Keen - I need to point out that it was a Democrat House, Senate and President that approved billions in foreign aid to Pakistan.

The aid program promoted by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, promised Pakistan $7.5 billion over five years, much of it delivered through the civilian government.

Hell yes raise the taxes back to the 2001 level. The whole country started falling apart after the Bush tax cuts, his stimulus packages of 2001, and his wars. None which helped the country but the tax cuts and wars made Bush supporters rich.

Hell, if they just close the loopholes that lower income taxpayers don't get it would help the economy.

"Raise someone else's taxes, but leave mine alone"

Isn't that what the republicans are doing when they say cut entitlements but leave the defense spending alone?

Oh hey, let's quote Jon "not-intended-to-be-factual" Kyl, where he predicts a GOP senate majority.

Perrrrrfect.

Actually the government is taking less from the people, and if we didn't have such a bloated Military/Industrial complex we could have not only the best Education system in the world, but the best infrastructure and Health Care also!

16 out of 20 states with most money on foodstamp are in red states. Both Republicans and Democrats require foodstamp money to even get by on day to day basis.

I find it funny that many people think only Democrat get foodstamp.

We need to cut the entitlement programs in half. Paying more taxes will result in the Govt. spending more on bullsh*t programs. I will not pay more in taxes.

shamrock: What "entitlement" programs are you thinking about when making your comment? Cutting anything in half, with the exception of waste, fraud, will really set this country up for a DEPRESSION beyond our imaginations.

By refusing to learn about what you are touting, you are perpetuating the stagnation we are in today. Consumer confidence being low helps keep our growth low. Congress doing nothing but proposing SOCIAL issues instead of FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE GROWTH PROMOTION is beyond criminally neglectful. It is treasonous.

You will not be paying more taxes unless you make over $200K. Quit whining.

So let's say they do raise the taxes on those making 200,000/250,000 and are able to collect another 80 billion. We are running deficits over 1 trillion and so that paltry amount won't help with the fiscal problem much at all. Add the other tax on the that same group mentioned in this article of 20 billion that comes to 100 billion. So less than 10 percent. The question is increasing taxes causes behavioral changes that are not factored into this assumption of taxes received.

As an example, MD in 2009 started a millionaire's tax that failed to bring in revenue anticipated. Some say because there were less millionaires. Some say millionaires moved out of MD. Either way, the solution NOW for MD is to tax those making 100,000 more.

So anybody on here posting to raise taxes on the rich beware that YOU will be next. Steny Hoyer, Min whip said that this past week. So the rich are first to get slammed and those of you that hate the successful rich can be so happy, but the middle class is next. Steny Hoyer acknowledged this to be true.

Keep in mind one other miserable truth. That SS tax credit everybody has been enjoying the past couple months of 4 percent will be reinstated next year as well. It was stupid to ever touch that contribution since at some point people get use to that extra money and when reinstated it will SLOW DOWN THE ECONOMY even more.

The fiscal decisions by this administration have been gimmicks and short-term actions that are not addressing the long-term fiscal issues that are drowning us.

Look Obama named a commission. The democrats hated every suggestion. The republicans liked many of the suggestions and have offered some of their own. Just raising taxes isn't a solution.

I have spent 6 figures in the past 3 years to support a business, renovations, etc. that employed a lot of people. If my taxes go up, that will be less money I can use to keep supporting my community. This isn't rocket science.

The premise that this election could be won by Romney through the electoral college votes, the darling of the Red States that dominate the lists of the poorest, under-educated, under-insured, and taking more in federal dollars than they contribute, RILES MY OLD BEHIND beyond the pale of rile.

The state that collects the most welfare is Cali, a blue state. Funny how that Democrat State, is also bankrupt. Hell we even give welfare to Mexico, yea thats right you can live in Mexico, and get benefits from Cali or Texas, now thats one helluva international welfare program.

In good faith, the obstructionist GOP will not bargain.

The GOP, representing the wealthiest folks, is hard hearted enough to allow taxes to increase for every American tax payer, rather than just have their 1% pals pay their fair share of taxes. The Republicans wanted to eliminate the earned income tax credit, which economically benefits the middle class and the poor. On the issue of tax increases for the gilded, the right wing is not going to look for a middle ground. The Republicans are going to "dig in." The Democrats are going to have to seek a political way to get around these reactionaries.

Brenda 1964 - My understanding was the magic number is 250,000.

Who decided that? I can say the "magic number" is $17,000 a year. Why should anyone have the right to decide which minority group should be singled out for punishment?

@ ROY WILSON-336103

The top 1% make almost 80% total money in the US.

What's fair? Fair is based on amount of money they earned and the amount of money they pay. You need to look at the stats. You can't expect 99% to pay more than 50% income tax when it is almost impossible to do so.

1% make most of money, but they keep hoarding it while the 99% circulate the money daily. What's best for economic and this country?

Where did you guys make up the fact that the government is taking more in taxes. It is the lowest % since the 80's. This tax increase is directed at the top 2% and I doubt any of you would see a change so stop whining. We have become a greedy nation of teabuggers. Vote for Romney and the rich keeping their money and you keeping yours, but remember they pay an average of 14% in taxes compared to most of the middle class that pays 21%

John Moron,

The tax increase is for personal income as I read it and corporations wouldn't be included, but the should as they makes some of the biggest profits ever from their greedy treatment of workers and taking away benefits from so many!

For a middle-income married couple with three children under age 17, this would mean at least a $1,500 tax increase since the child tax credit is set to shrink at year end from $1,500 per child to $500 per child.

The article asks if its a good idea, well sure it is! Humans are evil! Oh, and while we are at it, lets tack on a carbon credit tax too! Dont you care about children and animals! jeez

all the major oil company's are not American company's, you can only tax them on American profits, Exxon last year received a 5 billion dollar tax refund, using offsets from foreign operations;

now wait until Obamacare kicks in, 19 new taxes plus the medicare tax will double in 2014.

A good healthy and strong economic requires 50% of total income earn to circulate in the market. However, the problem we have is the 1% hoarding 80% of total income.

You say that the rich pay most income tax, yes because they have the most money. It is mathematically impossible for the 99% to pay more than 50% income tax when they only have 20% of total income.

Nite, I don't care. Cut the entitlement programs in half. No more taxes. The millionaires, up in Washington can write a check to pay more. Warren Buffet, his old a$$ can write a check to. They wanna spend billions on welfare let them pay for it. George Clooney can hold a tax party, and collect the checks. I don't give a sh*t if we go into a depression, that is what we deserve.

NO.

We are already taxed, and re-taxed, and re-taxed enough. People have to have money to spend it and provide jobs. That broadens the tax base.

Why not just make the taxes 90% and see what happens. Everybody will lose everything. The government will be rich for one year...........then all will be lost.

Otherwise you're being hypocritical if you say - "Raise someone else's taxes, but leave mine alone" when complaining about not enough money for social services. If the top 20% of income earners are already paying 90% of all federal income taxes, just how much do you think is their 'fair share'?

using the percentage of all taxes collected reflects the vast difference and over compensation of the wealthy and redistribution of wealth from the cuts in taxes for this group over 3 decades.

Using Romney's tax rate for example, of 13%-15% .The top 20% pay only 13%-15%and they are capable of paying 70% of all the taxes collected. (not 90%) How absurdly over compensated must these people be to have that kind of wealth? They own 84% of all the wealth . Why are only the top few prospering from all that is produced and why are they not paying a far higher percentage of their earnings than someone making $30 per year?

They use our infrastructure and military etc far more than any other class.

who are they going to raise taxes on , when we are all unemployed ? the lobbyist ?

KeenInsight

Your argument doesn't make sense! Your trying to blur the lines between individuals and corporations to insight class bias. Individual wage earners that make over 200k and families that make more than 250k are insulated from corporations which earn hundreds of billions. Worse still is that the top 2% pay the majority of the taxes in this nation and the corporate rates for taxes are the highest in the world! Yet you and others would take even more forcing them off shore where the tax man cannot reach and decreasing the numbers of the top 2% of wage earners so that the amount they contribute will likely shrink instead of increase. You are also confusing capital gains and income taxes which are at quite different rates. A lot of the income of the Bill Gates crowd is in fact capital gains which is taxed at a much lower rate than the 35% top rate for income. Before you back any plan to raise revenues, you might want to understand what you are talking about and how rate increases will actually affect those revenues.

shamrock, the leprechaun with the sign of the devil, how apres peau (that's French, Romney can tell you).

No country can operate with revenue below 20% of GDP for very long. Especially a country that needs to reduce deficits -- The deficits that were caused in part due to Bush's unpaid wars, but most of the debt is a result of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

To operate at proper levels, revenue needs to be closer to 22% of GDP. We are currently around 18% of GDP. Teabaggers who think we can continue at this ratio, or lower (some propose 16% of GDP) are nothing but unpatriotic anarchists. As posted above, we'll be happy to show you to the door...

archangel 3:16 -- What are you, in cahoots with the sign of the devil dude? Seriously, there is a chart that shows what Americans think would be ideal, then what they think the distribution of wealth really is, and then the chart showing the REAL distribution. If folks realized how much wealth is concentrated at the top--most of it in the hands of a few hundred people. they would freak out. Of course these folks pay what seems to be a lot of taxes -- because they make such a sh!t load of money!

"We work hard for our money!"

We all do. What is unfair are the blatantly preferential tax loopholes that benefit no one except the rich. One reason that Romney is parking unreported assets in Bermuda is because they are inexplicably taxed at much lower rates than investments located in the US. Middle class investors can't put their money in funds located in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands as the uber rich like Mitt do. We simply do not have access to these special, extremely discrete operations as Willard does. If Etch-A-Sketch ever releases his tax returns, I am confident people will be staggered at the exotic locales in which his money is safely tucked away as well as the shockingly low rates at which they are taxed. These investments may be technically legal (Swiss bank accounts not so much) but they are definitely unethical. Therefore, close the loopholes and tax the greedy rich at the same rates we are taxed.

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/13/156701493/why-would-romney-bury-treasure-in-bermuda

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/10/robert-gibbs/democrats-say-mitt-romney-failed-disclose-offshore/

You all realize this is smoke and mirrors no matter which party you are discussing. Much of the top 2%(not all) get their wages in deferred comp. Deferred comp is happily for them only taxed at a 15% rate. So no matter what, unless Obama is talking about raising the taxes on the many freebees the wealthy take advantage of then their tax rate will not go up.

The GOP argues and withholds because they want taxes to go up on the middle class so they can a: squawk about Obama or b: make a big show of giving the middle class a couple of hundred bucks a bit later. The Dems argue and withhold because for them and their party it's best to keep the tax cuts for the middle class in place so they get elected again.

So realize, no matter what the outcome of this monumental test of wills, the tax rate for the rich will not go up, but because the Republicans hold a majority in the House and may be able to block it, the taxes will go up on the middle class.

But please, vote more of them into office, because you know, they have our um, best interest... I'm sorry I just can't go on. I'm laughing too hard.

Those people who were put on Food stamps because of rich republicans will remeber whoo forced them to go on the. The GREEDY RICH BANKSTERS AND WALLSTREETERS who along with Bush crashed the economy and their jobs.

Why are repubs creating VOTER SUPPRESSION laws to stop the elderly, the young, and the poor from voting? Because thet are screwing them over by trying to kill Social security, education and student loans low interest rates, and kill food stamps and social plans they keep them afloat. They don't want those people to vote because repubs are exposed to hurting them directly. PAY BACK is coming at the voting booths.repubs Laugh at food stampers an will pay the price for putting them on the program.

Vote Obama/Biden............Pay back for repubs destroying Job, education, and social programs for the poor.

Lulu, thanks! Spend that money and let's get the economy going you jobs creator you. :-)

Cuong...

LMAO, I would bet that the 1 % spends a heck of a lot. They are not going to hoard anything to the extent you think. I am sure that not all of them eat at micky D's on a daily basis, drive subcompacts or live in 2 bedroom homes.

John Moron,

That "corporate tax rate" is before the corporate tax lawyers find the holes in the tax laws. Several very large corporations paid NO income taxes this year, and the average rate was about 18 percent, far from the world's highest:

• "Pepco Holdings Inc, a Washington, D.C.-area power company, had the lowest effective tax rate, at negative 57.6 percent, among the 280 Fortune 500 companies studied.The statutory U.S. corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world; but over the 2008-2010 period, very few of the companies studied paid it, said the report."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-usa-tax-corporate-idUSTRE7A261C20111103

Larry

Hell yes raise the taxes back to the 2001 level. The whole country started falling apart after the Bush tax cuts

Larry, Larry, Larry. The economy started falling apart in June 2000. Experts agree that the US headed into a recession that month, and 6 months later, in January 2001 unemployment began to rise. The bush Tax cuts were approved in mid October and did not take effect until January 1 2002. Funny how Obama gets a Stimulus passed in 2 or 3 months and tax cuts take 9 months to get an real spending cuts never seem to happen.

Unemployment peaked in June 2003 - 18 months later. Unemployment began to drop. Revenues also began to climb as people became employed crating 3 of the highest increases in revenue in history. That is three of the highest revenue increase done by cutting taxes, NOT RAISING THEM!

The crash wasn't anything to do with Taxes or spending. It was about giving mortgages to people who didn't really qualify, at the blessing of Congress. This inflated home prices causing banks to lend more than they could have otherwise. When the foreclosures hit the market the housing prices collapsed. When prices collapsed, that made the banks insolvent an other investors who buy loans as securities either bankrupt greatly devalued.

This wasn't Bush's policy, it was politically correct goverments meddling in society.

The problem today is too many people are broke to spend, and business won't spend unless they are pretty certain they will see a profit. Some would like to spend, but Obama may have offered reduced interest an paper work to apply for loans, but raised requirements on bank loan to asset values and increased downpayments making business getting loans when the need them more difficult.

True Patriot, Then you better show President Obama the door.

Romney 2012.

Thank you, Shamrock. At least you are being honest to say you don't care if America goes into a depression. BTW, CA pays MORE in federal dollars than it takes in federal dollars. The traditional Red States dominate the list of who TAKES more in federal benefits than they pay in federal taxes.

I will vote for a party that CARES we don't go into a depression, because the WE, in We the People, is us.

Sherrie

Corporations do not receive back more money than they pay in taxes unless they qualify for a tax credit and even those can be held to a the limit of what was paid in.

Companies pay quarterly taxes. If they made those payments and find that they made less profit, yes, they will get a refund - and in effect paid no taxes on their corporate return. What an inventive way to lya about a corporation.

Without a tax hike how will the public sector retire at 50

Sherrie-299765 reminds of the a most basic simple fact -- the matter of the effective rate, which is the rate folks or businesses actually pay. This is the main reason corporate rates need to apply to business, and individual rates need to apply to individuals, and no mixing of the two.

During the housing bubble -- have folks forgotten about this fiasco? -- lenders came up with what was called a "no-doc" loan. The reason why they had to come up with this is because there are SO many business owners out there, for example a doctor with his own practice, etc. that use write-offs to show zero income. Because they show zero income, they couldn't qualify for mortgages. Get it?!!!

Those who are evading taxes (besides Romney and his ilk) are your neighbors, and your doctor in the richest 5%. Just as Romney ends up paying only a 13-14% tax rate, if we look at what corporations actually pay -- the effective rate, it is way below the 35%. This is why we must end the loopholes BEFORE we reduce ANY rates for the rich and/or corporations!

Pay your damn taxes, or get the hell out. YOU, you are the problem, not the government.

Your welcome, NiteOwlett.

Two of the favorite crying points for the Oblama Dems:

Pay your 'fair share'. (Who determines fair share?)

Only increase your taxes 1 or 2 percent. (And next year, 1 or 2 percent, and the next year, and the next year.....)

LMAO.

I find it mind boggling how people keep saying the rich need to pay their fair share when nearly 50% pay nothing...and don't start on sales tax and such because the rich pay more of that as well...I would be happy to see them let all the tax cuts expire...not some...and no I am far from rich...I have one of those evil pathetic $10=$15/hour jobs...you know the one that is not worth taking.I can make plenty of extra money working under the table anyway so will pay whatever I feel is fair to begin with...it really don't matter what they make the tax rate to me...I will pay what % I think is fair.

I would much rather see a fair tax system where everyone pays a fair share...rich and poor...a set % that everyone pays...or even give the fair tax a try...let everyone have a stake in it.The fair tax would even put a stop to not paying taxes working side jobs and getting paid cash...if you spend it you will pay the tax.

I may not agree 100% with either party but I am pretty sure I will be voting Rep this year as I just can not stand the Robin Hood idea the Dems seem to have anymore. What ever happened to someone taking care of themselves and having a little self respect.

I find it hard to believe that all you guys make over $250,000 a year. and you are going to be affected so badly. It's going to be so bad when you can't take out your $750,000 yaucht for a week end. You would swear that he was raising taxes on people that make $55,000 a year. I don't think half the nuts here read past the headline than straight to the remarks. Thank goodness you can only put in 2 cents worth, I couldn't stand it if you put in 5 cents worth.

@american-2051576

It seems you are clueless on what you are saying.

Every news since 2008 has said the big corporation has trillions of money sitting somewhere and refuse to spend on anything.

Keep up the news, would you?

So if the top 20% of income earners already pays 90% of the income taxes

Ah, the good old "but they already pay the most in taxes" argument. Not only is it old, it's framed in such a dishonest and incomplete manner that it becomes practically irrelevant. The top 20% paid 70% of federal income taxes, yes, but that's because they have 75% of the country's wealth. And that doesn't take into account state and local taxes, which if you consider, the share of taxes paid by the top 20% is significantly smaller.

So, no, by no means are top earners paying a fair share.

The nerve of democrats wanting to raise taxes on themselves and their brother republican representatives.

Remember it is a 70% consumer based economy! When the price of overhead goes up then the price of products will as well.

This is what happens when capitalism is capitalized.

Pick a party.

Folks, three things: 1) W2 employees are subjected to what's called "third party reporting" of income that the self-employed/business do NOT do--they can make sh!t up; 2) what is called the "effective tax rate" is the actual rate paid, which is much lower because these entities make sh!t up; and 3) they have a gazillion more loopholes than you'll ever have in order to make sh!t up.

It's not even about "paying" by the rules as Romney claims, or per the IRS game idiot Lindsey Graham referred to -- Yes, it's rigged, and what's worse, these unpatriotic unethical douchebags have convinced about 35% of the population, otherwise known as Teabaggers, that the rich and corporations DESERVE to benefit from said rigged system!

The rich, especially the richest 1% are NOT "job creators." Even so-called small businesses are not the "job creators." DEMAND creates jobs, and the demand that creates jobs comes from the 98% middle class and working poor. When the 95-98% (under $250,000) do well, everyone does well including businesses and the rich.

The decimation of the middle class is why our economy sucks. To support continued GOP/Bush-era policies (on steroids under Romney the plutocrat) would be disastrous -- Obama/Biden - 2012!

No troll, you're not "LMAO," more like lolz. Go fap somewhere else.

Touchdownplay -- Get informed. The only reason the US didn't double-dip into another recession is because of the 'stimulus." What you and your Teabagger ilk propose is the same crap of the rich not paying taxes, while everyone else suffers under austerity. What you propose is "eating the corn seed" instead of investing for future growth. Why do you rightwingers hate America so much? Please move to another country.

John-2032532 -- We've been talking about personal income tax rates. Corporate rates are another matter, which by the way, the president's proposal will affect very few business owners who file as individuals. IMO, we need to make corporate rates competitive to the global market, but then we need to end all corporate welfare subsidies, and end the ability of folks like Oprah, Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, etc. as filing as individuals. No more having it both ways (that goes for you the most Romney!).

Of course the rich seem to pay a lot in taxes, because they make a sh!t load of money.

A buddy of mine is rich and he is one of the hirers. I asked him if I could get a job. His answer was no. But he elaborated. He said one of the secret rhetorical questions hirers ask themselves is " would he kill women and children for money" and he said I would never do that.

It is what it is because we allow it to be.

The tax raise is stupid, it raises 40 billion and what does that do to help the close to 1 trillion again that this waste of a president is going to put us into debt. Instead ease the tax burden and the people that own businesses will start to hire, but I doubt it until the wasted Obamacare is repealed because this will tax all businesses to oblivion. But then that is Obama's desire, make all businesses get ran by the government since they in his disillusioned mind would be better ran by a government that does nothing but put us further in debt. Anyone but Obama in 2012!

Can the economy tolerate a tax increase? Absolutely. We need to stop believing the right wing sooth sayers and look at the truth.

The truth is that lower taxes at the high end encourages corporate profit taking, extreme executive paydays, and vulture sell-offs. As long as greed can get fed with a 15% transition fee from corporate money to personal money, the top executives will comntinue to take money out of the economy instead of reinvesting in their own companies.

Low taxes at the high end (income over $1 Million) is costing jobs. Higher taxes at the high end will encourage reinvesting in one's business.

