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So everyone is entitled to the rich's money? Why don't people just work harder to become wealthy on their own?
No one is entitled to other people's hard earned money.
OK...just be sure you send your children and grandchildren to places like Iraq and Afghanistan when the shootin starts instead of sending them to an ivy league school where they will be taught a legal way to steal while the lower middle class and poor are being shot at.
Who is arrogant and egotistical enough to think they owe nothing to the systems and security which have been bought and paid for by bloodshed since the beginning of this great republic?
Up until modern Republicans started the BS of trickle down our citizens just assumed everybody would do their share. The greed of the last two generations in this country knows no bounds. That is exactly what just ran our economy into a ditch...pure unadulterated greed.
Well, the complete fiscal failure of Republicans over the past 30 years is a pretty well known phenomenon. Supply-side doesn't actually work. Laissez-faire doesn't actually work. Nothing much that Republicans espouse actually works, and they prove it every time they manage to get themselves elected. They're out there campaigning right now on a platform of not doing anything at all themselves and opposing everything that anybody else tries to do, and that's actually one of the least threatening platforms that they've managed to come up with in years...
I know how allergic you are to facts, so I suggest you grab the Benadryl fast.
Since I was born .. the 83rd Congress (1955-57) until today, the Democrats were the majority party 22 times, to the 7 Republican majorities. Furthermore, of those majorities, the Democrats enjoyed the largest individual congressional majoriies ... from 93rd Congress (1973) to 103rd (1995) the dems enjoyed a veto overriding majority on average of over 100 members.
The most devastating economic policies (NAFTA-GATT) were instituted by the Democrats which have facilitated the destruction of our economy that we see today ... long before Bush's wars, and much more significant than Reagan's tax cuts.
When one thinks of economic calamity over the past 40 or so years, one would be hard pressed to overlook Jimmy Carter as the poster boy.
The most devastating economic policies (NAFTA-GATT) were instituted by the Democrats which have facilitated the destruction of our economy that we see today
That's mostly your opinion...and you are like Ann Coulter concerning facts...you make up your own.
The Republican party beginning in 1981 does not even resemble the Republican party I voted and worked for when I was young. They vote for everything that comes along to support corporations and the wealthy. That's the facts. I've only voted for a Democrat for president twice in my lifetime...2004 and 2008 but I'll never vote for the Spend and Borrow Republicans again if I live to 100. 'Course at my age I won't be voting too many more times anyway.
those are your stats, but do not include me in it. not even close to those numbers, but I guess I need to pay the same cap gains as the really rich, right?
Well, actually the data were lifted from Brookings, and they clearly show that capital gains taxes are highly concentrated in the upper income brackets. And we can't have separate laws for each individual. If you're "nowhere nearb those numbers", you would appear to be arguing tax policy over a personal basis of a few dollars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aliveandwellinSA
for the third time, how about income limits, or basing cap gains simply based on gross income for developing a percentage paid by individuals, its called a fair playing field.
Why not just tax capital gains as ordinary income then?
Estimate a surplus of at least $230 billion in FY2000.
Remain on track to pay off the entire debt by 2012.
Will reduce the debt by an estimated $223 billion in FY2000 and more than $360 billion over last 3 years.
Instead of a $455 billion deficit, the surplus this year will be at least $230 billion. In 1992, the deficit in the annual Federal budget was $290 billion – the largest dollar deficit in American history. In January 1993, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the deficit would grow to $455 billion by 2000. Now the surplus will be at least $230 billion this year - the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever, even after adjusting for inflation. Compared with original projections, these results mean that there is over $685 billion less of a government drain on the economy and over $685 billion more that is available for private investment in this one year alone.
Largest unified surplus as a share of the economy since 1948. The 2000 surplus is projected to be 2.4 percent of GDP - the largest surplus as a share of the economy ("GDP") since 1948.
The third consecutive year with a surplus—for the first time in over 50 years. The surplus of at least $230 billion follows a surplus of $124 billion in FY 1999 and $69 billion in FY 1998. The last time America had three surpluses in a row was over fifty years ago in 1947-49. The FY2000 surplus marks the eighth consecutive year of fiscal improvement for the first time in American history.
