No matter how you voted, read this and realize what is happening to us..
The amazing thing about this, and the real crime, are the great lengths that
the Obama/Pelosi administration have gone to see that this is kept out of
the press.

Perhaps 80% of the population of the US has no clue that this is coming.

Subject: 2011 Taxes

In just six months, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will
take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great
waves on January 1, 2011:

First Wave:
Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief. In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress
enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families.

These will all expire on January 1, 2011:

Personal income tax rates will rise.
The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the
rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed).
The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between
will also rise.

Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has
the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of
marginal rate Hikes is below:

The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15% The 25% bracket rises to 28% The
28% bracket rises to 31% The 33% bracket rises to 36% The 35% bracket rises
to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family. The "marriage penalty" (narrower Tax
brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income.

The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child.

The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples
relative to the single level.

The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.

The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no death tax. For Those
dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate
on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a
retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved
ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors.

The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in
2011.

The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in
2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

Second Wave: Obamacare

There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will First
go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:

The "Medicine Cabinet Tax" Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be
able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA),
or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription,
over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).

The "Special Needs Kids Tax" This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on
flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal
government limit).

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly
cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children.

There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United
States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education..
Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in
Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000
Per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of
special needs education.

The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. This provision of Obamacare increases the
additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20
percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged
accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

Third Wave:

The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes When Americans prepare
to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they'll be in for a nasty
surprise-the AMT won't be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will
have expired. The major items include:

The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year.
According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress' failure to Index
the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families-rising from 4
million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate
their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was
created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.

Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear.
Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or
"depreciate") equipment purchases up to $250,000. This will be cut all the
way down to $25,000.

Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In
January of 2011, all of it will have to be "depreciated."

Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There are literally Scores
of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of
the "research and experimentation tax credit," but there are many, many
others.

Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost
jobs.

Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced. The deduction for Tuition
and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited.
Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell
Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational
assistance is curtailed.

The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of
thousands of families.

Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed. Under current law, a
retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly
to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also counts toward an Annual
"required minimum distribution." This ability will no longer be there.

Now your insurance is INCOME on your W2's......
One of the surprises we'll find come next year, is what follows - - a Little
"surprise" that 99% of us had no idea was included in the "new and improved"
Healthcare legislation . . . the dupes, er, dopes, who backed this
administration will be astonished!

Starting in 2011, (next year folks), your W-2 tax form sent by your Employer
will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are
given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private concern or
governmental body of some sort. If you're retired? So what; your gross will
go up by the amount of insurance you get.

You will be required to pay taxes on a large sum of money that you have
never seen. Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or
$20,000 additional gross does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next
year. For many, it also puts you into a new higher bracket so it's even
worse.

This is how the government is going to buy insurance for the 15% that don't
have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases.

Not believing this??? Here is a research of the summaries.....
On page 25 of 29: TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET
PROVISIONS-(sec. 9001, as modified by sec. 10901) Sec.9002 "requires
employers to include in the W-2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of
applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excludable from
the employees gross income."

Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the Kiplinger letters. Go to
Kiplingers and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you. Number 3 is
what is above.

_________________

_____
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Thank you for copy-pasting a spam e-mail you got. We all learned a lot.

How is this being "kept out of the media?" Virtually every day on the news networks I hear about this. Every day.

That's a line that is at the beginning of almost all these chain e-mails. It serves a two-fold purpose.

1) Evokes feelings of government conspiracies and shady dealings and such that make people angry.

2) Makes the reader feel better about their total ignorance...because Obama and the liberal elite media has been hiding all this "information" from them, obviously.

Anyway, if Khan had gone off and maybe checked the facts on that E-Mail (Which is a well-known spam piece that's been circulating lately and has been dissected by many of the fact-checking sites) maybe he wouldn't have wasted his time posting it.

For the lazy (Xkhanx)...FactCheck

A lot of that post is rubbish, but don't discount all of it just from the spam mail source. The Bush tax cuts are set to expire on Jan 1st, and though Dems are promising to extend them I wonder why this hasn't happened yet. My fear is they are saying they are going to extend them until after the elections and then it will just never happen. If those tax cuts expire it will be a significant tax increase for many.

