Debt

ononewheel wrote: OverMyHead wrote: ononewheel wrote: Steve, We have the lowest corporate tax rate in history, and what is it getting us? Major corps. would rather still move over seas.    I'd love to discuss this over a beer someday with anybody. Had I joined the forum earlier I might have gotten to one of the reunions. Our lowest corporate tax rate in history (Thats bull by the way) are (combined state and federal) the highest in the world, combined with high labor rates, and high regulation, and technology that makes global commerce extremely viable, corporations have choices and the math is pretty clear. If you can post ONE impartial source that says this I would be amazed. The fact is just the opposite, and I will post where that can be found. High labor rates... You have unknowingly admitted to the truth you wish to hide. You would like it if we all made minimum wage, hence the "race to the bottom" comment I made in an earlier post.

Here is a chart of corporate tax rates from the organization for Economic Cooperation and developmen. This is a 50 year old organisation that looks impartial to me. here is a link to their site

OECD


Corporation tax rates by country
Country Combined corporate tax rate, , %
SOURCE: OECD

Australia      30.0   
Austria        25.0
Belgium        34.0    
Canada        29.5
Chile          17.0
Czech Republic 19.0
Denmark        25.0    
Finland        26.0
France        34.4    
Germany        30.2   
Greece        24.0    
Hungary        19.0   
Iceland        15.0    
Ireland        12.5    
Italy          27.5    
Japan          39.5    
Korea          24.2   
Luxembourg     28.6   
Mexico        30.0    
Netherlands    25.5   
New Zealand    30.0   
Norway        28.0    
Poland        19.0
Portugal       26.5
Slovakia       19.0
Spain          30.0    
Sweden        26.3   
Switzerland    21.2    
Turkey        20.0    
United Kingdom 28.0    
United States 39.2


You have no clue about my wishes, you are welcome to ask but please do not assume. I wish everyone to live to their full potential and desire, that is why I cheerish freedom and our founding fathers vision. I wish that what they earn to be determined by their individual drive and god given talents, along with what the market will afford them, that is why I am in favor of free enterprise. I wish for a strong economy and full employment and that is why I fear the distructive path this country has taken placing burdens of high regulation and high taxes on business hindering our a bility to be competitive in a global economy. We are destroying our future for immediate gratification.

OverMyHead wrote: ononewheel wrote: Steve, We have the lowest corporate tax rate in history, and what is it getting us? Major corps. would rather still move over seas.    I'd love to discuss this over a beer someday with anybody. Had I joined the forum earlier I might have gotten to one of the reunions. Our lowest corporate tax rate in history (Thats bull by the way) are (combined state and federal) the highest in the world, combined with high labor rates, and high regulation, and technology that makes global commerce extremely viable, corporations have choices and the math is pretty clear.

If you can post ONE impartial source that says this I would be amazed.
The fact is just the opposite, and I will post where that can be found.

High labor rates...
You have unknowingly admitted to the truth you wish to hide. You would like it if we all made minimum wage, hence the "race to the bottom" comment I made in an earlier post.

OverMyHead wrote: One wheel, the top one percent of earners pay 40% of total federal taxes burden. That means out of one hundred people they pay their share of the divided costs and the fair share of 39 others. The top 5% pay 60% of the burden. The bottom 50 percent pay nothing and the bottom 40% (thats 4 out of every 10) are net recievers from the government. Please answer this, what percent in your mind would be the riches fair share?

With all due respect, that is a weak argument and a regurgitated talking point the GOP has been using for years. I usually stay away from these topics but this one really ticks me off. Yes, I do not like that everyone is not paying their fair share and that includes the bottom 40%. I support a flat tax with no loopholes. However, the top 1% do not pay their FARE SHARE either (Share meaning percentage of income). The fact is, the top 1-5% of earners pay less of a percentage of their income than the middle class. In simple terms, to me, that means that every dollar Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, David Koch, or Kim Kardashian makes is worth more than mine. They must have worked harder for it right?

eric lavine wrote: finally.....someone in the middle you guys pissed, just sent another 2700.00 check to to buy bullets. ononone, you said something that i always wanted to say 2 posts up, but didnt have the balls

Eric, you have said it before. By the way you still did not answer my question about How Obamacare (the mother of all regulation)increasing the rate of healthcare inflation helps us. Actually your none answer speaks volumes.

