Good on her.


Where are all the "shovel ready jobs" being stimulated? Or was that more BS to get the bill passed. President Obama says the stimulus will create or save 3.5 million jobs. Where are they?

Absolutely not. If the shoe fits...

Oh for god fucking sake. That was the camel-breaking straw. :lol:

John Boehner, the Republican minority leader in the House said the same thing last month and came off looking like an idiot:

In Ohio, the infrastructure dollars that were sent there months ago — there hasn’t been a contract let, to my knowledge. And the fact is is that I don’t believe it will create jobs."

The OHIO DOT stepped right in and called him out:
So Boeher was either lying to make political points or was clueless.

That is because Boehner is an idiot.

I am just a regular joe.

So where are the jobs for the people being laid off? Road jobs really only employ a VERY limited number of people with specific skills. They have really not addressed or impacted the people getting laid off each month to the tune of nearly 500k last month. The unemployment rate has gone up to over 9% country wide in this year and in some places is greater than 25%. What ever we spent our money on is not working.

I knew it!!!! We have a celebrity in our midst!

You are Joe the Plumber! That explains everything!


Those employed by the stimulus money turn around and spend money! They go to local restaurants..they buy a new refrigerator...they take vacations...and all that money circulating in the economy again saves or creates additional jobs.

You want it to fail so you find reasons for failure prematurely.

Reading the tea leaves again? The taxes on those who make money will erase most of that after this new health bill.

Don't put words into my mouth. I don't want it to fail. But it has failed. It has failed to do what they promised it would do. It is not going to put all those people unemployed and laid off since Jan back to work. And the money is going to be gone. And there will still be no jobs for those people.

They're in the committees, have access to the bills, and can offer ammendments. So now, for you, "transparency" means not only having access to the bill and offering ammendments, and even having the ammendments accepted, but the minority party also gets to write the bill?

Not really. But being on a committe means very little if little to none of your suggestions are adopted. That is just the way it is when you have one party that has such overwhelming power in Congress. It was no different when the Republickins were in charge. I fully understand that. But don't try to claim an environment where there is transparency when bills are being Rahmrodded and Pelosi Pushed to the floor for a vote by the group in power when no one has had time to read them.

IF ANYONE EVER READ ANYTHING I WRITE AND THAT INCLUDES YOU REDUX, WHOSE SIDE I HAPPEN TO BE ON, YOU WOULD REMEMBER ME TELLING YOU THERE'S A SIGN ON THE INTERSTATE SAYING PROJECT FUNDED BY THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT.

I'd get out of my car in the middle of the interstate to take a pic, but you wouldn't read that post either.

Seriously Red, besides arguing with merc, do you ever pay attention to ANYONE else?

Oh, why do I try to engage you self-absorbed asshats? :rolleyes:

I'll be careful what I wish for.

DOOM DESPAIR COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE ALERT

A good report on the Stiumlus and Highway jobs.

http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimul...o-easy-job-724

I will try to be more attentive. :3eye:

So you're asking where the non-construction-related "shovel-ready" projects are?
I don't think that 1-5.4% of income over $280.000 is anywhere close to "most of that".

Someone making $280.001 would pay one cent in new taxes. I don't think they'll be skipping Starbucks.

You need to re do your math. 5.4% of $280,001 is $15,120.1. And that would be on top of their already 33% Federal tax rate, which would be 38.4% tax rate, and if you live in my state, add another 7% to that and you get 45% tax rate. So you think that the guy who worked his ass off to make that much should give 45% to the governemt?

It means you're there when the other suggestions are adopted, so crying about not having time to read them is moot.

Also, plenty of Republican amendments are adopted, even though their inclusion doesn't seem to bring any Republican votes.

That may be, but it is irrelevant. 1% of ($280,001 - $280,000) is one cent. There are a couple more gradations, until it is 5.4% of anything over $1 million. So someone making $1,000,001 would pay 5.4 cents plus whatever the formula works out for the income between $1 million and $280,000.

No where does it say that the tax is only on the income over $280,000. It says income earners who make more than that amount.

From Shovel Watch.

Questions Spread About Stimulus Job Numbers


http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimul...ob-numbers-728

It should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about income taxes.

The description is poor, but it does rule out your math. The 5.4 percent is explicitly applied only to income over $1 million. And the tax explicitly starts at 1%. I interpret that to mean that it is 1% for anything over $280,000, but, even if this tax worked completely differently from income and payroll taxes, and suddenly turned on, applying to all income, at $280,000, the number would be $2,800.

But that's not how progressive tax systems work. It reminds me of the people during the election who thought they would outwit Obama by lowering their income.

But no where does it say that it is on income only over that amount and I have never heard of anyone try to make that connection. If it were true they would certainly never pay for the 1 Trillion Dollars needed over the next 10 years.