It hasn't happened yet because some people are basically saying that they won't vote to extend them unless they vote to extend ALL of the tax cuts. Basically opponents are, so far, willing to screw over low and middle income people in order to ensure that the highest tax bracket people don't see a tax increase.

In the end, I don't think it will come to that though. In my opinion, the Dems who are fighting for only partially extending the tax cuts will cave and vote to extend them all.

The most likely scenario for the tax cuts is an extension of them all for 1 year and then only for the < $250,000 crowd beyond that.

The marriage penalty was reinstated in the Health care mess.

The Estate tax reinstatement would be a very good thing although I have a feeling it won't happen.

The thing is, revenue has to come from somewhere. I wish that someone (I don't even care who at this point) would come up with a plan to balance the budget and a way to actually enact that plan.

It's unwise to step up taxes in this economy. Especially considering investment outside the US is currently far more profitable than inside. They need to trim the budget first.

There's no point, imo, in giving more money to folks with a proven track record of irresponsibility. There would be plenty to fund the fed if they cut some of the bullshit out. For starters, we as the taxpayer should not fund the 50+ person retinues that follow government officials around at triple per diem. I wince whenever I hear about one of them leaving the country.

I wish people would stop talking about "Balancing the Budget", "Cutting the Deficit" and "Lowering Taxes".

I know it's cute and makes for great sound bytes, but it really makes them sound silly.

My absolute favorite part of that email was using the word depreciation in scare quotes, like it is some sort of bizarre concept made up by the Obama Administration, rather than a completely standard application of the matching principle.

"Oh noz! This new-fangled "depreciation" monster will increase our taxes!" Hilarious in its stupidity.

_________________
Hope is the new black.

Two thoughts:

1) "Trimming the budget" has a negative effect on the economy just like raising taxes.

2) It seems like there is never, ever a good time to raise taxes for some conservatives. In bad economies we get, "can't raise taxes now, it will make everything worse!" In good economies we get, "can't raise taxes now, it will stop our growth!" Yet these same conservatives happily make use of goods and gains those taxes provide us. It's tiring. Give us an honest conversation, please!

Well someone at some time is going to have to pay for deficits.

yes.....

I haven't said we shouldn't trim the budget. That's just it-- it's not that we shouldn't trim the budget, it's simply understanding that efforts to balance the budget are going to hurt the economy regardless of which direction you go at it. To only point it out in reference to raising taxes isn't telling the whole story.

If we only "trim the budget" and do nothing to taxes, we would be looking at huge cuts to massive levels of service across the entire governemnt. If we only raise taxes and do not trim the budget at all, then we are looking at massive tax increases. No matter how we go about it, it's going to hurt, and hurt a lot.

At some point we have to do it though, and as long as some conservatives stick to this, "omg taxes are evil no matter what" strategy, it's very difficult to come up with solutions in an honest way.

A useful bit of research is to head out and check a couple things:

1) What our current tax rate is compared to other periods in recent history.
2) What percentage of the current deficit is due to the Bush tax cuts.

At some point the TV got people convinced that our current tax rate is tremendously high and that our deficit is all from "handouts" and "welfare" and such.

Since taxes are percentage based, I don't see any time (good or bad economy) when we should raise them. The government gets more revenue during good times simply by having a higher basis to collect from. If the country was run efficiently, we would never need to raise the actual rates. To be fair, I do not believe the Republicans have done a good job of this either, just slightly better than the Democrats. Perhaps my expectations are too high.

Two sites that will be helpful in this debate:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ; http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258

In a nutshell, I'm not concerned with deficits, It is the ever-growing debt and the lack of any kind of plan to adress it that bug the shit out of me. In 2010 6% of our budget will go toward interest on our debt. Ignoring the dire predictions about how that percentage will grow over time, let's just look at the facts as they are today:
~ We could triple spendning on education & transportation/infrastructure were it not for that debt. Both of these are areas that create middle class jobs and help our country move into the future. Forward-looking stimulus.
~ We could quadruple spending on scientific & medical research. Another area that looks to the future and our competitiveness in the world.

