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[TacticalFox88]

Maybe his presidency will flourish in its second term then

Certainly a plausible position to take, but in hindsight, probably not. The sucess of his second term, if there is one, will all depend on A)Who's controlling Congress and which Houses, and B)How willingly they want to cooperate with him.

 

[LM4sure]

So he's against things the majority of the public supports? Well done, Mitt.

The majority of the public wants tax increases? Doubtful! The "majority" are those who currently aren't paying any taxes and think with a tax increase they still won't pay any. We cannot continue to relay on the wealthy being the only ones paying taxes!! The damn middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share! Then we'll see who supports these tax increases!!!

 

[planar1280]

Certainly a plausible position to take, but in hindsight, probably not. The sucess of his second term, if there is one, will all depend on A)Who's controlling Congress and which Houses, and B)How willingly they want to cooperate with him.

All Presidents took bolder steps in 2nd term. except Bush jr.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Certainly a plausible position to take, but in hindsight, probably not. The sucess of his second term, if there is one, will all depend on A)Who's controlling Congress and which Houses, and B)How willingly they want to cooperate with him.

All sings point to a Republican takeover of the Senate and them holding the current power in the House.

 

[TacticalFox88]

All sings point to a Republican takeover of the Senate and them holding the current power in the House.

Gridlock, confirmed then.

 

[Chichikov]

The majority of the public wants tax increases? Doubtful!

You're factually wrong on that point.

The "majority" are those who currently aren't paying any taxes and think with a tax increase they still won't pay any.

Pretty much everyone pay taxes.
Federal income tax is not the only tax.

We cannot continue to relay on the wealthy being the only ones paying taxes!! The damn middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share! Then we'll see who supports these tax increases!!!

Are you advocating making our tax code more regressive?
Honest question.

 

[planar1280]

Gridlock, confirmed then.

You have two options. People under 30 don't vote and elect a republican who rules the country with the Republican house and Republican Senate. Or you have a Democratic President who gridlocks the Republican progress for 4 more years.

 

[besada]

Guess who didn't bring it up to a vote much like a lot of things? Harry Shitbag Reid.

It seems like you understand the problem but you are misattributing the solution. It's far more complex than to say that it is a leadership failure.

And why didn't Obama slap the fuck out of Reid? I'm willing to blame the whole chain of command, whereas you seem content to blame everyone BUT the President. Reid's a douchebag. I didn't think I really needed to tell you that, because I was pretty sure you were aware of it. But Reid was a douchebag when Obama served with him in the Senate. Reid has been a douchebag for a long time. He's also a douchebag that can be scared and threatened into doing things, given enough political pressure, because for Reid, keeping his job comes first. The person supposed to be putting that pressure on him has largely opted not to.

And let me point out that I never suggested the ONLY problem with things was Obama's failure in leadership. It's just the one I'm discussing right now.

 

[GhaleonEB]

The best punching back the republicans have had in decades resulted in a huge healthcare bill

Deeply flawed, corporate welfare bill that will do much good only relative to the utterly fucked up status quo.

auto bailouts

I think this was the single most well executed policy of Obama's term.

finance reform

The bill was a joke. We're in the same situation now as then.

DADT on its way to repeal

Yay!

stimulus plan

Too small and poorly constructed, Obama's insistance that it was sufficient doomed further stimulus measures that are badly needed.

defense cuts

I'm reasonably (but not totally) certain that overall defense spending is UP under Obama's administration, thanks to Afghanistan. The cuts he made were good, but just slowed the growth rate of the Defense department budget, not actual cuts.

If you dislike Obama this much, then you really must hate Clinton.

The dismay comes relative to expectations. We expected - hoped - for more from Obama than a 90's Republican.

