Maybe Obama forgot that Apple products are assembled using outsourced manufacturing jobs. The unions might not be too happy about that.
They couldn't price competitively otherwise. If something is going to be done about this it will have to be on the government level, and it should be more along the lines of making sure businesses don't benefit from doing this (rather than punishing them for doing this).
Pretty complicated issue which people like to complain about without understanding it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chronster
How much should you pay? How much should I pay? How much should anyone pay?
The answer is ZERO, but guess what? That's not the reality we live in right now. Those people are rich because they live in a free country that allowed them to get rich. If people don't have jobs, they can't buy products, and they won't make people "rich." To ignore that is obscene, and to simply give rich people tax cuts and claim it creates jobs is IDIOTIC.
You're a bit of a troll, aren't you? At least judging from some other responses I've seen from you...
The anser of ZERO is insane and unrealistic. As long as we have governments those governments need to be maintained, and as long as we have countries we're going to need governments (and even if we didn't, we'd still need some form of structured leadership to handle the tasks for which people have no motivation to deal with). As for the rest, are you arguing against this whole job/products/rich thing? It is hard to even understand what you're writing about. And finally, yeah, giving tax breaks to the wealthy—especially considering the $250,000+ bracket includes many small businesses—does create jobs, and we've got plenty of information through history to prove that time and time again (it isn't that hard to understand anyway). That does not mean we should be giving tax breaks to the multi-millionaires or that they should have had Bush's tax cuts extended, but what you claim there at the end is what is IDIOTIC, and naïve to boot.
Sorry, but doesn't Apple pay Jobs $1 a year? And don't they owe him money that he hasn't even claimed?
We didn't praise wealth from the 1910's to the 1980's with tax rates for the wealthy between 60 and 90%, but how many greats can you think of from that time?
Science can show that money can't be thrown at something people to make them produce more. They do it because they want to, but also because they can.
When Steve started Apple he said it was spiritual, not business. And not tax breaks "incentives".
His official salary is $1 year. His stock options are a little more lucrative.
His unclaimed assets are trivial in matter compared to his wealth.
As for the 'throwing money at' thing, the reason why tax breaks create jobs is because they allow businesses to expand faster, maintain more staff, take on new projects, etc. Just as a consumer with $1,000 in discretionary spending is going to spend more than a consumer with $500, a business will invest and spend more if they have more money to do so (and more incentive to expand). The same rule apply to tightening things up for a business. Wealth for the rich also works similarly in many cases as they often-times start and lead business ventures (some are just disgustingly wealthy and greedy, but the matter is much bigger than them). In short, it is about creating more workers, not necessarily throwing more money at existing workers.
As mentioned before, there's definitely room to address the growing income gap in America and those super-wealthy folks certainly can handle a disproportionate burden, but tax cuts at lower tiers like $250,000 do have an impact on the economy and jobs. People just need to weigh the pros and cons and decide how to react to a given situation.
You paint a very simplistic picture. The reality is we have a tiered tax system and have had one for almost as long as this Country has been around. It worked very well for us. The rich and lower wages earners pay the same taxes for the earnings made in the lower brackets, as your earnings increases into other brackets the taxes one pays increases. The rich are benefiting more from the American economy, thereby provide more in taxes. In addition, they have more influence over the government.
Specifically, the wealthy have access to government resources the rest of us do not have. For example, did you read the list of wealthy Americans who borrowed zero percent tarp money from the government? Michael Dell and McDonald's was on the list. Can you go borrow government money for free? No. Further, the super wealthy use their wealth to undermine the strength of our country. For example, so called Free Trade Agreements. In the height of the economic boom where more people were becoming millionaires then any other time in our history, the rich lobbied to do away with import taxes so they could pocket more profit at the expense of our Country's over all well being.
Those import taxes made it so Americans workers could compete fairly with countries that essentially utilize slave labor; those taxes kept manufacturing here; and the manufacturing in turn created local funds for local governments. Because the rich were greedy, manufacturing has moved overseas, local governments are struggling, workers have lost their jobs, and the economy is in a mess. The rich keep getting richer and want to pay less taxes then they have at any other time in history. The government wants more money to operate its foreign wars, so the pressure is on the lower wage earners to make up the difference.