Instead that 6% will go to pay interest.

That second link up there is FY2010 budget. Take a look at it while asking yourself if our collective (governmental) priorities are skewed towards the future or the past. Now, why are you not worried?

who isn't worried?

There are a lot of fixed costs out there too, and your simple analysis ignores that.

It does not ignore it, it just doesn't address it with the answer you want. During times of lower tax revenue fixed costs will account for a higher percentage of our spending. The counter to this is when we have higher revenue we should be saving the difference of the comparably low fixed costs. The actual cycle doesn't work that way though, as anytime we make more money than we figured, we find new ways to spend it instead of saving it for times like this.

You know what pisses me off though...is that the money won't go to stuff like that. We'll find another retarded "war" to go off on, or some religious group will lobby against scientific and medical research and it'll get sunk, etc.

We spend money on the silliest things. =(

Oh my, I tought Worthy started that thread. I saw I was in error when I scrolled back up...

Honest question, the price tag on the Iraq war / Afghanistan War is some huge number and it's easy to say if neither ever happened the US would be in much better shape but of that huge number, what percentage of dollars spent actually left US pockets?

I really have no clue what the breakdown in costs are for having that many people over there (ie. what % is salary, food, fuel, etc.) but the the only expense I can think for certain has money leaving the pockets of US citizens would be the cost of fuel.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

This assumes the government operates more efficiently than the private sector? The money does not evaporate.



Hyperbole+1. This very incorrectly assumes the government has no waste to trim. Or may rather correctly assume Congress is incompetent and has no idea what the budget looks like or where it goes. While we spend most funding on services, we also spend it on useless things.

For example, just off the top of my head:

The spending for congressional delegation travel has increased 70% through the financial crisis. It's something like $60k a week on average. Each. Including home for recess. This is, mind you, on top of their office and aide travel allowance. Many also, in addition to their salary, draw per diem when in Washington. They get ~$200 a day for food, and ~$600 a day for lodging. Each. They're big boys and girls, this is unnecessary.

Another gem, when I fly I am restricted to certain airlines under contract. It's also fun to note that the government doesn't grant contracts to airlines for being cheaper than the competition. I figure it's been about $12k wasted just this year as I could have flown cheaper.

Taxes are not evil, when they are applied to useful things. Congress likes to waste money on bullshit. If we give them more money, it does not fix the underlying problem. Our government is wasteful, and rather corrupt.

Regarding the Iraq war, I can say that overall not very much of the money spent on it 'leaves' the US. Technically yes we do expend a lot of fuel, which is almost all imported. However it's refined at home.

P.S. The war has been a pretty big boon to collegiate education in math and sciences.

Sarissa, none of the assumptions you say I made are true.



No, it does not. Not sure what else to say here.



This simply isn't true. I did not ever say that the government has no waste to trim. What I said (and you only quoted half of it) was that if we only cut costs and did not raise taxes, that huge cuts of massive levels of service would have to be cut. How can you not see this? Our deficit last year was over one trillion dollars. Do you have a concept of how much money that is? If your 60k per congressman travel allowance was 100% cut, for example, you are talking about far less than one percent of that deficit. It's pocket change.

Feel free to show us all how you would cut one trillion dollars a year from the budget without making massive cuts to services and without raising taxes, and I'll concede your point.

I mean, seriously...

Ok, then more to the point. I am saying the idea that lowering taxes hurts the economy isn't true. Perhaps I misunderstand, but I read the statement to mean the government spending money is better for the economy than public spending. Beyond that I have no clue what was meant.

Our deficit was not one thousand beeeeelion dollars until recently. From 2008-2009 it just about tripled. And at the same time, exactly what benefit did increasing the deficit by so much in a year get us? How would I cut costs? Well for starters the (hopeful) end of stimulus spending is a good ticket. That is yet another misuse of public funds. The lack of oversight is hilarious.

