Obama will lower your taxes more than McCain

[QueenAdrock]

Unless you're ridiculously rich. Check this out, courtesy of Washington Post:

http://alchemytoday.com/obamataxcut/taxsummary.png

Also, you can calculate your Obama tax cut. The numbers are provided by the non-partisan tax policy center.

http://alchemytoday.com/obamataxcut/

[RobMoney$]

that's amazing, how the folks that run that website were able to nail down exactly what Obama's tax plan is going to be. Because during every debate I've seen, not even Obama could explain it.

Families under 250k, ughh, wait, Families under 150k,...no, it was MOST families under 150k won't be affected.
Even he was confused by his own plan.


Now post a link which provides the data on what he's going to spend in the way of Government Entitlements to the underprivileged vs. what McCain will spend.

[travesty]

Scaled taxes are comepletely biased, unfair and absurd. They create a system which discourages rather than encourages success.

I hope Obama isn't calculating that extra 11% from the really wealthy into his budget. We all know that the rich rarely carry thier wealth in taxable vehicles.

Look I HATE taxes as much as the next schmuck but I am willing to pay my share. I just want to know that I am not paying any more or less than the next guy and that the money is going to useful things, like actually reducing our foreign debt. I don't want to see that Medicare is operating with 31% fraud like it is. That steams me up.

[NoFenders]

Ugh! So now I guess he's running with this tax plan. To tell ya the truth, this guy is scary. Scary in the fact that I can never truely understand (define) what his tax plans are on any given day. Even after he tries to explain it, it never adds up to me being a winner. He would actually tax me and my family more than GW has. I'm not considered "rich" either. What a joke. Obama lower taxes. lmao


:cool:

[NoFenders]

I looked at the tax cut tool. He's taking more of my money.

:cool:

[travesty]

I looked at the tax cut tool. He's taking more of my money.

:cool:

Then according to QueenAdrock you must be "ridiculously rich". I am glad I'm "ridiculously rich" too. Shhhh don't tell my wife she is "ridiculously rich" or she will make me poor quicker than Obama. But nobody cares about us, as long we continue to pay up so that everyone else can suckle off the tits of our success and continue to wallow in mediocrity.

[kaiser soze]

and Corporate Welfare keeps on rolling along....suckling off the tits of the citizens

[QueenAdrock]

Then according to QueenAdrock you must be "ridiculously rich". I am glad I'm "ridiculously rich" too. Shhhh don't tell my wife she is "ridiculously rich" or she will make me poor quicker than Obama. But nobody cares about us, as long we continue to pay up so that everyone else can suckle off the tits of our success and continue to wallow in mediocrity.

Money has nothing to do with success, and people who make less aren't "mediocre." I'd rather make $50,000 a year as a librarian helping people to read, access information, and learn, rather than make $600,000 as a loan shark who works off of commission and tries to squeeze every last penny that they can out of the person they're "working for." I'd consider my life and what I'm doing with it more successful than a LOT of people who are making more money than me, so that's a load of bunk.

And yeah, if you make more than $600,000 you are what is considered "ridiculously rich," because only 1% of the population has what you have in terms of wealth. If you make less than that, Obama will lower your taxes. Maybe not as much as McCain, but I'm sure that won't bother you because you're willing to pay your share.

[kaiser soze]

I doubt travesty and nofenders are "ridiculously rich", why would they even be wasting their time on a bulletin board filled with mediocrity?

very few do suckle off the tits of the rich if you haven't been paying attention to the ravages of offshoring everything for pennies, the raping of taxpayer money for no-bid contracts that are rarely completed and with quality assurance, or how about the new trend of offshore banking avoiding taxation and financial accountability...it is the rich suckling off the tit of those who bust their asses.

It's funny how those who shit on social "sqautters" are the biggest squatters of all

[travesty]

You are right, I am not "ridiculously rich" but I do enjoy trolling the MB's full of the medocre. hehehe

If the wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per*cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. And the top 10% of tax payers pay 68% of the tax collected by the IRS. Exactly who are the squatters? Do they get more benefit from those tax dollars than others... hardly. Can you blame people for wanting to protect their money from an unfair and unjust tax system by taking advantage of every possible shelter? Do you itemize your donations to the Goodwill? I bet you do you social squatter.

It's more funny how those who squat on social shitters, are the biggest shitters of all.

As for Queen Adrock... I am happy to pay my share, as long it is the same share that everyone is paying and right now that is not the case and it looking to get worse. I certainly respect your decision to make $50k a year, just don't have the gall to ask those of us who make more to pay more when the government doesn't have enough in the kitty to keep the Library open or any of the other programs that you deem "necessary". Personally I would much rather make $200k and have the resources to donate to your library and help pay your salary. Does that make me an asshole? Does that make me greedy?