We had to borrow another 500 billion dollars from the Chinese to cover the riches tax break. The Chinese can afford to give us the money because the american elite has made China ultra rich by giving China all of the US manufacturing industry and the wealth that goes along with it. The low income earners will repay these loans to China. The government is already talking about decreases in Social Security and the doing away of tax write offs that largely benefit people in the lower income brackets.
Finally, the taxfoundation may not be partisan, but it was founded by people who fall in the top 1 percent wealth category. I suspect their views are slanted. The group essentially is against most taxes. Civil society relies on taxes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BartBuzz
I don't know what flavor Kool Aid you drink or where you get your "facts". But the latest data show that the top 1% of income earners pay over 38% of the federal taxes. The top 5% pay over 58%. The bottom 50% pay less than 3%. If you want to see all the data, here's a link from a non-partisan group http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
The question is how much more do you want these "obscene" wealthy people to pay? It is there money after all.
Under Palin, Alaska was only state in U.S. to have a negative tax rate for its citizens. That means the state sent money to the individuals, rather than the other way around.
Kiss of doom from our chain-smoking, Blackberry loving socialist prez.
He's also kissing up to the tea-baggers who are salivating and waiting to carve up his health care plan like a pumpkin.
Way to ignore all the things Obama does that prove he's actually a moderate conservative. Your anti-socialist rants are quite a bit like a religion to you. You WANT to believe them so you ignore facts. You might want to try some introspection...
These "Socialism vs Capitalism" discussions are nonsensical. Like anything else, Socialism can be done well and it can be done poorly. Ditto with Capitalism.
Palin's tax system in Alaska was actually Socialism. It taxed the oil companies and used the money to pay down the state's retirement plan and gave money to individuals. It was Socialism done well.
Obama's plans are actually Anti-Socialism. By forcing people to buy products they don't want, they take money from the poor and middle-class and give it to large corporations (in this case, the health insurance industry). The same is being done with energy by the EPA. Energy rates will sky-rocket (Obama's own words) resulting in a windfall of new taxes for the federal government and the new regulations will include payouts to large corporations to cover the costs of these new regulations. The source of all this money will again be the poor and the middle-class. Obama's plans are definitely not Capitalism, and if they are Socialism, they are Socialism done extremely poorly.
Let's be honest, someone making $34,000 who also has kids is not paying much in taxes. More than likely after returns are filed this person is getting money back and basically has a zero tax burden. We have a very large portion of our society that pays no taxes at all. The greatest amount of revenue comes from our highest earners and it isn't even close. You may be right when talking about tax as a percent of income... but let's talk about it from a bottom line perspective. Where does the government have tax revenues and where does the government have tax out flows?
One thing you are very right about is China's domestic economy. Unless China improves social services their population will continue to hoard and will not spend. However, there comes a tipping point where the economic benefit of the social programs is far outweighed by their costs and the productivity they prevent. Socially programs have their place, unfortunately they grow like weeds and sap the soil.
Well the bottom line is the government is too big, and the constitution doesn't give them power to do a lot of the crap they're doing.
I think tax cuts should be the result of limiting the government, not precede it. The income tax specifically. When you hear a republican talk about limiting the government, they conveniently pick and choose where they want it limited, hardly ever mentioning military spending for instance and consistently pointing at things like food assistance!
Quote:
Originally Posted by BartBuzz
I guess you must work for a poor person. If the socialists in this country had their way, we would all be poor because the rich would emigrate. And if you don't think tax cuts create jobs, there's no common ground for discussion.
Ah the imbecilic logic of a republican. Are you one of those "Muslims attacked us on 9/11" people as well?
Yes, I work for a rich person, but not every rich person creates jobs, just as not every Muslim is a terrorist.
As to your ill-thought straw man argument at the end - you should try a little harder. I never said tax cuts don't create jobs. I'm saying a sweeping income tax break for the rich don't create jobs as people like you claim. Tax cuts to small business does! I'm all for taking that money we're spending on tax cuts for the rich and spending it on small business, since small business creates 75% of all jobs in the US.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xian Zhu Xuande
You're a bit of a troll, aren't you? At least judging from some other responses I've seen from you...