The budget is already on track to be back down to ~half a trillion in two years. Still not as good as 2007 levels, but it's not as absurd has it has been the past two years.

Roll the federal budget back to pre-stimulus levels might be a good start.

I didn't say that at all.

My mistake, edit to 'trimming the budget'.

For the sake of simplicity, say when the government spends too much money there are two options. Option one is to lower spending, option two is to raise taxes. I'm saying that option two is the least preferable and the most damaging.

If spending is lowered, the surplus can be applied to the debt or given as a tax break. The first is obviously good for the economy. The second, I contend, is also good in that private industry (businesses, you and I, etc) spend money far more efficiently than the government. It is in our best interest to control waste.

I also contend that our economic problems are not (yet) caused by entitlement spending. They are caused by waste, fraud, and abuse. Well that and the issue of outsourcing, which only really works if we don't let our trade partners manipulate their currency.

When we're speaking only about effects on the economy as a whole, the "efficency" of spending is not relevent. Economic activity stimulates the economy. When the economy tanks, entities stop spending. Government spending is a sort of "forced spending" that helps to create that economic activity, regardless of whether the government spends too much on a particular item or whatever other waste you are talking about. In fact, when we're only talking about the economy and not about other aspects of good governance, "wasteful" spending is good!



I cannot see how this is possible. Again, can you point out where you can find 1 trillion dollars of "waste, fraud, and abuse" without going into entitlement spending? Look at a budget piechart! Wikipedia has a pie chart of the proposed 2010 budget:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Unite ... ral_budget

The total budget is 3.55 trillion bucks. So-- cut a full third of that budget without touching entitlement spending, and without making "massive cuts to services."

This isn't possible. There isn't 1 trillion dollars in waste, abuse, and fraud in the budget.

Which puts us in a very difficult place. There isn't the political will to cut major programs. There isn't the political will to raise taxes. It is going to take a full financial disaster for anything to be done, and apparently an even bigger financial disaster than the banking crises two years ago.

let's just go back to the gold standard vote ron paul 2012

_________________

The efficiency of spending is quite relevant in a service based economy. Government spending is inherently less productive; it is also financed by debt that we do not own. Forced spending isn't necessarily positive. The government spends a dollar, and gets a smaller return. It can do this, because it cannot 'fail' or go bankrupt. When a company/person spends a dollar, it yields an economic profit on that dollar. This is an inherent consideration on one side of the fence that does not exist on the other.

When we talk budget in government, it is always in terms of spending it exhaustively. We do not get points for efficiency. We get points for having a zero balance. In many ways, we're not even allowed by regulation to be efficient.

We're in a recession. We're also spending money on a stimulus pie. The budget is already in a position to be cut by half when both are gone. We're looking at a significantly lower number than $1 trillion.

So because a pie chart doesn't show fraud, waste, and abuse; it doesn't exist?

Look at three big slices of that pie in Unemployment/Welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid and I'm pretty sure you could find billions in fraud, waste, and abuse.

Billion != Trillion

Anyway, you guys are living in a fantasy land where,

1) There's a Quadrillion dollars in "waste", 2) You can just "cut" that waste at a whim and 3) That'll solve everything.

Billions may not equal trillion, but it's certainly a start.

You live in a fantasy world where there isn't a quadrillion dollars in waste. Cutting the fraud, waste, and abuse may not solve everything; it may need to be accompanied by tax increases so that our income is greater than our outflow and reduce the debt.

You have to start somewhere.

Our resting deficit is not $1 trillion. The amount is the result of stimulus and bailout spending that we could not afford,

And tremendous, unsistainable tax cuts. Oh, but tax cuts are popular so they don't count, I forgot.

Not exactly. The tax cuts are already included in that figure, as they were long before the stimulus. If they are unsustainable, it sure didn't show in the years they've been active.