 

[besada]

And honestly, the only thing that's surprised or dismayed me about Obama was his inability to use his best tool to effect, particularly because it was his best weapon in the campaign. The idea that I'm somehow dismayed or surprised at Obama's policy choices is baffling, since I've long been on record pegging him as a centrist-to-right leaning Democrat. I expected very little from him in regards to progressive policy (which doesn't stop me from complaining, of course) but I did expect him to be able to fire up people. Apparently he doesn't like to use that skill when governing, preferring to save it for the campaign trail.

 

[PhoenixDark]

So now that we've addressed our national debt in a bipartisan manner, now is the time to shift to jobs and put Americans back to work in a bipartisan manner. You know, now that deficit is no longer on the table. Right Obama?

 

[LoftyTheMetroid]

Sorry to just jump in, I lurk here a lot a love reading you guys' thoughts.

I thought it was ridiculous before, but Hillary for VP is definitely looking more and more like a legitimate option going into 2012.

You know, this prompted me to return to a hypothetical I've been thinking about a lot these past years: Do you guys think things would have been different if Hillary had been elected instead of Obama? Would she have been able to push effective legislation (health care, stimulus, etc.) and fight the Tea Party better than Obama?

Of course, I'm a little biased since I voted for her in the primaries (I kind of figured Obama would be too soft and lack the experience to be president this soon in his career), but I wanted to hear what you all thought since you're so much more knowledgeable about current politics than I am.

 

[reilo]

Heh, now Clinton is a 90's republican but five years ago everyone was sucking his dick when Bush was in charge. Like I said, revisionist history is a hell of a game to play.

 

[empty vessel]

The majority of the public wants tax increases? Doubtful! The "majority" are those who currently aren't paying any taxes and think with a tax increase they still won't pay any. We cannot continue to relay on the wealthy being the only ones paying taxes!! The damn middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share! Then we'll see who supports these tax increases!!!

The middle class does pay taxes; in fact, they probably get the short end of the stick. You say that the "majority" does not pay "any" (we'll assume by "any" you mean "federal income," since that is the only way your assertion is accurate) taxes, but what you don't acknowledge is that the line at which that occurs is drawn at around $45,000 per year of income per household. Most people would say that households which are making less than $45,000 per year in income are not middle class households. So your point that "the middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share" is clearly based on an incorrect premise. You will need to reconsider your conclusion.

Second, the problem that you see is actually solved very easily. If those who pay the largest share of federal income taxes (top 50% of income earners) wish to avoid this burden, they can do so easily by giving their income to the bottom 50%. You see, all people are treated the same by the tax code. It is only income that is treated differently. If you do not like the fact that only 50% of people pay income taxes, the problem can be solved by distributing more income to the bottom 50%. In other words, what you are pointing out is not a tax problem, it is an income distribution problem. The poor would gladly pay more in taxes if they had more income. And if the rich do not want the tax burden they have, they can easily absolve themselves of the burden by giving their income to the poor. We don't see that, because it is more of a burden to have low income and pay no income taxes than it is to have a high income and pay income taxes. There aren't a lot of high income earners begging working class people to trade places with them, are there?

 

[Jak140]

The majority of the public wants tax increases? Doubtful! The "majority" are those who currently aren't paying any taxes and think with a tax increase they still won't pay any. We cannot continue to relay on the wealthy being the only ones paying taxes!! The damn middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share! Then we'll see who supports these tax increases!!!

ahahaha, yes, lets take money from the people who have little of it to begin with and are more likely to spend what little money they do have and give it to the rich who already have a vast amount of wealth which they continue to amass even more of off investments alone and thus reduce the amount of money being injected into the economy. shifting more and more of this country's wealth into fewer and fewer hands will surely solve all of our woes.

 

[Wilsongt]

I think someone could easily craft a drinking game out of how often Romney calls Obama a failure.

 

[gcubed]

So now that we've addressed our national debt in a bipartisan manner, now is the time to shift to jobs and put Americans back to work in a bipartisan manner. You know, now that deficit is no longer on the table. Right Obama?

