.

Pardon me for saying this, but I don’t think you know what you are talking about.

http://profile.yahoo.com/UHE4MJP5FHMFIEAOGEQHETUGDQ Rvn_sgt6768

Ah so nice to see the Republican Manifesto dribbled here by Bill. A screed blaming the poor for their lack of education and blaming nameless (Democrats of course) politicians for stealing our money and killing the middle class. He goes on to tell us it is this deep recession that caused the fall of middle class incomes and somehow forgets this slide has been going on for almost 40 years. Have we been in a deep recession for all those years? Has business been so overburden by rules and regulations for all those 40 years? Have the rich been unable to garner any of the income rise either in that time period? Bill asks if the middle or lower income spends more money then they have and never answers how their money stopped growing 40 years ago. He claims it is an education problem and in part I agree, but it is his education that is lacking in answers. His only answer to all the problems is to not ask the people whose share continues to grow larger regardless of what happens in the economy to start paying a more fair share. He states that the rich pay such a heavy burden and so much now and if that were true I ask how the rich did so well in the 1950′s -1970′s when rates were 90%. I lived then and I never heard then rich complain how hard they had it. They found ways to make money and they will again if their rates go up those pitiful 4 percentage points.Bill gives us (US) the old tired Reagan ploy of blaming the poor for being poor when all the routes to making it in the world are closed to them.
Bill fails to take into account that the US has gone from a manufacturing base with good wages, to a service base with poor wages which do not affect the rich since they derive their incomes not from working but from investing where their capital gains are taxed at 15% (and lower with their deductions factored in) and wages are taxed at a rate much higher. Can a poor person afford to then pay more of their Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid towards existing or can the rich person? These people did not start out life saying I am poor and I will work to become even poorer did they? I think not. They started life as we all do expecting an open path to making it and as my own life has borne out doors begin to close almost immediately to those less fortunate. Even my son has found that as you approach 40 years of age all of a sudden no one wants to hire you should you want to change jobs. By 50 years of ago he will find it impossible and he will start to see his wages decline and yet he will be asked to do more work. Business used to me a partnership with its workers in many ways as both prospered as the business grew. Those days are over now and as the business grows it benefits fewer and fewer at the top while utilizing fewer and fewer personnel for this growth.
I suggest Bill rather examine and state his case for his beliefs based on truth and historical fact than on his disagreement with David Cay Johnston’s politics. You talk education Bill show us you have yours, show us the charts supporting your GOP and Faux News talking points if you wish to convince us and make us believe as you do. Show us something beyond your beliefs.

montanabill

Nice rant. No facts. I’ve been working for the past 40 years, many of those I was in the middle class. I also lived through the 90′s where the middle class was doing pretty good. Show me the data on a 40 year middle class slide!

Here is another exercise for you. The data is readily available. Compare the growth in regulations for those 40 years. Did the count go down? Did it go up dramatically over the past few years?

The question was: what effect will increased taxes on anyone have on you? You dodged the question.

Don’t give me crap about starting out poor, because that is exactly where I started. And poorer than most. I know first hand how you get out of poverty and how you stay in it.

Nobody ever promised me or you a life-long career, but the freedoms we enjoy in this country certainly make it possible to choose any path you want and to change paths when one doesn’t work. But if you aren’t doing well and want to sit around and complain and blame someone or something else for your plight, guess what? If it changes at all, it will get worse.

I’ve given my education on this site before. I’ve overcome polio. I worked my way through college without scholarships, loans, or family money. It took 5 colleges and 8 years, but I made it with advanced degrees in math, physics and engineering. Along the way, because I wanted a well rounded education, I took lots of history, religion, economics, business, art, and other liberal arts courses. I started work at age 10 selling papers on the street. I’ve had jobs that paid for production (farm labor jobs), minimum wage jobs (feed mill, dish washing and more). Jobs with fortune 100 companies and jobs with start-up companies. I’ve been fired, laid-off and made obsolete. I’ve started businesses that failed and I’ve started businesses that have succeeded. Not during my worst periods of unemployment did I take unemployment compensation. I’ve never taken a dime from government other than SS. I donate that to veterans relief charities.