This isn't just about a 3.6% tax hike. The fact that the rich can take money out of the system and hide it in off-shore accounts for only 15% says that we need to push the capital gains rate back up to where regular income is... say 40%.

The greedy rich free ride needs to end. As long as they continue this asinine myth that raising their taxes will cost jobs or otherwise stall the economy, they will continue to rape us with fantastic paydays, no business expansions, and no jobs.

Let the taxes rise. Double the capital gains. Let's get back to the business of running a true balance sheet... that has an income side as well as an expense side. Let's stop this false narrative before they take it all and we're left with nothing for the middle class.

For a middle-income married couple with three children under age 17, this would mean at least a $1,500 tax increase since the child tax credit is set to shrink at year end from $1,500 per child to $500 per child.

Well, Mr. Obama says this "TAX INCREASE" will ONLY affect MILLIONAIRES. Yeah, right !! The above is only ONE example that Americans affected ARE NOT MILLIONAIRES.

Meanwhile, back in the real world......the Child Tax Credit is going to shrink to $ 500 per child ? Yep, it will target LAW ABIDING American citizens. Oh this is just great, that will mean the Illegal Aliens (Immigrants) claiming the Additional Child Tax Credit for children, NOT RELATED, living in Mexico will only get about $ 1,500,000,000 of American taxpayer money annually instead of the $ 2,400,000,000 annually.

• http://www.realnewsreporter.com/?p=7752

Mr. Obama Chicago politics and getting those Democratic votes anyone ? The failed agenda just keeps coming from the White House. Hmmmm, wonder how much involvement in this issue is coming from the East Wing ?

Yeah, those "big corporations" hoarding the money they earned and sitting on the money because of the continued UNCERTAINTY Mr. Obama has placed on capitalism through HIS failed socialist agenda. Double shame on you, corporations.

TruePatriot look into some watch groups and the government records and over 1/2 of the stimulus went to foreign companies, American companies that used foreign workers, or Companies that purchased all their goods from foreign firms. So the only people the stimulus really helped were foreigners, and foreign companies and all it did for us was to stick our children into terrible debt. Next time check facts before you post!

@TruePatriot

As opposed to Feisty Red and others like you that are paid to contribute on this left wing faux news blog? Everytime someone responds with points you can't counter intelligently you regurgitate the Leftist parties talking points of Fox News, Koch Brothers, Willard, blah, blah, blah. Its sickening.

How about working together instead of trying to create class warfare? How about closing all loop holes including mortgage interest, child tax credits and all corporate exemptions? How about everyone pay a little more to dig us out? How about trimming budgets in order to get our deficit under control? How about real fiance reform including elimination of corporation and union contributions to candidates. How about the elimination of lifetime salary and benefits for our elected officials? How about real healthcare reform instaed of the insurance reform based on deal President Obama made with the insurance compainies and big pharma?

Both extremes are the cause for the problems we're in and until we work together its never going to get better.

Let's see when all this dept was made it was made with congress under democratic control they did not have to pass Obama care, they did not have to pass 800 billion in stimulus package, they did not have to pass cash for clunkers, they did not have to pass the GM bail out. Why do you never hear a democrat who is in congress crying they will be paying the same amount of taxes as the one percent because they will not be paying any more than they do today you have to ask why. Obama promised 50 million green jobs but because he could not do it he has the labor department put just about every job class as a green job. Just like welfare Obama changed it to if you sit all day and do nothing that is the same as working. Obama looking for votes in every corner of the country he know he can't run on his record because he has none to run on.

The rate right-wingers are going at, pretty soon we will start naming battleships after corporations. USS IBM-The Exxon Aircraft Carrier. Sam Walton face will become the dollar bill, Bill Gates on the ten, David Koch on the twenty. At least I hope they put Oprah face on the quarter, making it the face African American face on a US currency.

Yes folks, their goal is to get rid of the damn government and privatize everything. Just that, when the Police Chief becomes a CEO of "Safe and Security Company" those speeding tickets will be tied to Wall Street expectations.

Brenda1964

My understanding was the magic number is 250,000

Brenda how can you even get involved in this conversation since you didn't even read the article? It clearly stated in the beginning that Obama wants the cut off at 200k. Anything you say after that is useless since you don't even know the numbers involved.

President Barack Obama tries to persuade Congress to raise income tax rates on people with incomes over $200,000

The 1% can tolerate higher taxes. They are the only group that is doing great in this economy. Funny how that works, since they caused it and all.

The right likes to call Obama the food stamp president but ignore the fact Obama hasn't done anything to make food stamps easier for the poor to get there's simply more poor after Bush's economic collapse. Don't they think 5 million or so losing their jobs in Bush's last 1/2 year had something to do with more on food stamps?

A wholesale tax increase is a NO-NO, even though Bush's tax cut for the rich is one of main culprits for the recession. Bush's tax cut is wrong, increasing tax gradually is a good idea.

but a better way would be - studying the tax codes and closing many corporate loopholes. There are too many unnecessary giveaways.

When the economy is back on track, it's time for tax increase, especially on those earning $200,000 or more.

Making the case for the Republicans, GOP Senate GOPP Whip Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona told Gregory, “We're not talking about giving tax cuts to anyone. All we're asking is don't raise taxes on all Americans, and especially don't raise taxes on the people who create the business. When you say that the high income earners, the top 20 percent, pay 90 percent of the taxes, what should they pay, 99 percent? These are the people who have enough money to invest in businesses and to create jobs.” The tax increase that Obama is proposing “falls directly on those job creators,” Kyl said.

Oh bull@!$%#. First of all, the wealthy are not the job creators. And to be fair, only 2% are going to pay higher taxes. Those 2% are not the center of growth or innovation or job creation; it's the bottom 99%. More accurately, it is the middle class. The wealthy do own the "fuel" of the economy, capital and investment assets, but without the engine (aka consumption), the economy cannot move. Secondly, we the American people cannot keep deluding ourselves that we can afford to have public education, social safety nets, and roads while cutting taxes down to 0. We have to accept that the days of lower taxes are OVER. We must tighten our belts and accept higher taxes and fewer benefits, unless the next generation is supposed to fend for themselves and thank their parents for the mess that they will inherit. And finally, we must all admit that these lower tax rates have come a a price: failing schools, crumbling roads, and abysmal economic performance. That is why, I advocate the repeal of ALL the Bush tax cuts, which would save about $4 trillion over the next decade, and reform the tax code, but keep rates the same or higher. We will devote the majority of the savings of that and further deficit reduction measures (entitlement reform, defense cuts) to paying the debt, and the rest to rebuilding our infrastructure, fixing our schools, overhauling healthcare, and investing in things like green energy and research and development.

lulu98

The estate that my husband and I have accumulated after starting with nothing does not need to be confiscated by the various governments. If the estate taxes increase I will spend every dime before I will let that happen.

The estate tax is roughly 45% for estates over $5 million. Unless you have that much, you won't pay any estate taxes. And by the way, go ahead and spend every dime of that money; not only will you be depriving your heir(s)/heiress(es) of their inheritance, but you will also be depriving people of things like better roads, schools, or security. Not paying your taxes is unpatriotic; the main reason why the founding fathers started the revolution was because they had no say in what was being demanded of them in Parliament, not because they were being taxed.

theboys

So let's say they do raise the taxes on those making 200,000/250,000 and are able to collect another 80 billion. We are running deficits over 1 trillion and so that paltry amount won't help with the fiscal problem much at all. Add the other tax on the that same group mentioned in this article of 20 billion that comes to 100 billion. So less than 10 percent. The question is increasing taxes causes behavioral changes that are not factored into this assumption of taxes received.

But, if you take it quantitatively, the total tax increases would be about $1 trillion over the next decade. That is about 14% of our cumulative deficits over the same period, which is pretty good.

As an example, MD in 2009 started a millionaire's tax that failed to bring in revenue anticipated. Some say because there were less millionaires. Some say millionaires moved out of MD. Either way, the solution NOW for MD is to tax those making 100,000 more.

The problem with states doing that is that millionaires can move their money (and themselves) more easily than moving to another country.

So anybody on here posting to raise taxes on the rich beware that YOU will be next. Steny Hoyer, Min whip said that this past week. So the rich are first to get slammed and those of you that hate the successful rich can be so happy, but the middle class is next. Steny Hoyer acknowledged this to be true.

Well, I frankly don't care if I'm going to be taxed. I say repeal the Bush tax cuts for EVERYONE and raise taxes across the board, although gradually.

Keep in mind one other miserable truth. That SS tax credit everybody has been enjoying the past couple months of 4 percent will be reinstated next year as well. It was stupid to ever touch that contribution since at some point people get use to that extra money and when reinstated it will SLOW DOWN THE ECONOMY even more.

Funny how some conservatives wanted that tax credit to go back up to 6.2% while they bitched about 3.6 percentage points for wealthiest Americans...

The fiscal decisions by this administration have been gimmicks and short-term actions that are not addressing the long-term fiscal issues that are drowning us.

Look Obama named a commission. The democrats hated every suggestion. The republicans liked many of the suggestions and have offered some of their own. Just raising taxes isn't a solution.

First of all, the administration signed in $2.1 trillion in spending cuts, and offered to cut the deficit by $4 trillion with spending cuts and revenue increases, and entitlements may or may not have been in that deal. Secondly, that $4 trillion deal was BASED off of the Simpson Bowles commission, which urged Congress to cut spending AND raise taxes. Democrats had exceptions for the entitlement cuts, while Republicans balked at any new revenues. All the offerings that the GOP suggested were partisan and right-wing; not one of them was a serious offer to reduce the deficit in a fair and balanced manner.

I have spent 6 figures in the past 3 years to support a business, renovations, etc. that employed a lot of people. If my taxes go up, that will be less money I can use to keep supporting my community. This isn't rocket science.

Unfortunately, if you want to cut the debt, you have to raise taxes. Or else you're just gonna have to cut education, cut Medicare, cut social programs, and stick it to the little guy just to keep the damn tax cuts that ONLY benefit the wealthiest Americans. That is class warfare, and the right has been waging it for 30 years.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

True Patriot you are full of it! Name the tax loopholes small businesses get! You can't because you don't have a clue. I own a "small business" and there is only 1 tax incentive I ever received. I've have used 3 of the top 40 accounting firms in this country and if these gazillion" loopholes existed I think I'd know about them Just more penis envy from someone who wants to blame someone else for their failures!

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Some time ago I read that Obama decided to change the way corporations were taxed. Originally, if located in another country they would pay that country's rate and the difference between the USA rate and the other country would be paid to the USA. I understand Obama changed that to allowing offshore corporations to only pay their hosting countries tax rate and forget about ours.

We are in for a world of hurt. I think we should just let those corporations (too big to fail) leave and not let the door hit them on their backside. Yes there would be a couple years of hurt while we rebuild our country but at least it would be OUR country. These too big to fail companies hamper development and innovation due to economies of scale. No one has any viable idea how to fix the mess we are in. We all know we can rebuild, invent, and grow because we have already proven we can. Do we hurt and come out no better on the other side or get rid of the corporations and hurt, knowing we can come out on the other side with something more?

If corporations are people too, then tax the corporations as you tax the people.

DB Akron

Larry

Hell yes raise the taxes back to the 2001 level. The whole country started falling apart after the Bush tax cuts

Larry, Larry, Larry. The economy started falling apart in June 2000. Experts agree that the US headed into a recession that month, and 6 months later, in January 2001 unemployment began to rise. The bush Tax cuts were approved in mid October and did not take effect until January 1 2002. Funny how Obama gets a Stimulus passed in 2 or 3 months and tax cuts take 9 months to get an real spending cuts never seem to happen.

That's because economists (and politicians, at least before the Teapublican Revolution) for the most part agree that spending money on stimulus helps the economy. There is more uncertainty about the effect of tax cuts, though. And in 2001, the Bush tax cuts only passed when Dick Cheney overcame the 50-50 vote. It takes a while to fix the tax laws, since everyone pays at a fixed date.

Unemployment peaked in June 2003 - 18 months later. Unemployment began to drop. Revenues also began to climb as people became employed crating 3 of the highest increases in revenue in history. That is three of the highest revenue increase done by cutting taxes, NOT RAISING THEM!

Oh bull@!$%#. Revenues increased because the economy "recovered." I put that in quotes because the real reason our economy got out of the 2001 recession was because of the housing bubble, which created construction and service jobs, boosting employment and thus government revenues. Tax cuts had a negligible effect on the recovery; ask the Tax Policy Center. And by the way, Reagan increased taxes in 1982, the biggest tax hike of that era, which increased revenues by 1% of GDP. If you really wanted to see if revenues increased, check revenues to GDP, since that takes out inflation. We only got close to 18% (the 50-year average) because of the housing bubble, and only near 2007.

The crash wasn't anything to do with Taxes or spending. It was about giving mortgages to people who didn't really qualify, at the blessing of Congress. This inflated home prices causing banks to lend more than they could have otherwise. When the foreclosures hit the market the housing prices collapsed. When prices collapsed, that made the banks insolvent an other investors who buy loans as securities either bankrupt greatly devalued.

Not quite. The economy collapsed in part because of the housing collapse, but only because we had lax regulations when it came to securities. Banks were able to give subprime mortgages to people who couldn't afford it, cheating them out, and with their balance sheets already heavily leverage thanks to 30 years of financial deregulation, they couldn't handle the bubble burst. That, combined with other risky bets made by the financial industry (via "shadow banks" and the combinations of investment and commercial banks) blew up the economy, causing a credit crunch. Businesses like Mervyns and Circuit City folded due to a lack of credit and large loss of customers, who had massive consumer debts thanks to stagnate wages and were unable to spend more money. People were laid off, businesses collapsed or restructured, all because of lax regulation. But theoretically, the Bush tax cuts (and the past 30 years of trickle-down economic policies) increased income inequality and (thanks to corporations firing workers thanks to anti-union government policies) a lack of rising wages, forcing consumers to borrow instead of save and racking up huge debts.

This wasn't Bush's policy, it was politically correct goverments meddling in society.

Actually, it was trickle-down economic policy that did us in.

The problem today is too many people are broke to spend, and business won't spend unless they are pretty certain they will see a profit. Some would like to spend, but Obama may have offered reduced interest an paper work to apply for loans, but raised requirements on bank loan to asset values and increased downpayments making business getting loans when the need them more difficult.

Yes, the lack of financially solvent people has a huge impact on the economy. However, we don't need to bow to the interests of the businesses and enact "pro-growth" policies like tax cuts and deregulation; we could easily pump billions of dollars into the economy via investments in infrastructure, expanding unemployment benefits, and giving states grants to use to hire more public-sector workers. Spending is a much more guaranteed way to stimulate the economy, and doing that can create millions of jobs, drastically increasing demand and causing businesses to invest more, regardless of the regulatory situation or of uncertainty. Enough with this uncertainty crap; when the private sector cannot or will not spend, the government should. That is how you fix an economy. And the notion of "easy credit" caused this economy to collapse. Tightening credit to those who can afford to accept or give it is a good way to protect the system.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

Freedom should be balanced by equality, that is justice -

yeah, Americans have the freedom to make as much money we want, but there are other goals in political life, such as the basic sense of fairness.

Bush's tax cut for the rich is not fair.

The money many have earned is often not just an indication of your hard work, it's also government policy that favors you, such as rebates and other subsidies government gives you for you to have incentives to work in your area.

The government should also support others too, then there is a conflict in using tax money. Government should be fair, should not just favor one over the other, should take care of ALL.

Don't they think 5 million or so losing their jobs in Bush's last 1/2 year had something to do with more on food stamps?

But if it were truly Bush's policies that caused five million job losses in the last six months of his presidency wouldn't we have seen job losses the entire eight years Bush was in office? More and more I'm buying into the theory that says the impending election of Obama caused those 5 million job losses. It would also explain why Obama has been unable to fix the problem in spite of spending trillions - Obama can't fix the problem because he is the problem....

reshiee - two questions. First, what happens when we run out of borrowed money to "invest in infrastructure" and all those people lose their jobs (kind of like what is happening now at the state and local levels)?

Second - if the "recovery" you spoke about during the Bush first term was a "bubble" in housing, why does the President want to again favor home owners over renters, and want to make it easier for people to "revalue" their homes, and "invest (borrow) more money to "stimulate" the housing and construction market? Seems that as you point out, this is a failed strategy and one that we know will not work, but will produce another "bubble" for the next President and Congress to have to deal with?

This is what I don't get about liberals. They think the money pot is endless, and that any borrowing is good as long as you call it "investment". Foodstamps aren't an investment. Neither are government jobs.

We tried government stimulus, and it was an utter failure. Obama's own projections showed that his $800 billion stimulus would result in unemployment dropping to 5.7% by 2012. He also projected that he would cut the annual deficit in half. He has failed completely at both, so why in the world would anyone vote for more of the same?

He is a terrible President, a great guy if you want to insult your opponent, and a great fundraiser. As a leader and a President, by his own measure, he has failed.

"The new tax will collect $20 billion in revenues next year, increasing to nearly $40 billion a year by 2019." This say it all... how will this solve the 1+ Trillion dollar spending spree or government is on?

CuongDNguyen "@ ROY WILSON-336103 The top 1% make almost 80% total money in the US."

You're confused. The top 1% make about 19% of the income in the US, but pay about 37% of the income taxes. Here's a link;

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/11/top-1-earn-19-of-income-but-pay-37-of.html

TurdPatriot

Are you 13 or just irremediably dumb?

Hey "Truepatriot". couldn't be a more inappropriate name

To touchdown you say this: "We know you and other are paid trolls to "swoop and poop" in order to collapse free speech. STFU and go rape your own in the FOX Nation Big House. Pathetic!

Man you talk a big game but the reality is that you act like a complete intellectually sissy that can't defend the bs you spatter. So you resort to verbal diarrhea like just presented. I've never seen anyone on this vine cry and whine as much as you and then you've got the [lack of balls] to demand that people leave this site because boo frickin hoo, you don't wike what their sayin'. What's the matter True traitor, can't hang with legitimate opposition? This is the only place you can hang out because your liberal intellect leaves you with nothing in the way of an argument anywhere else. Then when presented with opposition you cry a river of wimpiness and start screaming for people to leave. You're funny as hell. Half the posts you put up here are demanding that people leave the vine.

There are more liberal insiders on this vine than most can count but we (the right, not the left or wrong) will take them on whether their paid sheep like Fiesty or whether their just simpleton targets like you. But you can't handle any of it. Waaaah, waaaah, wahhhh, goes the truepatriot, waaahhhh, wahhhh, wahhhh, is the tyranal/liberal theme song. How sad and comical at the same time, how entertaining and really hard to watch at the same time.

Maybe if we're lucky the Koch brothers will put all of us right people on the payroll, then we can all make a little money for something we love to do like intellectually smash the crap out of sheep/tyranals like you. Then hopefully the Koch brothers will hand Romney a check for 5 or 6 billion dollars so he can literally buy the entire voting process, he can offer everyone that votes for him 5k and we will dance with glee as the never good, never great barack hussein goes down in massive defeat. You guys just keep on crying and whining about someone making millions by legitimate means, or about bad old opposers to barack stating their positions on your precious liberal forum...you just keep on waaaaahh, wahhhh, waaahhhhing and we'll keep laughing at your antics and kicking your but in debate every time.

Go ahead true-un-patriot...tell someone else to STFU! But first take the frickin baby bottle out of your lips and man up, then maybe your bull crap threats will be taken seriously. Don't forget to have someone change your diaper too though, becuase you are really bringing a foul odor with you wherever you show up. Way to represent the ball-less nature of your party. Nice representing how little your side has to defend itself with. Oh by the way, liberalism is un-American and your side is wrong. Have fun watching Teletubbies.

Gotta love the idiocy that continues to come out of D.C. these days. It's always good for a laugh.

Also gotta love the idiocy of the mindless drones that keep repeating "The rich need to pay their fair share". Tell me something children, what EXACTLY constitutes "their fair share" hmmmm? Do you have a number in mind? How did you come up with that number? What exactly makes that number fair anway?

Oh, that's right. You don't have any answers to those questions...because the simple truth is there aren't any. It's bs that you parrots regurgitate from the media talking heads and other assorted fools who don't have better idea than you do about what "fair" is.

When you specifically target a single group and only a single group, that is called discrimination children. It also happens to be considered immoral...unless you're rich I guess. They don't count right? They don't have the same rights that you do because they're all bad people right?

What a bunch of hypocritical, mindless children so many have become in this country. So quick to judgement, so quick to howl in outrage...and so terribly, terribly slow to actually stop and THINK!! Taking more money from the rich won't solve this problem. It's way too big for that. You'd know that if you had better critical thinking skills than elementary school kids do.

Grow up.

Taking more money from the rich won't solve this problem. It's way too big for that. You'd know that if you had better critical thinking skills than elementary school kids do.