Didn't the Dems release a full jobs proposal a few weeks ago? Sadly though, there is now going to be a large debate about how dare we waste sperm by giving free birth control to slutty women

 

[teruterubozu]

Sorry to just jump in, I lurk here a lot a love reading you guys' thoughts.


You know, this prompted me to return to a hypothetical I've been thinking about a lot these past years: Do you guys think things would have been different if Hillary had been elected instead of Obama? Would she have been able to push effective legislation (health care, stimulus, etc.) and fight the Tea Party better than Obama?

Of course, I'm a little biased since I voted for her in the primaries (I kind of figured Obama would be too soft and lack the experience to be president this soon in his career), but I wanted to hear what you all thought since you're so much more knowledgeable about current politics than I am.

First of all, there wouldn't be a Tea Party if Hillary was elected.

 

[Lord_Byron28]

The best thing for Obama and worst thing for Obama about this process is that American voters have a goldfish memory because this debt crisis does not affect jobs so everyone in the US will forget about this in a year. unfortunately they will also forget the Tea Party hijacking the congress.

Obama is the best thing that has ever happened to Republicans. He gets elected into office to find Bush shit the bed before he left office and so he spent half his term trying to clean up the issues Bush made but since Americans never saw the results of Bush's actions until Obama came into power it made Obama an easy target for all the blame. As of the past year or so he has worked to "compromise" with Republicans; usually these compromises are 80% Republican and when things go bad Republicans can still blame the president. Republicans don't need a Republican president, all they need is to take over senate and they can basically get all of their plans passed and when the plans fail Obama gets all the blame. I wouldn't be shocked if the Republican party aren't too worried if Obama gets a 2nd term because more than likely the next 4 years will only make him and democrats look worse.

You know, this prompted me to return to a hypothetical I've been thinking about a lot these past years: Do you guys think things would have been different if Hillary had been elected instead of Obama? Would she have been able to push effective legislation (health care, stimulus, etc.) and fight the Tea Party better than Obama?

I would've loved to see how Hillary dealt with Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman. She likely would've been better in some ways and likely would've been a stronger(stubborn) leader.

 

[Veezy]

The majority of the public wants tax increases? Doubtful! The "majority" are those who currently aren't paying any taxes and think with a tax increase they still won't pay any. We cannot continue to relay on the wealthy being the only ones paying taxes!! The damn middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share! Then we'll see who supports these tax increases!!!

Hold up, the damn middle class? You mean, the unemployed people and the people who aren't receiving raises because the business we work for know we can't go anywhere middle class? The gall of us, that we would want the people who are directly benefiting from the recession and our misfortune to contribute to getting us out of it.

The super wealthy in this country have a responsibility to us. Our purchasing and the luck they had of being in America allows them to be stupidly rich. Time to give back. It’s not that evil or selfish of a concept.

 

[polyh3dron]

You know, this prompted me to return to a hypothetical I've been thinking about a lot these past years: Do you guys think things would have been different if Hillary had been elected instead of Obama? Would she have been able to push effective legislation (health care, stimulus, etc.) and fight the Tea Party better than Obama?

Hillary isn't black, therefore no Tea Party would have even existed.

 

[besada]

Heh, now Clinton is a 90's republican but five years ago everyone was sucking his dick when Bush was in charge. Like I said, revisionist history is a hell of a game to play.

Go find me a post where I sucked Clinton's dick. Seriously. I was a delegate for Clinton, and I didn't like him that much, then. Don't bring that "everyone is" shit to me. You're talking to me, not everyone. I'm not required to love Clinton to hate Bush, because this is not a sports team discussion.

I'm headed out to run some errands, so you have as much time as you need to come up with something approaching a serious argument that doesn't involve "But everyone else sucks, too!" about why you think Obama's been a good leader. My contention is that he's not, but rather than argue that point, you and GaimeGuy have done everything in your power to put the onus on every branch of government but the Executive.

