Obama and the tax cut issue

[katsarecool]

I still feel 100 percent confident in our President's ability to continue to improve the economy, work for the good of the common people, extricate our troops out of war and harm's way and defeat any candidate the Repugs throw at him.

I do get how frustrating all these events are. We all lived through eight years of pure hell under the Bush administration. I thought it would never come to an end and stayed angry for his entire term. And I had high hopes that our situation would improve quickly but it soon became obvious that the Republicans and the Tea Baggers were engaged in a battle to make sure Obama failed including many dirty tricks of their bad behaviors. I am amazed that rather than work with him to help our country succed they engaged in all out warfare.

I hope when Nov. 2012 rolls around the voters are better educated and that our economy is at a greater recovery phase.

[katsarecool]

Very interesting news conference from former President Clinton today...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_clinton

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by katsarecool

Very interesting news conference from former President Clinton today...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_clinton

Clinton be damned, he was way too compromising with republicans during his presidency too. This deal stinks and it is an insult to everyone who is making less than 250k per year. The extreme economic injustice of it is horrific, and Obama should be calling the Republican's bluff. Pure and simple.

[Soon]

U.S.: In state of denial over taxes?

“Historically and internationally, the U.S. can’t be categorized as anything other than a low-tax country,” remarked Gordon Betcherman, an economist and professor at the University of Ottawa’s school of international development and global studies.

“Either Americans don’t realize their economy is taxed less than other major economies, or they just have a different standard of what an appropriate tax level is,” said Prof. Betcherman, who spent a decade at the World Bank in Washington.

...

For decades now, the U.S. has increased spending, but hasn’t ratcheted up taxes to pay for bigger government – the military, health care, pensions and the like. The country has been generating tax revenue equal to roughly 18 per cent of its economy for a generation, but spending has climbed steadily to nearly 25 per cent of GDP, from roughly 16 per cent in 1965. The results are huge deficits, and more than $14-trillion (U.S.) of debt.

...

“Tax increases are the only way to ensure that high-income households pay a fair share of the deficit burden,” Mr. Marr said. “Without higher taxes as part of the fiscal-reform package, middle- and low-income households, which tend to feel spending cuts most acutely, will end up bearing almost all of the burden.”

Most of the rest of the developed world – Canada included – has managed to bear higher tax burdens for decades, without grinding their economies into the ground. Economists say even an economically weakened U.S. could cope with a heavier tax load.

The total tax burden on Americans, as a percentage of gross domestic product, stood at 24 per cent in 2009 – lower than it was in 1965 and still falling. That compares to 31.1 per cent in Canada, 34.3 per cent in Britain, 42 per cent in France, 37 per cent in Germany and 43.5 per cent in Italy. The Japanese, Australians and South Koreans all pay significantly more.

The United States is the only major country without a national value-added tax and its sales taxes are lowest in the OECD. Likewise, U.S. fuel and sin taxes are at the bottom among rich countries. And generous tax breaks mean many businesses and individuals pay few taxes, placing a heavy burden on a relatively narrow tax base.

[Kobi]

Thanks for this info How Soon.

Within the scheme of things, overall and comparatively speaking, we do pay less overall taxes per person than many other countries. What the graph doesnt show is the disparity in what those taxes include.

Hard to equate US taxes with Denmarks when they use taxes to provide health care and higher education for all- among other things, while we dont. I am suspecting if we add in what the average US citizen pays for what other countries provide thru their tax base, there may not be much of a difference.

Also, us everyday folks, pay more in taxes, percentage wise in relation to our incomes than those in higher income brackets. I always remember an interview Warren Buffit gave where he chuckled how his sectretary paid more in taxes percentage wise i.e. close to if not more than 35% of her income, while he as a multi-billionaire didnt come close to paying that percentage of his income.

To me, it boils down to what is fair, minus all the misleading marketing. I am tired of hearing how we have to provide taxpayer dollars to industries making billions in profit a year. I get tired of hearing how we cant "overtax" the wealthy cuz they are the ones providing jobs and sustaining the economy. And, if we tick them off, they might take their toys and outsource the job elsewhere

I get tired of the billions we send to foreign countrties year after year without any appreciable change of their part to become self sustaining. A helping hand now and then is nice but to consistently and continuously dole of billions and billions we have to borrow is kind of unwise. Check out this breakdown - might be accurate, might be flawed, hard to find official stuff -
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/poli...oreign-aid.htm

It gets tiring when politicians want to (maybe) balance the budget on the backs of everyday folks with little to spare while John Kerry can splurge on a 7 million dollar boat which he moors out of the state he represents so he can avoid the piddly tax on it.