The anser of ZERO is insane and unrealistic. As long as we have governments those governments need to be maintained, and as long as we have countries we're going to need governments (and even if we didn't, we'd still need some form of structured leadership to handle the tasks for which people have no motivation to deal with). As for the rest, are you arguing against this whole job/products/rich thing? It is hard to even understand what you're writing about. And finally, yeah, giving tax breaks to the wealthy—especially considering the $250,000+ bracket includes many small businesses—does create jobs, and we've got plenty of information through history to prove that time and time again (it isn't that hard to understand anyway). That does not mean we should be giving tax breaks to the multi-millionaires or that they should have had Bush's tax cuts extended, but what you claim there at the end is what is IDIOTIC, and naïve to boot.
Thanks for that first statement. It prepared me for the idiocy that followed.
So the presence of a government automatically means the citizens must be taxed. Well that's a very tyrannical way of thinking, isn't it? I mean, in 1817 they ran the government with tariffs on imported goods, and the income tax didn't come about until the civil war in 1863 and was merely a result OF the cost of war...
You say you've got information throughout history that shows tax cuts to the rich creates jobs, but this can easily be disputed. We had many jobs at a time when the rich were paying an exorbitant amount of taxes on their income.
I know it's hard for you to see what I'm arguing for, but that's because I'm a libertarian. You must be too accustomed to the left / right nonsense.
After reading some of the latest comments it's time for me to move on. When people claim Obama is anti-socialism and is actually a moderate conservative, I know I'm in LaLa land. There's just no way to discuss reality with people who want the rich to pay more taxes and the poor to receive more entitlements.
As the warden in Cool Hand Luke so aptly said, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."
Under Palin, Alaska was only state in U.S. to have a negative tax rate for its citizens. That means the state sent money to the individuals, rather than the other way around.
Maybe you should also remember that Alaska is one of the biggest recipients of that horrible but oh so tasty DC pork. So there.
When people claim Obama is anti-socialism and is actually a moderate conservative, I know I'm in LaLa land.
Taking money from the poor and middle-class and giving it to rich corporations is about as Anti-Socialist as you can get. And this is exactly what Obama's plans do. You can see it in the Wall Street bail-outs, the GM bail-outs, the health care plan, and in the EPA's energy regulations.
As to Obama being a "moderate conservative", I have no idea where you got that. I never said it. Obama is a wing-nut whose plans have very little, if any, connection with reality.
Edit:
I will concede that some word other than "Anti-Socialist" needs to be invented. "Anti-Socialist" sounds like someone who fights Socialism, whereas Obama's schemes are actually "Reverse-Socialism".
Hey Smugly, name one non-capitalist system that is a democracy (I am, of course, assuming you are knowledgable regarding a working definition of the term).
As an aside, Northern Europe is not non-capitalist, just in case.....
Well I can name a non-democracy with a very succesful private sector – China. Capitalism can survive and thrive under a totalitarian regime. That's when the system is called a plutocracy.
BTW, to many Republicans or at least their supporters, the Nordic countries (and all the rest of Europe, for that matter) are prime examples of that dreaded soshulism. Funny how they are constantly put in the Top 5 of those Best-Country-To-Live-In lists. Way ahead of the U. S. of A. at that.
Oh, and the rich people of those countries didn't move away because of high taxation rates like some bright bulb here claimed would happen if taxes were hiked on them in America. Gee. Reality sure seems to have a liberal bias. I also wonder, how didn't they all drag their rich a$$e$ to the Caymans or some other rich people haven when the eeeeeeeevil gubmint was taxing them much, much harder back in the 50', 60's and 70's.
Note the absence of a questionmark. It indicates a rhetorical question.
Hey, the wealthy in this country pay very little in taxes, this is a fact, despite your whining.
Based on our current tax structure, Oprah or SJ pays 7% more of their incomes in taxes than I do, and I can assure you I am not wealthy. Their incomes are *-much-* larger, 'obscenely larger' would be an apt description in FACT, and they have a great many more deductions such that they really shouldn't have to pay much tax at all if they have experienced any losses (like Oprah slipped and gave away 2 dozen more Cadillacs than she should have or something.)