 

[FLEABttn]

Then we'll see who supports these tax increases!!!

Me. For one.

Every time I indirectly vote to increase my federal taxes, the taxes stay the same, or go down. It's the damned thing.

 

[Suikoguy]

Hillary isn't black, therefore no Tea Party would have even existed.

There is another problem with Hillary that some people find objectionable.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

The majority of the public wants tax increases? Doubtful! The "majority" are those who currently aren't paying any taxes and think with a tax increase they still won't pay any. We cannot continue to relay on the wealthy being the only ones paying taxes!! The damn middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share! Then we'll see who supports these tax increases!!!

I hope you know the wealthiest take more of the wealth of the county in then they pay in taxes.

The top 1% owns more than half the wealth, but pays less than half the taxes in the country.
How come the rich don't step up and pay their fair share of income taxes?

Those that hold <1% of the wealth should pay less than 1% of the income taxes. How is that concept not fair?

 

[LM4sure]

You're factually wrong on that point.

Most Americans say tax rich to balance budget: poll


JUST.LIKE.I.SAID.

Tax the middle class and then we'll see what the poll looks like!

 

[kaching]

You're in the middle of a raging house fire and rather than get out or put it out, you're tracing wiring to see how you can stop it from catching fire.

Since we always seem to be in the middle of a raging house fire by someone's reckoning, perhaps we shouldn't keep putting off trying to address root cause.

 

[Zabka]

Hillary isn't black, therefore no Tea Party would have even existed.

You mean Hillary Clinton the MURDERER?!

 

[reilo]

Go find me a post where I sucked Clinton's dick. Seriously. I was a delegate for Clinton, and I didn't like him that much, then. Don't bring that "everyone is" shit to me. You're talking to me, not everyone. I'm not required to love Clinton to hate Bush, because this is not a sports team discussion.

I'm headed out to run some errands, so you have as much time as you need to come up with something approaching a serious argument that doesn't involve "But everyone else sucks, too!" about why you think Obama's been a good leader. My contention is that he's not, but rather than argue that point, you and GaimeGuy have done everything in your power to put the onus on every branch of government but the Executive.

Your entire contention has been that he has, and I quote:

Obama's a terrible leader. He has plenty of other great qualities, but he was unable to convince his own party to enact his agenda. That's the hallmark of a terrible leader. You act as if he's the only President to have stiff, ridiculous opposition, and yet it's as common as the rain.

That's entirely false. Every piece of his agenda that has come through both houses has had a majority approval (50%+). I can't be the only one that remembers the much much stronger legislation that passed the house and then was destroyed in the senate because 49 > 5x, can I? Do we not remember the healthcare bill that the house passed?

If that is your entire argument, that he was not able to convince a bunch of "outliers" to break filibuster as a sign of a bad leader (which, unprecedentedly no other "leader" before him had to go through such measures on every piece of legislation), then it rings completely hollow to me.

Like I said, my beef is with the institution. You could have LBJ's and FDR's love child as president right now, and they would not have been able to get those shittards to break filibuster. I am more angry and distraught that we have to come to a point where we clamor for our politicians to treat everything that they do as a boxing match. "Bloody him up!" That's not the type of politics I want to be a part of.

You can try to change the person at the top as often as you want, but as long as the core of this so-called democracy is corrupt and backwards, whomever is in charge will only have so much influence at the end of the day.

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

Deeply flawed, corporate welfare bill that will do much good only relative to the utterly fucked up status quo.



I think this was the single most well executed policy of Obama's term.


The bill was a joke. We're in the same situation now as then.


Yay!


Too small and poorly constructed, Obama's insistance that it was sufficient doomed further stimulus measures that are badly needed.


I'm reasonably (but not totally) certain that overall defense spending is UP under Obama's administration, thanks to Afghanistan. The cuts he made were good, but just slowed the growth rate of the Defense department budget, not actual cuts.