No one said it was going to solve the deficit problem. But it will certainty help. We have to cut spending and raise revenues to fix the deficits.

As to your fair spiel, I think the 1% paying at least the same rate as the middle class is fair. Most rich people do not make their money through income, so it is not taxed at the high rate. Instead they only have pay capital gains taxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_United_States
Get some critical thinking skills and learn to do your own research ;)

Those who have benefitted most from the system should contribute more to the system so that the system can have enough capital to provide more benefits to others as well.

When we all live a good life, that is best for the country. When just Mitt the Vulture has made most of the money and move the money to the Bermuda and Cayman Islands, that's wrong and should be ended.

Rightwingwac

Whew! You said almost everything I wanted to say to MR. I Am A Weird Patriot. But wasting my breath in a nut ball is not something I cared to do. I actually can not help myself from just reading the intellectual spew from that big 'ol egg brain and chuckle. But then I stop and think. That crap isn't funny at all. That kind of thought is why we are in a pinch. But Mr. I Am A Weird Patriot, or know it all has all the answers.

I sure is hard not to laugh. Funny how STFU and name calling comes from the Libbies who are the "compassionate, understanding and tolerant" crowd break to the juvenile name calling if they don't agree.

So thanks for your eloquent response to the so called "Patriot".

LMAO was all the response he deserved. IMHO.

I will not respond to any of his posts again. I don't debate knuckleheads.

I am sure Mr. I Am A Weird Patriot would not place his life, honor or fortune on the table for the price of Liberty. The concept is foreign to men like that. Oops I said men.

Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.

a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Supreme Court Justice

Pigotry,

I am quite sure you only quote Supreme Court Justices that you agree with. The other decisions... not so much.

The Wizard of Wisdom

Gotta love the idiocy that continues to come out of D.C. these days. It's always good for a laugh.

Also gotta love the idiocy of the mindless drones that keep repeating "The rich need to pay their fair share". Tell me something children, what EXACTLY constitutes "their fair share" hmmmm? Do you have a number in mind? How did you come up with that number? What exactly makes that number fair anway?

Here are some numbers:

Income level Marginal tax rate Minimum Effective tax rate

<$25,000 8.0% 4.8%
>$40,000 12.0% 7.2%
>$75,000 18.0% 13.5%
>$120,000 24.0% 19.2%
>$180,000 27.0% 23.1%
>$225,000 33.0% 26.4%
>$280,000 39.6% 33.0%
>$350,000 45.0% 37.5%
>$1 million 54.0% 42.0%
>$15 million 63.0% 49.0%
>$30 million 70.0% 56.0%
>$50 million 76.0% 65.5%

Capital Gains
Everybody 24.0% 24.0%

Dividends
Everybody 24.0% 24.0%

Estate tax
>$1 million 55.0% 55.0%

Corporate
Everybody 28.0% 21.0%

Gift
>$15,000 42.0% 42.0%

Read 'em and weep.

MisterWonderful

Freshiee - two questions. First, what happens when we run out of borrowed money to "invest in infrastructure" and all those people lose their jobs (kind of like what is happening now at the state and local levels)?

Well, first of all, I wouldn't fund investments in infrastructure or education with borrowed money. I'd raise a 5% VAT on a broad range of goods, paying for a ten year, $2 trillion infrastructure project with about $320 billion to spare, which ought to be spent on education reform. Secondly, for the near term (and as long as the economy is in trouble), people will trust in U.S. Treasury bonds. Yields and interest rates for government debt bonds are at record lows; in the short term, they are even negative. Yes, we need to deal with the deficit, but in doing so we must invest money to fix the economy, or we will always have a deficit.

Second - if the "recovery" you spoke about during the Bush first term was a "bubble" in housing, why does the President want to again favor home owners over renters, and want to make it easier for people to "revalue" their homes, and "invest (borrow) more money to "stimulate" the housing and construction market? Seems that as you point out, this is a failed strategy and one that we know will not work, but will produce another "bubble" for the next President and Congress to have to deal with?

Well, the proposals that the President has made would only be temporary; after the housing market recovers, normal regulations will be reinstated (and I hope more will be added to the financial sector). Essentially, the thing (in my opinion) that caused the housing bubble was too much investment, probably because of lax regulation which caused previously junk-rated mortgages to be offered, sold, and resold to investors and mortgage owners alike.

This is what I don't get about liberals. They think the money pot is endless, and that any borrowing is good as long as you call it "investment". Foodstamps aren't an investment. Neither are government jobs.

The money pot is endless, at least in the long term. We liberals are more fiscally responsible than you think. We aren't much for large defense expenditures, although I myself like a strong military. We would rather have all the money that we spend on tax cuts and defense to go to more productive things, like education, improving roads, or better social safety programs. Food stamps, in good years are an investment, as they insure Americans from the prospect of financial collapse. In bad years, they are expenditures; using the system that we invested in to fulfill it's purpose. Government jobs, such as teachers, firefighters, nurses, etc, are indeed an investment in a healthier, secure, and better educated society. The government workers you think of, like accountants and "bureaucrats," help fill the paperwork. Contrary to what you might think, the government is not bloated. The current size is much smaller that what it was in the 1960s, even though our population is nearly twice as large; to help the economy, we probably ought to hire more workers, not less, and then lay them off when the labor market is in need of more workers or at least when it has recovered. It is amazing how you conservatives tend to think that the money pot should be as small as possible and that most of that money should be either sent to the military, to defense, or refunded as "tax relief."

We tried government stimulus, and it was an utter failure. Obama's own projections showed that his $800 billion stimulus would result in unemployment dropping to 5.7% by 2012. He also projected that he would cut the annual deficit in half. He has failed completely at both, so why in the world would anyone vote for more of the same?

What you fail to realize, possibly in your ideological view (as I do, as a liberal), is that the stimulus did succeed. However, it was too small. You try fixing a $3 trillion hole with only $787 billion. Plus a third of it was in tax cuts, which don't always work. The stimulus was like an explosion; big, but quick to end. What we need is stimulus over a longer period of time; as long as it takes to get unemployment down to at least 5%.

He is a terrible President, a great guy if you want to insult your opponent, and a great fundraiser. As a leader and a President, by his own measure, he has failed.

Not really. He repealed DADT, got the economy on the right track, reformed the credit card industry, regulated the financial industry, and did something no president has been able to do for decades; reform our inefficient and expensive healthcare system. That, by anyone's measure, is successful.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

Taxes are the what??? Please. You do realize that you work for the government six months out of the year. That's right, you, you little taxpayer, are a wage slave to the government. Think of all the wonderful stuff your taxes go to. Think the government is spending your money wisely? Really? Think you could do a better job of spending your money or are you so inept that you need a big nanny to take care of you.

Guess you enjoyed all your tax money going to bail out banks and insurance companies, right? No? But who gave the bailout using tax money that you earned? Ah, but you want to whine about the money going to wars? Who starts the wars? You?

It is beyond astonishing to see the little liberals on the one hand whine and whinge away about the evil rich. Demand that those rotten bastards pay their 'fair' share so that the money will go where? Into the government coffers, the same coffers that pay for wars and bailouts. Tsk. I am convinced that those of the liberal persuasion are not capable of thinking beyond sound bites that are fed to them so they can regurgitiate them. Remember, every nickel the government takes from you is a nickel they can spend on a war.

Why not, he passed one of the larges tax increases on the middle class already. I guess it's only fair that the wealthy pay more as well.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/06/29/obamacare-raises-taxes-on-3-million-middle-class-americans/

None of it really matters anyway the current government will continue to spend at a rate that our taxes will never keep up with.

You will pay more taxes and you will like it. Gone are the days when there were honest qualified people that if elected today would have about a 50/50 chance to fix the current problem (as opposed to Obama who has a zero chance). They won't work for pennies.

All you have today are dishonest, smooth talking, kickback taking politicians who if you believe give a rats @ss about the economy and your problems, I have some oceanfront property to sell you in Arizona.

That is what we deserve for using fractional reserve banking and quantitative easing to artificially expand our money supply until it is worth nothing.

No one cares anyway because everybody (in Washington) is already bought and paid for, so here we go.

@Freshieee, first of all you had a great post. It is refreshing to see someone post intelligently instead of just hurling mindless insults. Gives me hope that we can pull through this after all. Although I think it was a great post, I do have some disagreements with it.

Well, first of all, I wouldn't fund investments in infrastructure or education with borrowed money. I'd raise a 5% VAT on a broad range of goods, paying for a ten year, $2 trillion infrastructure project with about $320 billion to spare, which ought to be spent on education reform.

One of the better proposals I have heard, but I do have to point out this really is another tax that will hit the middle class and neither side is willing to do that so I wouldn't count on that happening anytime soon.

Yes, we need to deal with the deficit, but in doing so we must invest money to fix the economy, or we will always have a deficit.

I'm not sure the government can ever truly "fix" the economy. Usually every attempt to do so leaves us with a bigger long term problem.

Well, the proposals that the President has made would only be temporary; after the housing market recovers, normal regulations will be reinstated (and I hope more will be added to the financial sector). Essentially, the thing (in my opinion) that caused the housing bubble was too much investment, probably because of lax regulation which caused previously junk-rated mortgages to be offered, sold, and resold to investors and mortgage owners alike.

I'm not sure the proposals would really be only temporary; the pressure to leave them in place will always be there. The best thing we could do is let housing fall to its real value.

The money pot is endless, at least in the long term. We liberals are more fiscally responsible than you think.

No, the money pot is never endless and any attempt to make it so will lead to inflation at best and hyperinflation at worst.

We aren't much for large defense expenditures, although I myself like a strong military. We would rather have all the money that we spend on tax cuts and defense to go to more productive things, like education, improving roads, or better social safety programs.

Defense is one of the primary roles of the Federal government and the Federal government is what this article is about. Roads and education are better left to the states, as are social safety programs.

Food stamps, in good years are an investment, as they insure Americans from the prospect of financial collapse. In bad years, they are expenditures; using the system that we invested in to fulfill it's purpose.

I will agree with that as long as the expenditures are temporary. Unfortunately we have created a permanent class of non-productive citizens and that is definitely a problem.

Government jobs, such as teachers, firefighters, nurses, etc, are indeed an investment in a healthier, secure, and better educated society.

But all of those are provided by the state government, not the Federal government.

The government workers you think of, like accountants and "bureaucrats," help fill the paperwork. Contrary to what you might think, the government is not bloated. The current size is much smaller that what it was in the 1960s, even though our population is nearly twice as large; to help the economy, we probably ought to hire more workers, not less, and then lay them off when the labor market is in need of more workers or at least when it has recovered.

I think the bureaucracy as a whole has grown far more than you think it has. The numbers are misleading because the government is relying on contractors now. With modern technology the bureaucracy should be smaller, but most of the reduction in government workforce came from the military (they could afford a large military in the 60's because they had the draft so those "workers" were paid little better than slaves).

It is amazing how you conservatives tend to think that the money pot should be as small as possible and that most of that money should be either sent to the military, to defense, or refunded as "tax relief."

Again, defense is the proper role of the Federal government and beyond that I see no reason the money pot should not be as small as possible.

What you fail to realize, possibly in your ideological view (as I do, as a liberal), is that the stimulus did succeed. However, it was too small. You try fixing a $3 trillion hole with only $787 billion. Plus a third of it was in tax cuts, which don't always work. The stimulus was like an explosion; big, but quick to end. What we need is stimulus over a longer period of time; as long as it takes to get unemployment down to at least 5%.

That argument is getting old. The idea that the government should get a country out of recession with a stimulus package came from Keynes back in the 30's and it has repeatedly failed. It's proponents always argue the stimulus was too small but frankly if we can spend a few trillion and not have an impact then maybe it is time to ditch the entire idea. I can think of no example where a stimulus worked as advertised. If you have any historical examples where it did work, I would love to read them.

Not really. He repealed DADT,

Not all of us think that was a great idea.

got the economy on the right track,

Not really, the economy is in trouble and we all know it.

reformed the credit card industry, regulated the financial industry,

I'm not aware of any meaningful reform, although I have seen every president put a few band aids on the system. Do you have any references for the reform you are speaking of?

and did something no president has been able to do for decades; reform our inefficient and expensive healthcare system. That, by anyone's measure, is successful.

The "reform" you are talking about made the system even more expensive and did nothing to reform the cost. We will wait a few years to see if it really makes it more efficient, but I honestly don't see how the law we passed will do anything other than breaking the system some more.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

I hope not, I'm not sure we can afford it (though I'm not sure if we can afford Romney either).

Again, great post even though I disagree with most of it.

Rightwingwac (#1.90)

The Wizard of Wisdom (#1.91)

Excellent posts. Unfortunately they will fall on deaf ears here in Liberal/Progressive La La Land. You have to realize the Liberal mind is not based on reality or facts, it’s based on indoctrinated emotions. It is their bleeding-heart feel-good beliefs that confuse them. Rarely will you hear any well thought out arguments from the Left. Just listen to the Sunday News programs to see the desperate repetition of the programmed prose from the DNC and the White House.

Whenever the recovery is challenged you can predict the canned responses literally word for word. “We were hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month (this of course only happened in one month), we saved the economy from going over the cliff (amusingly this is promoted by the same “economists” who never saw or predicted the dot-com or housing/bank illiquidity crisis coming), we have saved or created 4.4 million jobs (maybe, and if they did, the majority are in the low-wage sectors of retail, social services and hospitality, and if you really want to squelch that argument just point out that each one of those jobs cost us $200,000 to create, not a good ROI)”.

The Liberal mind is consumed by the conspiracy that somehow the rich (read Republicans) have created a $16 trillion National Debt, $120 trillion in Unfunded Liabilities and we might as well throw in the $4 trillion shortfall in State unfunded pensions that I’m sure they’ll never blame the revered unions with. They monotonously repeat that some bogeyman creates unfair (we’ll get to the “fairness nonsense in a little bit) taxes and some mysterious deregulations caused all our problems.

They blame our criminal progressive tax system but they never want to really “change” it. This is one of those “fairness” issues. Instead they come up with some convoluted 17 step mind-numbing system (see above) and actually believe it will help. Of course this is further simplified by ridding the system of those mean tax loopholes. They never realize that regardless of tax rates, total tax receipts have remained at 18.3% of GDP and total income tax receipts have stayed at about 8.6% of GDP. What this means is that regardless of our tax rates our government collects the same range of revenues. Even when our upper tax bracket was 94% revenue has stayed the same as a percentage of GDP.

This brings us to the tax code. Our tax code is about 72,000 pages long with over 1,200 different forms. It is NOT a static entity, it is a living, breathing, changing system. Between 1986 and 2005 Congress passed over 14,400 amendments to the tax code, this equates to almost 3 changes every day for 19 straight years. There have been about 4,400 tax code changes in the last 10 years. There were approximately 580 changes in 2010 alone. Why do we need so many changes to our tax code? WE DON’T. But the banks, corporations, rich and government do. This is where all those evil loopholes hide that the Liberals so despise, as should we all.

A loophole is an ambiguity in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the intent, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. An ambiguity. Now, who do you think recommends our criminals in government to create these “ambiguities”? The answer should be obvious. When tax codes are changed at the rate of 3 or more PER DAY there must be a reason. The lobbyists, Wall Street, banks and other external forces hire the most recent economics and math geeks from Harvard, MIT, Berkley and Wharton’s to manipulate this massive layer of bureaucracy to their advantage. We get Timmy “Turbo Tax” Geithner and uncle Ben Bernanke. There is nothing progressive about our tax code system. It’s a professional tax system designed by professional to be taken advantage of by professionals. Of course if you dare mention a Constitutionally amended Flat Tax or Fair tax, all the wannabe authorities start screaming it’s regressive but I guarantee you they have no idea what either system offers to make taxes more “fair”. The argument is always one of some convoluted social and economic justice belief. This is where the “fairness”, “level-playing-field” and other equality gibberish begin. The “feel good” mentality once again consumes them.

For all the rhetoric about “change” that the Liberal/Progressive ranks espoused so loudly in 2008 they don’t want to change anything. Don’t touch any of their sacrosanct entitlements and social programs that consume 60% of our budget and are filled with massive waste, fraud, abuse and corruption. The screams become ear-piercing “I paid into it, I deserve my benefits”. Yet none of them realize that because of our governments typical fiscal malinvestments men will get $72,000 more than they paid into the Social Security “Trust Fund” and women will get $192,000 more. This is in large part why our Unfunded Liabilities skyrocket every year. The Ponzi scheme is broken and fraudulent but no one is allowed to try and fix it or grandma will fall off some mythical cliff. Don’t change the tax code into a more simple equal system, just jiggle the numbers around to make the successful and producers pay more.

This will do absolutely nothing to help our current economy collapsing but the Liberals will “feel better” about it. Let’s pass the Obama “Jobs Act” which is just a camouflaged Stimulus II. They exalt the $863 billion Stimulus of 2009 and as I pointed out above it didn’t and can’t work. The main reason is because regardless of how much money we pour into our economy via stimulus, quantitative easing or other useless manipulation we’ll never stimulate the economy. Not when we have a projected $800 billion dollar trade deficit this year. All the money we “stimulate” the economy with will eventually be spent buying consumables from abroad and then what? Unless we create real long-term domestic exportable jobs that will bring new revenue into our treasury and our wallets we can stimulate the economy until we’re blue in the face. We’ve been running bigger and bigger deficits for over 30 years, until that stops no amount of stimulus or other Keynesian nonsense will help.

Now, the convoluted “fairness” train that Barrack Hussein is riding around on. This is typical deflection to avoid his pathetic performance here and abroad. As The Wizard of Wisdom stated, define “fair”. No one can ever define it let alone let it be the determining factor to repair our crumbling economy. As I always ask the Liberals, who is this mystical, unbiased, unprejudiced, altruistic, arbiter of “fairness”? The government? Barrack Hussein? You? Me? The Pope? Who is so pure and non-influential to determine what is fair?

NO ONE!

Once again the Liberals allow their decisions to be based on emotions rather than reality or facts. They believe that everything should be fair and equal. They demand a “living wage” but can never define it either. Does a living wage allow you to live in a 900 square foot apartment or a 3,000 square foot Tudor in the suburbs? Does it allow you to buy a Lexus or a Taurus? Does it allow you to go to a state college or Harvard? Does it allow you to go on a vacation camping up north or a 2 week cruise in the Caribbean? The Liberal mind can’t grasp common-sense, just feel-good emotions. Barrack Hussein decides to order that illegal aliens who are here for some ambiguous time frame be allowed to stay as citizens and benefit as all the legal citizens have because, “IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO”. Who decided this? Was there a vote? Is there new legislation called the “It’s the right thing to do” Bill that Congress passed? No, it’s fair because Barrack Hussein has decided it so via executive order. Everyone knows this is just more pathetic pandering for votes. More feel-good governance regardless of the consequences. This is the same mentality that has created unsustainable entitlements, and social programs that often don’t do anything for the population they’re supposed to help.

One Hundred years of Progressivism has finally exposed itself as the failure many knew it would be. We have a blueprint for our government called the Constitution, but when Progressivism keeps trampling all over it so some people can “feel-good” or feel its “fair” we find our great Republic failing. It’s time to put a stop to Progressivisms destruction of our nation once and for all.

Romney 2012

brenda1964 #1.7,

"We had to spend in order to negate some of the bubble Bush tactics."

What about the derivatives disaster on WJC's watch ?

Take some time and watch the following:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/ .

Jim,

Wow, was that a fact filled articulate post I just read? Notice how you won't get any legitimate response from the usual suspects. I agree with the deaf ears statement but I actually find some entertainment in jumping into the lions (or in this case the pussycats) den and mentally tossing a few tyranals around. The brainwashed flock of barack is just that and can't nor won't ever be "saved" but there are a few people here and there that are opening their star-struck eyes. If any of them can be stirred it's worth it....Ahhhhahaha, no who am I kidding? No one on this vine is going to be swayed but it's just a riot to come in here and watch all of the uninformed but self important liberals self destruct.

I'm looking forward to late October when they will be pulling everything they've got out of their arses to try and convince themselves barack is still their messiah and will not be defeated. I hope (real hope, not baracks kind) that by then barack will start losing chunks of hair, looking a mengy dog. The stress in his face will be priceless.

Great informative post you placed there and ditto back at you. A whole lot of facts will present before blind eyes and snarled faces. But it's fun isn't it?

It is impossible to fix our problems through tax increases. Why people think this is a good idea is beyond me. This is liberal math at it's finest....so we would reduce the deficit by 7 trillion over ten years. How is it reducing the deficit if the defict would be growing by more than that over ten years? That would be like me making $50,000 more each year but racking up $200,000 a year in credit debt. I doubt any advisor woud say good job on reducing your debt.