Ding ding ding ding, It is official, the liberals have realised they cannot win the argument on facts or logic so they have pulled the race card! That does not fly with me, I challange you to go back through this thread and find a single reference to race from the conservatives. I have said nothing different about Obama than I have said about Pelosi, Ried, or Jimmy Carter back in the day. It is thier shared policies that are a problem, and it has not one thing to do with race. I dont hate people, I hate, high taxes and bad policies, because I believe they are bad for our country.

finally.....someone in the middle
you guys pissed, just sent another 2700.00 check to to buy bullets.

ononone, you said something that i always wanted to say 2 posts up, but didnt have the balls

Steve,

I think you misunderstood.You pay enough but the ultra rich do not. And Boehner and his boys just want you to pay more for receiving less. The same can be said for the corporations that do not pay the fair share.
It is the middle class that always gets screwed.

We have the lowest corporate tax rate in history, and what is it getting us?
Major corps. would rather still move over seas.   

I'd love to discuss this over a beer someday with anybody. Had I joined the forum earlier I might have gotten to one of the reunions.

In all honesty, politics piss me off, and I'd rather go skiing or wakeboarding instead.

ononewheel wrote: This is exactly what I am referring to. You pay for all the services you use and the ones others use. Everybody should pay for it, even if you are ultra rich. Not many are rewarded with food stamps etc. I cannot believe there are vast amounts of people whom collect food stamps and the like, and would not prefer to work a job and receive an honest days pay. I know most uneducated positions in this country do not pay a living wage, which almost forces that person to find two jobs or look for help. Most on here can see how inflation has affected us at the grocery store, no how about if you make $8.00 an hour. Man that would be tough. And don't say "they should go to school and get an education to earn more" Who the hell will do those jobs then? I just think if you work in this country and put in honest work, you should get a decent living wage. So now, why when the budget doesn't balance, are we going to balance it from the pocketbooks of those that can least afford it? Do you think Mr. Boehner is taking a cut to his medicare. How about his children's school, are they cutting 40% of the teachers? When is the last time any of them in Congress or the Senate made a mortgage payment? Probably haven't in sometime because some lobbyist funnels money for his political stance. Whomever said "both sides are to blame" is exactly right. Damn I cannot understand why a majority cannot see it. We have become a nation of little b***hes to our so-called government. The hypocrisy of the new debt deal is astounding.   It calls for a "Super Congress' what the .....    Why has the tea party not stood on this. "super congress" sounds rather unconstitutional to me. Isn't that what the tea party is all about?

I have a problem with me paying for the services I use AND the services others use in this current system. If everyone paid it'd be different. I'm sorry you feel that the rich don't deserve an incentive for their work.

Your statement "Everyone should pay for it, even the ultra rich" is what I have a problem with. I think that "Everyone should pay for it, regardless of income level."

We all supposedly benefit from these taxes, yes? no? Well certainly we benefit from some of them, but not to the same extent. There are all sorts of subsidies and programs out there that your $8/hour buddy qualifies for that I do not. You can bet your ass that my taxes are paying for those "programs" though. Don't believe people aren't willing to work an honest day's job? Come to my neck of the woods. I'll show you some of those people since you can't find many people who do it.

Should they get an education and find better employment? I don't know....why not....I'm sure there's a program out there that'll pay for it courtesy of me and you. It couldn't hurt. No incentive to work for $8 an hour, right? Let the illegals do it.

I make a decent living in a job that has good flexibility. My wife is a schoolteacher. Our income is probably what most would consider average. We drive a 9 year old SUV and a 4 year old SUV. We live in a starter home neighborhood and carry little debt, yet it seems that b/w federal, state, property, sales, prepared food, tourism, and many more taxes that I've missed, I can't afford to take care of my future like I need to. I've got 2 kids to get thru college. Two weddings. You get the picture.

To add insult to injury, I started looking closely at the social security statement that we all get annually. In the fine print it states something like, "your actual monthly payment may be different than shown based on any retirement, 401k accoutnts, etc."

I'm certain that by the time I retire there'll be some additional, additional 401k taxes that will basically take that much more from me to pay the people who "couldn't find the discipline" to put some back.

Where's the incentive to do anything anymore?

I don't care about Boehner, his teachers or his mortgage. Why wouldn't his teachers been faced with job cuts? My wife's school district was effected.   His mortgage? Maybe he had a mortgage and paid it off early. There are people who do that you know. It's possible.

