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View Poll Results: How do we avoid a double dip?
Cut taxes on the rich 19 40.43%
Repeal EPA, FDA, and all wall street regulation 20 42.55%
Cut entitlements, unemployment, and education 22 46.81%
Raise taxes on the 47% of people who don't pay anything 32 68.09%
Repeal the minimum wage 16 34.04%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 47. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 08-08-2011, 03:14 PM
 
Location: The High Seas
7,372 posts, read 15,961,068 times
Reputation: 11866

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Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCalCroozer View Post
In a free society that encompasses individual liberty how the hell can you force people to serve in the military? Another clueless American who doesn't understand the entire founding principles of this country. Plus forcing anyone to go fight and die for our corrupt and tyrannical government is NUTS! Oil Dog? More like lap dog! Yeah no tax on dividends....that will solve everything! LMAO!
Ever hear of the draft?
Serving stateside, while learning a skilled trade, with free room and board is not a bad thing. Other options could be given that would not require military training, for the conscientious observers.
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Old 08-08-2011, 04:07 PM
 
Location: Central Ohio
10,815 posts, read 14,882,546 times
Reputation: 16494
There are 72,826,204, or 48% of taxpayers, who earned less than $25,000 earning a total of $245,657,686,567.18 in W2 wages.

According to statistics most of these people never paid federal income taxes and if they had witholding they most got back in refunds than they had withheld through earned income credit.

$245 billion isn't much, even if they paid a minimum tax of 10% it wouldn't raise $25 billion which would only cover 0.6% of the federal budget.

Taxing these folks is ridiculous, leave them alone but take away that stupid "earned income credit" which is insulting to me as a taxpayer and I do pay many thousands in taxes every year.

There are 100,607,822, or 66% of taxpayers, who earned less than $40,000 $1,640,538,260,506.10 in W2 wages.

Even if we taxed them at 10%, which would pick up everyone in the first group earning less than $25,000, the payout would be but $164 billion which is enough to cover just 4.4% of the federal budget.

If you are married, earn $48,000 with both working, file jointly as a couple and trying to raise 2 kids it is obscene for the government to take $4,800 for nearly $100/week out of your salaries.

As they would struggle to cover the lost income considering Nancy Pelosi, that loving house madam who loves, loves, loves poor people endured watching her net worth rocket 62% to $35.2 million in just one year.

To be fair Pelosi wasn't the only one. John Boehner saw his net worth grow from $1.8 million to $2.1 million in just one year too.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's wealth grows 62% to $35.2M, Boehner, Reid's worth increases too - New York Daily News

Quote:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's net worth skyrocketed 62% last year, to a jaw-dropping $35.2 million, according to financial disclosure forms released Wednesday.

Pelosi, the former House speaker, wasn't alone.

The California Democrat's gavel-gripping successor, Republican John Boehner, also saw his wealth get a boost, with the Ohio GOPer's net worth increasing from $1.8 million in 2009 to $2.1 million last year.

Pelosi's drastic growth, from an initial $21.7 million in 2009, is attributed to recent stock gains and smart investments. Her husband reported raking in $1 million to $5 million last year from a sale of Apple stocks.
But maybe those earning less than $40,000 should pay taxes because White House Hip Hop parties and congressional junkets don't come cheap and how unfair it would be to ask Obama to pay for his own birthday bash. Think about it for a moment, how would you feel if you had to pay for your own birthday bash?

Raising taxes on the rich doesn't do it either, the rich don't have the money.

Well, we could always raise the corporate tax rate on evil energy companies like Exxon, never mind that America has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, but when you do so it takes money away from the stockholders which might sound great to some until you recognize one of the largest stockholders in Exxon is the California Teachers Association Pension Fund. Yep, everyone would love to give an 82 year old retiree a big tax hit.

What is most disconcerting to me is how so many miss the fact government has become a parasite sucking the blood out of the average worker in America.

The American gross domestic product is $14.12 Trillion US dollars at current prices - 2009. That is the last figure I could readily find and it has dropped since then but we will use it anyway.

