Geithner: We are ready to go over the fiscal cliff if the GOP won't raise taxes on the rich - Polidicks

[IMG]http://puu.sh/1xOaF[/IMG] [IMG]http://puu.sh/1xObo[/IMG] pff, the rich are in a bad position too you guys! look at how hard the economic crises effected them! /s

Maybe the the government wouldn't have such financial problems if they didn't cut taxes while engaging in deficit spending typically associated with two simultaneous wars. But I don't think we should tax the rich more. How about one simple flat tax rate based on consumption?

[QUOTE=cqbcat;38727426]Maybe the the government wouldn't have such financial problems if they didn't cut taxes while engaging in deficit spending typically associated with two simultaneous wars. But I don't think we should tax the rich more. How about one simple flat tax rate based on consumption?[/QUOTE] How about you just go back to your Ron Paul forum and talk about how genius a flat tax rate is there. Flat tax is a stupid idea that will either bring in too little revenue or destroy the middle and lower class. The only people who support it are libertarians with a childlike understanding of fairness

Flat taxes are awful. Paying your taxes is a civic duty, and you should pay more when you own more. That's it.

[QUOTE=cqbcat;38727426]Maybe the the government wouldn't have such financial problems if they didn't cut taxes while engaging in deficit spending typically associated with two simultaneous wars. But I don't think we should tax the rich more. How about one simple flat tax rate based on consumption?[/QUOTE] Flat taxes hurt the poor [I]much[/I] more than the rich.

[QUOTE=cqbcat;38727426]Maybe the the government wouldn't have such financial problems if they didn't cut taxes while engaging in deficit spending typically associated with two simultaneous wars. But I don't think we should tax the rich more. How about one simple flat tax rate based on consumption?[/QUOTE] gl developing an entire new flat tax rate system where every single item in a persons life is tracked and taxed based on supposedly "fair" rates. nothing could go wrong

Obama has had enough with the Republicans shit. If they don't get with the program he's taking this country over the cliff to show them to get with the program. No more compromises, no more attempts to appease the fuck ups Boehner and McConnel. Obama is an unstoppable force, and the Republicans are a very fragile object. [editline]6th December 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Glitchman;38725511]That's a mansion, not a "nice house" [img]http://www.eplans.com/house-plans/media/import/WebArt/common/plans/images/GRL0/GRL207/GRL207-FR-PH-CO-MD.JPG[/img] that's more like a "nice house". You can probably afford that on a family income of like 100-150k, give or take, and varying greatly on where you live.[/QUOTE] Where I live that house would cost 800-900k. Fucking Westchester, we're the most expensive county in the country I think

[QUOTE=_Chewgum;38723599]are the rich spending a bunch of printed money? no i'm all for the rich paying a bit more tax, but just because they have money doesn't mean they have some duty to give it away. It's like me coming into your house and taking your food because you have a lot. and your comparison to murders is just dumb kiddie shit[/QUOTE] spending has been going down since the late Bush administration you zucchini. Have you ever been to an institution that has ever mentioned the words "budget cut". We've already sacrificed our education funding in the name of the almighty Libertarians and Republicans who are begging for austerity And just FYI spending cuts are bad, you're supposed to reallocate spending, not cut it [editline]6th December 2012[/editline] And the wealthy financial sector pretty much caused the financial crisis in the first place, and the middle and lower classes payed for it. Now it's time for the wealthy to pay for it too.

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;38725038]1 million bucks a year wont even get you a nice house and car[/QUOTE] The average American survives on less than $40,000 a year. Yeah, sure, you can't get a nice house or car. My mother makes around $250,000 a year and we have a very nice house, a very nice Mercedes, and I have everything I could ever want. Bull shit a million isn't a lot.

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;38725038]1 million bucks a year wont even get you a nice house and car[/QUOTE] laughing so hard

Someone explain to me how holding the economy hostage, on the part of the republicans, isn't treason.

[QUOTE=Bomimo;38730305]Someone explain to me how holding the economy hostage, on the part of the republicans, isn't treason.[/QUOTE] because technically democrats are "holding it hostage" as well by not crumbling to republicans demands. the reason republicans are the bad guys in this situation is because they refuse to accept obama won and america voted for HIS policies, not their filibusters. they're representing the minority of americans at this point and are now risking the country's financial status because they're in denial about the fact that american's don't want their policies, they want obama and the democrats'.