I'm going to have to go with the poster who said a lot of this is B.S. I don't know much about the tax return side, but since I handle all the benefits for my company and have been following the changes from the new legislation closely, I can tell you that this part is definately B.S.:



All the new law requires is that the amount your employer pays for your insurance premiums be reported on the W-2. It is NOT reported as taxable income, and you will NOT be paying tax on it.

Do you know how much the Bush tax cuts cost?

I'm still waiting to see how we will cut 1 trillion bucks without cutting major services.

And what exactly is "efficency" in spending when it applies to economic activity? That would be nice to know, too.

If I spend $10k on a toilet seat in some kind of "wasteful spending" that should have cost $100, that's $9900 in profit for the company that fleeced the government. That seems much, much more efficenty at producing profits than selling an item at a fair price. So government over-spending is a good thing, right?

Or, if you think of wasteful spending as "pork," then can you explain why that isn't good for the economy? I mean, if a congressman gets the government to build a bridge in his district, that's still money spent on economic activity. That's still companies and contractors receiving money for services rendered, and using that to pay their employees, expand their businesses, etc... This is exactly what stimulus spending is, and I hate to break it to ya, but this is what most economists on both sides of the aisle agreed was the best thing to do when the stimulus package was passed.

You guys need to wake up. You can't just magically make a trillion dollar deficit disappear by saying, "let's get rid of waste!" One person's waste is another person's essential program. It will take a combination of serious program cuts and tax hikes. I've already conceded this as a quite liberal democrat... why can't you open your eyes and see that we are in a hole that isn't going to just go away and concede that tax hikes will be and need to be a part of our future?

"OMG GET RID OF THE DEFICIT" and "OMG CUT TAXES" are two things that work diametrically against each other. Yet, conservatives are happy to talk out of both sides of their mouths on this one.

Efficiency is simply getting more bang for your buck. Some spending is more beneficial to the nation than others. Building a "bridge to nowhere" benefits far fewer people than spending money on public transportation, communication, etc.

Government over-paying leaves less money that is available to be spent on other worthwhile projects, including infrastructure improvement and research.

Because taxes are unpopular. It's like an instinct to recoil at the thought of them, heh.

Despite the Bush tax cuts already being a tremendous part of the deficit, there are still politicians running on a platform of not only extending them, but expanding them...because it's good for the nation? No, because it gets them votes.

"Cut government waste!"
"Cut spending!"
"Cut taxes!"

They all sound great, but no one - literally, no one, I'm pretty sure - can give details on what that means or how they plan to accomplish it.

I don't think you can make up a trillion dollars by cutting waste. If we're lucky we can limit the waste and reduce the 1 trillion to 990 billion. In that sense, I agree that we need a wake up call, but I disagree on what you think that means. The revelation I envision is people finally realizing we CANNOT SPEND MONEY WE DON'T HAVE. Period. If you do not make enough to support all the essential programs, the answer is not to raise taxes, it is to redefine "essential". This will require cutting some very worthwhile programs I am sure. I don't want that, but it is the lesser of 2 evils. We simply cannot afford to do everything we are trying to do. Raising taxes is a downward spiral that is a quick fix but long term disaster. A 1% rise in taxes is often a 30-40% reduction in spendable money for many families after fixed costs are removed.

At least that's a reasonable answer. I disagree, though; I don't think that we will ever see 1 trillion dollars cut only by cutting programs. I think we will have to do both (as I've said several times). I do not think you will ever convince the nation as a whole that we don't need public eductation, or the military, or social security, or medicare. Those are HUGE expenses, and likely at least one would have to be dropped if we do not raise taxes.

We managed very well on higher taxes before. Raising taxes by "1%" will not mean we are all going to die the next day.

I can't imagine a 1% increase in taxes causing a 30-40% reduction in income...but if such a household existed, those kinds of households rarely pay taxes at all, anyway. In fact, something like 50% of households don't pay income taxes at all, in the end.

It's funny how people always talk about how taxes are going to strangle us all when we're all paying the lowest taxes since before most of us were even born. Especially the top 1-2% of Americans, the tax rate is amazingly low today for them compared to historical rates.