Canistercook

Depends on what one determines as ‘rich’. After years of hard work getting $200,000 a year and living in a high cost area does not make one rich. Keep wondering what a ‘tax break’ or a ‘tax cut; really is. Seems like when a store raises its prices and then advertises ‘price cuts’ when it goes back to the former price! Guess its another phase and way to garner votes from some low income people.

Sand_Cat

It still makes you a lot richer than some poor schmo whose income hasn’t gone up in years; most financial problems you’re likely to have will be self-created. $200,000 per year gives you the ability to make those choices that the Republicans keep harping about; for most people below that, (especially below $100,000) the choices are take what you can get or starve.

Canistercook

Have not seen anyone staving in this country, just many that eat far too much.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Colleen-Klemp/100002683878543 Colleen Klemp

If things don’t change there will be a revolt that makes the Bolshevik revolution look like a kids party. We already see the fighting in the streets of Spain and other places. People are saying enough is enough.
adriancrutch

The attempted murder of the congressional budget office’s study on the deficit,must have had the doomsday effect on the right, scuttling to call the media stink tanks to scream over the real facts and the dread of “the phone call” from the masters of the universe! The 2% party is born!
ObozoMustGo

David Cay Johnston, useful idiot du jour, attempts to use the written equivalent of sleight of hand to further stir up and mislead the leftist freaks into believing that taking more on someone’s earnings is actually good for the economy. It’s NOT! It’s only good for socialist politicians who want to spend more money to buy more votes. Here’s a real thinker and real economist that knows what he’s talking about. Hat tip to Thomas Sowell for this article. The links are included for you leftist freaks to see for yourselves. [replace the (dot) with a period]

Fiscal Cliff Notes: Part II
By Thomas Sowell
Monday, December 10, 2012

One of the big advantages that President Obama has, as he plays “chicken” with the Congressional Republicans along the “fiscal cliff,” is that Obama is a master of the plausible lie, which will never be exposed by the mainstream media— nor, apparently, by the Republicans.

A key lie that has been repeated over and over, largely unanswered, is that President Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” cost the government so much lost tax revenue that this added to the budget deficit— so that the government cannot afford to allow the cost of letting the Bush tax rates continue for “the rich.”

It sounds very plausible, and constant repetition without a challenge may well be enough to convince the voting public that, if the Republican-controlled House of Representatives does not go along with Barack Obama’s demands for more spending and higher tax rates on the top 2 percent, it just shows that they care more for “the rich” than for the other 98 percent.

What is remarkable is how easy it is to show how completely false Obama’s argument is. That also makes it completely inexplicable why the Republicans have not done so.

The official statistics which show plainly how wrong Barack Obama is can be found in his own “Economic Report of the President” for 2012, on page 411. You can look it up. Whitehouse(dot)gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ERP_2012_Complete(dot)pdf

You may be able to find a copy of the “Economic Report of the President” for 2012 at your local public library. Or you can buy a hard copy from the Government Printing Office or download an electronic version from the Internet.

For those who find that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” they need only see the graphs published in the November 30th issue of Investor’s Business Daily. Here’s the link. There is no www on this one. News(dot)investors(dot)com/ibd-editorials-perspective/113012-635352-bush-tax-cuts-did-not-cause-deficits(dot)htm?p=full

What both the statistical tables in the “Economic Report of the President” and the graphs in Investor’s Business Daily show is that (1) tax revenues went up— not down— after tax rates were cut during the Bush administration, and (2) the budget deficit declined, year after year, after the cut in tax rates that have been blamed by Obama for increasing the deficit.

Indeed, the New York Times reported in 2006: “An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year.”