[QUOTE=Kopimi;38730373]because technically democrats are "holding it hostage" as well by not crumbling to republicans demands. the reason republicans are the bad guys in this situation is because they refuse to accept obama won and america voted for HIS policies, not their filibusters. they're representing the minority of americans at this point and are now risking the country's financial status because they're in denial about the fact that american's don't want their policies, they want obama and the democrats'.[/QUOTE] It's actually not the Democrats holding it hostage. It's the democrats remembering last year when the republicans threatened to kill the poor woman and refusing to let them get near her ever again. I think that's a better analogy. "Let me just talk to the fucking whore!" "I'm sorry asshole, but that didn't go anywhere constructive last time." "Bah. Equality! IN MY AMERICA!?"

[QUOTE=Glitchman;38726710]I'll stand by my original statement that if you work hard enough you won't need to helped by the government or from the tax money of wealthy individuals. All the strength you need, you have the ability to conjure. Or is this an overly hopeful way of thinking? idk[/QUOTE] You're right, you don't know.

Confiscate it all, I don't care anymore. Start with the over 250k, then work your way down to 200, then 150, then 100, then 75, ad nauseum. The rich are evil, the poor are needy, I get it. I hate how the Republicans are acting in defeat, and I hate how he Democrats are acting in victory. We have a serious crisis politically, socially, morally, and I don't see much hope on the horizon. I can barely call myself conservative anymore, at least in the American sense. I don't care what DC does anymore, and I might as well change my major from poli sci. There isn't any honest debate, just mudslinging. I will still stay informed, but not get emotionally invested. I used to enjoy politics, but now it makes me sad.

Here's what's going to happen: Republicans are going to refuse to compromise, most likely, and the Bush tax cuts will expire. Taxes will go up for everyone in the US. Democrats basically expect this to happen, and are willing to do things this way because it's easier than negotiating with Republicans. Who can blame them. They will introduce a tax cut for 98% of Americans the next day, they've said this is their plan. From here, two things can happen: Republicans can be huge dicks, and say "If you're not giving the top 2% tax cuts, we will obstruct any plan you have to lower taxes for the other 98%"... As selfish as Republicans are, they are not completely politically stupid. They know, no matter how hard Fox News will be there to spin things around and make it look like the Democrats fault, it will legitimately hurt them. The only other thing that could happen, is they pass the Democrats replacement tax cut plan and that would be it. It's pretty hard to predict what exactly Republicans will do, but I'm pretty confident Democrats are not caving this time. I think we've all had enough of that going on. It would not surprise me, though, if Republicans are planning to allow the tax cuts to expire, block the replacement tax cuts for the middle class, and then try their hardest to blame the Democrats for not meeting their demands, saying it's all their fault taxes are going up. I hope they know though, especially after Romney's embarrassing loss for their entire party, that Americans are not that stupid.

[QUOTE=lolwutdude;38726499]And whom exactly do these medical students who become big have to also thank for making it big? Public education for one that actually let them attend a good college, government student loan rather than a predatory corporate one, a safe environment thanks to public funded police & fire departments, and etc. It's called giving back to the community, you're living in a community, and when you're part of the community, you've got to give back to make sure others can become successful as you. We're not fucking gutting them and bleeding them dry to the point they can't afford good houses, we're taking a bit more cause they can afford to so the community overall can succeed. And the 99% protest isn't against the rich people overall, it's the rich people overall who hasn't faced shit consequences from the economic crisis they helped create all the while taking our bailout money while the people suffers, that's the entire point of the protests, to make sure rich people aren't immune to the law. Not to mention, even implying that workers like coal miners who works their asses off in death traps, endangering their health by working such dangerous areas doesn't work necessarily as hard as anyone else is pretty much dumb.[/QUOTE] They paid for their education like everyone else. They paid back their loan like everyone else. They get police and fire protection [b]like everyone else[/b].

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;38725038]1 million bucks a year wont even get you a nice house and car[/QUOTE] Do you like... live suspended in the air or something? That's the only economic circumstance that I can envision in which a gross annual salary of 1,000,000 dollars would not be able to let you buy a nice house and car, or at least finance a nice house and car.