People say that the to 1% aren't job creators. Do you realize that even if their money just sits in a savings account that those funds help back other loans made by banks? Every dollar you pull out and geto the government puts a strain on the liquidity on the markets and makes it mre difficult and expensive to do business. Guess you those costs get put on? Saying we could fix education is an even greater joke. Our system sucks it has little to do with money....we spend more per child on education than any other country in the world. But clearly if we throw more money at the problm it will fix it.

JimSpence

Rightwingwac (#1.90)

The Wizard of Wisdom (#1.91)

Excellent posts. Unfortunately they will fall on deaf ears here in Liberal/Progressive La La Land. You have to realize the Liberal mind is not based on reality or facts, it’s based on indoctrinated emotions. It is their bleeding-heart feel-good beliefs that confuse them. Rarely will you hear any well thought out arguments from the Left. Just listen to the Sunday News programs to see the desperate repetition of the programmed prose from the DNC and the White House.

Hmm, are these the same "evil progressive liberals" who begged Bush not to pass his tax cuts because most went to the wealthy and because they would blow a huge hole in our budget???

Whenever the recovery is challenged you can predict the canned responses literally word for word. “We were hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month (this of course only happened in one month), we saved the economy from going over the cliff (amusingly this is promoted by the same “economists” who never saw or predicted the dot-com or housing/bank illiquidity crisis coming), we have saved or created 4.4 million jobs (maybe, and if they did, the majority are in the low-wage sectors of retail, social services and hospitality, and if you really want to squelch that argument just point out that each one of those jobs cost us $200,000 to create, not a good ROI)”.

First of all, hundreds of thousands of those "low-service retail jobs" are actually manufacturing jobs, thanks in part to the auto bailout. Secondly, nobody on either side is debating whether the recovery is actually happening; what we are debating is how fast the recovery can go and how fast it is going. Third, I don't @!$%#ing care if the stimulus cost $200,000 for every job created/saved; as long as it got us out of the damn recession.

The Liberal mind is consumed by the conspiracy that somehow the rich (read Republicans) have created a $16 trillion National Debt, $120 trillion in Unfunded Liabilities and we might as well throw in the $4 trillion shortfall in State unfunded pensions that I’m sure they’ll never blame the revered unions with. They monotonously repeat that some bogeyman creates unfair (we’ll get to the “fairness nonsense in a little bit) taxes and some mysterious deregulations caused all our problems.

Actually, total unfunded liabilities of the government are about $64 trillion, and those are spread out over a 30-50 year period, or perhaps over the 75 year period. Secondly, the state unfunded pensions were the result of gaming by government officials to offer a larger increase in benefits than the economy would allow and not funding them adequately. Third, around $6 trillion of the debt was caused by the irresponsible fiscal policies of the Bush administration (whom Romney would love to emulate), and another $4 trillion were caused by the RECESSION; via stimulus, increased social safety net spending and declined revenues. And in case you haven't noticed, the top 1% of Americans control 21% of ALL income earned in the US. How in God's name is that fair???

They blame our criminal progressive tax system but they never want to really “change” it. This is one of those “fairness” issues. Instead they come up with some convoluted 17 step mind-numbing system (see above) and actually believe it will help. Of course this is further simplified by ridding the system of those mean tax loopholes. They never realize that regardless of tax rates, total tax receipts have remained at 18.3% of GDP and total income tax receipts have stayed at about 8.6% of GDP. What this means is that regardless of our tax rates our government collects the same range of revenues. Even when our upper tax bracket was 94% revenue has stayed the same as a percentage of GDP.

What you fail to realize is that the 18% number is the average. Revenues went higher and lower under various circumstances, but they averaged at about that amount. Tax rates could, theoretically, rise higher and we could gain more income; according to the CBO, if the fiscal cliff is allowed to happen, revenues will rise to 23% of GDP somewhere around 2020, which is an anomaly.

This brings us to the tax code. Our tax code is about 72,000 pages long with over 1,200 different forms. It is NOT a static entity, it is a living, breathing, changing system. Between 1986 and 2005 Congress passed over 14,400 amendments to the tax code, this equates to almost 3 changes every day for 19 straight years. There have been about 4,400 tax code changes in the last 10 years. There were approximately 580 changes in 2010 alone. Why do we need so many changes to our tax code? WE DON’T. But the banks, corporations, rich and government do. This is where all those evil loopholes hide that the Liberals so despise, as should we all.

Yes, our tax code gets complicated and ought to be simplified, and it does have numerous special interest-inspired loopholes stuffed inside it. But the tax code always gets cluttered over time; that's why we need tax reform every few decades.

A loophole is an ambiguity in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the intent, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. An ambiguity. Now, who do you think recommends our criminals in government to create these “ambiguities”? The answer should be obvious. When tax codes are changed at the rate of 3 or more PER DAY there must be a reason. The lobbyists, Wall Street, banks and other external forces hire the most recent economics and math geeks from Harvard, MIT, Berkley and Wharton’s to manipulate this massive layer of bureaucracy to their advantage. We get Timmy “Turbo Tax” Geithner and uncle Ben Bernanke. There is nothing progressive about our tax code system. It’s a professional tax system designed by professional to be taken advantage of by professionals.

While I agree to most of what you just posted, I have to point out that Timothy Geithner hasn't raised any major taxes.

Of course if you dare mention a Constitutionally amended Flat Tax or Fair tax, all the wannabe authorities start screaming it’s regressive but I guarantee you they have no idea what either system offers to make taxes more “fair”. The argument is always one of some convoluted social and economic justice belief. This is where the “fairness”, “level-playing-field” and other equality gibberish begin. The “feel good” mentality once again consumes them.

The flat tax and the "Fair tax" are regressive and you know it. The impact of the tax increases the further down the income scale. Tell me, what sounds like more proportionately; 10% of $50,000, or 10% of $500,000??? Finally, the "fair" argument that you state basically demands that people ought to pay from their ability; those that can pay more ought to. And by the way, if you wanted to institute a flat tax, you have to either give the lower classes a major tax hike or the wealthy a major tax cut in order to balance the budget.

For all the rhetoric about “change” that the Liberal/Progressive ranks espoused so loudly in 2008 they don’t want to change anything. Don’t touch any of their sacrosanct entitlements and social programs that consume 60% of our budget and are filled with massive waste, fraud, abuse and corruption. The screams become ear-piercing “I paid into it, I deserve my benefits”. Yet none of them realize that because of our governments typical fiscal malinvestments men will get $72,000 more than they paid into the Social Security “Trust Fund” and women will get $192,000 more. This is in large part why our Unfunded Liabilities skyrocket every year. The Ponzi scheme is broken and fraudulent but no one is allowed to try and fix it or grandma will fall off some mythical cliff. Don’t change the tax code into a more simple equal system, just jiggle the numbers around to make the successful and producers pay more.

First of all, I'd like to see your sources on the size and the amount of fraud in entitlements (particularly Social Security). Secondly, I am in full favor of reforming Social Security; I even have a plan for it. Raise the payroll tax to 14.4%; preserve the estate tax on $3.5 million estates; raise the cap to 90% of earnings, adjust COLA. That would save Social Security, and then I would apply similar measures to Medicare. And by the way, what is an "equal tax code???" You conservatives always like to use it on us liberals, so I think it's time to turn the tables and see your response.

This will do absolutely nothing to help our current economy collapsing but the Liberals will “feel better” about it. Let’s pass the Obama “Jobs Act” which is just a camouflaged Stimulus II. They exalt the $863 billion Stimulus of 2009 and as I pointed out above it didn’t and can’t work. The main reason is because regardless of how much money we pour into our economy via stimulus, quantitative easing or other useless manipulation we’ll never stimulate the economy. Not when we have a projected $800 billion dollar trade deficit this year. All the money we “stimulate” the economy with will eventually be spent buying consumables from abroad and then what? Unless we create real long-term domestic exportable jobs that will bring new revenue into our treasury and our wallets we can stimulate the economy until we’re blue in the face. We’ve been running bigger and bigger deficits for over 30 years, until that stops no amount of stimulus or other Keynesian nonsense will help.

You fail to realize that we spent our way out of the Great Depression, first of all. Secondly, even though a lot of outsourcing has occurred, numerous things are still produced in this country, like automobiles. That is where consumer spending goes. The government spends $2 trillion on infrastructure over a decade; according to the multiplier effect, that puts $2.38 trillion into the economy over the next decade; $238 billion a year, boosting GDP by (in 2012 terms) almost 1.6%. That would create roughly 5 million new jobs alone, not to mention the effects of boosted demand. That would greatly help our economy.

One Hundred years of Progressivism has finally exposed itself as the failure many knew it would be. We have a blueprint for our government called the Constitution, but when Progressivism keeps trampling all over it so some people can “feel-good” or feel its “fair” we find our great Republic failing. It’s time to put a stop to Progressivisms destruction of our nation once and for all.

Romney 2012

The Progressive movement lifted millions out of poverty, including numerous seniors and low-class Americans. It helped establish the dominance of the middle class, the work week, and the minimum wage. It created the largest economic boom in U.S. history (late 1940s to late 1970s). It helped make us the greatest country on earth. Romney will do nothing to help the debt; he'd just make it worse, with all his tax cuts and defense increases. And since when do tax cuts for the wealthy help the economy?? Or deregulating the financial industry????

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

The money pot is endless, at least in the long term. We liberals are more fiscally responsible than you think.

No, the money pot is never endless and any attempt to make it so will lead to inflation at best and hyperinflation at worst.

Well, what I meant by that is that the money pot (by which I mean taxable income) will grow due to economic growth. I did not mean the money supply, which is a different matter. As the economy expands, so will tax revenue, enabling us to spend money on the things we need to spend on.

We aren't much for large defense expenditures, although I myself like a strong military. We would rather have all the money that we spend on tax cuts and defense to go to more productive things, like education, improving roads, or better social safety programs.

Defense is one of the primary roles of the Federal government and the Federal government is what this article is about. Roads and education are better left to the states, as are social safety programs.

Actually, I don't trust the states with social safety programs or infrastructure, much less education. Take my home state of California, for example. Due to the recession's impact on the budget (and, I hate to admit, our extremely generous welfare system), we had to lay off tens of thousands of teachers even as the population grew. States are, in my opinion, too volatile fiscally to leave big things to them. They ought to have some control over infrastructure and education, but I believe that at least 50% of the control and most of the cost should come from the government. States always have to balance their budgets due to their balanced budget amendments, which I oppose only because that forces states to lay off people and cut education and other programs during a recession, when logic dictates that you should be hiring people, not firing them. The federal government, on the other hand, is a bit more stable.

Food stamps, in good years are an investment, as they insure Americans from the prospect of financial collapse. In bad years, they are expenditures; using the system that we invested in to fulfill it's purpose.

I will agree with that as long as the expenditures are temporary. Unfortunately we have created a permanent class of non-productive citizens and that is definitely a problem.

Well, the only reason why a lot of people are on welfare is because of the recession's impact on finances and on employment. I don't think we have a huge class of non-productive citizens; technically, over 40% of Americans are working or looking for work. In a good year, it would be around 50%. So I wouldn't say that we have a welfare class.

Government jobs, such as teachers, firefighters, nurses, etc, are indeed an investment in a healthier, secure, and better educated society.

But all of those are provided by the state government, not the Federal government.

Well, not necessarily. VA doctors and nurses are hired by the feds, while teachers, firefighters, and other civil workers are partially funded by federal aid to states, and the federal investments in education.

The government workers you think of, like accountants and "bureaucrats," help fill the paperwork. Contrary to what you might think, the government is not bloated. The current size is much smaller that what it was in the 1960s, even though our population is nearly twice as large; to help the economy, we probably ought to hire more workers, not less, and then lay them off when the labor market is in need of more workers or at least when it has recovered.

I think the bureaucracy as a whole has grown far more than you think it has. The numbers are misleading because the government is relying on contractors now. With modern technology the bureaucracy should be smaller, but most of the reduction in government workforce came from the military (they could afford a large military in the 60's because they had the draft so those "workers" were paid little better than slaves).

I'll agree on that, but I don't believe that we should be firing people, or decreasing employment. We should be hiring people, preferably the unemployed and the underemployed, in infrastructure projects and other programs, at least unemployment goes below 5% and the labor market loosens.

It is amazing how you conservatives tend to think that the money pot should be as small as possible and that most of that money should be either sent to the military, to defense, or refunded as "tax relief."

Again, defense is the proper role of the Federal government and beyond that I see no reason the money pot should not be as small as possible.

Well, I don't think that the money pot should be 50% of GDP, but I don't think that taxes should be lowered at every opportunity. They have to remain stable, essentially preventing either over-taxation (which conservatives tend to focus on) and under-taxation (which liberals focus on), so that everybody contributes and so that we can fund essential programs.

What you fail to realize, possibly in your ideological view (as I do, as a liberal), is that the stimulusdid succeed. However, it was too small. You try fixing a $3 trillion hole with only $787 billion. Plus a third of it was in tax cuts, which don't always work. The stimulus was like an explosion; big, but quick to end. What we need is stimulus over a longer period of time; as long as it takes to get unemployment down to at least 5%.

That argument is getting old. The idea that the government should get a country out of recession with a stimulus package came from Keynes back in the 30's and it has repeatedly failed. It's proponents always argue the stimulus was too small but frankly if we can spend a few trillion and not have an impact then maybe it is time to ditch the entire idea. I can think of no example where a stimulus worked as advertised. If you have any historical examples where it did work, I would love to read them.

As Keynesian economics was only implemented once on a major scale, I can only give you one example, although you may have heard about before: World War II. You may point out that the main Keynesian program was the New Deal, and I agree, and then you would say that it didn't fix the economy. I disagree; the New Deal helped the economy by lowering unemployment, but it wasn't enough. Government spending during a recession was relatively new at the time, and the threats of being derided as socialists kept the New Deal relatively small. The U.S. industrial production during World War II is the most effective, yet more obscure, examples on the success of Keynesian economics. The government invested billions of dollars (the equivalent of trillions today) in contracts for tanks, jeeps, trucks, food, boxes, guns, cannons, planes, ships, munitions, belts, uniforms, shoes, fuel, etc. That created millions of jobs, lifting us out of the Depression. This massive mobilization of industrial power helped us after World War II as well, supporting an entire generation of economic prosperity and blue-collar middle class jobs.

Not really. He repealed DADT,

Not all of us think that was a great idea.

Nonetheless, it does signify a step toward universal equality for all Americans.

got the economy on the right track,

Not really, the economy is in trouble and we all know it.

By that I mean it got the economy running positive, instead of contracting. The economy is still in trouble, but not as much as it would have been without the stimulus.

reformed the credit card industry, regulated the financial industry,

I'm not aware of any meaningful reform, although I have seen every president put a few band aids on the system. Do you have any references for the reform you are speaking of?

Well, you know well about Dodd Frank, so I don't think a source for that is necessary. As for credit card reform, here is the site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009

and did something no president has been able to do for decades; reform our inefficient and expensive healthcare system. That, by anyone's measure, is successful.

The "reform" you are talking about made the system even more expensive and did nothing to reform the cost. We will wait a few years to see if it really makes it more efficient, but I honestly don't see how the law we passed will do anything other than breaking the system some more.

Of course $1.7 trillion is a lot, but it is stretched out over 10 years, and the program still reduces the deficit, according to the CBO. It does add more people to the insurance market, fixing the uninsured problem, and does address costs. My opinion is that it will reduce costs, but only marginally. The ACA was a good step in the right direction; not perfect, but it can be improved and hopefully superseded in the future by an overhaul of the entire healthcare system.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

I hope not, I'm not sure we can afford it (though I'm not sure if we can afford Romney either).

Well, Obama at least offered a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan, and he would probably reduce the deficit by another $2 trillion, while Romney will increasing the deficit by at lest $3.4 trillion do to his tax cuts.

Again, great post even though I disagree with most of it.

Thanks. At least we can agree to disagree...

Out of 119 million U.S. households, just 2.5 million -- or 2 percent -- reported making at least $250,000 in 2010, according to Census Bureau figures.

An estimated 940,000 taxpayers reporting business earnings will earn enough money to see their tax rates rise in 2013 unless lawmakers act, according to Congress' nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

That is just 3.5 percent of taxpayers reporting business earnings -- a figure Democrats use to show how few businesses would pay higher tax rates under Obama's plan.

The committee also estimated that those 940,000 taxpayers will account for 53 percent of the $1.3 trillion in business earnings reported in 2013 -- a number Republicans cite to argue that the higher rates will hurt the economy and job creation.

The folks who are getting the free stuff don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

And, the folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop.
And the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

Now... the people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.

So... the people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff and giving them the free stuff in the first place.

We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.

All you FreeStuffers should be ashamed of yourselves and you let Obama convince you this was a good thing. Obama's a prick.

Well, you do have to admit that one thing Obama does really well is give his loyal followers talking points. Beyond that, well, free stuff. Voter ID? Hell no, can't have illegals and dead people not voting for Obama.

Freeshie:There are so many holes in your arguments it's not funny. Taxes and government spending didn't end it, they prolonged the Great Depression for ten years. What ended the depression was WWII. You even stated that the industrialization that happened as a result of WWII ended the depression and yet you continue to claim that Keynesian spending ended the depression. Wow.

Note as well that the Healthcare deemed 'affordable' is now estimated to cost 2.6 trillion. Guess in democrat speak that's affordable? Note that the numbers keep evolving upwards and the freaking thing isn't even in full tilt.

No mention of the entitlement programs, no mention of fraud or redundancy in government, no mention of the thousands of new IRS agents hired to enforce 'healthcare.' The only job that Obama seems able to create is a government job. His attitude towards business is painfully apparent, backwards and destructive. Face it, the only thing Obama knows how to do is grow the government to massive proportions, that he is very good at, anything else, well, he is good at going around congress and granting amnesty to illegals, waivers so welfare recipients no longer have to work for the checks and dumping billions on 'green energy' so they can declare bankruptcy and as a side effect, his actions are causing coal mining companies to declare bankruptcy, with the subsequent job losses. But, hey, he's gonna get us back on our feet, and if it weren't for Bush, why we'd be there now.

Well, what I meant by that is that the money pot (by which I mean taxable income) will grow due to economic growth. I did not mean the money supply, which is a different matter. As the economy expands, so will tax revenue, enabling us to spend money on the things we need to spend on.

You are correct, growth is the key, but I see very little pro-growth policies being enacted now. I will also point out spending needs to be kept in line with growth - you cannot have 2 percent growth and a 10 percent increase in spending. That is a key point that a lot of people miss.

Actually, I don't trust the states with social safety programs or infrastructure, much less education. Take my home state of California, for example. Due to the recession's impact on the budget (and, I hate to admit, our extremely generous welfare system), we had to lay off tens of thousands of teachers even as the population grew. States are, in my opinion, too volatile fiscally to leave big things to them. They ought to have some control over infrastructure and education, but I believe that at least 50% of the control and most of the cost should come from the government. States always have to balance their budgets due to their balanced budget amendments, which I oppose only because that forces states to lay off people and cut education and other programs during a recession, when logic dictates that you should be hiring people, not firing them. The federal government, on the other hand, is a bit more stable.

Well since you are from California I understand your reluctance to trust in state government, but I have to point out if people are not happy with their state government they have no one to blame but themselves. The Federal government on the other hand is much, much harder to change. I really don't like any of your senators for example, but I'm completely powerless to do anything about them. At least letting the states control it provides what the engineers call a short control loop. Imagine if your stove controls were located in your neighbors house, or worse, city hall. By the way, my experience with education is very different from yours - I'm highly upset math is only taught to my kids 3 days a week, but when I complained about it the principal told me the Federal government has several mandatory classes that must be taught and teacher unions prevent them from simply adding on more hours so math had to take a back seat. That is every bit as stupid as it sounds :(

Well, the only reason why a lot of people are on welfare is because of the recession's impact on finances and on employment. I don't think we have a huge class of non-productive citizens; technically, over 40% of Americans are working or looking for work. In a good year, it would be around 50%. So I wouldn't say that we have a welfare class.But all of those are provided by the state government, not the Federal government.

According to this website http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_spending welfare spending was about 3% of GDP in the 1960's, now it is about 8%. Again, we simply cannot afford to have transfer payments grow at a greater rate than the overall economy. Hopefully we will do it right, that is give those people job training and maintain the system long enough to give them a fighting chance. If recent experience is any guide though we will keep kicking that can down the road until it is too late and we are facing a Greece-like situation....

Well, not necessarily. VA doctors and nurses are hired by the feds, while teachers, firefighters, and other civil workers are partially funded by federal aid to states, and the federal investments in education.

VA doctors are not available to the general public and they are a really small percentage of the available doctors so I doubt it is fair to count them. As far as being partially funded by the Federal government, that is true, but think about what that means - we are sending our money to Washington so they can take a cut of it, then distribute it back to us! Let's cut out the middle man and just fund the education system and firefighters directly.