While the New York Times may not have expected this, there is nothing unprecedented about lower tax rates leading to higher tax revenues, despite automatic assumptions by many in the media and elsewhere that tax rates and tax revenues automatically move in the same direction. They do not.

The Congressional Budget Office has been embarrassed repeatedly by making projections based on the assumption that tax revenues and tax rates move in the same direction.

This has happened as recently as the George W. Bush administration and as far back as the Reagan administration. Moreover, tax revenues went up when tax rates went down, as far back as the Coolidge administration, before there was a Congressional Budget Office to make false predictions.

The bottom line is that Barack Obama’s blaming increased budget deficits on the Bush tax cuts is demonstrably false. What caused the decreasing budget deficits after the Bush tax cuts to suddenly reverse and start increasing was the mortgage crisis. The deficit increased in 2008, followed by a huge increase in 2009.

So it is sheer hogwash that “tax cuts for the rich” caused the government to lose tax revenues. The government gained tax revenues, not lost them. Moreover, “the rich” paid a larger amount of taxes, and a larger share of all taxes, after the tax rates were cut.

That is because people change their economic behavior when tax rates are changed, contrary to what the Congressional Budget Office and others seem to assume, and this can stimulate the economy more than a government “stimulus” has done under either Bush or Obama.

Yet there is no need to assume that Barack Obama is mistaken about the way to get the economy out of the doldrums. His top priority has always been increasing the size and scope of government. If that means sacrificing the economy or the truth, that is no deterrent to Obama. That is why he is willing to play chicken with Republicans along the fiscal cliff.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www(dot)tsowell(dot)com.
—————————————————

Have nice day!

“You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth — and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.” – Thomas Sowell

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Myers/100001512942781 Jim Myers

Replying to ObozoMustGo -

You still provide me with gut wrenching laughs when you spout your insane rants!!!

This is a copy of your most idiotic comment to date.

A key lie that has been repeated over and over, largely unanswered, is that President Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” cost the government so much lost tax revenue that this added to the budget deficit— so that the government cannot afford to allow the cost of letting the Bush tax rates continue for “the rich.”

You forgot to mention the two unfunded wars, costing Trillions of Dollars and more loss of life than 9/11/2001.

Another inconvenient fact you forgot to mention is that the budget that George the Second handed to President Obama on his first day in office was the FIRST EVER budget that had a TRILLION DOLLAR PLUS deficit.

AND YOU HAVE THE GALL TO CALL EVERYONE ELSE USEFUL IDIOTS??

LOOK IN THE MIRROR, IDIOT.

Have a nice day.

ObozoMustGo

Jim boy… Bush didn’t hand Obozo a “budget”. If he had, maybe, just maybe, Obozo could have gotten ONE BUDGET, JUST ONE BUDGET, passed in his first 4 years. Obozo didn’t want a budget because if he passed one, then he would have undermined his strategy of cowardice to blame Bush for everything for 4 years. And stupid fools like you eat up his sheet like a dog eats his own vomit. Actually, Obozo did submit a budget once, but did not get a single vote, not a single vote, from even the biggest DemonRAT fool in the Senate. That vote went down 97 to NOTHING!!!! Now there’s real incompetence for you. If you wish to blame Bush for the budget year when Obozo came into office, then you must also blame Obozo because he voted for it. And he voted for TARP. And then, once in office, he jammed through a nearly TRILLION dollar so-called “stimulus” bill which he has baselined into future spending. This is Obozo’s doing, you idiot. Do you also blame Bush for signing the “stimulus” bill with Obozo’s hand? How stupid can you be? Very stupid, I know. After all, if you were even half witted, you would not be a leftist freak that supports Obozo, by definition.

