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We're screwed!

Erik said:
That doesn't answer my question at all, so let me ask another:

What percentage of taxes do you think the bottom 50% of wage earners pay? I.e. if there are 100 million people in this country earning money, what percentage of taxes do the 50 million on the lower half of the pay scale pay?
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Basically, with my crappy business, I make about $22K a year, I keep about $15K(to spend willfully) after income tax.
Bill Gates make billions a year, and get to keep billions a year.
Of course he pays more taxes, he makes a crap load of money. But our government didn't take into consideration the fact that if they did charge everyone the same amount of tax, lets say 33% to be close, my cost of living isn't any cheaper than the rich guy's, he just has more disposable income to waste. Well, I don't get too much isposable income.
EX:
Poor fella(me): makes $22K a year and has to spend a minimum of $14K a year on bare necessaties, after my $7K worth of taxes, I have $1,000 to spend as disposable income.
Rich fella: (some guy): makes $100,000 a year and has to spend a minimum of $14K a year on bare necessaties, after his $33K worth of taxes, he will have $53,000 to spend as disposable income.

So, while only making 4x more than me, he can buy 53x the things I have.

$14K is an estimate of living in a one room apartment on the bad side of town eating home meals only.
$28K would be a comfortable single's existance.
Luckily I still live at home whilst in college.

Basically, equal taxing isn't fair, considering the lower class works harder than most richer people. Poor people should be taxed far less because of the cost of living factor, something rich repulicans never take into cosideration or don't give a fart about.
I hope this helps clear my opinion up..lol
 
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alexkerhead said:
I hope this helps clear my opinion up..lol
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Somewhat, but again you've dodged the question at hand.

And, if you are paying 7K a year in income taxes on 22K of income then you are either using the wrong tax software or you are very bad at math.

At worst your taxes should be about 3K and, since you are in school, you should actually have some deductions to make that smaller.

To correct my last post, by the way, the 28% bracket is not the top. It actually goes all the way to 35%.

You are right that a fixed income tax rate would impact the lower income folks more, but that's one reason we have a progressive system, for better or for worse.

As for your comparisons, they don't hold up in the real world. Someone who is earning 100K a year usually has far more "basic" expenses than a college student, even if they aren't married with a family. Even you won't live in a crappy studio apartment for the rest of your life, I hope.

alexkerhead said:
Poor people should be taxed far less because of the cost of living factor, something rich repulicans never take into cosideration or don't give a fart about.
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Last time I checked the most recent tax cuts were pretty much across the board. Every taxpayer had their rates reduced and some people who were paying taxes actually dropped off the bottom bracket. On top of that the government sent out checks to a large number of people on the lower end of the tax scale.

Sure, the guy paying 50K a year in taxes had that drop to 45K while the guy paying 2K a year in taxes only saved a few hundred dollars, but would you really expect it to be different?
 
Erik said:
Somewhat, but again you've dodged the question at hand.

And, if you are paying 7K a year in income taxes on 22K of income then you are either using the wrong tax software or you are very bad at math.

At worst your taxes should be about 3K and, since you are in school, you should actually have some deductions to make that smaller.

To correct my last post, by the way, the 28% bracket is not the top. It actually goes all the way to 35%.

You are right that a fixed income tax rate would impact the lower income folks more, but that's one reason we have a progressive system, for better or for worse.

As for your comparisons, they don't hold up in the real world. Someone who is earning 100K a year usually has far more "basic" expenses than a college student, even if they aren't married with a family. Even you won't live in a crappy studio apartment for the rest of your life, I hope.



Last time I checked the most recent tax cuts were pretty much across the board. Every taxpayer had their rates reduced and some people who were paying taxes actually dropped off the bottom bracket. On top of that the government sent out checks to a large number of people on the lower end of the tax scale.

Sure, the guy paying 50K a year in taxes had that drop to 45K while the guy paying 2K a year in taxes only saved a few hundred dollars, but would you really expect it to be different?
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Erik, I apologize, if I had known that you didn't share my views, I would have kept my trap shut, I hate offending good people.
You probably see things a different way, seeing as you have a good paying job, home and such, so this debate isn't really justified.

I just wanted to rant about the cancelation of net nuetrality. I should have never made that remark about republicans..
 
alexkerhead said:
Erik, I apologize, if I had known that you didn't share my views, I would have kept my trap shut, I hate offending good people.
You probably see things a different way, seeing as you have a good paying job, home and such, so this debate isn't really justified.

I just wanted to rant about the cancelation of net nuetrality. I should have never made that remark about republicans..
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Naw. I don't get offended and I'm not a Republican anyway. I do, however, enjoy seeing different people's perspective on these things and especially where that perspective comes from.

It would be pretty boring if everyone had the same views anyway, right?

I will say that I'm never surprised to hear college students waxing poetic on the joys of liberalism. It's almost impossible not to in that environment.

However, of all of my friends who were that way 20 years ago, precious few are now. . . ;)
 
Erik said:
Naw. I don't get offended and I'm not a Republican anyway. I do, however, enjoy seeing different people's perspective on these things and especially where that perspective comes from.