The dismay comes relative to expectations. We expected - hoped - for more from Obama than a 90's Republican.

From what I read defense is only increased under Obama due to him not separating the funds for the wars from the actual defense unlike Bush.

 

[Byakuya769]

Go find me a post where I sucked Clinton's dick. Seriously. I was a delegate for Clinton, and I didn't like him that much, then. Don't bring that "everyone is" shit to me. You're talking to me, not everyone. I'm not required to love Clinton to hate Bush, because this is not a sports team discussion.

I'm headed out to run some errands, so you have as much time as you need to come up with something approaching a serious argument that doesn't involve "But everyone else sucks, too!" about why you think Obama's been a good leader. My contention is that he's not, but rather than argue that point, you and GaimeGuy have done everything in your power to put the onus on every branch of government but the Executive.

Hmm, I posit that since Beseda is mad at Obama and Bulbo doesn't like Obama's policies, we can accept that Obama is a great leader and compromiser. Good leadership and compromise will always leave both sides angry. Some guy told me this and he told me about Lincoln.

 

[LM4sure]

The middle class does pay taxes; in fact, they probably get the short end of the stick. You say that the "majority" does not pay "any" (we'll assume by "any" you mean "federal income," since that is the only way your assertion is accurate) taxes, but what you don't acknowledge is that the line at which that occurs is drawn at around $45,000 per year of income per household. Most people would say that households which are making less than $45,000 per year in income are not middle class households. So your point that "the middle class needs to start kicking in their fair share" is clearly based on an incorrect premise. You will need to reconsider your conclusion.

Second, the problem that you see is actually solved very easily. If those who pay the largest share of federal income taxes (top 50% of income earners) wish to avoid this burden, they can do so easily by giving their income to the bottom 50%. You see, all people are treated the same by the tax code. It is only income that is treated differently. If you do not like the fact that only 50% of people pay income taxes, the problem can be solved by distributing more income to the bottom 50%. In other words, what you are pointing out is not a tax problem, it is an income distribution problem. The poor would gladly pay more in taxes if they had more income. And if the rich do not want the tax burden they have, they can easily absolve themselves of the burden by giving their income to the poor. We don't see that, because it is more of a burden to have low income and pay no income taxes than it is to have a high income and pay income taxes. There aren't a lot of high income earners begging working class people to trade places with them, are there?

How about making it fair to everyone. People categorized as middle class could pay a same percentage as a wealthy individual. The wealthy don't need to give their money way. Lets just say EVERYONE pays a fixed percentage. Then poor people can pay a fraction of a percentage of what a wealthy individual pays, but it would be fair. Wealthy people pay the most in taxes and the poor people are the ones benefitting from the social programs.

 

[LM4sure]

ahahaha, yes, lets take money from the people who have little of it to begin with and are more likely to spend what little money they do have and give it to the rich who already have a vast amount of wealth which they continue to amass even more of off investments alone and thus reduce the amount of money being injected into the economy. shifting more and more of this country's wealth into fewer and fewer hands will surely solve all of our woes.

So wealthy people should be punished because they're extremely successful? Uhhhh...yeah, that's fair!!

 

[ZedIndyLil]

You know, this prompted me to return to a hypothetical I've been thinking about a lot these past years: Do you guys think things would have been different if Hillary had been elected instead of Obama? Would she have been able to push effective legislation (health care, stimulus, etc.) and fight the Tea Party better than Obama?

I've thought about this a bit myself. Legislatively, I honestly don't think much would be different. There's a structural dysfunction in Congress that would be mostly unavoidable, unless Clinton really wanted to be a Republican-style taboo breaker and push for changes such as limiting cloture votes, etc. And I doubt she'd go that far.