Don't mean to be preaching, but it just hacks me off that anyone insinuates that working people (like me) aren't paying enough in taxes.

Super Congress. Nothing super going on up there except a Super Waste of Time and Money. I will agree with you that both sides share the blame here. Both got us into this mess and both seem to be committed to riding this ship all the way to the bottom.

Again, sorry to preach or offend. I'd rather have this cordial conversation over a beer, but this forum will have to do for now.

Just the way I see it.

ononewheel wrote: I do fall into the "we have a revenue problem" not a spending problem. But I do also think we have not had spending in check since the recession. Everybody wants all the benefits of a good economy but not pay for it. It has been a race to the bottom for a long time. Cheaper faster and easier at all costs. Yes, even the rich should pay too, even more than the middle, because the can and do use more than the middle and poor. Screw you trickle down economics...that never did work. You can blither about taxes all you want. You will pay the tax in one way or another, even if it is not a tax today, it will be in the future. When you cut social programs and those people fall and land in jail being a perfect example. Or the high cost of health care leading people into the ER and skating on the bill being another. We are f'ed up here in the United States. While you may want to dismiss me as some bleeding heart liberal from Madison, go ahead. One only needs to look some other countries and compare the standard of living to here in the United States. It is legal here to own and shoot some high powered high capacity nearly automatic weapon, which I think should be, but for God's sake if I get busted with a joint I go to jail. WTF? The US is the ONLY country in the industrialized world that does NOT have Parental leave benefit. The list goes on. But now in the end with the proposed debt deal it is you that is going to pay, not the rich and ultra rich. It's you, my friend and that is my point. You and I both see the need to curb spending and raise revenue, it is just that you think the rich should not have to pay for it as well.

Agree with some of what you said, however, I disagree that the problem is not spending, but revenue. Have the knuckleheads in charge ever even once attempted to significantly curb spending? We piss enough money away in foreign countries to have some impact on our debt. I can't recall a time in my life when significant government spending has been reduced or even attempted. The next time my wife spends too much money, I'll explain that it's not her spending that's the problem, it's her earning. Like the government, I'm sure her response will be something along the lines of me just needing to earn/pay more. Ha ha.

As for who needs to pay for all of these social programs....how about everybody pays? That's my beef. When I look at my pay stub, I see how much goes to federal and state and it makes me sick. If everybody paid a percentage close to mine AND the folks in Washington would buckle their belts a notch tighter then we wouldn't have financial issues.

As far as keeping up with many of these social programs, I can't see where that's helping society much at all. We reward people with food stamps, housing subsidies and healthcare as long as they behave themselves. To hell with encouraging them to make a change.

Don't we all benefit from national security, police/fire/ems protection, education? Shouldn't we all pay then? Shouldn't the government seek cost effective solutions? I'm doing my part. I'm just asking for everyone else to do theirs.

ononewheel wrote: You can talk about who spent more money, Bush Vs. Obama, but that is like comparing apples to oranges. Bush wars were not part of the budget, that money was allocated during special session. It fell square on Obamas lap. and it is in his budget. I do fall into the "we have a revenue problem" not a spending problem. But I do also think we have not had spending in check since the recession. Everybody wants all the benefits of a good economy but not pay for it. It has been a race to the bottom for a long time. Cheaper faster and easier at all costs. Yes, even the rich should pay too, even more than the middle, because the can and do use more than the middle and poor. Screw you trickle down economics...that never did work. You can blither about taxes all you want. You will pay the tax in one way or another, even if it is not a tax today, it will be in the future. When you cut social programs and those people fall and land in jail being a perfect example. Or the high cost of health care leading people into the ER and skating on the bill being another. We are f'ed up here in the United States. While you may want to dismiss me as some bleeding heart liberal from Madison, go ahead. One only needs to look some other countries and compare the standard of living to here in the United States. It is legal here to own and shoot some high powered high capacity nearly automatic weapon, which I think should be, but for God's sake if I get busted with a joint I go to jail. WTF? The US is the ONLY country in the industrialized world that does NOT have Parental leave benefit. The list goes on. But now in the end with the proposed debt deal it is you that is going to pay, not the rich and ultra rich. It's you, my friend and that is my point. You and I both see the need to curb spending and raise revenue, it is just that you think the rich should not have to pay for it as well.

Couldn't agree more.