It would be pretty boring if everyone had the same views anyway, right?

I will say that I'm never surprised to hear college students waxing poetic on the joys of liberalism. It's almost impossible not to in that environment.

However, of all of my friends who were that way 20 years ago, precious few are now. . . ;)
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LOL...
Indeed, I guess in time I will pan out a bit.
Yes, it would be hella boring.
In Alabama colleges, only a few of us share liberal views..lol
Alabama is the convervative extremist capitol of the world...^_^
I cannot express how hard it is being one of the only open minded people where I live, it is hard out here for a liberal. LOL, I was the only person at the voting polls in 04' voting for Kerry. Everyone else was all like "praise Bush" and stuff..lol
One guy asked me who I was voting for, and I told him "kerry" and he replied "you sum kinda stupid aincha"
ROFL, what an oxymoron.

I am more of a dixiecrat however, I do not believe in strict liberalism, because some of it is just plain stupid. I have a few conservative ideals, but compromise of minds is my way of life, or at least I try to.
 
We have no leadership. the Dems and Reps are both out to lunch.
The border is open, and we have taxation w/o representation
 
Someone on the poor side of town that would only just has
enough to get by wouldn't have the luxuries (e.g. Bill Gates)
have have to manage all of his money. He'd just buy some
accounting firm to decrease the amount of tax spent my the big
Microsoft Chief! They probably look after the business at the
same time. Someone who's rubbing two pennies together wouldn't
have that option.

CP/M User.
 
I like to think for myself, so I don't call myself an elephant or an ass. (As in the animal, let's not all get excited.)

We have a major problem with our political system. The only way to get a president elected is for everybody very early in the process to pick their candidate and then pile all of the money behind them. That prevents the debate/bickering during the primary season, and consolidates the money.

This is an extremely efficient system, as it cuts down dissention and forces the party to focus early. However, it has given us our current president and a whole raft of fairly bad/flawed candidates.

Which leads to another problem. If everybody has to swallow hard and hold their nose to stand behind a candidate that they don't like, they are also going to defend their investment. To the death it seems.

George Bush is an awful president by anybody's standards. There is a lot wrong that isn't directly his fault, but that still leaves plenty of blame for him. By nearly any standard, be it conservative, liberal, libertarian, etc. he is a failure. The only thing he has been good at is radically re-interpreting the constitution to assume newly found (but apparently already existing) powers to 'fight terrorism'.

As bad as he is, Republicans don't want to lose power. So they'll keep pretending that all of this is goodness, even though many of them are horrified by:

  • Our national debt
  • Our trade imbalance
  • Our foreign policy (remember 'No Nation Building') ?
  • Etc.

He's not a true conservative. He's just in power at the moment. And nobody wants to lose their investment.

Now for the opposition party, this should be a dream come true. Everything seems to be turned to crap. And yet they are so helpless, so spineless, that they can't capitalize on it. They don't deserve to be in power either .. they are not even good at being in opposition. They don't have to oppose everything and anything just for the sake of doing it, but I would like to see more leadership.

Come to think of it, I'd like to see any leadership. True leadership from anybody.

Bush particularly gets on my nerves because the whole crew there seems to think that they know everything. The photo opportunities are well staged, but that is about it. I don't know how people who have not served in war or have actively avoided it could swagger into such a horrible mess. I don't know when questioning their stupidity turned into 'being unpatriotic'. I don't understand how exposing a secret illegal program is illegal, etc.

We need our checks and balances back. Congress is out to lunch somewhere.
 
If the Legislative & Executive branches didn't spend so much time in a power struggle against each other, they might be able to create new laws, instead of relying on the Judicial branch to fill that roll, which they were never intended to do.

--T
 
There is no power struggle between Executive and Legislative. What country are you in?

Congress, under Republican leadership, has been very deferrential to our Republican president. As I pointed out before, when you hold your nose to elect an electable candidate you protect your investment.

President Bush hasn't vetoed a bill yet. That should tell you something. All of these secret programs that we are not supposed to know about were also run past members of congress, both Republican and Democratic.

I don't want a power struggle. I want congress to start doing their job again. All of it. And part of doing their job is being a counterweight to the executive and legislative branches. Republicans in congressional leadership are doing a great disservice to future Republics and Democrats who will one day be in leadership by rolling over and letting this 'wartime' president have is way with them.
 
Every President since the last half of the 20th century have tried to give the Executive branch more power than the Constitution allows, and every Legislature has fought (a mostly losing battle) to prevent those major power grabs, while trying to steal powers themselves (remember the 'War Powers Resolution' of 1973?). Our 'leaders' have still managed to become ever more dictatorial, in spite of Congress and the Supreme Court (remember FISA, & the USA Patriot Act?). And, speaking of the Supremes, (not the MOTOWN group), look at how many new laws have been created by the Justices finding new stuff written 'between the lines' of the Constitution.
The three branches all spend too much time, money, energy, etc. trying to steal powers away from one another, and that's the 'power struggle' I refer to.

--T
 
Everyone always talks about the three branches of government and how they check and ballance each other. What few seem to remember is that there is actually a fourth group that ballances the other three. . .
 
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