There are real class/haves/havenots issues that are effectively sidestepped in budget talks because the very people who are deciding this stuff are trying to protect themselves, financially, and those who line their pockets. It may be 2011, but the good old boy network is alive, well and thriving.

Sadly, we the voters, allow ourselves to fooled by the marketing and advertising strategies that are used to obscure the real issues and to deflect attention away from the real issues.

And, it is so much more complicated than that. There is a warped kind of thinking that starts at the top and filters its way down. And it is done in such a way that those of us down here fight amongst ourselves rather than taking the fight up the ladder to where it belongs. Someday, maybe, we will stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

Just my take on things for today.

[The cute widdle wesbian]

Uh ... keep in mind that I'm not terribly involved with politics. I know what's going on and I have my strong-minded opinions, but I'm not a die-heart politician or anything. I'm in the field of law.

That being said, I might as well put my neck out there and express what I think about our political situation in general. I could never be president because I think the liberals as well as the republicans are wrong as long as they're jadedly stuck to one side. I was sitting back one day listening in on a conversation between my father and sister in the other room. My father is a total rigid conservative and my sister is liberal. As the minutes ticked by, I realized that the more heated and intense the argument became, the more they both were running into a wall. I think that my sister was a little bit more on the win though just because she was willing to admit the faults of the democrats, while my dad was totally unwilling to give way in the least.

This is how I see it, based solely on the past decade: when Bush was elected for his first term in 2000, we were already 5 trillion dollars in debt. At the end of Bush's 8 years in office, we were twice that: 10 trillion in debt. Now Obama's been in office for 2 and a half years. He's managed to do exactly what Bush did in a 4th of the time. Now we're about 15 trillion dollars in debt. This country is broke, and Obama's truly not helping us, but Bush didn't do much for us either. Now our paper money is losing value fast because there's nothing to back it up. Here's my thought on that: Bush screwed us over, Obama screwed us over worse, now we're officially screwed. The republicans absolutely refuse to admit any fault, neither do the democrats. So once again, we're running into a wall.

Here's something else little to think about. I'm a well-earning person, I have a pretty big paycheck, so to speak. But I'm working class, just like the whole of my family. Our hard-earned money is being taken away from us in order to pay (in a lot of cases) people who simply don't want to work. I understand that there are people on wellfare who honestly can't work and need help. I'm all about helping the poor and people in need, but don't deny that there are plenty of people out there who gladly take mine and your tax dollars to sit on the couch and smoke weed all day. I'm in tough times to, why the hell do I want to pay for them? The way my mind works, I have to think of myself and my family first. But here's the other side of that: There are rich people who, like someone else said, barely pay a fraction of us working class people's taxes because they can. So the government wants to take a bit of money from the people earning 1 million bucks a year to help the starved. I could easily live off of 75 hundred bucks a year, trust me. We're in a tough spot. My only question is, why in hell are we arguing? Why are we making such a big deal out of the right and the left? Right now no one has jobs, no one has money, many don't even have food to put in their children's mouths. Why are we worried about the rich or the poor in particular, why aren't we worried about the honorary citizens of this country. We need to balance each other out.

How about dumping all that money into all those countries who've never done a damn thing to help us? Again, I may sound terribly unamerican when I say this, but we need to think of ourselves and ours first. Feed your people, not theirs. When we can aford to dump billions of bucks into the sea, let's do it. But we need to quit the spending as well as quit the rich people money hogging. So the democrats want to dump all the money at the poor, and the republicans want to dump it at the rich (basically speaking). So what goes to us?

This is why I'm a centrist. Unable to ever become president, but always the one who wins those political discussions with my family whenever I have half a mind to engage in them. That day I walked into the room with my father and sister, sat down, thoroughly humiliated their rigid arguments, and shut them both up once and for all. Keep in mind again, I'm not all educated in politics; my views are purely my own that I picked up by watching a little bit of news and junk. What I've said up above is a tiny taste on the tip of the tongue compared to all my political views, so don't think that that's all I got. I hate this topic so I'd rather not unfold completely. lol, not a very serious person and not much into huge political debates. We're all wrong in a way, and we're all right. I agree with liberals about gay rights (obviously), I agree with conservatives about guns in the home. I agree with liberals about birth control, I agree with conservatives about the healthcare bill (ugh). I'm independent. Thank you.