I'll agree on that, but I don't believe that we should be firing people, or decreasing employment. We should be hiring people, preferably the unemployed and the underemployed, in infrastructure projects and other programs, at least unemployment goes below 5% and the labor market loosens.

We are in complete agreement on this. The Marines are cutting 20,000 people, the army over 50,000 and that is just silly. There are no jobs for these men out there. Cancel training, postpone a major exercise, give them less night vision gear, but for god's sake Obama don't throw them out of the military right now.

As Keynesian economics was only implemented once on a major scale, I can only give you one example, although you may have heard about before: World War II. You may point out that the main Keynesian program was the New Deal, and I agree, and then you would say that it didn't fix the economy. I disagree; the New Deal helped the economy by lowering unemployment, but it wasn't enough. Government spending during a recession was relatively new at the time, and the threats of being derided as socialists kept the New Deal relatively small. The U.S. industrial production during World War II is the most effective, yet more obscure, examples on the success of Keynesian economics. The government invested billions of dollars (the equivalent of trillions today) in contracts for tanks, jeeps, trucks, food, boxes, guns, cannons, planes, ships, munitions, belts, uniforms, shoes, fuel, etc. That created millions of jobs, lifting us out of the Depression. This massive mobilization of industrial power helped us after World War II as well, supporting an entire generation of economic prosperity and blue-collar middle class jobs.

This is one of those cases where we are using the same words, but they mean different things to us. You are correct that if you spend enough you will temporally improve the economy (your example of WWII is 100% correct in that context), but when I say it has never worked I mean the theory that a one time shot of money could "shock" an economy into life. WWII did improve the economy (impossible to spend that much and not improve it) but the spending had to be maintained for the economy to continue. And the theory has been tried several times, especially in Africa and South America. It has never proved beneficial in the long term and it has quite often devastated economies. I will give you two case examples to think about: South Korea in 1998 and Japan over the last two decades. South Korea bit the bullet, let values fall to their natural level (they had no choice, the U.S. and IMF specifically forbid them from trying Keynesian economics) and within two years they were back to normal growth. Yes that two years sucked pretty bad, but now it is just a distant memory. Japan by contrast took the same road we are trying, massive amounts of government spending in an attempt to restore "normal" growth. They are in their second decade of no growth, which we already agreed is the real key to a happy economy. By the way, the Keynesian proponents in Japan kept saying "it is not working because the stimulus was not big enough, we need to spend more." Their debt is now about 200% of GDP and they still don't have an end in sight. We are trying the same failed policies and for the life of me I don't see why it will work for us when it failed for them....

Nonetheless, it does signify a step toward universal equality for all Americans.

I do not want to turn this into a debate about gay rights, but I will dispute the idea society does not have a right to enforce social mores. Gay marriage has consistently been defeated in every fair election, including in your home state.

By that I mean it got the economy running positive, instead of contracting. The economy is still in trouble, but not as much as it would have been without the stimulus.

Maybe, and maybe we would have followed South Korea and gotten back to business as normal by now. It is impossible to prove one way or the other what would have happened without the stimulus so we will never have a definitive answer to this. I will point out though, that if the solution is simply to throw more money at the problem we could have left George Bush in charge. You know things are bad if George Bush is the answer :)

Well, you know well about Dodd Frank, so I don't think a source for that is necessary. As for credit card reform, here is the site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009

On the Dodd-Frank bill, I did say meaningful reform :)

As far as the wikipedia site, I simply do not trust wikipedia, too easy for anyone to type in anything they want.

Of course $1.7 trillion is a lot, but it is stretched out over 10 years, and the program still reduces the deficit, according to the CBO. It does add more people to the insurance market, fixing the uninsured problem, and does address costs. My opinion is that it will reduce costs, but only marginally. The ACA was a good step in the right direction; not perfect, but it can be improved and hopefully superseded in the future by an overhaul of the entire healthcare system.

The Affordable Care Act is like the bailout in that I will throw stones at it all day and go to the mat with anyone who defends either. Think about the larger implications of this: you have health care because you are forced to go to a large corporation and buy it! This is just unbelievable. We both know had George Bush been the one to propose this Democrats would have called for his impeachment (and rightfully so). Will any Democrat be cheering when the Republicans take over and do their corporate donors a favor by forcing all of us to buy assault rifles? I'm sorry, but this is nothing to be proud of. I doubt we will recognize America 60 years from now as a result of this single stupid ruling. Enough about the implications of this, let's look at the actual program. The government is famous for underestimating costs so are you sure that 1.7 trillion is accurate? Also, that cost is misleading since taxes will be collected during the entire 10 years but it doesn't take effect until 2014 so what happens when the entire 10 year cost is factored in? If you want to overhaul the entire system you have my support, you want to increase the cost of an already expensive system, count me out.

Well, Obama at least offered a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan, and he would probably reduce the deficit by another $2 trillion, while Romney will increasing the deficit by at lest $3.4 trillion do to his tax cuts.

No Obama offered a future spending cut in exchange for tax increases today. Kind of like me telling you pay me 15,000 today and 10 years from now my daughter will give you her Toyota Corolla. First you are overpaying, second I have no way to actually make my daughter give you her car....

Thanks. At least we can agree to disagree...

That we can, I have no problems respectfully agreeing to disagree. Have a good day my friend :)

Freshieee

Ok, I’ll play.

Hmm, are these the same "evil progressive liberals" who begged Bush not to pass his tax cuts because most went to the wealthy and because they would blow a huge hole in our budget???

Hmmm, just what hole did those tax cuts cause? You do realize that total tax receipts (In constant FY20005 Dollars) in 2007, just before the crash, were $2.414 trillion from a low of $1.901 trillion in 2003, right? Clintons highest revenues were in 2000 at $2.3 trillion. This is despite the severe recession that Bush “inherited” from Clinton, 9/11 and Katrina. Revenues as a percentage of GDP in 2007 reached 18.5% as compared to Clintons 20.6% in 2000, once again, with all the factors mentioned above. Actually, despite the Bush tax cuts, again, revenues are projected to reach $2.089 trillion this year from a low of $1.189 trillion in 2009. You Liberals have to STOP this nonsense that the tax cuts aren’t creating increasing revenue, they obviously are. We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a SPENDING PROBLEM!!!! BTW you can verify my numbers from the Office of Management and Budget Historic Tables Table 1.3, if you like.

Third, I don't @!$%#ing care if the stimulus cost $200,000 for every job created/saved; as long as it got us out of the damn recession.

See, this is the typical Liberal irrational emotional response that drives common sense people crazy. How on God’s green earth can you even make a statement like that? You are willing to waste hundreds of billions of dollars to force us out of the recession? If each of those alleged jobs created or saved generated the average wage of $45,230 we lose more than3/4 of the stimulus. It would have just been better to give the $863 billion to industries and told them to hire 19 million people ($863 billion/$45,000=19.2 million jobs)!

Now, although the auto industry is slowly recovering, even though it still owes us nearly $24 billion, we are not expanding our domestic exportable industry sector base. No nation has created the wealth, prosperity and standard of living we are used to without it. China and Germany’s economies are the 2 leading export nations with diverse export industries. We no longer enjoy that benefit. In 1950 our economy was built around almost 53% exportable manufacturing industries, today it is 9%. We will never generate the massive amounts of revenue needed to repay our debt and Unfunded Liabilites at this rate with some hybrid consumption/service sector economy.

And in case you haven't noticed, the top 1% of Americans control 21% of ALL income earned in the US. How in God's name is that fair???

OK, once again, what is “fair”?????? How much should we cap wealth at? More importantly why? Remember, America promises equal opportunity, NOT EQUAL OUTCOMES! If you’re earning $50,000 annually and your employer feels you deserve $100,000 based on your performance, qualifications and ability will you agree if some mythical “fairness czar” decides you should only make $70,000? I doubt it.

What you fail to realize is that the 18% number is the average. Revenues went higher and lower under various circumstances, but they averaged at about that amount. Tax rates could, theoretically, rise higher and we could gain more income; according to the CBO, if the fiscal cliff is allowed to happen, revenues will rise to 23% of GDP somewhere around 2020, which is an anomaly.

I’m having trouble following your point here. I do understand the 18% is an average, its variance is +/-2% in very limited time frames. The way you increase revenue significantly, as a percentage of GDP, is by increasing the base, thus the GDP, no more, no less. This can only happen with long term sustainable domestic manufacturing industry jobs. I highlighted this “Tax rates could, theoretically, rise higher and we could gain more income;” because I don’t understand what you mean. I hope you don’t mean raising taxes will somehow increase income. If you mean selectively changing taxes rates according to increased revenues I don’t know how that’s possible.

that's why we need tax reform every few decades.

So, in the meantime adding 14,000 amendments to the tax code in between the reforms will be OK? How does that work? If you think there won’t just be more and more legislation with these earmarks snuck in them as they have been for nearly 100 years you don’t understand how the system works. I stand by my contention that a true fair tax is the FAIR Tax or Constitutionally amended Flat Tax so no one can add any changes to the code unless they go through the amendment process, which can take years. The FAIR Tax is not regressive as there are prebates. This gives every legal resident household an “advance refund” at the beginning of each month so that purchases made up to the poverty level are tax-free. The prebate prevents an unfair burden on low-income families. Wouldn’t you like to bring home your full pay of $45,230 (the average) every year and then YOU decide how you spend it, not the government. Please tell me you’re not that frightened to make your own decisions on how your money is used.

First of all, I'd like to see your sources on the size and the amount of fraud in entitlements (particularly Social Security).

I said waste, fraud, abuse and corruption (WFAC) in entitlements and social programs. The above discussion of Unfunded Liabilities is one of the frauds of Social Security. It’s a Ponzi scheme and is unsustainable. There is no “fund”, no “lockbox”, no money. Last year during the debt ceiling debates Chuck Schumer claimed there was some mythical $2.6 trillion surplus. If so, why was Obama and Geithner threatening recipients that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised by $2.4 trillion dollars they wouldn’t be able to pay S.S.? Because there is no surplus, it’s all gone. Here’s just a small example of the WFAC in our social programs which should even outrage you Liberals. Government auditors spent the past five years examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them–costing taxpayers a total of $123 billion annually–fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve. So, almost 25% of social programs do NOTHING at a cost of $125 billion every year. Yet our criminals in government can’t find any cuts in spending for the life of them. Realize this study was done by GOVERNMENT auditors about governments WFAC. If you’re interested I have over 400 more examples accounting for hundreds of billions of wasted dollars. And yet in some convoluted way Liberals want to RAISE taxes despite all this WFAC. How can anyone justify that? BTW, you can find most of the sources in the GSA, CBO and OMB reports.

You fail to realize that we spent our way out of the Great Depression, first of all.

Please, please STOP with this incessant nonsense. In 1939 FDR’s own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, admitted:

"No, gentlemen, we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And an enormous debt to boot!"~Henry Morgenthau

Sound familiar?

What got us out of the Depression was WW II. Actually it was the incredible domestic industrial machine we created after the war when Europe, Asia and Africa laid in ruins and the rest of the world began recovering from the Depression and War. We were the only standing industrial nation that could rebuild the devastated world. And rebuild them we did. We built cars, washing machines, lawn mowers, hula-hoops and anything else needed. You still don’t understand, we are spending more by buying imported products than ever, $800 billion projected this year. We need to resurrect our exportable industries. Most of them are gone forever due to technology, automation and decentralization of corporations but we can still return many industries.

The Progressive movement lifted millions out of poverty,

OK, this is it, I’m getting tired of typing. Progressivism nor government nor unions lifted anyone from poverty. The free-market industries that were created by visionaries, entrepreneurs and risk-takers did. Our massive unsustainable, unconstitutional morass of entitlements and social programs have created chaos. In 1965 the poverty rate was 14%, today according to the CATO institute after an estimated $15 trillion to $17 trillion spent by government, our poverty rate is 14.3% (15.1% accounting for the recession). How many more trillions do you think we need to spend, via government programs, to eliminate poverty? Our Department of Education was created in 1980, today despite countless trillions of dollars, the U.S. ranks in the bottom 1/3 of all OECD countries in math, science and reading. How will we ever “Win The Future” if most Americans read at an 8th grade level? Most Americans don’t know how to use—there, their or they’re—correctly in a sentence. Ask a high school senior to calculate 40% of 330 in their head and they start stuttering.

Our government has a contract with the American people. It’s called the Constitution. When federal government intrudes more and more into the States and Peoples sovereignty we all lose. We are a Federal Constitutional Republic with a Representative Democracy this is based on dual sovereignty and must be returned to it. The 9^th and 10^th Amendments are ignored and this is why we find ourselves with a massive government collapsing because it created a more massive debt.

Ronald Reagan said, “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”

Until we fix this we will collapse as a nation and as a society.

Robert-385246

As far as being partially funded by the Federal government, that is true, but think about what that means - we are sending our money to Washington so they can take a cut of it, then distribute it back to us! Let's cut out the middle man and just fund the education system and firefighters directly.

WOW!!!!! I can’t believe I found another human being I can agree with more than ever on this one fundamental point. BRAVO my friend. It’s refreshing to see someone analyzing problems for once.

WHY, I repeat WHY, do we send so much money to Washington to just have them send it back to us as some type of benefit for allowing the Federal government to give us our money back? The answer is obvious but many, most notably Liberals/Progressives, don’t like it.

We send so much money to the Federal government that then decides how much we should get back in various subsidies, tax credits, Medicaid payments and hundreds of other benevolent returns. Why don’t we just figure out how much it takes for the Federal government to do what it’s responsible for under Article 1 Section 8, its Enumerated Powers, and then keep the rest in each individual state to use as needed?

This is the problem. Our Federal government has usurped its Constitutional authority under the banner of “taking care of us” with thousands of unsustainable, mostly ineffective entitlements and social programs we have created an unstoppable monolithic monster. Wouldn’t it be much easier to keep the money in each of our states so we can keep a closer eye on it? Or is that too simple a concept?

Jim, thanks and without turning this into a group hug I have to say I was pretty impressed with your post as well. looking forward to exchanging more ideas with you in the future.

Freeshie:There are so many holes in your arguments it's not funny. Taxes and government spending didn't end it, they prolonged the Great Depression for ten years. What ended the depression was WWII. You even stated that the industrialization that happened as a result of WWII ended the depression and yet you continue to claim that Keynesian spending ended the depression. Wow.

Do you know what we did in World War II??? The government SPENT MONEY. They had hundreds of contracts for buying tanks, jeeps, trucks, weapons, munitions, planes, ships, uniforms, etc. Private manufacturers hired people to fill out these contracts, and so unemployment dropped considerably. In case you haven't noticed, the GOVERNMENT SPENDS MONEY during a recession.

Note as well that the Healthcare deemed 'affordable' is now estimated to cost 2.6 trillion. Guess in democrat speak that's affordable? Note that the numbers keep evolving upwards and the freaking thing isn't even in full tilt.

I haven't heard the $2.6 trillion figure. As far as I'm concerned, it's $1.7 trillion. And that is over 10 years. And by the way, the CBO says it will reduce the deficit by around $200 billion, so technically it IS affordable.

No mention of the entitlement programs, no mention of fraud or redundancy in government, no mention of the thousands of new IRS agents hired to enforce 'healthcare.' The only job that Obama seems able to create is a government job. His attitude towards business is painfully apparent, backwards and destructive.

First of all, there is a lot of fraud in the private sector as well; Medicare spends 4% of every dollar on administrative costs, compared to 25% for private companies. Secondly, the IRS loses $300 billion a year in tax fraud; more IRS workers would automatically translate into more federal revenue and less deficits. Thirdly, government has barely grown under Obama; 84,000 federal jobs created under him. Fourth, Obama created 4.4 million jobs. And finally, he offered a plan to create 1.9 million jobs, most of which would be in the PRIVATE SECTOR. I don't care about his attitude to business; the US shouldn't have to bow the whims of business in a recession; we should be spending money to build up demand, instead of having to do their bidding.

Face it, the only thing Obama knows how to do is grow the government to massive proportions, that he is very good at, anything else, well, he is good at going around congress and granting amnesty to illegals, waivers so welfare recipients no longer have to work for the checks and dumping billions on 'green energy' so they can declare bankruptcy and as a side effect, his actions are causing coal mining companies to declare bankruptcy, with the subsequent job losses. But, hey, he's gonna get us back on our feet, and if it weren't for Bush, why we'd be there now.

You do realize that foreign companies are investing in green energy??? Spending money now will build up our industrial might in that sector in the future. And I have yet to see any waivers to welfare recipients. And I don't care if coal companies go out of business; better to suffer some economic strain now instead of losing a golden market in the future or drowning due to higher ocean levels.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

Robert-385246

Well, what I meant by that is that the money pot (by which I mean taxable income) will grow due to economic growth. I did not mean the money supply, which is a different matter. As the economy expands, so will tax revenue, enabling us to spend money on the things we need to spend on.

You are correct, growth is the key, but I see very little pro-growth policies being enacted now. I will also point out spending needs to be kept in line with growth - you cannot have 2 percent growth and a 10 percent increase in spending. That is a key point that a lot of people miss.

True, true. However, "pro-growth policies" is a vague term. What is pro-growth?? In my opinion, a pro-growth policy (during a recession) is for the government to pump money into the economy via lower interest rates, quantitative easing, and spending projects on infrastructure and aid to states. In a conservative's opinion, it would be lower tax rates, less spending (in the case of the Tea Party), and deregulation. We tried the first option and it worked, to a degree, but then tried the second one, and it did nothing, so I think option #1 would technically be a "pro-growth policy).

Actually, I don't trust the states with social safety programs or infrastructure, much less education. Take my home state of California, for example. Due to the recession's impact on the budget (and, I hate to admit, our extremely generous welfare system), we had to lay off tens of thousands of teachers even as the population grew. States are, in my opinion, too volatile fiscally to leave big things to them. They ought to have some control over infrastructure and education, but I believe that at least 50% of the control and most of the cost should come from the government. States always have to balance their budgets due to their balanced budget amendments, which I oppose only because that forces states to lay off people and cut education and other programs during a recession, when logic dictates that you should be hiring people, not firing them. The federal government, on the other hand, is a bit more stable.

Well since you are from California I understand your reluctance to trust in state government, but I have to point out if people are not happy with their state government they have no one to blame but themselves. The Federal government on the other hand is much, much harder to change. I really don't like any of your senators for example, but I'm completely powerless to do anything about them.

Theoretically yes, but it is much easier to change one government's legislature than it is to change 50 legislatures. And all our states are intertwined; I have read that decentralization, in the case of education, has stopped being an asset and is now a liability. My personal opinion is to have national reforms to affect the nation in a more rapid and broad-based "revolution," instead of 50 revolutions occurring at different times and in different places. At the very least, the federal government should bear the majority of the financial burden on education and ought to establish a national standard, along with broad-based reforms in teaching and advocating for higher salaries and merit-based pay.

At least letting the states control it provides what the engineers call a short control loop. Imagine if your stove controls were located in your neighbors house, or worse, city hall. By the way, my experience with education is very different from yours - I'm highly upset math is only taught to my kids 3 days a week, but when I complained about it the principal told me the Federal government has several mandatory classes that must be taught and teacher unions prevent them from simply adding on more hours so math had to take a back seat. That is every bit as stupid as it sounds :(

Well, the federal government could theoretically establish a standard that all states must comply with, so there is no unbalanced position between states. I'd suggest to look at states like China, which has numerous state and local districts yet the central government has considerable (although not total) control over the nation's education system, something we lack here in the US. At the very least, we ought to base reforms on successful models, some domestic, some foreign.

Well, the only reason why a lot of people are on welfare is because of the recession's impact on finances and on employment. I don't think we have a huge class of non-productive citizens; technically, over 40% of Americans are working or looking for work. In a good year, it would be around 50%. So I wouldn't say that we have a welfare class.But all of those are provided by the state government, not the Federal government.

According to this website http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_spending welfare spending was about 3% of GDP in the 1960's, now it is about 8%. Again, we simply cannot afford to have transfer payments grow at a greater rate than the overall economy. Hopefully we will do it right, that is give those people job training and maintain the system long enough to give them a fighting chance. If recent experience is any guide though we will keep kicking that can down the road until it is too late and we are facing a Greece-like situation....

First of all, does that include states and local governments??? Secondly, most of the reason for that is the recession; and in the late 60s we launched the Great Society welfare programs that helped millions. Technically, we will only face a Greek-situation if we keep spending at current levels (unlikely, the recession will decrease spending on social programs) and if we keep the Bush tax cuts permanently (we have to face it that since revenues are below 16% of GDP, we have revenue problem).

Well, not necessarily. VA doctors and nurses are hired by the feds, while teachers, firefighters, and other civil workers are partially funded by federal aid to states, and the federal investments in education.

