The gov also gave big subcidies for the cable, phone companies to beef up their systems for the internet. U owe your living to the gov god that must kill some people on here. Lol

Also the problem isnt too many programs, its too little money coming in. Once upon a time this country built great road systems and public colleges. Now we got a rotting bridge and road system, no public college but the rich pay tbe lowest taxes since 1930. Also where are all those jobs tbose low taxes were going to bring?

True. It is murky waters and not all cut and dried. :)

Altho my wireless service is really crappy lately. :) Must be the humidity I think.

The state is certainly way better than the fed. Less corrupted. Way less.

Jesse V proved anyone can be Gov which was really fantastic and did restore my faith a bit.

I need a song or two or this stuff gives me a headache :)

Jesse Ventura for president. :)

Jesse would kick ass if he ever made it that far.

Cmon Jesse saves us.

show us what your worth :)



and one more



cause I may need to get high after all this :)

Jesse would run the country like Katy Perry sings..

fantabulously :) With fire and guts like our forefathers had.

Do I need to drag the forefathers into this. :)

You do realize advocating for the super-rich is tantamount to advocating for a lower income for yourself, right? It's like saying, "no, no, it's ok. you keep right on consolidating all of the wealth. even if that means fucking over the middle class, and depleting my customer base, you go right for it!".

I'm all for taxing them at 85%, like they once were. Nobody needs $400,000,000 a year, and nobody is worth that amount.

This was one thing this thread opened my eyes on. I used to fear making money hehe (not really) cause of those terrible 50%+ tax rates and the most they now pay is 35%. I must have missed that on the Obama info speech somewhere.

And mostly only on Cap Gains as they comtinually reinvest and thus claim the expense. (which is smart) but still just another way they make even more money.

BTW, wasnt this Obama character a total dissapointment? I admit I thought this black guy was going to kick ass. First black. Boy is he going to get it done. :1orglaugh

He is damn near worse than Bush. In fact he may be.

We all Know George 2 wasnt the brightest bulb but at least he was charming. This guy is all serious all the time and yet the country is no better and prob worse off.

George had charm, Clinton had charm, this guy comes across as a cold fish who hasnt done diddly squat worth mentioning so far.

Speaking of Clinton. How in the hell did he balance the budget in 1999 only to be trillions back in debt. And Papa Bush had us a trillion or so in and Clinton balanced the budget.

He was the man and maybe even throws a wrench into my Free Masons theory (although there are lots of shady things in his background and term too)

Porn was booming in 1999-2000. It went to hell in 2001 as soon as "dumb" George (as opposed to "sinister" George) took office. Immediately and never recovered.

Coincidence or something deeper. You decide.

What? You mean like, I never said make the gov bigger?

Right... social programs do nothing, help nobody, are a total waste, and have a zero success rate for helping people. Wow.. Brainwashed much?

Clearly the solution is you finally understanding what big gov actually is and how you can actually change it. Big Gov is in your local city and State closing and defunding good programs (like school programs) and others that help people, and move that money to areas they profit from, and not a reduction in cost/budget/expenses, which is what was pitched.

They're taking away what your tax dollars SHOULD be doing, helping YOU, because they're are YOURS... rather than moving to projects that make other people richer and NEVER benefit you!

Wake up!

We collected more tax revenue because of the economic boom mixed with the fed spending less money than they were taking in, not that they spent less, they spent more, we just took in that much more tax rev.

Then Bush came in and cut taxes, that alone put the ratio out of balance, we took in less tax and still spent more. Then he really started spending like mad, then hid it from us, and the rest is history.

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

:1orglaugh
The mindset of the rabble is stunning.

Bingo :thumbsup

thats so weird! The chart here shows the exact opposite:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/...or =c&local=s

in fact, if you look at 1999 and 2000, we actually spent less than we did in 1980 (a 20 year roll back)

Gee, I wonder who's right.

You guys are all missing the BIG picture! Whether, we (and by we I mean Westerners in general) like it or not we are going to have to compete in the future with 1.4 billion Chinese and almost a billion people in India. Both of these countries are now turning out more and more educated individuals that will work for a few dollars a day. The West, with it's bloated unions, government, health care, etc., CANNOT compete. It's NOT the U.S. economy - it IS the GLOBAL ECONOMY. The West's time has passed.

Don't like it - Too bad, so sad.

Lmao! Truly, had to get up from the pc, my lungs hurt from laughing so much... no idea.



Those %'s are with the growth we had, I mean come on... lol. And it includes the social security fund (which is kinda a wash but adds to it), and it includes the gov loans (like trust funds) to itself, which makes the numbers look pretty, while increasing the national debt, which went up the entire time he was in office.

What's really funny, is the increase in revenue he did have, was mostly do to him increasing the taxes on the wealthiest tax brackets first... Hello! Then the economic boom happened. Then, if things wouldn't have changed, the % of national debt could have dropped... because of tax revenue, again!

I think I'm going to frame your comment... I'm love'in it!

Odd, the facts and the charts tell a different story.
It's so crazy.
I wonder who's right?

Lol again... You ask who's right? Lol, your chart doesn't prove anything I said wrong. I explained the chart, but please keep going, it's truly funny to watch you now.