One other point for you and all the other useful idiots out there who continue to repeat the lie about funding for Iraq and Afghanistan not being accounted for in the budgets…. You have to be a complete idiot and a dolt to think that the Defense budget does not include actual defense spending. Of course it does. And it always has. This is where the funding came from along with appropriations bills that were voted for in Congress by most DemonRATS that authorized the money for the wars. Don’t you remember the fights that the DemonRATS had with the Repubs threatening to withdraw funding for the wars? Maybe you don’t. The other feature of being a leftist freak is that you are a moron enough to not have the capacity to remember anything beyond what you ate for lunch today.

Finally, you obviously have disdain for facts and any attempt to inform you of those facts with straightforward rationale. If you did not have disdain, you would have read my post of Thomas Sowell’s article and you would have used the links that show you the exact effects of how tax cuts bring in more revenue to the government. It’s even proven in Obozo’s own economic report which I have included links to in that post.

Don’t bother going to look up the facts. You’d rather remain a fool, I can see.

Have a nice day, and remain oblivious!

“The difference between being stupid and being a fool: A stupid person at least has an idea about their own inadequacies. The fool is oblivious to them, and is more inclined to believe their own fantasies and lies as truth.” – ObozoMustGo

Sand_Cat

Useful idiot still better than useless one such as you.

Have a nice day, moron!

http://profile.yahoo.com/YDGRKS5L2M2G2J6DTM4ZI25C2A John Griggs

Sure, let’s tax the rich because we aren’t one of them?

ObozoMustGo

John… spot on. This tax increase will do NOTHING to solve the problems in our government. It’s just a political move to placate the leftist freaks who clamour for the blood of the rich because they are delirious with envy and jealousy. Watch the responses you get. You will see that I am right.

Have a nice day!

“The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.” – Ronald Reagan
greghilbert

Yes exactly.
Let’s increase taxes on the top 2% because 98% of us are not among them.
Let’s increase taxes on the top 1% even more because 99% of us are not among them.
Let’s increase taxes on the top 0.1% still more because 99.9% of us are not among them and because just 450 of them have more wealth than 150 MILLION of us.
You damn right.
Let’s tax the rich because their share of wealth has been growing and continues to grow while ours has been falling and continues to fall, and yet non-rich working Americans pay a HIGHER proportion of their incomes on federal, state and local taxes and fees than the rich.
Let’s do it because the rich can well afford it, because the non-rich contributed greatly to their wealth, and because the overwhelming majority of the non-rich have nothing left with which to support the growth of wealth of the wealthy in consequence of the low taxes the wealthy pay.

Johnnie_M

According to the house’s own estimate, taxing the rich at a new rate, more than today’s, would bring in approximately 75 billion per year. At that rate, the federal govenment can operate for a total of 8 whole days. this is really big news considering the defict is at 17 trillion. When will the people we elected realize that we spend more than we take in. Cut and dry, pretty simple to figure out and all of this other talk is just to make everyone feel better. I’ll bet all the people who want this and that to happen to the so called rich people, wouldn’t be saying anything if they were rich.

ObozoMustGo

Actually Johnnie, many of the so-called rich people do say they want higher taxes. Witness: of the 10 richest counties in America, Obozo won 8 of them. How do you explain such a travesty? You’re statement about someone NOT wanting higher taxes applies almost exclusively to the rich person that started a company and built it from nothing. Those people don’t want higher taxes on their labor. But the lazy rich, the inheritence crowd, actors, professors, etc…. the ones that don’t actually work for a living or take risks to build things… they support Obozo and higher taxes.

This is what is so funny about these leftist freaks: They don’t understand that very restrictive and high tax policies discourage productive work, and discourage investment, discourage wealth creation. This results in more and more people being held back in the lower or middle classes. That’s the paradox of the leftist freak thinking: they complain about the so-called wealth gap, but then scream for government to erect more and more barriers that makes it harder for the lower and middle classes from climbing out of their economic scenario and become wealthy. I’ve chatted with a number of these morons that constantly say that people who think they can become wealthy one day are being duped. This despite the literally hundreds of thousands of examples in front of their faces every single day of people who grew up poor or average that have made themeselves very financially secure or even very wealthy through their work and their talents and perseverance. The vast majority of them who are totally anonymous. Guys that started working at a McDonalds for $4 an hour and now own 5 of them and has 40 employees. Or who started a tire business and now owns 3 of them and the real estate and buildings around them. Or the guy that stared slinging pies at the pizza place and now owns his own place and the strip mall that it exists in. There are literally hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of these examples that nobody ever notices or talks about. These are the people that employ 80% of a Americans.