Seriously? Seven percent more? Those poor, poor rich people. Since 35% is the top bracket, and no one pays more than that, then people who are barely making ends meet shouldn't be paying even 1/2 that much. But, the TRUTH is that someone who is making 34K is paying OVER 70% of what the ELITE PAY--so that's 25% from the struggling workers and only 35% from the richest of the rich. How in the world is this fair? On 34K you are going to be lucky to afford a house and a car.
I'll give you a 10% higher tax bracket on people earning more than $1,000,000 per year if you give me tight border security and effective quick deportations of illegal aliens.
BTW, to many Republicans or at least their supporters, the Nordic countries (and all the rest of Europe, for that matter) are prime examples of that dreaded soshulism. Funny how they are constantly put in the Top 5 of those Best-Country-To-Live-In lists. Way ahead of the U. S. of A. at that.
It's difficult to compare European and American taxation, if for no other reason than American taxes include the cost of European defense. Add the costs of building a full-scale military to your budgets and see how far you get.
Anyway, for the record, I'm not a Republican nor Democrat. I'm an independent who voted for Obama (and now regrets every minute of it).
After reading some of the latest comments it's time for me to move on. When people claim Obama is anti-socialism and is actually a moderate conservative, I know I'm in LaLa land. There's just no way to discuss reality with people who want the rich to pay more taxes and the poor to receive more entitlements.
As the warden in Cool Hand Luke so aptly said, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."
You should move on, because you don't have a clue what you're talking about. This is what happens when you take conservative propaganda as truth.
Under Palin, Alaska was only state in U.S. to have a negative tax rate for its citizens. That means the state sent money to the individuals, rather than the other way around.
Maybe you should also remember that Alaska is one of the biggest recipients of that horrible but oh so tasty DC pork. So there.
Very true, and it includes Palin's support for the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere".
But Alaska's ability to pay down its state retirement plan and give money to it's citizens was the result of Palin doubling the tax on the oil companies drilling in Alaska, not the result of DC pork.
She took money from rich corporations and used it to fund the state's retirement plan and give money back to Alaska's citizens.
Maybe Obama forgot that Apple products are assembled using outsourced manufacturing jobs. The unions might not be too happy about that.
Maybe the unions forgot that they have priced American labor out of the market. The unions might not be too happy about the way they have destroyed U.S. competitiveness in manufacturing.
Comments
Nice one on the 6,000!
Cheers
Maybe Obama forgot that Apple products are assembled using outsourced manufacturing jobs. The unions might not be too happy about that.
They couldn't price competitively otherwise. If something is going to be done about this it will have to be on the government level, and it should be more along the lines of making sure businesses don't benefit from doing this (rather than punishing them for doing this).
Pretty complicated issue which people like to complain about without understanding it.
How much should you pay? How much should I pay? How much should anyone pay?
The answer is ZERO, but guess what? That's not the reality we live in right now. Those people are rich because they live in a free country that allowed them to get rich. If people don't have jobs, they can't buy products, and they won't make people "rich." To ignore that is obscene, and to simply give rich people tax cuts and claim it creates jobs is IDIOTIC.
You're a bit of a troll, aren't you? At least judging from some other responses I've seen from you...
The anser of ZERO is insane and unrealistic. As long as we have governments those governments need to be maintained, and as long as we have countries we're going to need governments (and even if we didn't, we'd still need some form of structured leadership to handle the tasks for which people have no motivation to deal with). As for the rest, are you arguing against this whole job/products/rich thing? It is hard to even understand what you're writing about. And finally, yeah, giving tax breaks to the wealthy—especially considering the $250,000+ bracket includes many small businesses—does create jobs, and we've got plenty of information through history to prove that time and time again (it isn't that hard to understand anyway). That does not mean we should be giving tax breaks to the multi-millionaires or that they should have had Bush's tax cuts extended, but what you claim there at the end is what is IDIOTIC, and naïve to boot.
Sorry, but doesn't Apple pay Jobs $1 a year? And don't they owe him money that he hasn't even claimed?
We didn't praise wealth from the 1910's to the 1980's with tax rates for the wealthy between 60 and 90%, but how many greats can you think of from that time?
Science can show that money can't be thrown at something people to make them produce more. They do it because they want to, but also because they can.
When Steve started Apple he said it was spiritual, not business. And not tax breaks "incentives".