My favorite part about this discussion is that the taxes most of the discussion is actually framed around only affect like 1/10th of 1% of the population of the US, people who would struggle to even notice the change, and yet those same people always frame it in an argument like it is going to cost joe blow on 5th street his kid's dinner and people eat that shit up BECAUSE TAXES ARE BAD OMG.

Meanwhile, that 1% of the population is buying your country away from you.

http://robertreich.org/post/1344561814


that guy said it much more succinctly that I ever will.

_________________

Yep.

It's really stunning to me. The American populace is like a wounded, scared animal that keeps attacking the people that come to try to help it.

It's not a whole lot different from the folks in the middle east listening to cassette tapes handed out by the Taliban or various terrorist groups spouting their propaganda. They're mostly uninformed, away from mainstream information and illiterate so they tend to believe the the big voice tells them.

The problem we have here is almost intentional ignorance, stupidity and illiteracy. Folks hear something and rather than even fact check it against something they not just believe it they take a flying leap into zealotry. I've noticed this tends to show up a hell of a lot more with the Glenn Beck/Fox News crowd than anywhere else.

Example: Friend of a friend posts something on facebook how they can't stand how big the government is getting, how the muslims are taking over, how big government is bad, how we're now socialists..etc etc and on and on. This girl is a GED earning, unemployed single mother of an illegitimate child....on welfare having everything paid for by the government. She can barely carry on a conversation outside of what flavor icecream she prefers yet spouts these Fox Cult talking points left and right.

There are millions like her.

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

It shows up on the other side as well. All those people touting the recent tax breaks for small business who don't have the first clue how "small business" is defined. As a result, they don't realize that what THEY think of when they say small business isn't actually getting a break at all and the people that are shouldn't be using the term "small business" to describe themselves.

You know, like Mrs. McCain and her "small business" in the beer industry. Or Obama's "small business" for his books. Meanwhile, Joe's Pizza Shack is just happy that they can finally claim cell phone calls on their taxes and won't see diddly from the rest of the provisions.

So much fire and brimstone about "the little guy" in this debate and all of it is a cover up for how the fat cats can get fatter. From both sides of the fence.

_________________

Yeah, but pointing that out makes you a "Liberal Elitist", I guess.

Most Americans opposed the stimulus.. and health care. Why is it unreasonable that they don't want to pay for things they opposed?

Sorry, but that's not how it works. We don't get to earmark our taxes to only go to X but not Y. If we want to make changes in how our money is spent, we replace our elected officials with ones we think will spend our money in ways we approve of.

That's not getting into the why's of people opposing the stimulus and health care. Refer to Larreth's post for that discussion.

It might be interesting to see what would/wouldn't be funded if everyone got to direct their tax dollars themselves. Would people choose to do 'charitable' types of things (ie. foodstamps), selfishly (infrastructure), with a view to the future (education), or would they choose to fund only those things they believe are federal priorities (defense)?

Bet I could get a grant to study it!

On the other hand, it might scare the hell out of me.

I didn't say it was a reduction in income, I said it was a reduction in spendable money after fixed costs. It's not hard to imagine at all. Here is an example:

A dual income family has a $200,000 per year gross. They contribute 20k per year to 401k savings so they have a tax basis of 180k. With local, state and federal income taxes amounting to about 45% total, they have $99,000 left net after taxes. Now take out the fixed cost items of mortgage, food, car, child care, heating, etc and they have montly bills of 7,500. That leaves $,9000 left for whatever they want. An additional 1 percent on the federal rate would be another $1,800. Another 3% (what is currently going to happen if nothing changes) is an additional $5,400. That is a 60% reduction in money that isn't allocated for anything, or free spendable cash. Instead of $9,000 you are left with $3,600. That is significant.