The second consecutive surplus excluding Social Security. Excluding Social Security, the surplus is projected to be $80 billion this year. This is the second consecutive surplus on this basis, for the first time since 1956-57.
The first surplus excluding Social Security and Medicare. This is the only on-budget surplus since Medicare was established in 1965. (The on-budget surplus excludes Social Security and Medicare surpluses).
What's your problem? When everything involved, i.e. interest on the debt included your deficit of $18 billion seems like a belch in a windstorm. I guess like most right wingers who will not acknowledge that tax cuts for the wealthy got us into this mess you have your own set of facts. Have you noticed that in the congressional record the congress and the administration WERE arguing about how to use the surplus?
There was no surplus.
The fact of the matter is, by looking at publicly available data from the Treasury department, the federal budget under the Clinton years operated at a deficit of $100-200 billion for most years, reaching a low point of $18 billion during 2000, but leaving a deficit budget of $130 billion during Clinton's departing year, in 2001.
By definition, there could not have been a budget surplus; deficit spending defies the idea of the existence of a budget surplus or balanced budget. However, the lie isn't so obvious that Clinton wasn't able to use political maneuvering and clever accounting to sell the surplus idea; it's probable that Clinton was even fooled himself into believing that he was able to produce a surplus without cutting spending or significantly raising taxes. So where did the surplus myth come from?
While government spending was in a deficit, the U.S. public debt, better known as the national debt, was being paid off. The national debt accounts for money that the federal government owes to states, corporations, individuals, and foreign governments but not what is owed to intragovernment obligations, such as the Social Security trust fund.
So while the public debt was being paid off, the debt from intragovernment holdings skyrocketed while general federal spending was relatively unchanged. Clinton pointed to the national debt as being paid off, but neglected to mention that the source of this money was debt owed to Social Security.
The dot-com bubble provided a temporary economic stimulus during the Clinton era, which allowed the Social Security Administration (SSA) to increase revenue through Social Security taxes, leaving Social Security with a surplus.
The Social Security Administration is legally required to purchase government securities with surplus funds, which results from having more funds than required to pay out Social Security checks. This results in a transfer of funds from Social Security, intragovernment holdings, to the Treasury Deparment, which Clinton used to pay down the national debt.
You may wonder what the problem is. If there is a surplus of funds, does it really matter where it comes from?
There is a difference between debt and surplus, no matter where the funds are coming from. The government doesn't have unique sources of production, and must rely on external sources from which to extract capital. Therefore, a true surplus can only arise by reducing spending.
Even by raising taxes, this only represents debt owed to the public. Clinton relied on the dot-com bubble by funneling funds through the SSA, which allowed him to mimic a surplus by obscuring the source of his funds. This is a clever accounting game, but it is not a surplus.
So when the dot-com bubble burst, and Social Security was left in debt, the federal government couldn't give the SSA its surplus back. The money had been put towards the public debt already. By that time, Clinton was already out of office, so the effects of the dot-com crash could be blamed on the Republican George Bush anyway.
You sound like a broken record or a child with his fingers in his ears yelling "lalalalala" over and over again. You've been proven wrong, there really were surpluses, real surpluses which Republicans turned into record deficits. Accept reality and move on.
Up until modern Republicans started the BS of trickle down our citizens just assumed everybody would do their share. The greed of the last two generations in this country knows no bounds. That is exactly what just ran our economy into a ditch...pure unadulterated greed.
Yep, too many middle class people in this country bought more house than they could afford. Greed is the only word for it.
You sound like a broken record or a child with his fingers in his ears yelling "lalalalala" over and over again. You've been proven wrong, there really were surpluses, real surpluses which Republicans turned into record deficits. Accept reality and move on.
There was no surplus. The debt under Clinton was higher when he left office than when he entered. So, by definition, there was no surplus.
And Obama is the one that is running record deficits. Not republicans.
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