World Bank, World Development Indicators - Google Public Data Explorer

The total expenditure by the federal government in 2012 is estimated to be $3.729 trillion.2012 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The federal government is already spending over 26% of the gross domestic product on itself. Can you spell P-A-R-A-S-I-T-E?

To some 26% might not sound like much but that is just federal expenditures. Add to this state, county, city and local school taxes and it should become clear to everyone government at all levels is eating our work product.

Before taking Obama's communist party's apparatchiks word that the rich aren't paying a fair share you might want to crank up a spreadsheet and find out for yourself. The actual answers might surprise you.

If you are one of those that is all for taxing the evil rich would do the trick consider the following:

Mathematical Fact: You Can't Tax The Rich Enough To Pay Down the Deficit


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Old 08-08-2011, 04:49 PM
 
Location: Ohio
24,623 posts, read 19,075,333 times
Reputation: 21738
Quote:
Originally Posted by Majin View Post
Since conservatives are the only ones who can fix our economy, what should the koch brothers... *cough ahem* I mean tea party do to ensure that we don't enter a double dip recession?
Um, no one can fix your economy, and you are going to enter a long-term recession whether you like it or not.

Who you elect in 2012 will make no difference. Your ship is sinking and it will sink until you elect a president who says, "All hands, abandon ship!"

Quote:
Originally Posted by wjtwet View Post
1% across the board spending cuts for 6 years balances the budget
You need to work on your math skills.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
Easy-

1. cut corporate tax rates to a flat 20%
2. cut all income tax rates to a flat 20% with no deductions
3. Institute a 5% VAT tax
4. Eliminate the EPA
Those things would help.

I assume you're implying that will eliminate the IRS which is something that should have happened 20+ years ago.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
5. Make class action lawsuits illegal
That will do nothing, but you could limit attorney's take to hourly fees only and no cut of the award. That would remove the incentive to do class actions.

Personally, I think it's better to nickel and dime the corporations to death rather than let them weasel out with a single lawsuit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
6. Pull out of, or renogiate, NAFTA and China most favored nation trade status
That won't help. Your global work-force is history because it cannot compete, not because there is free trade.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
7. Allow domestic oil, coal, oil shale, and natural gas exploration and development
That would be counter-productive. Those are very investment intensive, and they would suck investment capital right out of the system.

There would be no capital to rebuild a manufacturing base, or even to expand consumer oriented tech manufacturing and development.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
8. open new refineries
Not gonna happen. Since the Texaco Fiasco, you've had 3 presidents who have absolutely refused to present any coherent energy plan for the long term.

So long as that continues to be the case, no one is going to invest in new refineries.

Also, the general consensus is that gasoline demand in the US is flat and will be for at least a decade. With a flat supply (due to limited refinery capacity -- you have 49 operating refineries but only 17 refineries actually produce gasoline) and flat demand, gasoline prices should be stable where they are now.

Remember, both oil and gasoline are inelastic in the short-term, but elastic over the long term.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
9. pass a constitutional balanced budget amendment
Good luck with that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
10. raise medicare and social security eligibility to 72
That would be political suicide and it won't resolve the long term deficits for either program, but Medicare is probably the easiest to reform.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
11. Close nearly all foriegn military bases
That would be National Suicide. You do understand that if you fail in your current long-term geo-political strategy, which is currently stalled, that you fail as a nation, right?

In other words, there won't be a US. It'll be just another ritzy Belarus or some other 2nd World Country, like Greece or Portugal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
12. enforce our borders to ensure that a supply of slave labor is not readily available
If it was up to me, I'd dig a huge ditch, about 300 feet wide and 100 feet deep and have some people landscape the bottom so it looks pretty from the Space Shuttle.

And if you had a real president, he would ask illegals (nicely) to leave, and then 30 days later ask a little more sternly, and then 30 days after that order all illegals to leave.

And then 30 days after that, deputize every adult over 21 to hunt down illegals and deport them, paying a $5,000 bounty per head, and authorizing the use of force up to and including deadly force.