I am quite aware of how progressive tax systems work and they are completely unfair.

Like I said, that's how income taxes work, and I'm fairly confident that my interpretation is correct. And even if I'm wrong, the number is $2,800, not $15,120.10.

There aren't many places in the tax system where earning an extra dollar will decrease your take-home pay. A few aid programs have hard cutoffs if your income is too high, which is equivalent to a sudden tax increase. But the actual taxes seldom (never?) operate that way.

What?

The more you earn the more you pay in tax in our system. The majority pay little to no income taxes. That is an unfair system. The taxation burden is being placed on a minority.

Further, the % goes up in 2012 in each income bracket.

Exactly what I said.

There aren't many places in the tax system where earning an extra dollar will decrease your take-home pay. And I would agree that any place that does happen should be fixed.

When you enter a new tax bracket, it only applies to the income in that bracket. I don't know the numbers offhand, but I'll make some up for illustration.

Brackets:
$0-$10,000 0%
$10,000-$100,000 20%
$100,000 and up 40%

If you make $10,000, you pay nothing.
If you get a $1 raise, your take-home increases by 80 cents. It doesn't decrease by $2,000.
If you make $100,000, you pay $18,000 in taxes.
If you get a $1 raise, you pay $18,000.40 in taxes, for a take-home increase of 60 cents.

Except the 5.4%.

So your post verifies that my interpretation was correct, with some updated numbers.

Someone making $350,001 would pay one cent, or two cents in 2012.

Wrong. The math shows would never pay for it at that amount.

Given the US is about 305million people, the top income earners are about 2.5% of that or about 762,500. A one cent tax will not rais 1 trillion dollars.

You just posted the proposed law. Did you read it?

(edit)
The only people paying one cent would be people earning $350,001 exactly. With an income of $500,000, you'd pay $1500. With an income of $1,000,000, you'd pay $1500 + $7500 = $9000. For an income of over $1,000,000, subtract a million, take 5.4%, and add $9000.

Yep. 1 percent of the agi as tax payers income exceeds $350,000 is $3500.

See my edit, and read closer.

If you make $450,000, "so much of the modified adjusted gross income of the taxpayer as exceeds $350,000 but does not exceed $500,000" is $100,000, and you pay 1% of that.

Dude. You can't pay the bill with that.

I can't speak to that, but that is what it says.

Tax tables from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbe...22&DocTypeID=1

It is on the whole AGI. Not just the amount above the lowest ceiling.

What leads you to that conclusion?

From your table,
Cash Income Level: 200-500 thousand
Average Federal Tax Change: 108 dollars.

So out of all of the people making between $200,000 to $500,000, the average tax increase would be $108. Makes sense, most of the people in that line of the table would obviously be less than $350,000.

Cash Income Level: 500 thousand to a million
Average Federal Tax Change: 2769 dollars.

That fits in my calculation of $1500 to $9000.

Ok, you win. That is what it looks like. But that is not what it says in the fine print.

The fine print can be misinterpreted in the same way that the article I posted could. The law you posted is (thankfully) more precise.

The way to parse that fine print is that it all applies to one tax unit, and it divides their income into piles. It doesn't divide tax units themselves into piles.

So a couple puts up to $350,000 into one pile, and pays 0% on that.
If there's any left, they put up to $150,000 (half mill total) into the next pile, and pay 1% on that.
If there's any left, they put up to $500,000 into the next pile, and pay 1.5% on that.
And they pay 5.4% on the remainder.


I think it is largely the misunderstanding of this mechanic that leads people to claim that a progressive tax system "punishes success".

But a progressive tax system does punish sucess if they are the only ones paying the tax.

Each additional dollar may be taxed a bit more, but that is counterbalanced by far by the fact that each additional dollar is much easier to earn.

The libertarian, of course, asks if such a thing is fair ab initio. He can make a case for it not being so.

Adam Smith, the icon of many free traders, made a case for a progressive tax in "The Wealth of Nations":

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

What makes it easier to earn?

Every extra dollar I make is hard to earn.

Alexander Hamilton On Taxation
Excerpt from FEDERALIST No. 21
Other Defects of the Present Confederation

By Alexander Hamilton
for the Independent Journal


http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/Federalist_No_21.pdf

I can't speak for you in particular, but here are a few ways in general.

At my level of income, most people's raises are in percentages of their current salary, which compounds over the years. People making the minimum wage have to wait for Congress to give them a raise, or work extra jobs.

I can invest. The more I have, the more I can invest. Dividends are in proportion to the amount I already have.

If you can build up a down payment, purchasing property causes housing payments to add rather than detract from your net worth.

If you have money, it's much easier to get loans of more money if you wish to start a business.

And that's at my middle-class level. At the ultrarich level, it is hugely exaggerated. Bill Gates could get his next million a bit quicker than I could get my first.