His official salary is $1 year. His stock options are a little more lucrative.
His unclaimed assets are trivial in matter compared to his wealth.
As for the 'throwing money at' thing, the reason why tax breaks create jobs is because they allow businesses to expand faster, maintain more staff, take on new projects, etc. Just as a consumer with $1,000 in discretionary spending is going to spend more than a consumer with $500, a business will invest and spend more if they have more money to do so (and more incentive to expand). The same rule apply to tightening things up for a business. Wealth for the rich also works similarly in many cases as they often-times start and lead business ventures (some are just disgustingly wealthy and greedy, but the matter is much bigger than them). In short, it is about creating more workers, not necessarily throwing more money at existing workers.
As mentioned before, there's definitely room to address the growing income gap in America and those super-wealthy folks certainly can handle a disproportionate burden, but tax cuts at lower tiers like $250,000 do have an impact on the economy and jobs. People just need to weigh the pros and cons and decide how to react to a given situation.
Specifically, the wealthy have access to government resources the rest of us do not have. For example, did you read the list of wealthy Americans who borrowed zero percent tarp money from the government? Michael Dell and McDonald's was on the list. Can you go borrow government money for free? No. Further, the super wealthy use their wealth to undermine the strength of our country. For example, so called Free Trade Agreements. In the height of the economic boom where more people were becoming millionaires then any other time in our history, the rich lobbied to do away with import taxes so they could pocket more profit at the expense of our Country's over all well being.
Those import taxes made it so Americans workers could compete fairly with countries that essentially utilize slave labor; those taxes kept manufacturing here; and the manufacturing in turn created local funds for local governments. Because the rich were greedy, manufacturing has moved overseas, local governments are struggling, workers have lost their jobs, and the economy is in a mess. The rich keep getting richer and want to pay less taxes then they have at any other time in history. The government wants more money to operate its foreign wars, so the pressure is on the lower wage earners to make up the difference.
We had to borrow another 500 billion dollars from the Chinese to cover the riches tax break. The Chinese can afford to give us the money because the american elite has made China ultra rich by giving China all of the US manufacturing industry and the wealth that goes along with it. The low income earners will repay these loans to China. The government is already talking about decreases in Social Security and the doing away of tax write offs that largely benefit people in the lower income brackets.
Finally, the taxfoundation may not be partisan, but it was founded by people who fall in the top 1 percent wealth category. I suspect their views are slanted. The group essentially is against most taxes. Civil society relies on taxes.
I don't know what flavor Kool Aid you drink or where you get your "facts". But the latest data show that the top 1% of income earners pay over 38% of the federal taxes. The top 5% pay over 58%. The bottom 50% pay less than 3%. If you want to see all the data, here's a link from a non-partisan group http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
The question is how much more do you want these "obscene" wealthy people to pay? It is there money after all.
If the other side runs Palin, Obama is a shoe in.
Under Palin, Alaska was only state in U.S. to have a negative tax rate for its citizens. That means the state sent money to the individuals, rather than the other way around.
Compare to Obama, who had Congress raise taxes with the (probably) unconstitutional law forcing individuals to buy health insurance and is now using the EPA rather than Congress to in effect raise taxes on energy.
Kiss of doom from our chain-smoking, Blackberry loving socialist prez.
He's also kissing up to the tea-baggers who are salivating and waiting to carve up his health care plan like a pumpkin.
Way to ignore all the things Obama does that prove he's actually a moderate conservative. Your anti-socialist rants are quite a bit like a religion to you. You WANT to believe them so you ignore facts. You might want to try some introspection...
Palin's tax system in Alaska was actually Socialism. It taxed the oil companies and used the money to pay down the state's retirement plan and gave money to individuals. It was Socialism done well.
Obama's plans are actually Anti-Socialism. By forcing people to buy products they don't want, they take money from the poor and middle-class and give it to large corporations (in this case, the health insurance industry). The same is being done with energy by the EPA. Energy rates will sky-rocket (Obama's own words) resulting in a windfall of new taxes for the federal government and the new regulations will include payouts to large corporations to cover the costs of these new regulations. The source of all this money will again be the poor and the middle-class. Obama's plans are definitely not Capitalism, and if they are Socialism, they are Socialism done extremely poorly.