What I don't get is why people always have kids when they're already poor. Don't they know that's just gonna make them way poorer? My family went through some hard times when I was a kid and everything turned out okay luckily but I have bad memories of times when there was so little money. It's really depressing being a kid in a poor family and I feel like people are dumb to bring kids into a situation like that

[QUOTE=Glitchman;38726249]It's the current scapegoat. There are a lot of stereotypical fat-cat don't-give-a-fuck about anyone rich people, but there are also a lot of wealthy people who have done a lot for society, whether it be starting awesome companies or contribute a ton of work in a scientific of social field. Imagine going to med school for 8 years, studying your brains out and spending hours and hours learning how to help people, then spending years paying off loans (considering you worked hard enough to get a job). Now you finally roll in the $$$. Then you walk down the street and run into a 99% protest and people indirectly are shitting all over your type of people for being in the 1%. People who necessarily didn't work as hard as you or feel like they are entitled to as much money.[/QUOTE] DING DING DING DING. I come from a family of doctors. They hate this, because they worked their asses off for 8 fucking years in Med School, dealt with tons of shit in residency, studied like nothing else, and were under fucktons of stress(my father, before returning to school to become an anesthesiologist had black hair. It is now almost fully grey). They now work super hard in their new jobs- believe it or not, most people in the medical profession work their asses off. They dutifully pay their student loans, and buck up and shovel out money to malpractice insurance(thanks my fellow Americans for suing over everything and making this necessary). 3 years in, my Dad is still paying off loans. Does he make good money? Yes. Did he take advantage of people to do it? No. What makes him mad is the people that leech off the government and contribute nothing. Did you know it is possible to get a tax return without paying taxes since you don't work? [B][I]PEOPLE WHO DON'T WORK CAN GET TAX RETURNS ON TAXES THEY DIDN'T PAY[/I][/B]. Thanks to our screwed up quasi-socialist system, people can do this and sustain themselves. Quite a few people decide never to work again, as there is no point in trying since FREE MONEY AW YISS. Now, this isn't true about everyone. Some really try to find a job, but just can't. Those people are alright. But it is the leeches that can get my family going. Also, Obamacare will fuck over Doctors. Longer hours, more patients, more stress, lower pay. That said, taxes do need to be raised. But it is just unfortunate for some, while quite a few of the big spenders will probably weasel out of it again

But couldn't raising taxes on the richest actually result in [i]less[/i] tax income because more rich people will find loopholes or outright refuse to pay taxes? I understand the whole sentiment that "the rich must pay their fair share," but from a strictly economic and financial standpoint, shouldn't we be looking for a "sweet spot" in the tax rate where the maximum amount of rich people will pay their taxes without dodging them and we get the maximum amount of revenue from taxes? [img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ipyE4AjD1fg/TpiCef5-ObI/AAAAAAAAAC4/WkAXj5Vp_VQ/s1600/22354642.png[/img] Imagine the "price" being the tax rate, and the "quantity" being the amount of rich people paying taxes, and you'll see what I mean. If we did something like that, we'd be getting more bang for our buck, and therefore the deficit will be reduced to an optimum effect. Easier said than done, of course, but just simply [i]raising taxes[/i] won't necessarily solve all the problems we have.

[quote]But couldn't raising taxes on the richest actually result in less tax income because more rich people will find loopholes or outright refuse to pay taxes? I understand the whole sentiment that "the rich must pay their fair share," but from a strictly economic and financial standpoint, shouldn't we be looking for a "sweet spot" in the tax rate where the maximum amount of rich people will pay their taxes without dodging them and we get the maximum amount of revenue from taxes (like a supply-demand chart)?[/quote] Or we could close the loopholes.

[QUOTE=Fhenexx;38735124]But couldn't raising taxes on the richest actually result in [i]less[/i] tax income because more rich people will find loopholes or outright refuse to pay taxes? I understand the whole sentiment that "the rich must pay their fair share," but from a strictly economic and financial standpoint, shouldn't we be looking for a "sweet spot" in the tax rate where the maximum amount of rich people will pay their taxes without dodging them and we get the maximum amount of revenue from taxes (like a supply-demand chart)?[/QUOTE] Im sure a fair portion of rich people will weasel out of it again. Not surprising at all. But there is the median of hard working members of society that will get screwed over because of the super-rich, and have to take some of the load off the poor as well. Its fucked up, I wish we could knock the american government down to the ground and hit the reset button. Also, closing the loopholes? Who do you think made the loopholes? We need more economic, environmental, and social instability before we wake up as a nation and do something. OWS was kinda there, but had no true purpose. It seemed to mostly be a venting of anger

Rich people should pay more than the poor. Both in absolute and relative terms. Rich people use less of their incomes to buy necessities, therefore they can safely, and with little financial harm, pay higher tax rates than the poor, especially as the brackets get higher.

Even Ann [i]fucking[/i] Coulter says we should raise taxes on the rich. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEebFCSmmzI[/media] [i]Ann Coulter[/i]

It is so simple that you can't argue against it.