It’s mind boggling how stupid these people really are. And sickening, frankly.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Have a nice day!

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” – Calvin Coolidge
greghilbert

That repeal of the Bush tax cuts on the top 2% would only pay for 2.2% of federal spending is no reason not to repeal them. If anything, the modesty of the increase in the rate the top 2% would pay (4.9 percentage points) reveals the need to tax the wealthy at the dramatically higher rates that prevailed until Regan.

That’s the point being lost in the current debate: Even if the Bush cuts are repealed, the top 2% will still be paying substantially lower tax rates than the wealthy did during preceding decades of widespread prosperity.

Also lost in the current debate is the fact that the wealthy and the huge corporations they control have parked trillions offshore in recent years, dodging hundreds of billions in US taxes annually.

And I’ll take your bet. Multi-billionaire Warren Buffet has said publicly that he and other wealthy people should pay more taxes than they do. So you lose the bet, though I’m willing to concede that wealth tends to breed an insatiable greed for more wealth.

As to spending cuts, let’s start with defense and homeland security.

quasm

Mr. Sattler; Is it fair that the top 1% of earn 17% of the income and pay 37% of taxes, more than the bottom 90% who pay only 29% in income taxes? Can you show where the wealthy, such as Messers Soros and Buffet got their wealth dishonestly?

Dik Thurston
Colorado Springs

ObozoMustGo

Dick, facts don’t matter here. Not when there’s a vendetta to be settled against those so-called “rich” people that have gotten their wealth by stealing it from poor people that have no wealth. Hmmmmmm????? Go figure……

Have a nice day!

“Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” ― John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
greghilbert

In reply to “quasm”:

No it is not fair that the top 1% pay only 37% of all collected federal income taxes, because they should be paying 50% of those taxes. Even then they would still have a radically disproportionate share of America’s disposable income AND wealth.

Further, by limiting your comment to federal income tax, you hide this simple fact: the overwhelming majority of working Americans among the 99% pay a FAR higher portion of their incomes in all federal, state and local taxes and fees than do the 1%, including those individuals among the 1% whose wealth is measured in tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and even billions.

You further ignore the trillions the wealthy have off-shored so as to dodge taxes completely. The amount off-shored by the 99% is effectively zero.

Your question “Can you show where the wealthy, such as Messers Soros and Buffet got their wealth dishonestly?” is one for the books. You mention two wealthy people, one a liberal donor and the other a public lobbyist for higher taxes on wealthy people, revealing a right-wing baiting mentality disinterested in rational discussion. The wealthy of all stripes have come by it in all manner of ways: honestly and dishonestly, legally and illegally and should-have-been-illegally, fairly and unfairly, responsibly and irresponsibly, ethically and unethically, morally and immorally.

The only broad statements that apply to almost all of them is that they are not paying the share of taxes they should be paying and can well afford to pay, and that they would still be wealthy even if they did pay what they should.

http://www.facebook.com/rich.nageotte Rich Nageotte

And yet, most people I encounter still somehow identify with the rich, as if through more and more work, they might attain that same status. And the “poor”, even among the poor, are “those other people”.
dalnb

That is my fault, and yours, and everyone else who fails to let their congressman and senator and all friends, neighbors and relatives that seeing the Bush Tax cut on the Wealthy expires is the most American thing we can do!

I have nothing against anyone making as much money as they can – BUT – not on the backs of those who are hardly making a go of it and those who are loosing their homes and savings while the wealthy get richer!