Check it out chump change! When you borrow money from gov holdings, like ss interest from a major spike in tax revenue (over 2/3 of the surplus), and you use that to pay off the public debt, it's a wash... the gov was borrowing money from itself, creating more debt, to make little yuppies like yourself all wishy washy inside that the gov actually did something good.

If we actually had a surplus any year he was in office, the national debt would have went down.

Use your brain...

100 economies!

what is the classification of "super rich?" makes sense they only pay capital gains tax since they probably dont work :2 cents:

The standing definition of rich is if your family income is over $250,000 per year. That is what Obama says and they want to raise your taxes.

Really, $250,000 is just middle class with a good education, nice house in the burbs, 2 cars, and a wife with a good job, too.

The politicians are all trying to destroy the middle class just as fast as they can so we can become a well educated, third world country.

$250K is not "average" at all.

It is nowhere near "rich" and incredibly short of "super rich" but certainly more than the median...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

Median is just the middle where half the households make more and half make less. Nothing more.

A better indicator would be a bell curve and the standard deviation. Then you could make some claims concerning relative wealth and how it relates to where one fell on the curve.

Wealth is hard to measure by income. Steve Jobs only makes $1/year. Is he poor? That formula only works for employee type income, which is generally the poor and middle class.

Not sure what this babble has to do with spending cuts........and neither will you when you sleep of your drunk

Man, the fantasies some of you kids believe.....

Lol.... of course your stupid ass thinks it's a spending cut when you use debt to pay for it... hahahahahahahaha.


Truly, lol... no wonder this country is so fucked. This is 2nd grade math and it goes straight over your head... maybe this is why your business failed so bad? You can read a tape measure like no other, but basic balancing of a check book is without question far far far past your abilities.... :1orglaugh

There's nothing wrong with someone earning $984000000 a year if he did it in an honest way: that is by providing products and services other people value and are willing to pay for.

Neighbors voluntarily helping each other -> good.
Doctors voluntarily spending their vacation in Africa helping poor people -> good.
People voluntarily raising money to help the homeless -> good.
...

Government programs -> only wreak havoc.
From an economic point of view government intervention only increases time preference, resulting in higher consumption, less saving,...
From a sociological point of view this increase in time preference results in higher crime rates, drug and alcohol abuse, higher divorce rates,...

for more info see Hans-Hermann Hoppe on time preference.

Other than... Gov programs haven't only wreaked havoc. I kinda like my interstates and highways and bridges. I've seen first hand welfare programs help people and those people use it to start over, and successfully do so - when nobody else would help, period!

From an economic point of view, the gov has funded almost everything that has grown our great country to various levels throughout history - including the technology you use to make this post, so bad aren't they?

Odd, countries with social gov's, much more gov in life... don't all have higher crime rates, drug, alcohol abuse, or divorce rates. Actually, most of those countries have MUCH lower rates than America.


In a Country that votes on local/state laws, elects the people, etc... if it's fucked up, it's OUR OWN fault... not the fake hand of the big gov that everyone likes to blame.

Does a person making $250k a year have the same right to their property as someone making $50k a year?

The only industry that pays themselves that much money is the financial industry. They are the highest paid individuals in the world and they produce/create nothing.

Other industries, like life products, even with almost full market penetration with some products, the owners don't come anywhere close to making enough to pay themselves that type of money, even the entire company doesn't make that much money.

Almost all fortune 500 company owners make less than 15 million a year (I think it was, it wasn't that high either way), you have to add up total value of every asset they own to get to the billions, with the biggest in the entire country being only 50 billion or so.

Nothing about the financial industry is honest.... they stole trillions from us, take our tax dollars and make more money, then pay themselves fat bonuses with our money directly.

They should be taxed to death, 98%+

Try switching the drop down on the left from "pct GDP" to "$ billions" and see if that helps.



.

If someone needs proof of what you are saying here. Simply look south.

the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer :(

Absolutely!

I blame lobbying.

I fully understand your anger. While it is true that most (all? empirical question ;) ) of the 'super rich' have made their fortune (or at least a major part of it) in unethical ways, this still does not justify taxation.

Taxation is a practice whereby one organization forces another to pay, regardless of what this other organization has done. Taxation is a violation of people's property rights and therefor unethical.

Back tot he financial industry: The hideous things banks have done and continue to do, they have been able to do thanks to the state. It is the state that forces people to use fiat currency. It is the state that forces people to use banks. It is the state that takes out loans "in the name of the people" and taxes people so it can pay back those loans with interest. It is the state that allows banks to run their fractional reserve scheme (something that is inherently unstable and banks would be unable to do in a free market). It is the state that covers the banks' losses with money it takes (taxation) from 'the people'. It is the state that rewards the irresponsible behavior of the banks.

This whole low taxes vs high taxes for group x vs group y discussion is nothing but a distraction. Divide and conquer... make the poor and middle class, entrepreneurs and wage workers, etc fights amongst each other about who should be taxed that tiny bit more and the result is that that no one takes the time to question the underlying problem. People fight amongst each other and the system, the institution that makes all of this corruption possible remains safe, out of the spotlight.

Another president, another congress, another senate, another head of the Fed, new regulations, a different tax system,.... none of these things will fix anything.

Like they said in "The Tigercat": everything had to change so everything could remain the same.

If you really want to change something, fight the disease, not its symptoms.

the gold standard made the great depression worse, how soon people forget ...