However, I think she would have been smart and capable enough to pivot from a centrist to a more populist president, which I think the country really hungered for after the September 08 collapse. More fiery speeches, making more corporate heads role, etc. Obama was never comfortable making that pivot, which was a real disappointment but not terribly surprising given his even keel demeanor. I supported Obama in the primaries, but if the Sep 08 collapse had happened in Jan 08, I'd likely have switched to Clinton.

 

[NullPointer]

How about making it fair to everyone. People categorized as middle class could pay a same percentage as a wealthy individual. The wealthy don't need to give their money way. Lets just say EVERYONE pays a fixed percentage. Then poor people can pay a fraction of a percentage of what a wealthy individual pays, but it would be fair. Wealthy people pay the most in taxes and the poor people are the ones benefitting from the social programs.

Jesus Christ.

 

[Zenith]

Deeply flawed, corporate welfare bill that will do much good only relative to the utterly fucked up status quo.



I think this was the single most well executed policy of Obama's term.


The bill was a joke. We're in the same situation now as then.


Yay!


Too small and poorly constructed, Obama's insistance that it was sufficient doomed further stimulus measures that are badly needed.


I'm reasonably (but not totally) certain that overall defense spending is UP under Obama's administration, thanks to Afghanistan. The cuts he made were good, but just slowed the growth rate of the Defense department budget, not actual cuts.


The dismay comes relative to expectations. We expected - hoped - for more from Obama than a 90's Republican.

pretty much agree with all of that. I was saying Obama was spineless, mistook unilateral compromise for bipartisanship, yadda yadda yadda a year ago and he still has the exact same problems today. How can he be fooled so often. At what point will he actually learn that his strategy isn't working.

Even Cheney came out punching on something evil like the Iraq war, calling Dems spineless cowards, history rewriters, etc.

 

[FLEABttn]

How about making it fair to everyone. People categorized as middle class could pay a same percentage as a wealthy individual. The wealthy don't need to give their money way. Lets just say EVERYONE pays a fixed percentage. Then poor people can pay a fraction of a percentage of what a wealthy individual pays, but it would be fair. Wealthy people pay the most in taxes and the poor people are the ones benefitting from the social programs.

Define "fair".

 

[mckmas8808]

Federal health department approves free birth control for women

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2011/08/federal_health_department_approves_free_birth_cont.php

Fucking left wing Obama and his socialist government!!! I hate America right now. ARGH.

 

[TacticalFox88]

So wealthy people should be punished because they're extremely successful? Uhhhh...yeah, that's fair!!

Taxes are not punishment! It's part of their social contract for living in a country!

 

[BotoxAgent]

So wealthy people should be punished because they're extremely successful? Uhhhh...yeah, that's fair!!

the ole punishing the wealthy argument


/facepalm

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

How about making it fair to everyone. People categorized as middle class could pay a same percentage as a wealthy individual. The wealthy don't need to give their money way. Lets just say EVERYONE pays a fixed percentage. Then poor people can pay a fraction of a percentage of what a wealthy individual pays, but it would be fair. Wealthy people pay the most in taxes and the poor people are the ones benefitting from the social programs.

In what ways are the poor benefiting while the wealthy are not?

 

[Byakuya769]

How about making it fair to everyone. People categorized as middle class could pay a same percentage as a wealthy individual. The wealthy don't need to give their money way. Lets just say EVERYONE pays a fixed percentage. Then poor people can pay a fraction of a percentage of what a wealthy individual pays, but it would be fair. Wealthy people pay the most in taxes and the poor people are the ones benefitting from the social programs.

Everyone benefits from social programs. Social programs themselves could be construed as corporate subsidies in a way. The less the poor are burdened with necessities, the more they can spend in the broad economy. Hell, I think grocers quite like food stamps.

And arguing with using the word "fair" is a non-starter. No one's discussing what's fair and what's not, we're discussing what's best for society at large. Now, if you deem the concept of fairness as more important than equity, that's the real debate to be had.

 

[LM4sure]

Define "fair".