Let the backlash begin!

[Soon]

Kobi,

I understand that the other countries, including mine (Canada), provide universal health care and equitable education and a host of other services that the USA -- all of which is possible through our higher tax rates.

However, the frustration I feel with your country is that these services/rights will NEVER come to fruition b/c citizens already complain about the relatively low taxes that you do pay. Also, the wealthy/and corporations are certainly not paying their fair share (as the article points out) and the burden, therefore, is felt largely by those making under 200 000.

Our tax rates DO afford us a lifestyle that most of us would not give up for a lower tax base. Largely, we understand that taxes are needed to afford to NEVEr care about a hospital bill/surgery, have equal funding for education, and our regulations helped us avoid a collapsed economy. However, the way that Canada and other countries operate is decried as (dirty!) socialism and, therefore, somehow antithetical to certain American *values*.

What was striking to me is how do people think an increase in services (including military spending) can be managed without increasing taxes? Something Reagan even did (who is lauded by The Teabaggers) too offset the federal deficit (he also raised them in the state of Calif. when he was gov. (largest tax hike that state had seen since then).

The USA will never have the standard of living as other industrial countries b/c people seem unwilling to admit that services must be paid by the people of that country and that includes proper taxation.

The USA has the lowest tax rate now since pre-1965 and spending has increased dramatically. Yet, tax hikes (on corporations and the wealthy esp!) is denounced by the GOP. (when they spent more in the last eight years before Obama)

*off for a massage...need it now after reading the article again!

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by The cute widdle wesbian

Here's something else little to think about. I'm a well-earning person, I have a pretty big paycheck, so to speak. But I'm working class, just like the whole of my family. Our hard-earned money is being taken away from us in order to pay (in a lot of cases) people who simply don't want to work. I understand that there are people on wellfare who honestly can't work and need help. I'm all about helping the poor and people in need, but don't deny that there are plenty of people out there who gladly take mine and your tax dollars to sit on the couch and smoke weed all day. I'm in tough times to, why the hell do I want to pay for them? The way my mind works, I have to think of myself and my family first. But here's the other side of that: There are rich people who, like someone else said, barely pay a fraction of us working class people's taxes because they can. So the government wants to take a bit of money from the people earning 1 million bucks a year to help the starved. I could easily live off of 75 hundred bucks a year, trust me. We're in a tough spot. My only question is, why in hell are we arguing? Why are we making such a big deal out of the right and the left? Right now no one has jobs, no one has money, many don't even have food to put in their children's mouths. Why are we worried about the rich or the poor in particular, why aren't we worried about the honorary citizens of this country. We need to balance each other out.

See, I can't live on $7,500 a year. Keeping a roof over my head--no food, no clothing, no utilities, just the roof over my head--runs me around $14,000 a year. My utilities run another 6K a year, or so only one of those (the cable TV) is optional. Fuel for my car runs me about ~$2400 a year if ALL I do is drive to and from work and shopping trips.

The reason we are making a big deal out of the right and left is that these are meaningful distinctions. Having a right-leaning government or a left-leaning government makes a world of difference! It's the difference between public schools and libraries (favored by left-leaning government) or a gutted public education system and no public libraries (favored by right-leaning government).

How about dumping all that money into all those countries who've never done a damn thing to help us?

What is a better return on investment, one-half of 1% of our GDP going to foreign aid or a several hundred billions of dollars to clean up after a terrorist attack? I'm going to argue that the former is a better investment. Btw. of the G-8, we spend the least amount on foreign aid. Japan, which has a population only slightly larger than the state of California, spends every year what we spend in five in foreign aid. Japan. Which has ten percent of the population of the United States.

Again, I may sound terribly unamerican when I say this, but we need to think of ourselves and ours first. Feed your people, not theirs. When we can aford to dump billions of bucks into the sea, let's do it. But we need to quit the spending as well as quit the rich people money hogging. So the democrats want to dump all the money at the poor, and the republicans want to dump it at the rich (basically speaking). So what goes to us?

The Democratic party is trying to preserve the middle class, the Republican party is trying to dismantle the middle class. What's more, modern American conservatives are not conservative. The more I read conservative thinkers (not Limbaugh et. al. but real thinkers like Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke, etc.) the more I realize that *I* am a conservative and that what passes as conservative is actually more along the line of libertarian-theocratic. The Democratic party are the real conservatives in American politics. The Republican party is the party of right-wing radicals.

Cheers
Aj