VA doctors are not available to the general public and they are a really small percentage of the available doctors so I doubt it is fair to count them. As far as being partially funded by the Federal government, that is true, but think about what that means - we are sending our money to Washington so they can take a cut of it, then distribute it back to us! Let's cut out the middle man and just fund the education system and firefighters directly.

Cutting out the middleman does sound like a good idea. But the federal government is, in my opinion, the most fiscally responsible government when compared to the states. I know it sounds ludicrous, and it technically is, but the federal government isn't required to balance the budget every year; enabling it to make deficit spending during a recession, when it is necessary. The states keep cutting, especially from education and social spending, making the recession worse in those states.

I'll agree on that, but I don't believe that we should be firing people, or decreasing employment. We should be hiring people, preferably the unemployed and the underemployed, in infrastructure projects and other programs, at least unemployment goes below 5% and the labor market loosens.

We are in complete agreement on this. The Marines are cutting 20,000 people, the army over 50,000 and that is just silly. There are no jobs for these men out there. Cancel training, postpone a major exercise, give them less night vision gear, but for god's sake Obama don't throw them out of the military right now.

It's a shame that we have to cut those soldiers now, but whenever we reduce spending the first things to get cut are the payrolls. And technically, Obama didn't throw them out; Congress did, and only because we failed to get a deal during the 2011 debt debacle.

As Keynesian economics was only implemented once on a major scale, I can only give you one example, although you may have heard about before: World War II. You may point out that the main Keynesian program was the New Deal, and I agree, and then you would say that it didn't fix the economy. I disagree; the New Deal helped the economy by lowering unemployment, but it wasn't enough. Government spending during a recession was relatively new at the time, and the threats of being derided as socialists kept the New Deal relatively small. The U.S. industrial production during World War II is the most effective, yet more obscure, examples on the success of Keynesian economics. The government invested billions of dollars (the equivalent of trillions today) in contracts for tanks, jeeps, trucks, food, boxes, guns, cannons, planes, ships, munitions, belts, uniforms, shoes, fuel, etc. That created millions of jobs, lifting us out of the Depression. This massive mobilization of industrial power helped us after World War II as well, supporting an entire generation of economic prosperity and blue-collar middle class jobs.

This is one of those cases where we are using the same words, but they mean different things to us. You are correct that if you spend enough you will temporally improve the economy (your example of WWII is 100% correct in that context), but when I say it has never worked I mean the theory that a one time shot of money could "shock" an economy into life. WWII did improve the economy (impossible to spend that much and not improve it) but the spending had to be maintained for the economy to continue. And the theory has been tried several times, especially in Africa and South America. It has never proved beneficial in the long term and it has quite often devastated economies. I will give you two case examples to think about: South Korea in 1998 and Japan over the last two decades. South Korea bit the bullet, let values fall to their natural level (they had no choice, the U.S. and IMF specifically forbid them from trying Keynesian economics) and within two years they were back to normal growth. Yes that two years sucked pretty bad, but now it is just a distant memory. Japan by contrast took the same road we are trying, massive amounts of government spending in an attempt to restore "normal" growth. They are in their second decade of no growth, which we already agreed is the real key to a happy economy. By the way, the Keynesian proponents in Japan kept saying "it is not working because the stimulus was not big enough, we need to spend more." Their debt is now about 200% of GDP and they still don't have an end in sight. We are trying the same failed policies and for the life of me I don't see why it will work for us when it failed for them....

Technically, Japan was stuck in a deflationary spiral, which it very hard to get out. I understand where you're going, though. Keynesian spending is not meant to be permanent; it is usually supposed to occur for a certain number of years until (A) we reach full employment, (B) the private sector gets more confident and starts to invest their capital, or (C) both a and b. Had the stimulus been entirely devoted to infrastructure, the size would have been adequate at least for a few years; had it been larger but stretched out over let's say 5 years, the economy would be in a better state.

Nonetheless, it does signify a step toward universal equality for all Americans.

I do not want to turn this into a debate about gay rights, but I will dispute the idea society does not have a right to enforce social mores. Gay marriage has consistently been defeated in every fair election, including in your home state.

Yes, it is a shame that we fail to live up to our founding statement that "all men are created equal," and that they all deserve the rights "to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Yet I don't believe that the rights of the minority ought to be legislated by the majority; had we done that for civil rights, blacks would still live in segregated cities south of the Mason-Dixon line.

By that I mean it got the economy running positive, instead of contracting. The economy is still in trouble, but not as much as it would have been without the stimulus.

Maybe, and maybe we would have followed South Korea and gotten back to business as normal by now. It is impossible to prove one way or the other what would have happened without the stimulus so we will never have a definitive answer to this. I will point out though, that if the solution is simply to throw more money at the problem we could have left George Bush in charge. You know things are bad if George Bush is the answer :)

Unfortunately, Bush didn't throw money at the right places. Defense spending is a boost, but we didn't necessarily need that. And his tax cuts, according to the CBO, had an almost negligible effect on unemployment. Had he invested that money on infrastructure, education reform, and healthcare reform (either government-run healthcare or something just as good), more jobs would have been created.

Well, you know well about Dodd Frank, so I don't think a source for that is necessary. As for credit card reform, here is the site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009

On the Dodd-Frank bill, I did say meaningful reform :)

Well, Dodd-Frank is better than nothing ;)

As far as the wikipedia site, I simply do not trust wikipedia, too easy for anyone to type in anything they want.

I'll give you that one.

Of course $1.7 trillion is a lot, but it is stretched out over 10 years, and the program still reduces the deficit, according to the CBO. It does add more people to the insurance market, fixing the uninsured problem, and does address costs. My opinion is that it will reduce costs, but only marginally. The ACA was a good step in the right direction; not perfect, but it can be improved and hopefully superseded in the future by an overhaul of the entire healthcare system.

The Affordable Care Act is like the bailout in that I will throw stones at it all day and go to the mat with anyone who defends either. Think about the larger implications of this: you have health care because you are forced to go to a large corporation and buy it! This is just unbelievable. We both know had George Bush been the one to propose this Democrats would have called for his impeachment (and rightfully so). Will any Democrat be cheering when the Republicans take over and do their corporate donors a favor by forcing all of us to buy assault rifles? I'm sorry, but this is nothing to be proud of. I doubt we will recognize America 60 years from now as a result of this single stupid ruling. Enough about the implications of this, let's look at the actual program. The government is famous for underestimating costs so are you sure that 1.7 trillion is accurate? Also, that cost is misleading since taxes will be collected during the entire 10 years but it doesn't take effect until 2014 so what happens when the entire 10 year cost is factored in? If you want to overhaul the entire system you have my support, you want to increase the cost of an already expensive system, count me out.

We won't know the real effects of the program until 2020 at the most, but what we do know is that it is at least a shot in the right direction. It is expensive, but at least it reduces the number of uninsured people in the "land of plenty." I say go single-payer, or Medicare for all; it will reduce healthcare expenditures on administrative costs, and go a long way to fix the country. We still need to deal with things like fraud and waste and obesity, and we probably should substitute fee-for-service for fee-for-results, But it would at least eliminate the insane system that we have now.

Well, Obama at least offered a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan, and he would probably reduce the deficit by another $2 trillion, while Romney will increasing the deficit by at lest $3.4 trillion do to his tax cuts.

No Obama offered a future spending cut in exchange for tax increases today. Kind of like me telling you pay me 15,000 today and 10 years from now my daughter will give you her Toyota Corolla. First you are overpaying, second I have no way to actually make my daughter give you her car....

Well, if we factor in the $2.2 trillion cuts scheduled to take effect, we can say that we are cutting spending.

Thanks. At least we can agree to disagree...

That we can, I have no problems respectfully agreeing to disagree. Have a good day my friend :)

You too, buddy ;).

JimSpence

Freshieee

Ok, I’ll play.

Hmm, are these the same "evil progressive liberals" who begged Bush not to pass his tax cuts because most went to the wealthy and because they would blow a huge hole in our budget???

Hmmm, just what hole did those tax cuts cause? You do realize that total tax receipts (In constant FY20005 Dollars) in 2007, just before the crash, were $2.414 trillion from a low of $1.901 trillion in 2003, right? Clintons highest revenues were in 2000 at $2.3 trillion. This is despite the severe recession that Bush “inherited” from Clinton, 9/11 and Katrina. Revenues as a percentage of GDP in 2007 reached 18.5% as compared to Clintons 20.6% in 2000, once again, with all the factors mentioned above. Actually, despite the Bush tax cuts, again, revenues are projected to reach $2.089 trillion this year from a low of $1.189 trillion in 2009. You Liberals have to STOP this nonsense that the tax cuts aren’t creating increasing revenue, they obviously are. We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a SPENDING PROBLEM!!!! BTW you can verify my numbers from the Office of Management and Budget Historic Tables Table 1.3, if you like.

Check the CBO on the effect of the Bush tax cuts on the budget. And don't give me the absolute value of revenues; that doesn't account for things like inflation or population growth. Use revenues to GDP, which states that revenues only got to around 18% of GDP ONCE, and that was at the peak of the housing bubble. Absolute values don't matter because they don't account for other factors.

Third, I don't @!$%#ing care if the stimulus cost $200,000 for every job created/saved; as long as it got us out of the damn recession.

See, this is the typical Liberal irrational emotional response that drives common sense people crazy. How on God’s green earth can you even make a statement like that? You are willing to waste hundreds of billions of dollars to force us out of the recession? If each of those alleged jobs created or saved generated the average wage of $45,230 we lose more than3/4 of the stimulus. It would have just been better to give the $863 billion to industries and told them to hire 19 million people ($863 billion/$45,000=19.2 million jobs)!

The bill was first of all $787 billion and secondly it 1/3 of it went to tax cuts. It wasn't the best stimulus, but at least it was enough to get us out of the recession. And tell me the LAST time tax cuts (which is the way I presume that you would rather have had the money distributed) created jobs??? It created private sector jobs for infrastructure projects and from the demand that ensued.

Now, although the auto industry is slowly recovering, even though it still owes us nearly $24 billion, we are not expanding our domestic exportable industry sector base. No nation has created the wealth, prosperity and standard of living we are used to without it. China and Germany’s economies are the 2 leading export nations with diverse export industries. We no longer enjoy that benefit. In 1950 our economy was built around almost 53% exportable manufacturing industries, today it is 9%. We will never generate the massive amounts of revenue needed to repay our debt and Unfunded Liabilites at this rate with some hybrid consumption/service sector economy.

I don't like our consumption-based economy as much as you do, but exports are on track to double soon, so I don't see how you can say that our export base (which is underpinning our recovery) is not expanding. And by the way, China is trying to get to a consumer-based economy so they won't be vulnerable to foreign recessions that will cut exports. And their trade surplus is shrinking rapidly.

And in case you haven't noticed, the top 1% of Americans control 21% of ALL income earned in the US. How in God's name is that fair???

OK, once again, what is “fair”?????? How much should we cap wealth at? More importantly why? Remember, America promises equal opportunity, NOT EQUAL OUTCOMES! If you’re earning $50,000 annually and your employer feels you deserve $100,000 based on your performance, qualifications and ability will you agree if some mythical “fairness czar” decides you should only make $70,000? I doubt it.

Fairness is a vague term used, I will admit that, but I would define fair as perhaps 12-14%, roughly what we had during the largest economic expansion in US history. I don't wealth should be capped or salaries decided by the government; contrary to what you might think, me and my liberal/progressive companions ARE NOT socialists. I believe that we ought to pursue government policies to reduce income inequality, which has occurred in large part due to 1%-favoring government policies.

What you fail to realize is that the 18% number is the average. Revenues went higher and lower under various circumstances, but they averaged at about that amount. Tax rates could, theoretically, rise higher and we could gain more income; according to the CBO, if the fiscal cliff is allowed to happen, revenues will rise to 23% of GDP somewhere around 2020, which is an anomaly.

I’m having trouble following your point here. I do understand the 18% is an average, its variance is +/-2% in very limited time frames. The way you increase revenue significantly, as a percentage of GDP, is by increasing the base, thus the GDP, no more, no less. This can only happen with long term sustainable domestic manufacturing industry jobs. I highlighted this “Tax rates could, theoretically, rise higher and we could gain more income;” because I don’t understand what you mean. I hope you don’t mean raising taxes will somehow increase income. If you mean selectively changing taxes rates according to increased revenues I don’t know how that’s possible.

Increasing tax rates increases revenues; Clinton raised taxes, and he had a surplus. Now, not all of it was caused by the tax increases (much of it was because of the dot-com bubble), but it at least proves that tax increases has something to do with increased revenues.

that's why we need tax reform every few decades.

So, in the meantime adding 14,000 amendments to the tax code in between the reforms will be OK? How does that work? If you think there won’t just be more and more legislation with these earmarks snuck in them as they have been for nearly 100 years you don’t understand how the system works.

I don't like the byzantine tax code as much as you do, but that is what is going to happen over time. And by the way, earmarks in the House are banned.

I stand by my contention that a true fair tax is the FAIR Tax or Constitutionally amended Flat Tax so no one can add any changes to the code unless they go through the amendment process, which can take years. The FAIR Tax is not regressive as there are prebates. This gives every legal resident household an “advance refund” at the beginning of each month so that purchases made up to the poverty level are tax-free. The prebate prevents an unfair burden on low-income families. Wouldn’t you like to bring home your full pay of $45,230 (the average) every year and then YOU decide how you spend it, not the government. Please tell me you’re not that frightened to make your own decisions on how your money is used.

You fail to understand that the "fair tax" is a consumption tax, and consumption taxes are almost always regressive because people at the top have a reduced propensity to spend money. I am not frightened; I just don't think that the rich ought to pay the same rates as the poor because in my opinion, everyone ought to pay from their own ability to pay; those with more can pay more, those with less ought to pay less.

You fail to realize that we spent our way out of the Great Depression, first of all.

Please, please STOP with this incessant nonsense. In 1939 FDR’s own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, admitted:

"No, gentlemen, we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And an enormous debt to boot!"~Henry Morgenthau

Sound familiar?

What got us out of the Depression was WW II. Actually it was the incredible domestic industrial machine we created after the war when Europe, Asia and Africa laid in ruins and the rest of the world began recovering from the Depression and War. We were the only standing industrial nation that could rebuild the devastated world. And rebuild them we did. We built cars, washing machines, lawn mowers, hula-hoops and anything else needed. You still don’t understand, we are spending more by buying imported products than ever, $800 billion projected this year. We need to resurrect our exportable industries. Most of them are gone forever due to technology, automation and decentralization of corporations but we can still return many industries.

Newsflash: we SPENT our way out of World War II; ergo, we spent our way out of the recession. And we still produce things, just not as much as we used to. That means we can still spend our way out of recessions.

The Progressive movement lifted millions out of poverty,

OK, this is it, I’m getting tired of typing. Progressivism nor government nor unions lifted anyone from poverty. The free-market industries that were created by visionaries, entrepreneurs and risk-takers did. Our massive unsustainable, unconstitutional morass of entitlements and social programs have created chaos. In 1965 the poverty rate was 14%, today according to the CATO institute after an estimated $15 trillion to $17 trillion spent by government, our poverty rate is 14.3% (15.1% accounting for the recession). How many more trillions do you think we need to spend, via government programs, to eliminate poverty? Our Department of Education was created in 1980, today despite countless trillions of dollars, the U.S. ranks in the bottom 1/3 of all OECD countries in math, science and reading. How will we ever “Win The Future” if most Americans read at an 8th grade level? Most Americans don’t know how to use—there, their or they’re—correctly in a sentence. Ask a high school senior to calculate 40% of 330 in their head and they start stuttering.

I just want to make one statement: Social Security (a progressive program) reduced employment among the elderly from 30% to 10%.

Our government has a contract with the American people. It’s called the Constitution. When federal government intrudes more and more into the States and Peoples sovereignty we all lose. We are a Federal Constitutional Republic with a Representative Democracy this is based on dual sovereignty and must be returned to it. The 9^thand 10^th Amendments are ignored and this is why we find ourselves with a massive government collapsing because it created a more massive debt.

We CANNOT go back to the 18th century. We have to have a FLEXIBLE interpretation of the Constitution or we will NEVER prosper. The Constitution was made before things like derivative markets, too-big-to-fail banks, and massive corporations. We CANNOT survive without a relatively big government because individuals cannot do many things alone, like regulate externalities, reduce carbon emissions from corporations, and manage a nation of 317 million people. Anyone who thinks a small government can handle a country with 317 million people and a $15.4 trillion economy is in my opinion out of touch with reality.

Ronald Reagan said, “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”

Until we fix this we will collapse as a nation and as a society.

Reagan was also the guy who quadrupled the debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion. Food for thought.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

Freeshee, not only are you delusional but you must be insane. Over 70% taxes on anyone, what are you going to do when because all the extra money is gone they stop hiring, move out because this is not a tax but just legal robbery. It is Obama and people like you that are ruining this country. So yes, I do believe that liberals are unable to think for themselves but only listen to propaganda and are set to destroy this country of ours. You should not be called patriots but traitors!

Why should the powers that be even care? The price of gasoline has skyrocketed and remained outrageously high and no one asks, oh, can they tolerate it?

You could volunteer? Heck even the POTUS slams away $40k a year in his children's accounts to avoid paying tax.

That said, more taxes will equate to a smaller overall economy and less tax revenue even though it would be a greater percentage of what is left.

Buster, I would say you are one that has more than likely never paid a dime in taxes!

Really doesn't matter what any of us think, we don't have a representative government anymore and haven't had one in quite a while!

According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of income earners—those earning more than $380,000 in 2008—paid more than 38 percent of all federal income taxes while earning 20 percent of all income.

So they earn 20% of all the money but pay 38% of all the federal income tax collected yearly, sounds more than their fair share to me. To spent thrift liberals, they'd say that 90% would not be enough.

Teapug bull. Your fed. taxes have not gone up. They have gone down. And, you fools can cry crap all day, but the Prez has nothing to do do with the gas price spike. If the folds have to go back to the same tax before the idiot "Bush", so what. Lowering it did nothing for the economy. Then we go to war and cannot pay for it.

You know what, OP. I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if that meant I'd be making more money than I do now and if that meant I'd be confident about basic benefits re health education and welfare. Of course, I can only afford to do my taxes with Quicken. I can't afford Romney's tax team that makes sure he doesn't pay his full freight and I can't open up an offshore account for my direct deposit paycheck.

I am sorry KeenInsight, but that is a really ignorant comment. Who wouldn't take more money and let the government take more if they didn't do anything to earn it. It's the people that take risks and work hard that are up in arms. Yes, 200K/year is a pretty good amount of money, but when it comes to business it may be a very low profit margin and any divergence from the sales norm could be a disaster for the business owner. Oh yeah, when all liberals are living the same, I might take what the elite of that clique have to say, but until then their rhetoric is an absolute joke

Buster Douglas

We all need to be paying more in taxes, even the middle class, to support this president

as Bugs Bunny says "what a Chiquita Maroon".

Buster: Are you sure you even pay taxes? In Florida, we would recommend you for the Baker Act!

The GOP propagandists have done a good job convincing their uneducated base that paying taxes is unpatriotic. (All the while they redistribute the wealth up to the plutocrats and shift the tax burden down the economic ladder.)

How do you suppose this country was built into the powerhouse it is? How do you expect it to survive without money to maintain it?

Why shouldn't those who can afford it pay back into the country who's resources and infrastructure helped them acquire their wealth?

Greed has eclipsed regard for the well-being of the country.

Class warfare? The 1% have been waging it for years.

Funny comment Rick, seeing as how Obama is fighting AGAINST tax increases on the common people. It's your own beloved republicans that want to increase your taxes. They've already voted to increase your social security rate, and as Kyl's quote alludes to, “We're not talking about giving tax cuts to anyone. All we're asking is don't raise taxes on all Americans, and especially don't raise taxes on the people who create the business.", is that the only people he REALLY doesn't want to increase taxes on are the wealthy. You know, the people that AREN'T barely scraping by while in or near foreclosure with a low paying job that doesn't provide benefits. Think about it.

Well it would seem to me that what we need to do is that for those people that think a tax increase is good we raise their taxes by 50% and for those people that think a tax increase is bad we lower their taxes by 25%. That should keep everyone happy and have a net gain in tax revenue of 25%. All Hollywood types screaming for social justice we raise their taxes by 80%. I mean I am sure they will be OK with that. Who know maybe Penn will quit being so angry. Athletes since they make such enormous sums of money we raise their taxes by 80%. Now all we have to do is do a 90% Tax increase on bonuses and we are golden.

So they earn 20% of all the money but pay 38% of all the federal income tax collected yearly, sounds more than their fair share to me. To spent thrift liberals, they'd say that 90% would not be enough.

One more time, stupid people: The wealthy do not get pay checks. Wrap your tiny little brains around that. Most of their money comes in deferred comp, things like stocks and golden parachutes and stock options, and tennis lessons for their kids and private clubs and yachts, and, and, and...