Let's be honest, someone making $34,000 who also has kids is not paying much in taxes. More than likely after returns are filed this person is getting money back and basically has a zero tax burden. We have a very large portion of our society that pays no taxes at all. The greatest amount of revenue comes from our highest earners and it isn't even close. You may be right when talking about tax as a percent of income... but let's talk about it from a bottom line perspective. Where does the government have tax revenues and where does the government have tax out flows?
One thing you are very right about is China's domestic economy. Unless China improves social services their population will continue to hoard and will not spend. However, there comes a tipping point where the economic benefit of the social programs is far outweighed by their costs and the productivity they prevent. Socially programs have their place, unfortunately they grow like weeds and sap the soil.
Well the bottom line is the government is too big, and the constitution doesn't give them power to do a lot of the crap they're doing.
I think tax cuts should be the result of limiting the government, not precede it. The income tax specifically. When you hear a republican talk about limiting the government, they conveniently pick and choose where they want it limited, hardly ever mentioning military spending for instance and consistently pointing at things like food assistance!
I guess you must work for a poor person. If the socialists in this country had their way, we would all be poor because the rich would emigrate. And if you don't think tax cuts create jobs, there's no common ground for discussion.
Ah the imbecilic logic of a republican. Are you one of those "Muslims attacked us on 9/11" people as well?
Yes, I work for a rich person, but not every rich person creates jobs, just as not every Muslim is a terrorist.
As to your ill-thought straw man argument at the end - you should try a little harder. I never said tax cuts don't create jobs. I'm saying a sweeping income tax break for the rich don't create jobs as people like you claim. Tax cuts to small business does! I'm all for taking that money we're spending on tax cuts for the rich and spending it on small business, since small business creates 75% of all jobs in the US.
You're a bit of a troll, aren't you? At least judging from some other responses I've seen from you...
The anser of ZERO is insane and unrealistic. As long as we have governments those governments need to be maintained, and as long as we have countries we're going to need governments (and even if we didn't, we'd still need some form of structured leadership to handle the tasks for which people have no motivation to deal with). As for the rest, are you arguing against this whole job/products/rich thing? It is hard to even understand what you're writing about. And finally, yeah, giving tax breaks to the wealthy—especially considering the $250,000+ bracket includes many small businesses—does create jobs, and we've got plenty of information through history to prove that time and time again (it isn't that hard to understand anyway). That does not mean we should be giving tax breaks to the multi-millionaires or that they should have had Bush's tax cuts extended, but what you claim there at the end is what is IDIOTIC, and naïve to boot.
Thanks for that first statement. It prepared me for the idiocy that followed.
So the presence of a government automatically means the citizens must be taxed. Well that's a very tyrannical way of thinking, isn't it? I mean, in 1817 they ran the government with tariffs on imported goods, and the income tax didn't come about until the civil war in 1863 and was merely a result OF the cost of war...
You say you've got information throughout history that shows tax cuts to the rich creates jobs, but this can easily be disputed. We had many jobs at a time when the rich were paying an exorbitant amount of taxes on their income.
I know it's hard for you to see what I'm arguing for, but that's because I'm a libertarian. You must be too accustomed to the left / right nonsense.
As the warden in Cool Hand Luke so aptly said, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."
Under Palin, Alaska was only state in U.S. to have a negative tax rate for its citizens. That means the state sent money to the individuals, rather than the other way around.
Maybe you should also remember that Alaska is one of the biggest recipients of that horrible but oh so tasty DC pork. So there.
When people claim Obama is anti-socialism and is actually a moderate conservative, I know I'm in LaLa land.
Taking money from the poor and middle-class and giving it to rich corporations is about as Anti-Socialist as you can get. And this is exactly what Obama's plans do. You can see it in the Wall Street bail-outs, the GM bail-outs, the health care plan, and in the EPA's energy regulations.
As to Obama being a "moderate conservative", I have no idea where you got that. I never said it. Obama is a wing-nut whose plans have very little, if any, connection with reality.
Edit:
I will concede that some word other than "Anti-Socialist" needs to be invented. "Anti-Socialist" sounds like someone who fights Socialism, whereas Obama's schemes are actually "Reverse-Socialism".