A flat tax rate. Just making something up, but lets say have everyone pay 20% in taxes. Someone who makes $10,000 a year will only have to pay $2,000. Someone who makes $5,000,000 a year will pay $1,000,000.

The wealthy person pays a lot more, but everyone is contributing. And the people that take advantage of those social programs are actually contributing something to fund them. Yah!!!

 

[Invisible_Insane]

How about making it fair to everyone. People categorized as middle class could pay a same percentage as a wealthy individual. The wealthy don't need to give their money way. Lets just say EVERYONE pays a fixed percentage. Then poor people can pay a fraction of a percentage of what a wealthy individual pays, but it would be fair. Wealthy people pay the most in taxes and the poor people are the ones benefitting from the social programs.

in before marginal utility of income

A flat tax rate. Just making something up, but lets say have everyone pay 20% in taxes. Someone who makes $10,000 a year will only have to pay $2,000. Someone who makes $5,000,000 a year will pay $1,000,000.

The wealthy person pays a lot more, but everyone is contributing. And the people that take advantage of those social programs are actually contributing something to fund them. Yah!!!

Seriously, google marginal utility of income. We've been over this point 5 or 6 times in this thread.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Because Congress won't do it. Traditionally, when Congress gets like this, people look to the President to break the gridlock. In this case, they're looking in the wrong direction. For all his positive qualities, Obama is not exactly a great leader of men.
.

He's not bastard enough. No, I'm serious. I have the impression he's a good hearted person. Too bad in politics one has to be a bastard inside and destroy the adversary to make the best for the country.

Obama should have imposed his pace and told to the Tea Party for example: or we do like that, or it will be default and I don't fucking care- It's your fault.

 

[reilo]

A flat tax rate. Just making something up, but lets say have everyone pay 20% in taxes. Someone who makes $10,000 a year will only have to pay $2,000. Someone who makes $5,000,000 a year will pay $1,000,000.

The wealthy person pays a lot more, but everyone is contributing. And the people that take advantage of those social programs are actually contributing something to fund them. Yah!!!

Hahah. I love this argument.

Who wants to tackle it this time? I'm tired of explaining over and over again why a "fair/flat" tax is actually regressive and only fair to the rich.

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

A flat tax rate. Just making something up, but lets say have everyone pay 20% in taxes. Someone who makes $10,000 a year will only have to pay $2,000. Someone who makes $5,000,000 a year will pay $1,000,000.

The wealthy person pays a lot more, but everyone is contributing. And the people that take advantage of those social programs are actually contributing something to fund them. Yah!!!

Lets say you take a person making $40k a year who has a child. Take 20% of their income and they're down to $32k. Someone making $1 million a year would be down to $800k a year. Do you think that is fair?

 

[LM4sure]

Taxes are not punishment! It's part of their social contract for living in a country!

Then why does the majority of Americans not pay taxes? They are benefitting because they don't make much money. They shouldn't be given a free ride.

 

[FLEABttn]

A flat tax rate. Just making something up, but lets say have everyone pay 20% in taxes. Someone who makes $10,000 a year will only have to pay $2,000. Someone who makes $5,000,000 a year will pay $1,000,000.

The wealthy person pays a lot more, but everyone is contributing. And the people that take advantage of those social programs are actually contributing something to fund them. Yah!!!

Okay, well, that tells me that they're flat. And if you argue that we should be paying a flat percentage tax, okay.

But again, how is this "fair".

 

[Plinko]

Most Americans say tax rich to balance budget: poll


JUST.LIKE.I.SAID.

Tax the middle class and then we'll see what the poll looks like!

You go on and on about "fair" taxes and yet "fair" taxes are incredibly regressive.

I cannot stand it when people claim that the middle and lower class isn't "taxed." I've heard it so much I might just start printing business cards with all of the taxes lower and middle classes have to pay and then hand the cards out any time I hear it. It may be better for my blood pressure to just start putting anybody in this thread who says that on ignore.