THEY ARE NOT PAYING 38% IN TAXES.

You pay that because your boss insists upon giving you money every week instead of paying for your condo and giving you a car and letting you use the company jet.

And even on the small payroll they get, I'd bet you they get more back than they pay.

Don't you get it? Game rigged. You LOSE.

Holy crap, seriously? Our current income taxes are the lowest in 30 years, and lower than all the other first-world industrialized countries. The government -- that's YOU, you are the government. The money is spent on services we need, like teachers, firefighters, sanitation, and of course roads, etc.

Right now states and municipalities are bankrupt. Right now basic services are being cut or ended, whether shorter school years with larger classes, or charging citizens for fire department services, and worse Emergency Managers in places like Michigan that equates to no democracy. Right here in the good old US of A, we have dictatorship.

This concept of tax cuts and more cuts only, never raising taxes (Norquist) is illogical. Eventually there would be zero tax revenue, and you ignoramuses never consider how a government operates on nothing. There is always waste that must always be controlled, but the idea that somehow all your tax dollars are wasted is one of the biggest lies being told.

If you want to get your undies in a bundle, get angry about all the "free stuff" (as Romney calls it) going to corporate welfare. Did you see the agriculture bill -- Hurry and contact your representatives, because this monstrosity is about to get passed. How about TARP being "free stuff" for Wall Street and the Banksters? How about tax breaks on dividend, capital gains, and estate taxes for the richest 2% that Romney wants to make even sweeter?

And what do the Teapublicans and Romney want? They want a hand-out from you, the middle class and working poor. They have had over a decade of unpaid wars, a decade of tax cuts for the rich, a meltdown of our economy because of deregulation of Wall Street. And they want YOU to sacrifice Social Security and Medicare to pay for their mismanagement. They tell you Social Security and Medicare is "free stuff" but it is not -- YOU pay into these trust fund programs.

Why in the hell would you take a cut in programs you've paid for so that the GOP/Romney can increase spending on defense, can increase tax cuts for the rich, can continue with corporate welfare -- In other words get their "free stuff" and YOU have to pay for it?

Stop being duped. Throw out the Teapublican oligarch. Romney the plutocrat -- He's not in it for you.

Brenda1964.....

I'm sure there is a mom that loves you and is not a Democrat supporter, or if your thinking was hers, you'd have been aborted!

Here's your logic: "Pay your fair share"... You did learn that the tax code was law, and that the percentage amount in that code was 'your fair share'. You did learn that, right?? So now that someone has attained an education and a job and a commensurate income, you want to pick their pockets via some catch phrase, because you can not do as well as they did? Here's another thought... break out someone else's copy (I know you don't own one) of the Constitution and look for the Article on govt provided food stamps... Ummm, where exactly is it???

As for me, I pay by the rules... I am self employed and I'm opening an off-shore bank account just like Ms. Wasserman and Ms. Pelosi... My income will be what ever I say it is and you'll pay my ACA insuranca premium!

Hugo Chavez is calling you! He needs a #2!! You're the man!

You can't beat him with arguments, so you try to beat him with infantile insults.

You fail.

mj-1451595 -- Agreed. Folks, what mj is talking about are three things: 1) W2 employees are subjected to what's called "third party reporting" of income that the self-employed/business do NOT do--they can make sh!t up; 2) what is called the "effective tax rate," which is the actual rate paid, which is much lower because these entities make sh!t up; and 3) they have a gazillion more loopholes than you'll ever have in order to make sh!t up.

It's not even about "paying" by the rules as Romney claims, or per the IRS game idiot Lindsey Graham referred to -- Yes, it's rigged, and what's worse, these unpatriotic unethical douchebags have convinced about 35% of the population, otherwise known as Teabaggers, that the rich and corporations DESERVE to benefit from said rigged system!

The rich, especially the richest 1% are NOT "job creators." Even so-called small businesses are not the "job creators." DEMAND creates jobs, and the demand that creates jobs comes from the 98% middle class and working poor. When the 95-98% (under $250,000) do well, everyone does well including businesses and the rich.

The decimation of the middle class is why our economy sucks. To support continued GOP/Bush-era policies (on steroids under Romney the plutocrat) would be disastrous -- Obama/Biden - 2012!

I shouldn't say this but here goes anyway, Explain why Bush lowered the taxes for bout 6 years, Obama carried the Bush tax cuts for 3years and extended them for a 4th year. Stimulus money was pumped into the the Economy in two of three locations that are well known to get the economy moving. So, now comes the question. With all that money you were givin, why is the economy not moving? Once the money leaves the governments hands to the citizens it is not their responsability at that point. That amount of money for all the years must be, what? 4-5 trillion? If your not going to put it to work give it back. It is not your to keep.

Now, jump on that Airheads.

6dogs,

The reason after the stimulus our economy is not better is because most of the money went to foreign sources.

http://www.obamanomicsoutsourced.com/

If someone started their own business from scratch, created good paying jobs and can prove to be a good corporate citizen given a tax cut. Mosy wealthy folks have had plenty of government subsidies and favors and give back nothing to their country other than bribes to polititians

Yes And, And!, AND!!! Our Taxes are/were used to Repair American Infrastructure, improve American Education, Assist Small Business Start Ups and Many Many Many More AMERICAN Improvements to keep America Strong and resilient And EVEN Create An American Universal healthCare System; NOT for Tax Evasion Bonuses for the 1-10% and Corporate Rich, Unending Very Profitable Wars which are ruinous and campaign funding for scoundrels the likes of MittTaxPittance Rommel and King George TheVacuumBrained. You Can Take That To The Bank.

"These are the people (the high income earners) who have enough money to invest in businesses and to create jobs.” -Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona.

If true, then where is the investment in businesses and job creation?

Most likely it's in the banking and finance sectors of Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

So many complaints from uninformed stooges and the 1%, the "job creators," who haven't really created jobs in the U.S. during these past 10 years. My response to these selfish little piggies is:

You have accrued financial wealth, in great part, because you have the opportunity that comes by living in this society, which provides services, opportunity and, hopefully, fairness for all. For our society to run smoothly it must have a number of institutions. You know courts, police, hospitals, schools, while also recognizing it has the moral responsibility to help care for individuals who aren't able, for one reason or another, to take care of themselves. The people in the armed services, teachers, firefighters, those who maintain our infrastructure, consumers, scientists et al. are all part of this society which have made it possible for you to have succeeded materially. Without all those various cogs in our society, it is unlikely you would have realized your wealth. Without them, your life would be one in which you might have to guard your possessions, fighting off those who are less fortunate, live with shortages, little or non-functioning infrastructure. You would have to cope on your own with such events as fires, the ravages of fierce weather and threatening public health scenarios.

In short, it would be a brutish form of survival without the legal, social, and institutional support that a formal government provides. Government helps promotes the social mores and customs of a society. It helps provide the social glue that creates a civilized, functioning group, society. And all this requires each provide according to their ability the financial support a government requires to function. You know, taxes.

It took an amendment to the constitution to make taxes on incomes legal in the first place.

The sixteenth amendment removed the census or enumeration test for taxation thereby obliterating the only check and balance on Congress' power to tax.

All taxation of income is immoral, unethical and no one should ever have to pay income taxes because it is innately unfair to tax someone for being self sufficient and now the power to tax is being used to dictate behavior.

If you are liberal you may be in love with "ObamaCare" and argue your own natural right to individual or consumer sovereignty away... but...

Rest assured, conservatives will use this power to dictate too and you may be less than pleased with the results when that day comes, which it surely will.

"They", Congress, all of them, cannot be trusted with unlimited, unchecked, unbalanced power to tax and thereby compel, dictate the behavior of.... you dear.

Only voluntary actions can be taxed morally and the natural right to pursue property as enumerated by John Locke is beyond question the thing that builds freedom.

All problems in America have their roots in the sixteenth amendment... the good news is that there is a way out and it has been endorsed by nine states already....

DOT org/

It's the people that take risks and work hard that are up in arms. Yes, 200K/year is a pretty good amount of money, but when it comes to business it may be a very low profit margin and any divergence from the sales norm could be a disaster for the business owner.

The wealthy do not take risks. If I have millions of dollars diversified in different in investments I can afford to have some go sour. It is the middle class who takes the real risk. Most high paying jobs now require college education. So the middle class guy has to take a risk and put down a sizable portion of their money into getting a degree. The rich man can easily afford to go. The working man has to take when he trusts his companies pension funds for his retirement money. The company could be sold and his hard earned pension money could evaporate overnight. The working man has to take a risk when he buys a house by taking out a mortgage. God forbid the economy might crash due to the actions of the 1% and he ends up underwater on his mortgage. He has to take a risk simply by living since a bad sickness could easily end up eating through his life savings. Don't tell me that the 1% take more risks than everyone else.

Business owners whose profits are still counted as their own income would be affected and I think this is maybe what you are talking about. However, this tax fight is only over raising the individual income tax, not the corporate tax rates so most businesses would not be affected in the way that you are saying they would. A business making 200K a year is vastly different from an individual making 200k a year.

"These are the people (the high income earners) who have enough money to invest in businesses and to create jobs.” -Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona.

If true, then where is the investment in businesses and job creation?

It is non existent. Consumer demand creates jobs and a stronger economy. Not a few rich dudes investing money.

The rich should be taxed in proportion based on the difference of median income of the middle class and the poor. The gap has been increasing because of favoritism and elitism. We the many are who make up the government because of our mass voting power. Yet, the government appears to favor the rich. Achieving the American dream should come with a success tax which would be the Patriotic thing to do. Anything less is economic slavery and our government protecting the elite.

This is an ever escalating stairway. Tax - spend, tax more - spend more....it will never end. Its time for our gov. to get a budget and live within it and stop the silliness....in times of budget crunches the first thing gov. does is cut spending on are the very services the people depend on, that are most important to us such as; schools, police, fire, etc. This is the ploy the gov. uses to scare the tax payer into capitulation. Never cut foreign aid to corrupt foreign governments who will turn on us at a moments notice, never cut gov. salaries, never reduce the numbers of gov. employees who man out-dated gov. offices or depts. that are no longer relevant or are redundant. Only taxes cut are those that have an immediate impact on tax payers. We need to demand our politicians to keep to the budget - if and when they ever get a budget (which they find more convenient to work with since they don't have to explain to us why they over spent a budget that doesn't exist) - HOW STUPID ARE WE?

NO TO HIGHER TAXES - YES TO A FIXED AND PROPERLY REGULATED AND AUDITED FEDERAL BUDGET - YES TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY! We need to start voting out of office all the dead wood that can't propose a proper budget or stay within one, hold them all accountable to their responsibilities and stop falling for their scare tactics.

romney = rmoney.

historicall taxes on the top have always been higher than they are now and we did better then that now- so one could posit that high taxes on the wealthy create jobs not the other way around which btw i haven seen any of these rich folk jobs in the past 4 years they swore they would create if they got their way- well they have and we still have no jobs, and you people are stupid enough to believe them yet again

This is one problem with the Collapse Nazi's. We have to keep explaining the same things over and over again.

wtfjes66 -- The income tax rates are the lowest in 30 years. The "effective" tax rate, meaning the rate the self-employed and corporations pay after all the write-offs, is also much lower than they will have you believe.

The lack of logic to Norquist and his Teabag followers is -- If we only cut taxes, cut and always cut, and can never raise taxes, than eventually there would be zero revenue for government to operate. Yes, there are those who think they'd like anarchy, but of course they are not only fools but traitors.

Economist consensus is we can't drop below revenues of 20% of GDP, at least not long term. We need to be closer to 22%, and right now we are around revenues of 18% of GDP. There is a breaking point, a real point at which the lies about waste no longer hold. We are seeing now the real cuts to services that are NOT waste, such as teachers for education, cops for security, as well as our crumbling infrastructure.

Those who want austerity and to "eat the corn seed" rather than investment in our future are un-American. In addition, these folks like the Teapublican leadership, aren't sincere about reducing deficits. Enough with the ignorance and destruction. Clean House and throw the Teapublicans out.

NO TO HIGHER TAXES - YES TO A FIXED AND PROPERLY REGULATED AND AUDITED FEDERAL BUDGET - YES TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY! We need to start voting out of office all the dead wood that can't propose a proper budget or stay within one, hold them all accountable to their responsibilities and stop falling for their scare tactics.

First you want a budget, but then you don't want to raise taxes to balance it. How the hell are you going to balance the budget without raising taxes??? Taxes are BELOW the 18% average; they were almost never even close during the Bush years, and the only reason why they were close was because of the housing bubble which blew up. The Bush tax cuts cost us $4 trillion over 10 years; that is over half of our deficits over that same time. Why not just repeal the tax cuts, reform entitlements, cut defense, and be done with it??? Just bite the dam bullet, America. We've been living off tax cuts and spending increases for decades; it's time we ALL buckled down and paid our fair share.

Only voluntary actions can be taxed morally and the natural right to pursue property as enumerated by John Locke is beyond question the thing that builds freedom.

Oh bull@!$%#. The 16th amendment was created so that the wealthiest Americans wouldn't make off with the majority of the nation's wealth and income; consumption taxes mainly affect the middle class, while the rich get a huge tax cut. John Locke would be horrified if he saw how big the gap is between rich and poor is. And by the way, John Locke supported equal rights for ALL MEN. You conservatives bitch about freedom and liberty, yet continue to regulate the bedroom, a woman's reproductive rights, and deny people the basic rights of marriage and equality. If you want to use John Locke, try fixing the principles of your party that he would oppose.

Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot argue and bitch about whether we ought to raise taxes; we should be arguing about how much we raise taxes. Every other country but ours has to deal with this stupid anti-tax argument. I, for one, am tired of it. I say repeal the Bush tax cuts for everyone, raise taxes across the board gradually, add a few more income brackets (two at the bottom, four at the top), have the highest tax rate as 70% on $40 million or more, and use some of that money to fix our roads and our schools, and the rest to cut the debt.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

GOP Senate Whip Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona told Gregory, “We're not talking about giving tax cuts to anyone. All we're asking is don't raise taxes on all Americans, and especially don't raise taxes on the people who create the business.

Then who do we tax? Middle class? These people do not create jobs. Why would a billionaire, with all that mony, start a business and put up with labor problems, tax pro blems and etc. Everyone should pay taxes. The nation needs it to run. But, we also need leaders who use common sense, and morales. And we have no such politicians. Now, we have Religious groups who want to run the government,but pay no taxes and have no morality either.

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Increase the tax rate back to what it was for the 1%

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Taxes on those making over $250,000 are already going up starting January 1, 2013. Extend the Bush tax cuts and the social security pay roll tax for one more year to see what the impact will be on the economy. But, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire across the board will automatically put the country back into a recession and that's without taking into account the taxes associated with the PPACA.

Not that any of this matters. It is an election year, this is all political posturing. Dick Durbin is from one of the highest taxed states in the nation. It happens to be one of the most in debt states as well. Illinois is surrounded by states being ran by republican governors who all lowered taxes and are luring businesses away. I don't think he was the right messenger to convey this rhetoric. Harry Reid is having a hard time securing his 51 votes in the senate because he can't convince members of his own party that raising taxes is a good thing. It definitely won't pass in the House.

it would not be increasing the upper tax level...it would actually be RESTORING the tax level to that during the Clinton years. years that were good for the US. and, for those of you who believe that supply-side economics is the way to go, I suggest you take some eco courses...it is the demand side that pushes an economy forward. but, in order for the demand side to work, wages for middle class and lower class workers must go up. wages have been flat for the 98% for the last 30 years. some would even suggest that actual income for the 98% has dropped. that certainly can't be said about the 1%, the vulture capitalists.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

The top tax rate hasn't been this low since the 1930's and, then there weren't tons of loopholes. Romney pays 14% in 2010 and won't release his 2011 return. We can do as the Baggers want and return to no civilization, no educations, (as if they value education), screw the roads, bridges, the military, the elderly, the disabled--just screw everyone and try Darwinism---or, we can tax the richest at a higher rate--like Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan. 91% was the top earner tax rate during Eisenhower.

I say that we divide the red states and the blue states and start all over. One with great infrastructure, well educated, healthcare for every "Blue State Citizen", etc. And the "Red State Citizens" could have the town blacksmith do surgery and they could pay him/her with road kill.

LiarsInPolitics=duh -- The polarization started some time back with gerrymandering by Republicans -- that is drawing districts to make those districts "safe" for their Republican candidates. This is the reason for incumbents who are in office forever and ever regardless of the crap they do.

Polarization started to increase with the Iraq war, culminating with TARP and the start of the Tea Party. This is when the gerrymandering became a bigger problem. In those safe "red" districts, the only challenge has been coming from the Far Right -- the extreme fringe. This is why it is important to denote the difference between the Republicans and Teapublicans.

If you pay attention, you'd note that when I refer to times prior to the 2010 mid-term election, I say "Republican" and not "Teapublican." There are others (even a book) about the Teavangelicals too. Because sadly not long after 2008, the Tea Party was quickly usurped from a fiscal movement to the religious-right movement and obsession with things like abortion.

But my guess is you will not read this response because you just "swooped and pooped" your irrational anger. Well you don't know anger my friend, because I am beyond pissed off about the Lost Decade our country has suffered due to GOP/Bush-era policies of voodoo economics, neocon foreign policy, and religious radicalism. This is what is destroying the country as a whole, but has also destroyed an entire generation of baby boomers who can NEVER get that decade back.

dave20121 -- The president's proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts (for one year) includes breaks for the richest 2%. Couples with incomes of $250,000 or more will only pay a higher tax rate on earnings above and beyond $250,000. It is mind-bending that the Teapublicans are blocking this. It is much better than just letting all the Bush tax cuts expire -- But that's what the GOP/TP does -- They throw the American people under the bus for political gain. They want to blame the expiration of Bush tax cuts for the middle class on Democrats and the president.

I for one know better than that, and a lot more voters are getting a clue too. Throw the Teapublicans out! And as a shout out to LiarsInPolitics=duh -- Bring the sane Republicans back.

"The Arizona Republican predicted that his party will gain control of the Senate on Election Day...The GOP needs a net gain of four seats to do so"

Actually, they only need a net of 3 if Romney wins, because the VP would cast the tie-breaking vote.

Here is the latest from Rasmussen, the most accurate pollster over the last two presidential elections – this is among 'Likely Voters', which is much more accurate than polls of 'Registered Voters' since polls of Registered Voters typically overstate the Democrat by about 4% compared with actual results (Republicans are more likely to vote);

Electoral Votes for Obama (strong + leaners) = 247

Electoral Votes for Romney (strong + leaners) = 191

There are 7 'Battleground States' – CO, FL, IA, NC, OH, VA, WI. In those states, Romney has a slight lead in FL, IA, NC, OH and WI, with 78 Electoral Votes which brings him to 269 Electoral Votes. In the other two states of CO and VA, with 22 Electoral Votes the candidates are exactly tied among Likely Voters.

One other point worth mentioning is that 'Undecided Voters' typically go to the challenger (Romney in this case) by anywhere from 60% to 90%, and with about 8% in the 'Undecided' column, Romney has a distinct advantage at this time which could add 2% to 6% to his total – the 'best guess' at this time is Romney with 291 Electoral Votes to 247 for Obama. But of course the election is months away, and anything could happen. The link is as follows;

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/archive/2012_electoral_college_scoreboard

PS – If it's a tie with each getting 269 votes, then the House of Representatives (likely controlled by Republicans) gets to elect the President.

sandtrich -- Rick Perry turned away tons of money for Texans with irrational desire to end Planned Parenthood. If he and other Teapublican governors turn away tons of money to expand Medicaid, the picture you paint is quite real. Two countries, the Blue and the Red, and the Red sinking financially with higher rates of poverty. Really, had the South seceded from the Union, it would be a third-world country already. They pay in less to the Federal government than they receive as it is.

aggrevatedofficeworker

historicall taxes on the top have always been higher than they are now and we did better then that now- so one could posit that high taxes on the wealthy create jobs not the other way around which btw i haven seen any of these rich folk jobs in the past 4 years they swore they would create if they got their way- well they have and we still have no jobs, and you people are stupid enough to believe them yet again

The response I've seen from many annalists on this subject is that businesses are waiting to see how the ACA (obamacare) plays out and what are the impacts to be on them. There are other issues but this seems to be the main stumbling block. So you can't really blame the rich businessperson (some not so rich either who aren't hiring for the same reason. - he is in business to make a profit and not dumb enough to buy a pig-in-a-poke). Even financial institutions with banks of lawyer and accountants can't figure this 2600 + health document out. So just don't jump at the first blush of uneducated anger at the wrong people.

I hate to have to say this, but President Obama is not trying to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, like the story claims. The Republikans in Congress voted back when the GW Bush tax cuts were first enacted to have the lower rate revert to the higher rate in 2011, and late in 2010, they also agreed to allow the GW tax cut to revert in 2013 instead, in exchange for only one year of extended unemployment benefits. So, the conservatives in Congress already agreed twice to raise taxes on themselves, and they have benefited far more from a two-year extension of the GW tax cut than our long-term unemployed benefited from an extra year of receiving unemployment benefits in areas of the US with persistently-high unemployment rates.