I know it is in vogue to say those people can just cut back on spending, you don't need a big house or expensive cars, $7,500 per month in bills is way more than anyone needs to spend! Or maybe $20,000 per year in 401k savings is too much, they are really going to live it up some day and they don't deserve that! Whatever your reasoning is, it is not your call. Everything is relative and that person is used to living in a house with a $3,800 per month mortgage and that big house takes $400 per month to heat etc. I can find someone in a 3rd world country that will say with a straight face people making $25,000 per year are wealthy because they never have to go 2 days without eating. It's all relative to what you are accustomed to.

This same example could be done with any income amount, but I wanted to do it on something higher to show how easily people making $200k are not jet setters travelling the world.

I am not so foolish as to presume that I deserve a good life simply because I work hard. There will always be people who work much harder, sacrifice more and have less. I can guarantee you that there are plenty of people that could work harder and choose not to though, because they want to spend more time enjoying other aspects of life. I am fine with that, but in return, I want my $9,000. Not $8,000. Not $7,000. I want it all. There are plenty of things I don't get to buy that I would really like because I simply cannot afford them. I want my government to operate the same way.



After all that I just said, I will surprise you by saying I agree with this statement. There is no realistic way we can balance the budget and pay off our debt without cutting those programs beyond what is healthy for the country. I would surprise you even further if I said I would change my living habits and pay a take hike if it meant balancing the budget and keeping those truly critical programs intact. The problem is, as impossible as your quote is, it is equally impossible for this county to do the right thing with those raised taxes. They will not pay off the debt, they will put that found money into programs some define as essential, but ones that I do not. The end result will be I paid higher taxes, changed my standard of living and saw no marked improvement in our nations debt. Then in 10 years I will have this same discussion with the next batch of worldly liberals who insist that 40% is too low a tax rate, that I live too good a life and that I need to pay more for the deficit or we'll have to cut "essential" programs again.

It's all a nice thought, but it will never happen. My suggestion will never happen either. Politicians are too focused on getting votes, and no one gets votes by cutting support to programs. As long and neither fix is ever going to work, I will choose the one that at least has me keeping my money so I can take care of my family as best I can for as long as I can. I can't give you a more honest answer than that.

You might want to re-do those numbers. A married couple with two children making ~200k/year pays about $31k-32k in federal income tax. State taxes (depending on where you live) are anywhere from non-existent to 11%, with most much lower than the median there as best as I can tell. So we'll assume 6% here for another $12,000.

Some state taxes can actually be counted as deductibles from federal taxes as well, so it's not as cut and dry as all that.

That's without counting the 20k in the 401k, and without any deductions at all, that was just me straight plugging the married couple and 200,000 into the IRS calculator. Not a single deduction or anything - and we know that big mortgage and the child care and etc etc could all go toward deductions.

So that's what...a very generous $44,000 that I'll give you. That estimate is probably unrealistically high though, but we'll keep it. Even that is a far cry from the $81,000 you quoted above.

Also, you can't just talk about all those expenses like they don't count. A mortgage, car payment, etc etc don't just magically vanish from your wallet, it's a bit unfair to just act as though that income doesn't count.

I'd say the best example to review is a 250k family getting hit at the 39% bracket (assuming no tax break). It's definitely substantial there.

and again, I'll point out:



that figure is for 2009, for what it's worth.

Just to keep things in perspective. It's not like the 250k family is anything close to the norm. In fact, I'd be surprised if more than 50% of all households broke 100k. So what you have is 2% or less of the population, drumming up fear and anger in the other 98% over the idea that their taxes might increase, all to benefit that 2%. Meanwhile, the "fat" we're talking about cutting from budgets includes cutting services like libraries, fire stations, and infrastructure repair. Governments are going broke while 1-2% of the population grows fat on political fear via the stupidity of people too dumb to look at the numbers.

It's infuriating. Individual greed and gross incompetence from our leaders is bankrupting this nation.

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In 2008, the median household income in the United States was $46,326. I am willing to bet with the state of the economy, that figure has lowered over the last 2 years, not risen.

So, yeah, I find the blatant fear mongering and manipulation by such a small percentage of the population to be utterly reprehensible. Even more so when our political figures play such a large part in feeding that particular machine.

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$3,800 / month mortgage is yikes..

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark