Obama puts out plan to pay for American Jobs Act, suggests raising taxes on the wealthy, removing su
79 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;32272425]Whining about the share of federal income tax they have doesn't carry much weight when the only reason the numbers are so slanted is because of our country's outrageous wealth inequality.
[url]http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---warren-buffett-vs--wealthy-conservatives[/url]
[url]http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over[/url]
That $750 billion accounts for half of the net worth of the bottom 50% of our entire population, do you suggest trying to take it out of them? Instead of a hike on the top few percent who will suffer absolutely no discernible change to their lifestyles as a result? Hell, their effective tax rate is LOWER than the middle class because they have access to far more resources for evading taxes than the rest of us do.
I believe we could go a long way to solving our problems if we made real effort at closing the loopholes in our Swiss cheese tax code. Our top tax rate is 35%, but the top 5% of rich people only pay an effective rate of 20%? Corporate taxes are a complete mess of corruption and overseas tax havens. Given how little most people in this country actually have, you're damn right I'm in favor of taxing more from the few people have have all the wealth. Someone making $1.5 million a year instead of $2 million a year is going to suffer a [b]lot[/b] less than someone that finds themselves making $7.50 an hour instead of $10.
If you want the tax burden spread over more people, then maybe we should make sure the fucking wealth is spread enough to match.[/QUOTE]
I don't know why I didn't expect the very epitome of a liberal's pre-programmed response.
I didn't ask you if you're in favor of raising the tax rates. In fact, I implied I was in favor of raising tax rates. I asked you what your limit is. You say that a [i]few[/i] people have [i]all[/i] the wealth - I can see that you want the top 5% to pay for 100% of all U.S. expenses. News flash: the top 5% make $2.9 trillion - nowhere near what the entire U.S. government spends.
One more time:
How [i]much[/i] should the top 5% pay? How is that figure [i]competitive[/i] in an international market?
If you can't answer that, this is absolutely puerile - there is no arguing with you.
[QUOTE=Miskav;32266084]America will riot once they even start paying close to what the rest of the world pays for fuel, while this is a good idea, Americans wont accept this.[/QUOTE]
Wrong they'll just have people mugging the rich, they don't need to riot.
[QUOTE=Night-Eagle;32278578]One more time:
How [i]much[/i] should the top 5% pay? How is that figure [i]competitive[/i] in an international market?
If you can't answer that, this is absolutely puerile - there is no arguing with you.[/QUOTE]
Really it's an unanswerable question for a good reason:
There is no income tax bracket for the top 5%, so there's no way to make them specifically pay a certain percentage without creating an entirely new bracket.
Currently, the brackets extend up through ~$380,000, and that level is taxed at 35%, although the majority of wealthy people who work in the stock market or similar professions don't actually go by this. Since most of their money is considered capital gains, their taxable income is very small, and so they get the capital gains tax rate, which ends being around 15%. That's a 15% effective tax rate for an economic class that is supposed to pay 35%.
[QUOTE=hegrec;32276172]
The tesla roadster seems to be doing a good job, it's 100% electric, sure it's charged from a mostly oil/coal powered grid, but why not drop the subsidies and cause one of two scenarios.
A: Oil companies charge more money to make up for lost profits, creating a much more competitive market for alternative grid energies such as wind and solar.
B: Oil companies still make outrageous profits and keep their hold on society by decreasing the cost per barrel to keep competition at bay.
[/QUOTE]
I like the Tesla Roadster. It's a pretty neat car.
However it also costs about $109,000 new. That is not price effective. We need price effective alternatives, not ritzy luxurious models for the rich. The average person can't get these cars.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;32294929]I like the Tesla Roadster. It's a pretty neat car.
However it also costs about $109,000 new. That is not price effective. We need price effective alternatives, not ritzy luxurious models for the rich. The average person can't get these cars.[/QUOTE]
The tech is there, we could use a bit of innovation in our battery technology, however Tesla does have plans on the books for electric cars in the 20-30k range. They're about to bring a car called the Model S to market, electric sedan for 50-60k. Give it a few years and the prices will come down.
[QUOTE=hegrec;32295228]The tech is there, we could use a bit of innovation in our battery technology, however Tesla does have plans on the books for electric cars in the 20-30k range. They're about to bring a car called the Model S to market, electric sedan for 50-60k. Give it a few years and the prices will come down.[/QUOTE]
What's the range on that? It's not feasible for most Americans if it doesn't get at least 100 miles per battery charge. The United States is a lot more spread out so if you want to travel somewhere, even within state you could be looking at well over 100 miles.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;32294929]I like the Tesla Roadster. It's a pretty neat car.
However it also costs about $109,000 new. That is not price effective. We need price effective alternatives, not ritzy luxurious models for the rich. The average person can't get these cars.[/QUOTE]And the range is not something a normal person can live off. Even the $36k Nissan Leaf has only 100 miles of range so its only useful if you live in a city were parking is crazy expensive and it takes 8 hours to recharge or 30 minutes if you pay another $16k for a fast charger. You are much better off using the far cheaper public transit.
If we are going to truly get off oil we need to go hydrogen. They have 3x the range and fill up in 5 minutes with the range growing by the day. Once enough gas stations have hydrogen pumps and when hydrogen cars become common we can stop worrying about oil.
Paraphrasing from a interview with Jay Leno its like the Horse when the car became common. It freed the horse from the hard life of labor and turned it into a recreational object for the people who can afford it. Today the hydrogen car will take over from the gas powered car freeing it to be used by the people who want that experience.
Of course not, hence the need for battery innovation. It would definitely be spurred on by an increase in the price of gasoline though.
I don't believe fast charging will be the answer, but battery swaps, or liquid battery that becomes depleted over time and then is exchanged like gasoline.
[QUOTE=hegrec;32295375]Of course not, hence the need for battery innovation. It would definitely be spurred on by an increase in the price of gasoline though.[/QUOTE]
Which will kill poor people in the meantime.
[QUOTE=smurfy;32269876]What Obama's done here is pretty clever.
If the Republicans reject this, he goes "I tried to cut taxes and the Republicans stopped me"
If they don't, he cuts taxes and hopefully lowers unemployment, thus he goes "hey I did that, I'm great"
He's made them choose between tax cuts for the middle-class, or tax cuts for the rich[/QUOTE]
They instead choose option C: Filibuster this until elections to make him look bad and whine/cry/rant in general like the GOP always do until they all get their way.
Hold it, there is Option D: vote on the other Jobs bill with the same name and actually got presented because Obama's still hasn't been presented at all.
Oh and a Republican presented the actual submitted one.
[url]http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0911/Another_American_Jobs_Act.html?showall[/url]
[url]http://blog.heritage.org/2011/09/14/conservative-nabs-naming-rights-to-american-jobs-act-after-obama-delay/[/url]
Oh yeah, certainly didn't present it all-
Oh wait: [url]http://www.slideshare.net/whitehouse/american-jobs-act-9230256[/url]
[editline]14th September 2011[/editline]
and this slideshare page is directed to from whitehouse.gov just fyi
[QUOTE=Glaber;32298889]Hold it, there is Option D: vote on the other Jobs bill with the same name and actually got presented because Obama's still hasn't been presented at all.
Oh and a Republican presented the actual submitted one.
[url]http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0911/Another_American_Jobs_Act.html?showall[/url]
[url]http://blog.heritage.org/2011/09/14/conservative-nabs-naming-rights-to-american-jobs-act-after-obama-delay/[/url][/QUOTE]
Good to know the Republicans are taking things seriously
[editline]15th September 2011[/editline]
The comments in the second link gave me an aneurysm
[QUOTE=MisterMooth;32298922]The comments in the second link gave me an aneurysm[/QUOTE]
I just may have an ulcer.
[QUOTE=CabooseRvB;32264572]It's 115 pages long.
Where's the picturebook for the tea party populists.[/QUOTE]
Basically what the Republican party is gonna do:
[IMG]http://www.gifsforum.com/images/gif/did%20not%20read/grand/hvwe28.jpg.gif[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Kazumi;32266271]He should tax scientology.[/QUOTE]
A friend of mine and I were discussing this the other day. Turns out that a tax-free status for religious institutions is unconstitutional because it's a way for the government to decide what qualifies as a religion, which the constitution says it should never do. There's all kinds of hokey superstitions that people believe in (and, frightfully enough, they TRULY believe in them), but you don't see them being exempt from paying taxes. Scientology and the Catholic church alone would bring in millions if not billions of dollars of revenue even if they only had to pay a fraction of what people normally had to pay in taxes.
[QUOTE=Lankist;32264599]BUT THE WEALTH IS JUST ABOUT TO START TRICKLING DOWN, YOU GUYS
ive been waiting since fucking regan dont ruin this now[/QUOTE]
They had a big laugh about that, they were just messing with you:
[img]http://www.plungerman.com/assets/mediaman/blog/plungerman/.resized_630x466_trickle_down_economics.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=Glaber;32298889]Hold it, there is Option D: vote on the other Jobs bill with the same name and actually got presented because Obama's still hasn't been presented at all.
Oh and a Republican presented the actual submitted one.
[url]http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0911/Another_American_Jobs_Act.html?showall[/url]
[url]http://blog.heritage.org/2011/09/14/conservative-nabs-naming-rights-to-american-jobs-act-after-obama-delay/[/url][/QUOTE]
Nah the obama one sounds better
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