That's a low cost solution that only takes 120 days.

How to pay the bounty? Simple, allow the deputies to seize buildings where illegals are living. Then the government can auction them off and pay the bounties or give people joint ownership over the apartment buildings, and companies that employ illegals.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009 View Post
13. change corporate taxes to a "consumption" system, as the Germans and Japanese do, in order to reward exporters and punish importers
That's an interesting idea but I'm not sure it would work.

You should consider that the US is 4.5% of the world's population but consumes 25% of the world's oil and 29% of the world's resources.

Japan by comparison is 2% of the population but only consumes 5% of the world's oil and 11% of the world's resources.

Strangely, no one would dare say the quality of life or standard of living in Japan is worse than the US, but there is a fundamental difference between US and Japanese societies, and probably the most significant is that the US is a disposable society, and Japan is not.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nicet4 View Post
Taxing these folks is ridiculous, leave them alone but take away that stupid "earned income credit" which is insulting to me as a taxpayer and I do pay many thousands in taxes every year.
Yes, common sense goes a long way, but apparently there is none in Washington.
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Old 08-08-2011, 05:36 PM
 
1,348 posts, read 2,849,267 times
Reputation: 1247
You never posted the most important option of all. Cut our military spending, close our overseas bases and bring the troops home.

Our military spending is outrageous and leading us to bankruptcy. It dominates our national spending, but cutting it is never an option that either party wants to approach for the simple appearance of being unpatriotic.
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Old 08-08-2011, 05:52 PM
 
Location: The Republic of Texas
78,866 posts, read 46,420,298 times
Reputation: 18520
In the poll, wall street needs to be a separate item. Not lumped in with the EPA and FDA
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Old 08-08-2011, 05:59 PM
 
3,345 posts, read 3,066,195 times
Reputation: 1725
Quote:
Originally Posted by nature's message View Post
Um, Democrats and Republicans are equally at fault.

Agreed... but shhhh... lets keep it a secret from the ignorant partisans who love blaming the "other" side
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Old 08-08-2011, 06:07 PM
 
2,514 posts, read 1,981,991 times
Reputation: 362
The poll didn't have any useful options. Upping the minimum wage is helpful to the economy Upping it a lot will do the economy good.

What do we do?

spend money now.

How do we get this done? Print it and give it to everyone. Then up the minimum wage far enough to support the price of houses at the peak of the last bubble. Start a national savings program in banks. (not the stock market) This will tend to reduce our imports and increase our exports. tax the principle on debt. This will transfer our tax burden from the main street economy to the wall street economy. Good for the vast bulk of people.
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Old 08-08-2011, 06:39 PM
 
Location: The Republic of Texas
78,866 posts, read 46,420,298 times
Reputation: 18520
Quote:
Originally Posted by Majin View Post
Since conservatives are the only ones who can fix our economy, what should the koch brothers... *cough ahem* I mean tea party do to ensure that we don't enter a double dip recession?


You know, I'm down here in Texas and I didn't know who these Koch Brothers were, until the Wisconsin / Walker deal and the public unions.

What you don't seem to understand is in times like this, it has to hit Rock Bottom, to correct all the bad out of the system.

A clean slate with the Constitution leading the way, is the only solution to this entire deal.
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Old 08-08-2011, 06:47 PM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,237,900 times
Reputation: 27718
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow View Post
You know, I'm down here in Texas and I didn't know who these Koch Brothers were, until the Wisconsin / Walker deal and the public unions.

What you don't seem to understand is in times like this, it has to hit Rock Bottom, to correct all the bad out of the system.

A clean slate with the Constitution leading the way, is the only solution to this entire deal.
The Koch Brothers are yet another manufactured enemy of the Dems.
Just like the Tea Party is.
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Old 08-08-2011, 06:51 PM
 
2,514 posts, read 1,981,991 times
Reputation: 362
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
The Koch Brothers are yet another manufactured enemy of the Dems.
Just like the Tea Party is.
As long as we are fighting each other then we aren't fighting the plutocracy for good economic policies.
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