how come Obama has a progressive tax structure and he is scaremongered into being painted a marxist? Isnt saving the disappearing American middle class going to keep the worlds economic engine going (save the effect of massive deleveraging) and keep this country from having the gini coefficient of a 3rd world toilet with zero social mobility and all the uncompetitive bullshit and corruption that comes with great disparity of wealth? Those getting tax breaks live largely paycheck to paycheck and will only increase consumption (anybody see the retail sales # today?). What about when the unfettered free markets caused the debt markets to grind to a halt? Is that the death of capitalism? Or will it be when the conservative regime finally nationalizes the financial services realm? Seriously who is the pinko here? A guy who believes that those who can pay more, pay marginally more when they make over 600k? The myth that the rich are all rich because they are hard working and their money all goes to evil lazy freeloaders is a caricature at best. The more you have the more you should pay for the public good of not living in a shithole where you have to hide your wealth for fear of having it coveted to the point that you lose security. Ayn Rand left out what a real human being is actually like when she fashioned her philosophy. People that quote Atlas Shrugged like its the bible are just impressed they read a big book and havent thought about it, just accepted it. So, Ill be devils advocate here haha.
Milktruck it really doesn't matter if people call Obama a socialist, communist or Barney the purple dinosaur. What matters is that he gives off a very strong impression that he will raise taxes on those making above 200k on an ailing economy. A progressive tax policy has nothing to do with addressing and adapting to the present situation.
To add to that. It's not so much the tax increase that bothers most folks. What really pisses people off is the forcible redistribution of money from those that produced it to those that did not. The only thing Obama (or any other politician) is doing is buying votes. In doing so government has created the next generation of slaves. Except this time instead of African leaders selling their people to the US, it's the US citizens selling themselves to the government. If the tax increase was to pay down the National debt and was accompanied by a reduction in federal government largess I would imagine most folks would be understanding. Furthermore, if the entire adult population felt a little pain in the wallet via taxes, they would probably think twice about selling themselves.
This is basic mathematics folks. If the top 5% make 50% of the total paid/earned incomes then raising taxes on top 5% will result in more tax revenues for the government. Reducing taxes on $250K and lower crowd can act as a stimulus as majority of these folks, especially under 75K crowd will immediately spend it i.e. put it back into the economy either pay off a debt, or buy something long on the list or renovate a house etc. If Obama is good economist enough is not the question. The real comfort is in the fact that he will not take any 'invade iraq' type disastrous decision and will hopefully do his best to end that stupid war and bring troops and equiptment back home.
Hello "joe" (http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2165206#post2165206) You can stop worrying about those who make over 250K. You need to get over the 20K hurdle first!
Obama is saying that he will have the taxes at the same level as it was during Clinton years. And as I remember people were working and innovating and adding value to the society during Clinton years. The only time when no one will work is if the taxes are at 100% but even at 50% people will still work, innovate and create value. Saudi Arabia has 0 taxes but look at their productivity and life style. As we saw in the past 8 years it is just not taxes that effect the market and economy. I am more concerned about the purchasing power of the dollar than taxes.
Look if every time we have a recession we cut taxes we soon have taxes at zero and nothing to cut when there is another recession. Republicans have successfully put this idea inside people's heads that cutting taxes(for the rich) is some kind of magical formula to economic greatness. It does not work nor will it ever work. I love it when people just parrot those ideas and walk around smugly telling people cut taxes! cut taxes! Bush's tax cuts need to die. All of them. The biggest damage to economies was done by a man named John Maynard Keynes. He is the biggest disaster as far as economic thought imaginable. His thoughts allow governments to spend willy nilly and justifying it by "stimulating the economy" Taxes and spending should always go in the same direction: you increase spending you increase taxes, you decrease taxes you decrease spending. Personally I would start cutting the federal budget big time and let bush's tax cuts expire. Problem is, in USA there is this mentality that taxes are always too high. So political demagogues always come in and tell people about how they can lower taxes for them. NOBODY SHOULD BE GETTING ANY TAX CUTS
how may times have the divvy dollars been taxed already? come on, seriously... immigrants come to this country, cant speak english, no education, etc and they find work... i go into section-8 housing projects and able-bodied people just sitting their in a cloud of smoke from chronic.. very few of the folks i see appear to be sick, lame or crazy... most appear lazy with tons of electronic gear & decent cars in the parking lot. if they went to work, their standard of living would go down b/c they have to pay for everything. the govt looks at money velocity, b/c they are in the middle of every transaction at almost every level... enough already. guy goes to med school, works his ass off & pays through the nose, & now he's gonna be taxed to pay for a minimum-wage worker who decides to have 6 kids by 4 women? i say bullshit. im sick of Liberal bullshit. im sick of OBombA's & his administration already. im sick of his annoying wife. im sick of Blarney Franks too & nancy pelosi. i hope ObombA turns out to be a great prez, cause the guy's stepping into a stacked deck. i dont think he's up to it. the Russians are already testing him. this is bush's greatest failure - 4 years with dems in charge.
You should be concerned about more things than just welfare and helping illegals. Right now this country is wasting (wasted actually) wealth that took generations to build. I am talking about Iraq/Afghanistan. Do you republicans get up in arms about Iraq and what an epic failure it is? NO. As to "testing" you apparently forgot the incident early in the bush presidency when a chinese air pilot rammed his plane into a P-3 orion and Americans got captured. Americans got returned but the plane was cut up into pieces and returned piecemeal. Let me tell you this: you know nothing about graduate schools. If you knew anything, you would know that people who go into law school or medical school come out with catastrophic levels of student loans. All because the concept of free higher education in the US is too controversial.