[QUOTE=paindoc;38735144]Im sure a fair portion of rich people will weasel out of it again. Not surprising at all. But there is the median of hard working members of society that will get screwed over because of the super-rich, and have to take some of the load off the poor as well. Its fucked up, I wish we could knock the american government down to the ground and hit the reset button. Also, closing the loopholes? Who do you think made the loopholes? We need more economic, environmental, and social instability before we wake up as a nation and do something. OWS was kinda there, but had no true purpose. It seemed to mostly be a venting of anger[/QUOTE] I'm not sure if you're really getting what I'm trying to say. I'm not looking at this as a social issue (i.e. the super rich are too rich we need everyone to be on an equal playing field blahblahblah etc etc etc), I'm looking at this strictly financially. But I feel like pointing out a few things First off, the poor (I'm going to kind of group all the poor in the bottom 50% of all Americans here, so stay with me) are basically 1% of [i]all[/i] tax income coming in. The top 50% pay 99% of all taxable income. The poor, in my opinion, shouldn't be paying any taxes if the amount the government is taking in is really that low, but that's an argument for another day. Then, you look further, and it turns out the top 1% is actually paying over [i]half[/i] of all taxes coming in, a number that's actually [i]decreased[/i] since the Reagan years (they payed 65% of all taxes during that time). Of course, I want to make it clear I'm not blaming rising taxes for this because there are a lot of other factors to look at when you're looking at this stuff (most of which I haven't actually looked into because it's 1 AM and I want to go to sleep, but I digress). ([url=http://www.businessinsider.com/who-pays-taxes-2012-8?op=1]Source on some of the numbers I used, by the way[/url]) My point is that the high tax rates are obviously going to scare off some rich people from paying their taxes, which might decrease all the revenue we get from the rich. Closing loopholes is also important in this, but loopholes will always exist no matter how hard you try to fix them. I'm perhaps saying that maybe Romney's plan did hold [i]some[/i] water in the long run; maybe by decreasing taxes, the rich would be more willing to pay them instead of going through the process of paying lawyers to go through the books to find ways to get them out of it. Of course, I do want to make clear that this problem is not as simple as simply [i]lowering taxes[/i] either, but it might yield results if it is done well enough that we hit that "sweet spot." I do possibly concede though that this "sweet spot" might actually require raising taxes, but I'm somewhat doubtful of that. [editline]7th December 2012[/editline] And while I'm on this rant, the whole solution to the whole "income equality" mess isn't to raise taxes on the rich and bring down [i]their[/i] income. The whole thing should be focused on bringing the income of the middle- and lower-class [i]up[/i]. According to some of the numbers I saw from the site I linked, corporate profits are at an all time high while workers' wages are actually at the lowest they've been in a long time or even ever (after adjusting for inflation, of course). Of course, just simply taxing the corporations, too, wouldn't solve this problem. Neither will simply raising the wages of workers, either, since a lot of corporations can afford to just ship jobs overseas to pinch pennies. What the government [i]really[/i] needs to do to bring up these numbers is to somehow create incentives for corporations to keep their jobs here in the U.S. while creating legislation aimed at raising the wages the workers will get. Of course, it's probably [i]still[/i] not that simple, but I believe it's in the right direction, as opposed to just taxing the rich. After a while, the huge income gap will slowly but surely recede. It will never go away, of course, but that's because we live in a capitalistic society, and a capitalistic society is a classed society. Unfortunately, in our society, someone always has to be at the bottom and someone always at the top. It's a sin, but it's the natural way human nature has worked for a long time.

[QUOTE=Kopimi;38727478]How about you just go back to your Ron Paul forum and talk about how genius a flat tax rate is there. Flat tax is a stupid idea that will either bring in too little revenue or destroy the middle and lower class. The only people who support it are libertarians with a childlike understanding of fairness[/QUOTE] I am libertarian and childish. Your point? [QUOTE]or destroy the middle and lower class[/QUOTE] Hmmm... I guess a flat tax will do the same thing that the current system is already doing. :downs:

[QUOTE=koeniginator;38725486][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91usT4P1u0[/media][/QUOTE] Something seems odd about a corporate crony having a picture of Teddy Roosevelt on his mantle.

[QUOTE=itak365;38736052]Something seems odd about a corporate crony having a picture of Teddy Roosevelt on his mantle.[/QUOTE] Almost as ironic as conservatives using Jesus to back up their economic beliefs and the Founding Fathers to back up their belief in America as a Christian nation