Hey Smugly, name one non-capitalist system that is a democracy (I am, of course, assuming you are knowledgable regarding a working definition of the term).
As an aside, Northern Europe is not non-capitalist, just in case.....
Well I can name a non-democracy with a very succesful private sector – China. Capitalism can survive and thrive under a totalitarian regime. That's when the system is called a plutocracy.
BTW, to many Republicans or at least their supporters, the Nordic countries (and all the rest of Europe, for that matter) are prime examples of that dreaded soshulism. Funny how they are constantly put in the Top 5 of those Best-Country-To-Live-In lists. Way ahead of the U. S. of A. at that.
Oh, and the rich people of those countries didn't move away because of high taxation rates like some bright bulb here claimed would happen if taxes were hiked on them in America. Gee. Reality sure seems to have a liberal bias. I also wonder, how didn't they all drag their rich a$$e$ to the Caymans or some other rich people haven when the eeeeeeeevil gubmint was taxing them much, much harder back in the 50', 60's and 70's.
Note the absence of a questionmark. It indicates a rhetorical question.
Hey, the wealthy in this country pay very little in taxes, this is a fact, despite your whining.
Based on our current tax structure, Oprah or SJ pays 7% more of their incomes in taxes than I do, and I can assure you I am not wealthy. Their incomes are *-much-* larger, 'obscenely larger' would be an apt description in FACT, and they have a great many more deductions such that they really shouldn't have to pay much tax at all if they have experienced any losses (like Oprah slipped and gave away 2 dozen more Cadillacs than she should have or something.)
Seriously? Seven percent more? Those poor, poor rich people. Since 35% is the top bracket, and no one pays more than that, then people who are barely making ends meet shouldn't be paying even 1/2 that much. But, the TRUTH is that someone who is making 34K is paying OVER 70% of what the ELITE PAY--so that's 25% from the struggling workers and only 35% from the richest of the rich. How in the world is this fair? On 34K you are going to be lucky to afford a house and a car.
I'll give you a 10% higher tax bracket on people earning more than $1,000,000 per year if you give me tight border security and effective quick deportations of illegal aliens.
BTW, to many Republicans or at least their supporters, the Nordic countries (and all the rest of Europe, for that matter) are prime examples of that dreaded soshulism. Funny how they are constantly put in the Top 5 of those Best-Country-To-Live-In lists. Way ahead of the U. S. of A. at that.
It's difficult to compare European and American taxation, if for no other reason than American taxes include the cost of European defense. Add the costs of building a full-scale military to your budgets and see how far you get.
Anyway, for the record, I'm not a Republican nor Democrat. I'm an independent who voted for Obama (and now regrets every minute of it).
Bill Gates is the prime example of trickle down model: make the wealth then give it away. That should be the real role model.
so you like a society where there are some mega rich people, and the rest are just there waiting for them to "trickle down" some leftovers?
After reading some of the latest comments it's time for me to move on. When people claim Obama is anti-socialism and is actually a moderate conservative, I know I'm in LaLa land. There's just no way to discuss reality with people who want the rich to pay more taxes and the poor to receive more entitlements.
As the warden in Cool Hand Luke so aptly said, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."
You should move on, because you don't have a clue what you're talking about. This is what happens when you take conservative propaganda as truth.
It's scary that you vote.
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Under Palin, Alaska was only state in U.S. to have a negative tax rate for its citizens. That means the state sent money to the individuals, rather than the other way around.
Maybe you should also remember that Alaska is one of the biggest recipients of that horrible but oh so tasty DC pork. So there.
Very true, and it includes Palin's support for the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere".
But Alaska's ability to pay down its state retirement plan and give money to it's citizens was the result of Palin doubling the tax on the oil companies drilling in Alaska, not the result of DC pork.
She took money from rich corporations and used it to fund the state's retirement plan and give money back to Alaska's citizens.
Like I said, Socialism done well.
Maybe Obama forgot that Apple products are assembled using outsourced manufacturing jobs. The unions might not be too happy about that.
Maybe the unions forgot that they have priced American labor out of the market. The unions might not be too happy about the way they have destroyed U.S. competitiveness in manufacturing.
Oh, and by the way, China has labor unions too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Chi...f_Trade_Unions