Re: Gibson raided
And as far as my earlier post a lot of people mus-understood me about the home situation. While I don't think it wrong to want to have a larger home, when did it become a need? I'm not saying the govt should be able to step in but living within ones own needs is probably a better solution.
Abso_fn_lutely,,, Idividuals and governments must live within their means.
As far as the wealthy loopholes there are so many around because they will fund certain congressional tours to get elected who then vote to exclude certain people from taxes. IIRC there is a long list of names soc- secs and other info at the IRS of people who will never pay taxes.
Income taxes? A long running debate over taxing active vs passive income. I don't think anybody debates a fair tax rate for income from your day job. But after you pay taxes on that the first time, and put it in the bank to earn interest or buy stocks for capital appreciation, we get taxed again on the fruits from this capital we already paid taxes on, then when we die, it gets taxed again when we try to give it to our children. Histoically interest and capital gains are taxed at a lower rate, but still double taxation. For that matter dividends paid out on stocks, were already taxed at the corporate rate, before distributing to us, to be taxed again.
Some wealthy people, who already worked hard and long enough to structure their current revenue to be mostly from interest and dividend income, personally pay a lower rate than ditch diggers, a popular but disingenuous comparison made by Warren Buffet.
There is currently a good argument about some hedge funds who have structured their businesses so that their wheeling and dealing, is taxed at a lower capital gains rate. There are good arguments both pro and con for this preferential tax treatment. they do have capital at risk, but generally they are playing with OPM (other people's money), so maybe they need a higher rate, while not as high as simple income to reflect the different risk profile.
You state that the top 1% of Americans pay 38% of our taxes, Great but when you look at how much in comparison to what they make, its pocket change. I also really doubt they actually pay it. There were several plans in front of a few financial reps that have shown how even a 1% increase in taxes on the top 10% would put us way above budget in less than 7 years. To me its ridiculous how little we are paying in taxes and yet we still complain about paying too much. Do you realize this is the lowest we've ever paid in taxes in over 30 years? (providing for inflation) yet we have also increased our spending (needed to happen). Personally the only issues I see where we are spending money that shouldn't be spent is the private contractors for the military that are getting paid in the millions for a job that costs them maybe in the thousands. Not to mention when was the last time someone in congress actually represented the money they make. I'm all for paying the people who make the decisions, but they should have to worry about the economy not just on "oh my people will have issues", but I will have issues.
That's a mouthful.
Adjusted for inflation.? Do you realize inflation bumps us into higher tax brackets despite not being any wealthier? Congress has had to amend the AMT several times because this attempt to prevent millionaires from avoiding taxes was affecting the middle class after several years of inflation. I just saw Bernanke reiterate that their target for inflation is 2% and we generally think that is harmless, but why must there be any inflation? I suspect it's just like the economic growth the government needs to cover up their chronic deficit spending. I'm all for giving the economy an updraft, but not so much you distort the basics.
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Yup, them damn military contractors,,, Those DSP ear plugs are $1400 a piece.
Lots of funny business in Afghanistan where graft and stealing is part of their culture. That doesn't make it OK, but sharp pencil bookkeeping is not compatible with the fog of war,
For better or worse this looks like it is winding down (probably for worse for Afghanistan and Pakistan). I hope we don't give up the gains we've accomplished in Iraq.
Do the math on what 2,000 cruise missiles fired into Libya cost!
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The way I see it is government has needed to spend more money to keep the things we have going. the only way to get out of a situation like this is to increase your income and/or (i prefer and) decrease excess spending... its just like budgeting at home when you have a slow period you might not get to buy the latest and greatest TV during that time.
Where do you think government spending comes from?
Government spending ends up with a fraction of the nominal amount spent in any kind of measurable value. Private sector spending and private business spending generally has a multiplier creating more value not less. So government spending crowds out more productive private sector spending.
Government stimulus is only capable of short term smoothing of the numbers. We are way past this being a short term economic situation and more short term responses will just prolong the final resolution, but i expect to hear more of the same in tonights speech, because that how government, and people think..
I suspect we would have turned the corner by now, if we took the painful hard correction a year or two ago... but you can't clear and recover until you bottom, and we are still paralyzing the private sector waiting for government to stop messing around. People who are still in houses they can't afford, don't deserve to get the houses for free.... however nice that sounds, it is not fair to everybody else who were responsible. Fannie and Freddie suing the banks is no way to settle housing markets. I'd like to sue Fannie and Freddie representing taxpayers, but being in government receivership they are probably shielded from lawsuits.
Note: I am not calling for severe austerity right now, but we do need to deal with long term spending vs. long term revenue. The politicians will kick the can down the road for as long as we let them.
Of course I could be wrong.
JR