We pay a higher price for gas and oil because the wealthy have the money to invest in oil which pushed the price of gas and oil up making the wealthy even richer and the investors pay only 15% tax on that iinvestment.
Alvaro

The Wealthy with Regulations what the American People Mandate ,Increase the Taxes,They Says The Administration is Socialist Next Step Communist,With this Judgement Scare a lot of American People (Uneducated) . Like Bush Era with Chenney and his Colors,Red-Orange -etc etc They Was Terrorist because Scare a lot American People.Now The American People WAKE UP and Support the God Ideas and Better Condition for many Households.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Federman/100001308611208 Paul Federman

The idea that you cut taxes to stimulate the economy has been the center of the Republican plank for 30 years starting with Reagan, says The Daily Ticker’s Henry Blodget. “A Congressional Research Service report, which is non-partison, says there’s no evidence that that is true.” “This prospect, frequently repeated by conservatives, that raising taxes on the wealthy will decimate the economy and destroy job creation (and thus hurt the poor) is simply not supported by empirical evidence.
We had 10 years of Bush tax cuts intended for businesss growth and job creation. Instead we lost 60,000 factories and 6 million manufacturing jobs and Bush had the lowest job growth of any president since Herbert Hoover with only 3 million jobs in 8 years. The nation’s best GDP growth and job creation rate in the last 60 years actually occurred when the top marginal income tax rate was between 75 and 80 percent. The worst period for both measurements occurred when the top rate was 35 percent, as it stands today. In fact, job growth and gross domestic product has little, if any, correlation to the tax rate on wealthy Americans.” Scott Keyes / Think Progress Economy Nov. 28, 2012. All in all, our wealthy and corporations have had a whirlwind decade. Over the last 10 years, those Bush tax cuts have delivered $1 Million in tax breaks to the average millionaire. Income for the wealthiest 1% of Americans had exploded since 1979, by a whopping 275%. In the last year 93% of income went to the top 1%. The income of the 400 wealthiest Americans rose by a tidy $200 billion last year, according to data released this month by Forbes magazine. Meanwhile, wages for the middle class worker has stagnated since the 1980′s. Corporations made a record $824 billion in profits last year while the The S&P 500 are sitting on an amassed $2 trillion refusing to invest and hire. That’s enough money to create a living-wage job, for a year, for every single American who is unemployed, underemployed or has stopped looking for work.
SO WHERE ARE THE JOBS?
It used to be that the rich made their profit from a growing amount of middle class consumers buying their products/services. Now the rich are making their profits by hiring cheap labor. A JPMorgan economist calculated that the majority of increased corporate profits between 2000 and 2007 were the result of “reductions in wages and benefits. U.S. median household income fell $4,520 between 2000 and 2010. Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. A record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 —(46M people) have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The only trickle has been up. The last decade has been the largest REDISTRIBUTION of wealth of since Ronald Reagan. At a time when we already have a $16 trillion debt, enormous unmet needs and the highest level of wealth inequality in the industrialized world, it is simply obscene to provide more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.
Eleanore Whitaker

All Americans have to do to force the too wealthy to use common sense is to put an end to the government handing them our tax dollars. We don’t mind helping small businesses…But…some in government like to call a small business one that is earning billions a year and has only 3 employees. That’s BS we end up paying for.

If we put a stop to all tax subsidies to the biggest feeders at the government trough in these corporations, they’d be forced to reduce the amount of their salary increases. Or, they’d bankrupt their own corporations. As it stands now, they use our tax subsidies to pay their bills and then reduce the taxes they pay, all of which leaves plenty of corporation moolah to increase their salaries. Put them on an austerity diet like they did to their employees, consumers and taxpayers…force them to pay their own bills first out of their incoming revenues without any tax help. If they can’t manage their businesses profitably without taxpayer help, they don’t belong in business. Taxpayers should not be a corporate safety net.

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