The same people going to the ER because of the high cost of health care have govt. provided cell phones and flat screen tv's bought with welfare checks.

C'mon. TV's and Cell phones? <sarcasm>Sounds like they are living the high life. I can't see why anyone wouldn't want to be on welfare</sarcasm>. How much do they get a month? Did you just compare tv's and cell phones to the cost of insurance?

You can talk about who spent more money, Bush Vs. Obama, but that is like comparing apples to oranges.
Bush wars were not part of the budget, that money was allocated during special session.
It fell square on Obamas lap. and it is in his budget.

I do fall into the "we have a revenue problem" not a spending problem. But I do also think we have not had spending in check since the recession. Everybody wants all the benefits of a good economy but not pay for it. It has been a race to the bottom for a long time. Cheaper faster and easier at all costs. Yes, even the rich should pay too, even more than the middle, because the can and do use more than the middle and poor. Screw you trickle down economics...that never did work.

You can blither about taxes all you want. You will pay the tax in one way or another, even if it is not a tax today, it will be in the future.

When you cut social programs and those people fall and land in jail being a perfect example. Or the high cost of health care leading people into the ER and skating on the bill being another. We are f'ed up here in the United States.

While you may want to dismiss me as some bleeding heart liberal from Madison, go ahead. One only needs to look some other countries and compare the standard of living to here in the United States. It is legal here to own and shoot some high powered high capacity nearly automatic weapon, which I think should be, but for God's sake if I get busted with a joint I go to jail. WTF? The US is the ONLY country in the industrialized world that does NOT have Parental leave benefit.

The list goes on. But now in the end with the proposed debt deal it is you that is going to pay, not the rich and ultra rich. It's you, my friend and that is my point. You and I both see the need to curb spending and raise revenue, it is just that you think the rich should not have to pay for it as well.

I found this online, sorry, I did not document the source but it does not seem to controversial.

"The origins of the debt limit trace to World War One. For the first 125 years of the nation’s history, Congress authorized each sale of Treasury bonds to pay for specific projects, such as construction of the Panama Canal. The Treasury also faced restrictions on the kinds of debt it could issue. Yet the growing size of government at the onset of the war rendered the old manner of handling the public debt obsolete. In 1917, Congress gave the Treasury more flexibility on how much debt it sold and in what form. The law was further simplified in 1939 on the eve of World War Two. Congress gave the Treasury almost unlimited power to decide what securities to sell and how to best manage the nation’s debt, subject to an overall cap."

I cannot say why other countries would not have them. it seems to me that if you have a finite source of money you should have a debt limit calculated to determine what you can eventually pay off, or if you are responsible how much are willing to throw away on interest, in order to smooth out your finacial dealings. Who would loan money to someone without knowing what they can reasonably pay?

I'm not implying anything. I just find it both odd and interesting that we are the only two countries in the world with a debt ceiling. I haven't had a chance to look into it much but I think it may be worth while to understand why we actually have one when the rest of the first world countries do not. And this debt problem certainly spans both sides of the isle (Dems/Repubs). I don't think the blame can be placed solely on either party. Though most of us can agree where it started.


Check this article out by Fareed Zakaria.

Fareed Zakaria

Did you know that there is only one other country in the world that even has a debt ceiling? United States and Denmark. Interesting..

It looks like a plan to raise the debt ceiling is or has been passed. My $.02 here. We are in for some major economic pain. Pain like none we've felt in our lifetimes. We spend more than we make...period. Whether we are an individual, a small business, or a country, the income must exceed the outflow or we are doomed in the long run.

I think that as painful as it would be, we would've been better off to default, receive a credit downgrade suffer the consequences (I.e. late payments to SS, veterans, and all of the other obligations that we have etc.) and learn from this colossal mistake that we have been making for years. No, I'm not in support of screwing our seniors or veterans out of what they were promised. We've overpromised as a country and we will under deliver in the long run. I think it's better to suffer now than suffer a much more severe punishment a few years from now.

By raising the debt ceiling we are delaying the inevitable and that is a credit default which will result in horrible economic times. When the dust settles from this debt ceiling debacle, all will be forgotten until we max out the next credit card and we need more money and then we'll start seeing more political theatrics involving the need to balance a budget etc.

I'm in the 50% who pays taxes. The solution to this problem is real simple. Make every ablebodied American pay taxes (fairly) and then spend less than those Americans pay. Why can't those on Capitol hill figure this out?