[yeahwho]

Do you guys ever have any link to the bullshit and rhetoric espoused? In the beginning we have a link then Rob say's "do the search for me" because like most who get hyper-critical here and elsewhere in my life, you play the poor victim who cannot comprehend facts of even be bothered to do a little research.

Here is a quick breakdown (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/05/us/politics/20080905-CAMPAIGN-SPEECH-ANALYSIS.html) which tells us EXACTLY (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=411749)where the break is and isn't.

Mr. McCain would preserve all of the Bush tax cuts, while Mr. Obama would let them expire for those making more than $250,000 a year. Mr. McCain would also double the child tax exemption to $7,000 and reduce business taxes. Mr. Obama would reduce income taxes and provide credits for people earning less than $250,000 a year. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that Mr. Obama's plan would amount to a tax cut for 81 percent of all households, or 95.5 percent of those with children. The center calculated that by 2012 the Obama plan would let middle-income taxpayers keep about 5 percent more income on average, or nearly $2,200 a year, while Mr. McCain would give them an average 3 percent break, or about $1,400. The richest 1 percent would pay an average $19,000 more in taxes each year under Mr. Obama's plan but see a tax cut of more than $125,000 under Mr. McCain.

[Bob]

Scaled taxes are comepletely biased, unfair and absurd. They create a system which discourages rather than encourages success.

i've never understood this argument. if there's, say, a 10% tax for someone who makes $50,000, and say, a 20% tax for someone who makes $70,000 a year (i'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, don't make a big thing about them), the second person is still walking away with $11,000/year more than the first person. put another way, someone would still have an incentive to want to make $70,000 and pay higher taxes rather than stay at $50,000 and pay lower taxes because they'll still be better off (unless you start factoring in things like the cost of education to get the job that pays the higher money, and you define "better off" purely in terms of money, and even then it might still be wrong on a long enough timeline but i'm not that good at math). yeah, you don't make as much as you would with a flat tax, but i don't see how this "discourages" success. you're still successful.

i mean, when i start making 6 figures and start complaining on here about how the government takes away too much of my money (well i probably will say that but it will be about loans, not taxes) and how i wish i'd never gone to law school and oh if only i'd not bothered with college and lived it large with all the lucky low-tax paying blue collar folk, when i start saying that, feel free to rub my face in it, but i've never understood this "progressive taxes discourage success" thing.

i do agree with you about the super-rich (individuals or otherwise) rarely carrying their wealth in taxable vehicles though. for better or for worse, it's very difficult to make someone pay their taxes if they don't want to and they're clever enough (or rich enough to hire clever people to figure it out for them), so i'm skeptical about obama's claim about making them pay their share. it's very hard to do that, even if you're committed to it.

[travesty]

i've never understood this argument. if there's, say, a 10% tax for someone who makes $50,000, and say, a 20% tax for someone who makes $70,000 a year (i'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, don't make a big thing about them), the second person is still walking away with $11,000/year more than the first person. put another way, someone would still have an incentive to want to make $70,000 and pay higher taxes rather than stay at $50,000 and pay lower taxes because they'll still be better off

Let's assume the break for the tax difference in your example is at $60k

at $59,999 you would pay 10% or $5,999
at $60,001 you would pay 20% or $12,000

How does that extra weekend shift sound to you now?
Sure you are making "more" but your taking home less, much less. You would have to make about $67.5k just to get back to the same take home pay that you had at $59,999. Does that sound fair? You are doing more work and getting less pay. This happens everyday in America.

It might be a little hard for an attorney to wrap his head around, but the working class people understand it all too well (and so do the Union Supervisors). I also know from experience. A few years ago it didn't make sense for my wife to work because we were on the upper edge of our tax bracket, any additional income she brought in would have been virtually wiped out by the addtional taxes and she would have been working for free. It's a fucking joke.

[travesty]

I apologize for the cheap attorney jab Bob. It's late and that was lame.

[Bob]

Let's assume the break for the tax difference in your example is at $60k

at $59,999 you would pay 10% or $5,999
at $60,001 you would pay 20% or $12,000

How does that extra weekend shift sound to you now?
Sure you are making "more" but your taking home less, much less. You would have to make about $67.5k just to get back to the same take home pay that you had at $59,999. Does that sound fair? You are doing more work and getting less pay. This happens everyday in America.

It might be a little hard for an attorney to wrap his head around, but the working class people understand it all too well (and so do the Union Supervisors). I also know from experience. A few years ago it didn't make sense for my wife to work because we were on the upper edge of our tax bracket, any additional income she brought in would have been virtually wiped out by the addtional taxes and she would have been working for free. It's a fucking joke.

my apologies! i was completely wrong. it turns out i didn't understand how tax brackets work (and neither do you, apparently)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_brackets (it's so lame that i had to look this up on wikipedia, because i'm interning for the state department of revenue, i ought to have known this; oh well i've only been there a week and this issue hasn't come up yet)

so your example; the break is at $60,000.

at $59,999 you're paying 10% on all your income, you're paying $5,999 and earning $54,000.
at $60,001 you're paying 10% on the first $60,000, and then 20% on the $1 after that. so you're paying $6,000.20, and earning $54,000.80. you're still better off (albeit only by 80 cents)

now back to my example, with the break at $60,000

at $50,000, you're paying a $5,000 tax, earning $45,000 overall.
at $70,000, you're paying...well i don't want to do the math but you're even better off than you were before i figured out how tax brackets actually work.

so i'm not still not seeing how a graduated tax discourages success? you still make more money.