It would be quite fair to say that President Obama does not want to extend the GW tax cut for the wealthiest Americans any longer than the Republicans already agreed to extend that cut, but it IS NOT fair or correct to say that President Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich, when wealthy Republicans already twice agreed to that raise!!! Furthermore, since our top tax rate is lower than it has been since 1916, the US ought to be awash in good-paying jobs and we are obviously not, so the theory that tax cuts for the rich stimulate anything but economic growth in China and Mexico and the number of companies abandoning America is obviously bunk too!

Why not raise our top tax rates back to what they were during Ron Raygun's first term (50%), or to what they were during Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter's 16 years in office, when our economy was doing pretty well (70%) or even to what they were during Ike's 8 years in office (90%)???

Then who do we tax? Middle class? These people do not create jobs. Why would a billionaire, with all that mony, start a business and put up with labor problems, tax pro blems and etc.

The "1%" will not start a business unless there are customers. Who are the customers? For most products, it is the middle class. When this country was manufacturing-intensive, even the wealthiest people understood the need for a prosperous middle class (think of Henry Ford and his introduction of a $5/day pay scale so that his workers could afford to buy his cars). Now that so much of the economy is in the financial sector, the link between the wealthy and the middle class has been broken because the wealthy no longer need a middle class.

First the rightwing claimed taxes were causing uncertainty, then regulations, and ACA, and on and on and that's a crock of crap. If your business is going gang busters, you will hire, buy equipment, and do whatever you need to do to be successful. The problem is businesses, though many have made record profits and are sitting on piles of cash, are concerned about one thing and one thing only -- DEMAND.

Small business owners are already seeing the benefits from ACA to their bottom line, and will see more as time goes by. This is why the Teapublicans have tried to block ACA all along. What will their claim to fame be now? National security? Not after Iraq. Fiscal responsibility? Not after the Bush Recession. Religious wedge issues? Yes, that's why they have focused like a laser on jobs abortion.

Democrats are trying to stimulate DEMAND, but thanks to GOP/TP obstruction, the recovery is not as fast at it could be. If the Jobs Act had been passed, and the public sector was hiring per population growth rather than firing, the unemployment rate would be below 7% right now.

It's the middle class stupid. Obama/Biden - 2012!

The rich are holding back because they want more repubs in power to keep the taxes low on the rich. The Ryan plan raises taxes by 20% on the middle class while giving Romney and rich over $700,000 tax break. If the rich and repubs can make the economy worse like they pledged to do , to keep President Obama from serving a second term, they will rape the middle class of their Soc sec, medicaid and the Post Office. Privatizing and raising rates for greed profits.

Stop the greedy Romney and repubs.

Vote Obama/Biden 2012

wtfjes66 said...NO TO HIGHER TAXES - YES TO A FIXED AND PROPERLY REGULATED AND AUDITED FEDERAL BUDGET - YES TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY! We need to start voting out of office all the dead wood that can't propose a proper budget or stay within one, hold them all accountable to their responsibilities and stop falling for their scare tactics.

Freshieee your response......First you want a budget, but then you don't want to raise taxes to balance it. How the hell are you going to balance the budget without raising taxes???

That's all you got from my post........so sad!

Mitt the Vulture Ass should move his Assets back from the Cayman and Bermuda islands and pay proper taxes on these assets. Other vultures should follow suit.

Then we can say, Mitt has behaved properly.

True Patriot,

How is allowing people to keep more of what they earn, regardless of bracket a bad thing? After all they earned the money! Or are you confusing capital gains and inheritance taxes again with income taxes? It would be different if a tax increase would make a difference, but every time taxes have been increased, spending has also increased and each time a larger percentage goes to social safety net programs. Why is it wrong to make someone stand up and take care of themselves? Why is it wrong for incentive to exist for people to find a job, or take care of a parent? I believe in helping someone get back on their feet, but it doesn't go to the extreme of supporting them for years in the process. I truly cannot say where our tax rates stand in the free world, at least on individuals, but it seems to me that the rest of the western world is in a far worse boat than we are financially at the moment. so how did having more social programs and higher tax rates benefit them?

Our government wastes more money in a morning than most people would see in two or three lifetimes. We are running trillion dollar deficits and are projected to continue running them for another ten years! We need fiscal responsibility not tax increases. George H. Bush compromised on his pledge of no new taxes during his presidency. He gave in and signed a tax increase but never saw the promised cuts from congress, only an increase in spending. It was one of the contributing factors that lost him the election. President Obama submitted a budget this year to the house. The house brought it up for vote and not one representative, NOT ONE voted for it! Not even his own party because everyone thought it unrealistic. The crazy spending must stop! The government needs to be reduced in size and returned to it's proper functions. Once that is accomplished, a tax increase can become a part of a balanced budget bill. I will support it then, but not until Washington learns to live within it's means.

This administration wants a tax increase in 2013??

Why must American tax payers send foreign aid to countries that do not like us.??

This government has a spending problem.

Fix this 1st, then WE can determine if the government deserves higher taxes.

47% of Americans pay no taxes. Thanks for your help.!!

What is the percentage of Americans making their living from government jobs??

What is the percentage of Americans making their living in the private sector.??

A government can not give anyone anything until they take it from someone else 1st.

We need tax producing jobs, not jobs produced from taxes.!!

balancing the budget would be a NICE thing but governments can not and will not ever balance the budget.....to many things happen in the course of any year to cover and take care which you can not plan for.......Kyl is brain dead when he mentions we can not tax the job creators....it has been a LIE the REpubs been saying for 30 years...they have gotten their tax breaks and haven't created much of anything except MORE jobs overseas and NOT here!!

For starters, it would be good to see a tax penalty levied against US corporations that ship jobs overseas, or otherwise have been particularly aggressive in dismissing useful employees in the interest of aggregating massive executive salaries.

For those of you who weep about your taxes (and especially those of you who weep while earning over six figures a year, or seven if you're in a major metropolitan area), here's a confession: I personally do not wish to dig my own well for water, cut and pave my own roads, finance my own army, or do a whole lot of other things that governments tend to do.

However, maybe people who feel as I do are just lazy Communists, as we are so frequently labeled.

Praise Jesus!

I just wonder, if romney wins and the right takes control of boh the house and the senate, then the economy tanks, are they still going to blame obama?

To all the liberals who think that it is great idea to tax the "rich" I want you to think about a few things....

1) In economics you tax something you want less of and subsidize what you want more of... Why would you tax the individuals who create businesses from their hard work and ingenuity and give trillions of benefits to non-producing citizens through food stamps, section 8 housing, and "free" healthcare. I am sick and tired of seeing people in Walmart paying for their groceries with a debit food stamp card and talking on their IPhones! I see 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 3 car garage houses being used for section 8 housing (with the garage full of cars, the living room with a big screen led tv, and the kitchen full of brand name food)! I have to scrimp and save to buy my food, have a tv that I SAVED up for and have to pay more for my auto insurance because there are so many illegals in my state who have none.

2) Why do the liberals hate the so-called 1%? Most of the liberal political elite are in this 1%, but, they are willing to sacrifice the remainder of the "rich" so that they will not lose what they have. Think about the money that families like the Kennedys, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, John Kerry, and even Bill and Hillary Clinton have. You can be assured that they will find ways to save what they have even if they have to destroy millions of small businesses in order to satisfy their belief in "fairness" and keep their stanglehold on power.

3) Why is the govenment continually expanding? There is more revenue coming into the Treasury now than ever in American history, but, the deficit keeps expanding. The reason is that our current government is inefficient, wasteful, bloated and corrupt! The "Bridge to Nowhere", crony capitalism (Solyndra, GM and Chrysler and the rapidly decomposing "green" energy companies come to mind) and the fact that it is impossible to have an efficient bureaucracy in this country is taking trillions of dollars out of the private economy and "redistributing" it to government bureaucrats, union bosses and crony capitalists.

We need to realize that this country will soon collapse under this form of tax and spend government. Remember that this government is FOR the people, not the people itself!

Pigotry, not sure who has been telling you he pays different taxes offshore but he doesn't. Long term capital gains for a US citizen in his bracket are 15% no matter where it is earned. Corporations are a different story maybe thats what you heard. They only pay US rates if they bring the money back to the US. Which is why most companies leave their money overseas as it is a double tax if they bring it back.

Patriot, in addition to my full time job i have 2 LLC's. I can tell you with 100% certainty that UNCERTAINTY over the things you mention taxes, regulation and the ACA affect my decisions and thought process. Everything isn't nearly as simple as...... well what is demand this week.

It affected my decision for a 15% stake in a partnership that was going to buy a number of franchises from a guy retiring. Business is ok. The main reason, and the reason the group fell apart, was that there are more than 50 employees. That's the threshold that kicks in Obamacare, and the group would have had to deal with all the regs, red tape and potential fines/penalties/taxes. The compliance costs are something we couldn't get a handle on. Theres already a medicare tax in Obamacare and a possible 5% tax increase. All that uncertainty pulled me out, then another and it fell apart.

Thats why none of the business groups like it. It gives a competitive disadvantage to businesses with 50 or more employees if they are close to that number. Those with just under do not fall under ACA. The franchise groups really hate it as people will hesitate at that number if they aren't sure they want to go big as in 100's of employees. Just as i did.

While demand is a part of business, there are MANY other factors that go into decisions to hire, invest in capital equipment, expand or contract.

The policy makers had better be careful. During the Great Depression, in 1932, an election year, FDR whacked Hoover in the head, saying there was no balanced budget. Taking this criticism too seriously, Hoover then raised taxes in 1932, taking money out of people's pockets.

The recession worsened, and in the end - plus other factors - became the Great Depression.

archangel 3:16 & GuyLittle -- Read posts above, most specifically my post #2.16.

If every time taxes are raised spending increases, then how did we have a surplus at the end of Clinton's administration? Where's the proof that all the tax dollars are wasted?

A few things. Reagan cut taxes, then raised taxes eleven time during his presidency thereafter. Why? Because of the huge Star Wars defense spending program. That's why Bush Sr. ended up raising taxes too. At least they did the responsible thing.

Now Republicans (e.g., Cheney) think deficit spending--especially on wars--doesn't matter. They became worse than a tax-and-spend Party, they just spend, spend, spend -- Until there is a Democrat in the White House and then they are holier than thou. The largest reason for our current deficit/debt is the Bush tax cuts both in 2001 and 2003, but particularly the the 2003 tax cuts only for the rich during time of war.

The fact is no Republican president has balanced the budget since Nixon, or has had a surplus since Eisenhower. The fact is government has grown much more under Republican control, and so has deficit spending. Now we have to reduce the debt, and that will require both cuts in spending as well as increases in revenue.

To rebuild the middle class--and small businesses, President Obama has passed and proposed many tax cuts for this group. The president has NOT increased taxes on middle class, has not increased government, and has spent far less than all the administrations going back several presidencies.

NO, we will not cut spending first, because we are well aware of the Republican ploy to take something and then renege on their promises. Especially the corporate rate, which is already lower in reality due to write offs (the effective tax rate). Remove loopholes first!

Agreed that we need a simpler and fairer tax code. The president's proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts (for one year) for the middle class also provides breaks for the richest 2%. Couples with incomes of $250,000 or more will only have a tax increase on earnings above and beyond $250,000.

This is going in the correct direction of taking a poverty level of say $20,000 and not taxing anyone's income on the first $20,000. Then we could end all the tax credits that currently allow folks making more than $20,000 to pay zero in taxes -- most notably the child credit of $1,000 per child, the mortgage credit, etc. People would accept the loss of those tax credits if they weren't taxed on the first $20,000 earned, and it would fair to everyone of any income.

A progressive income tax is far better than regressive taxes like sales taxes--which btw the poor or the 47% pay like everyone else. We could make Social Security solvent immediately by raising the FICA cap at $106,000 higher, and could make Medicare solvent with single payer health care for all.

Also, I agree we need more tax-producing jobs. Demand creates jobs, and demand comes from the middle class. We need to do things to strengthen the middle class, and we need to restore upward mobility. Good paying jobs in particular produce tax revenue. With unions destroyed, who speaks on behalf of labor for good wages?

Continuing on with GOP/Bush-era voodoo economics--on steroids under Romney would be a disaster. We've been there, done that, and don't need to do it again.

The level of ignorance among some of the posters on this thread is incredible. They literally ooze envy and hatred for the successful from their very pores from the sounds of their posts. Let me give you a little education.

WEALTHY people have lots of money, but that doesn't mean that they have lots of income. Paris Hilton is filthy stinking rich, but she doesn't have to work if she doesn't want to. Neither does John Kerry, or Jay Rockefeller. The late Ted Kennedy wasn't even considered wealthy under these tax rate increases because he only claimed to have his Senate salary for income. They've all received trust funds that pay no inheritance taxes, nor income taxes. The ONLY income that WEALTHY people have, if any, is investment income. Since most of them have unlimited access to enough money to cover their expenses for life without ever receiving a dime in income, they can effectively NOT PAY A DIME IN INCOME OR CAPITAL GAINS TAXES. However, if they choose to not invest that money because they don't want to pay the taxes on the investment income it can result in thousands of jobs lost. So increased tax rates on capital gains discourages them from investing just as surely as increased tax rates on cigarettes discourages people from smoking. As for corporations, do any of you uneducated clods have a clue as to who owns the bulk of the stock in most major corporations? Here's a hint, Pension plans and retirement accounts hold over 65% of the stock in Fortune 500 companies. When Obamao seized control of the stock of GM and Chrysler for 29 cents on the dollar, the "greedy hedge fund manager" that he vilified on national TV was representing the Indiana State Teachers' Pension plan. You know all of those horribly wealthy and greedy retired teachers.

People who have high INCOMES, may or may not be wealthy. $200,000 a year isn't particularly wealthy when you consider what it costs to send a couple of kids to a decent college these days. Then again, perhaps you should tell the union lifeguards in California and the union garbage truck driver in Milwaukee that they are all "wealthy". The idea that earning $250,000 a year makes one WEALTHY, goes back to the 1930s. If that amount were adjusted for inflation, the threshold would be in the area of $3 MILLION a year. I know guys working in car dealerships that make over $200,000 a year. They just happen to work 12 - 16 hours a day, 6 and 7 days a week. One has four beautiful daughters. His taxes will end up paying for the college education for the children of illegal aliens and welfare queens, while he struggles to pay his own children's tuition. What is fair about that? Since he took the job selling cars during a summer vacation from college and didn't go back, he doesn't have anything but on the job training.

Then there are my taxes. I with only one ( I knew I couldn't afford to support more than one) grown child, but my taxes go to pay people who had children that they can't afford to feed to have more children. How else would you describe the EIC? Do the people who get double what they pay in back really pay their fair share?

New here's a question for the mathematically challenged amongst us. If working an extra 2 months of the year would raise your income to the point of incurring a punitive income tax rate such that you'd receive the same amount of overall income, would you work the extra two months? Or would you take it off? Wouldn't working the extra two months for essentially no pay be considered slavery? These are all questions that are being asked by the small businessmen in this country. The thing is, if the accountant, attorney, doctor, or other businessman decides that he doesn't feel any need to work for free for those two months, his staff is unemployed for that time as well. Before Obamacare and the other Democrat tax increases were put into effect, a doctor's wife called into the Shaun Hannity show and told him that that is exactly what her husband is looking at doing. Since he's not going to make money working the last 6 weeks of the year, he's simply going to close his office for that time, and lay off his employees. He didn't attend college, med school, intern and go through both a general and a surgical residency to work for free. There is this funny little mathematical class called calculus and a principal called the point of diminishing returns. This is how accountants across the country are calculating for their clients whether working the entire year is in their best interests.

Patriot, Taxes and revenue are only part of the equation. Spending is the other. The reason there was a balanced budget in Clintons last term was we had the lowest SPENDING/gdp ratio in around 40 years then.

@Barry NJ #2.46. You hit the nail on the head. Through the financial sector, the wealthy no longer need a middle class to make their money. It is very portable and can be accomplished from any country. If tax rates increase, the wealthy are nimble enough to move their wealth legally and avoid paying higher taxes. But, it takes all their contribution to the tax base as well.

Goldenone--you are spot on...wages have been relatively stagnant over the last 30 years. But, the question is why? I have my ideas, but I would be interested in a different perspective.

True Patriot--I respect the fact that we have ideological differences politically and economically. As you stated, economy grows through demand. Demand is driven by consumers. How do we get more money into the pockets of the consumers? I have my ideas, but always interested in a different perspective. I will say that your comment on "Demand" does not support your call for passing the President's Jobs Bill that increases public sector jobs. Just because the population increases, does not mean that there is an automatic demand for more public sector jobs. Even more important, is there money to add another public sector job. Recent municipal bankruptcies and more on the horizon, states in fiscal crisis and a middle class tapped out by stagnating wages and rising costs of living. Increasing taxes on the upper 2% under the president's proposal will only provide enough revenue for a little more than a week. Again, I have my ideas, but you have been respectful without the name calling, so I am open to the ideas from a different perspective.

So increased tax rates on capital gains discourages them from investing just as surely as increased tax rates on cigarettes discourages people from smoking

so using your so-called "logic" (and there is no logic at all to your thinking), let's try this.

assuming a wealthy person has $10 million income from investments, instead of netting $8.5 million, they net a "measly" $6.5 million on their investments (paying the same taxes as the rest of us). you are claiming that they just going to give up because they didn't make even more?

that is the most brainlessly idiotic thing I have ever heard, but is typical of the idiocy spewed by the nutcase right.

We all need to be paying more in taxes, even the middle class,

I agree with this 100%.

And even on the small payroll they get, I'd bet you they get more back than they pay.

Don't you get it? Game rigged. You LOSE.

Please provide a link. 80% of the country pays less than 15% in income taxes. In fact most people that make 50K and below pay only 3% in federal taxes We made 91K last year and paid only 6.13% we could have paid 5.7% and we don't even have a mortgage deduction. What do you think we should pay? 4%? 2%? 0%

MJ'14's quote "So they earn 20% of all the money but pay 38% of all the federal income tax collected yearly, sounds more than their fair share to me. To spent thrift liberals, they'd say that 90% would not be enough.

One more time, stupid people: The wealthy do not get pay checks. Wrap your tiny little brains around that. Most of their money comes in deferred comp, things like stocks and golden parachutes and stock options, and tennis lessons for their kids and private clubs and yachts, and, and, and...

THEY ARE NOT PAYING 38% IN TAXES.

OK MJ CAN YOU READ? No one said they paid a 38% rate in taxes, according to Politifact.org they paid 38% OF the total federal taxes TAKEN IN. They earned 20% of the money in 2008 but paid 38% of the taxes in 2008. Got it, or is it to tough for you??? And this is a REAL number not some bull.

wtfjes66

wtfjes66 said...NO TO HIGHER TAXES - YES TO A FIXED AND PROPERLY REGULATED AND AUDITED FEDERAL BUDGET - YES TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY! We need to start voting out of office all the dead wood that can't propose a proper budget or stay within one, hold them all accountable to their responsibilities and stop falling for their scare tactics.

Freshieee your response......First you want a budget, but then you don't want to raise taxes to balance it. How the hell are you going to balance the budget without raising taxes???

That's all you got from my post........so sad!

No, I learned how uncompromising some people are on your side from your post, how irrational people on your side our sounding, and how you people cannot accept that government has a role, in some cases a big role, to play in the economy. But, I decided to take on the one thing that correlated to the point I was trying to make.

3) Why is the govenment continually expanding? There is more revenue coming into the Treasury now than ever in American history, but, the deficit keeps expanding. The reason is that our current government is inefficient, wasteful, bloated and corrupt! The "Bridge to Nowhere", crony capitalism (Solyndra, GM and Chrysler and the rapidly decomposing "green" energy companies come to mind) and the fact that it is impossible to have an efficient bureaucracy in this country is taking trillions of dollars out of the private economy and "redistributing" it to government bureaucrats, union bosses and crony capitalists.

Well, we had a budget surplus under Clinton, and $4 trillion over the next few years. Revenues are always increasing due to economic growth and inflation. The deficit, at least in the last decade, expands because of stupid spending policies, like Medicare Advantage and the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars (not to mention the Department of Homeland Security). GM and Chrysler were major successes; both are churning out cars and are prospering. The recovery of the auto industry is, in itself, a proud achievement of the Obama administration and a miraculous comeback. And by the way, there was no way for the auto industry to be saved by a "managed bankruptcy," as no private company had the capital or the willpower to invest in them. And by the way, unions are at their lowest participation level in decades. They aren't as powerful in the economy as you think they are...

OBAMA BIDEN 2012