Yea, but you know it is common to hear people make comparisons to the likes of Bill Gates or other mega millionares. It really is not an accurate comparison to reference someone at that extreme. I am certainly in the upper middle. But I have worked my ass off to get here. And I have taken some pretty significant risks to make it happen over a lifetime.

Hard work gets you more. But it does not make the next dollar come any easier. And then you have the example of young people comparing themselves to what you may have in material goods or your bank account and they want that NOW. They don't think it is fair since you have so much more than them. You should share it. But they don't want to do the work or make the sacrifice to get to the same spot. There is always an excuse as to why they can't get to the same level of prosperity. But they know that you have more and therefore you can "afford" to help take care of their needs. That ain't happening.

Bill Gates is the extreme, but it applies all the way down. I just listed a bunch of ways that having money does make the next dollar come easier, even at my level. Care to respond to any of those?

At some small percentage of growth in salary is hardly making progress. I don’t really consider that significant growth. You can barely keep up with inflation or cost of living and almost all of those jobs have a ceiling to which you max out. Many jobs like that, for example a GS job is on a similar sliding scale that is determined by time and job description. Eventually you max out so growth stops. With the exception that government jobs are given a cost of living adjustment while most jobs do not give those. So sure you make more but only a very little more and then it stagnates.

This is quite true. I do that with all of my investments.

But the long term investment is what pays off in real estate, unless of course you got in during the recent bubble. But even with that you should come out ahead in the long run. Smart buyers can really make this work to your advantage. Simply paying an extra payment a year makes a significant difference. Real estate becomes your real nest egg over time. If you move frequently it will never likely pay off. But if you are settled down, like me, I will make more than 50% back on my house sale if I sold it in 5 years (because it will be nearly paid off). I would disagree, real estate can be a real money maker.

That is very true. And if you don’t have any assets you will find it hard to get any kind of financing. And you would then be truly at the bottom of the economic scale.

Again, ultra and uber rich is not an accurate or fair comparison in any of these scenarios. That is a whole class of people and situations which few to none of us will ever experience.

Sounds like you are agreeing with me, not disagreeing. If you can afford to buy, you will make more than if you can't.

I agree with some of your examples, but not all of them.

The only "disagreement" I see is that the raise improvement isn't huge, and you don't think Bill Gates should count. You're not disagreeing with the examples, just about how much they factor in.

Even ignoring those examples, my point stands. It's easier to make more money if you have more money.

It seems to me that it doesn't matter who is in charge, the Federal Reserve is calling the shots. Doesn't matter who sits in the big chair.

Who needs to read the bill? Holy fucking shit! You people are so drunk on the koolaid that this does not bother you!?!?!

WTF?

Guys this is so telling of how the Demoncrats are taking care of your future...

And you trust your future to these people?????????????

http://cnsnews.com/public/content/ar...51610&print=on

Thank FSM I'm not entrusting my future to your ilk. Not right now.

What is my "ilk??"

Describe it to the rest of us.

Closed-minded. Always right. Never any real reasons for being so except for what you've been spoon-fed, which satisfies your hunger for being a power. Oh, and using too many question marks. ;)

:DDamm, you talking about Redux again?

Spoon fed? :lol2:

A pile of shit from the Demoncrats maybe.

8 years of Republickin Bull shit and now a shit sandwhich of Demoncratic Bull shit. Yea, the American public is getting a huge dose of it. I can't agree more.:D

You change it. Good luck.

I need to sleep. Damn, merc, I stayed up this late to argue with you? haggis!

:)

Good point. Again.

A waste of time. :D

Who pays the majority of taxes in this country?



by Rick Moran

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...crats_who.html

We have a completely different tax structure than the Euros. We'd have to include all taxation and then sus out who is paying what. For example SS hits the working poor hardest but isn't included.

We need to be very careful when using O'Reilly as a source on anything that requires math.

O'Reilly?

I was only addressing Federal Income Tax. Nothing to do with SS. They collect their tax. Completely different.

I assumed that since you were using O'Reilly's tactic on intentional misunderstanding of the tax levels, you were modeling after him, I guess you get your marching orders elsewhere. Moran is being intentionally deceptive on tax rates by excluding FICA which is capped at $106,800. Tax structure is too complicated and too individual to each country to be compared without a serious accounting of all taxes by all levels of government. As a percentage of income, FICA and gas taxes lean harder on the working poor, but are not included in the Income taxes are the only measure paradigm. I'm not saying I know what an honest accounting of taxation would reveal but I am saying that Moran is intentionally omitting the taxes that hit the working poor.

Sort of like the VAT in the UK, right? That certainly does not affect the poor. :rolleyes:

Moran is addressing the only thing I have addressed. That the progressive income tax is unfair and unbalanced.