[travesty]

That is lame, I should have known that too. Thanks for the insight. The theory still holds though because even if you continue to make more money in sum total, your "hourly wage" goes down the more you work. Meaning the value of your time and work is less and less for each additonal hour that you work. How can that not be discouraging?

It's still not fair either. nanny nanny!

[Dorothy Wood]

a friend of mine does much less work than I do (I'm guessing, since he gets drunk every night and still has time in his work day to email me several times and more often than I have time for) and he makes over $100,000 a year. he's also one of the most unhappy people I know, even though he has a new wife and owns his home and a nice car and a motorcycle.

I think the point of all of this is that capitalism is a lovely idea if you don't factor in circumstance or the fact that not everybody no matter how hard they try can make tons of money doing jobs that are necessary in a modern society. I understand that I'm dipping my toe in the pool of socialism here, but if you think about the greater good of mankind/society, the people that make a ton of money should appreciate and understand that to function as a society...you need to give back. and that the amount of money you make is not a measure of a person.

I came from a very hard working family, my mom and her siblings were very very poor growing up and now 2 out of 3 of her brothers are extremely well off (pulling down around a million a year). my other uncle is clinically depressed and has a hard time keeping a job (he still manages to make around 70,000), and my aunt is the very definition of a socialist bloodsucker (she has an education, but has made poor choices and expects handouts from her family and the government). my mom's changed careers several times, but has always been "blue collar" and making a decent enough living to not be destitute. she never went on welfare when she was a young single mother and most definitely qualified for it.

my point is, there is compromise. you need to have a worldview...or at least a view of the country as a whole and what's best for everyone in the long run or none of us are going to survive. and it's been shown that a $50,000 salary is basically enough to make someone happy because it's enough to live well without having to worry too much about money. and I learned that from Russell Simmons.


I guess I'm just saying that it'd be great if hardworking people were the ones to get ahead and make the bucks...but it just isn't like that. some idiots make 6 figures by chance, some very intelligent people make 30 grand a year because they value personal fulfillment over money. and we as conscientious americans should allow for that.

[travesty]

Dorothy I absolutely agree with everything you said. So why can't we agree on one fixed percentage that everyone pays, regardless of income? I would, in fact. even pay more than I do now, if I knew it was going to be constant regardless of income for the year and that it would be going to a balanced budget government. Why all the games, loopholes, credits and tiers? Why can't I understand the tax form that I sign every year, under penalty of perjury, to be true and correct?

"I guess I'm just saying that it'd be great if hardworking people were the ones to get ahead and make the bucks...but it just isn't like that"

I bet Russell Simmons would have something to say about that!

[yeahwho]

Flat tax vs. proportional tax has been debated forever, It will not happen anytime soon. The corporate structure enjoys many loopholes, deductions, gains, losses etc. that I do not currently.

The gravy train is hard to acquire, but not impossible. I'm content with my current social life, but I do think I could resolve some of my inner demons much easier if I were driving a Bently GTC (http://www.bentleymotors.com/Corporate/display.aspx?infid=41) instead of a Toyota.

[Dorothy Wood]

well, see, I do think that taxes should be simpler and easier to understand. in fact, I am a fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. one of my best friends is a "bleeding heart liberal" type and her sister is a libertarian. they fight all the time, but I actually usually am able to find common ground with both of them.

I think states should have more control over personal issues, but should be dedicated to the well-being of the country as a whole. I think taxes should be fair and their uses spelled out in an honest way.

I think that no matter what kind of purported tax plan is displayed, it'll get processed and funneled through all our channels of government until it's all but a shadow of it's original self. of course obama has to exaggerate, he's aiming high knowing that it'll help move things in the right direction even if his original figures aren't met.

this is a game, it's the nature of the beast. no one is going to be able to implement their perfect plan. it's what's at the heart of their plans that matters. it's unfortunate that people can't be completely real and honest, but they just can't because there's greed and sneakiness and power plays to contend with that have nothing to do bettering america, and you have to play the game a little to even get your foot in the door.


nothing's going to change until each human being realizes that taking care of yourself means taking care of others.

[yeahwho]

nothing's going to change until each human being realizes that taking care of yourself means taking care of others.

Baby you can drive my car
Yes I'm gonna be a star
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah

[rirv]

Mark 12:41-44

The Widow's Offering
41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.
43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on."