Public Servant is a Liar ....VAT still on the table

• BoatShoes

  ccrunner609 wrote: I dont understand why anyone would be for any type of taxes?

  Aren't you a public school teacher?
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  ccrunner609 wrote: I dont understand why anyone would be for any type of taxes?

  Yeah, screw roads, bridges, sewers, basic sanitation, schools, police, fire fighters, some hospitals, parks, sidewalks, etc. We don't need them!
• derek bomar

  

  ptown_trojans_1 wrote:

  ccrunner609 wrote: I dont understand why anyone would be for any type of taxes?

  Yeah, screw roads, bridges, sewers, basic sanitation, schools, police, fire fighters, some hospitals, parks, sidewalks, etc. We don't need them!

  plus ya know, the common defense or whatever
• QuakerOats

  I Wear Pants wrote: The Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire because they shouldn't have happened in the first place.

  That will only make things worse because the majority of the job creators (read, taxpayer creators) are small businesses that pay income tax at the individual level on flow through corporate income. And since the majority of federal taxes comes from people like that, higher confiscatory rates will only further the economic/unemployment problem, thus blunting additional overall tax receipts.
  
  Of course you knew that, but just wanted to pile on with the liberal class envy crowd.
  
  The only way to solve the debt problem is to lower tax rates, stop taxing wealth creation, dramatically cut government spending, and grow your way out of the mess. Nothing else will work.
• derek bomar

  

  QuakerOats wrote:

  I Wear Pants wrote: The Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire because they shouldn't have happened in the first place.

  That will only make things worse because the majority of the job creators (read, taxpayer creators) are small businesses that pay income tax at the individual level on flow through corporate income. And since the majority of federal taxes comes from people like that, higher confiscatory rates will only further the economic/unemployment problem, thus blunting additional overall tax receipts.
  
  Of course you knew that, but just wanted to pile on with the liberal class envy crowd.
  
  The only way to solve the debt problem is to lower tax rates, stop taxing wealth creation, dramatically cut government spending, and grow your way out of the mess. Nothing else will work.

  tax cuts won't work - you need to cut spending and take them back to the clinton era levels ... raise revenue and stop spending. This whole facade about the people who create jobs not creating them if the Bush tax cuts go away is a joke. People will still have an option...A) create jobs at pre-Bush level taxes and make more money or B) don't. I would choose A...now A then will be worse than A now, but A then is better than B then...
• Cleveland Buck

  

  The government should just seize our entire incomes and graciously provide us with food, clothing, housing, and whatever they determine that we need.
• tk421

  

  Cleveland Buck wrote: The government should just seize our entire incomes and graciously provide us with food, clothing, housing, and whatever they determine that we need.

  The way this country is going, I wouldn't be surprised. We should all be grateful they let us keep some of "their" money.
• I Wear Pants

  QuakerOats wrote:

  I Wear Pants wrote: The Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire because they shouldn't have happened in the first place.

  That will only make things worse because the majority of the job creators (read, taxpayer creators) are small businesses that pay income tax at the individual level on flow through corporate income. And since the majority of federal taxes comes from people like that, higher confiscatory rates will only further the economic/unemployment problem, thus blunting additional overall tax receipts.
  
  Of course you knew that, but just wanted to pile on with the liberal class envy crowd.
  
  The only way to solve the debt problem is to lower tax rates, stop taxing wealth creation, dramatically cut government spending, and grow your way out of the mess. Nothing else will work.

  The Bush tax cuts shouldn't have happened. He raised expenditures with two wars (one unnecessary and one that became unnecessary as time went on) and expansion of medicare. Then he cut the income of the government. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that less income and more spending is a bad idea.
• I Wear Pants

  ptown_trojans_1 wrote:

  ccrunner609 wrote: I dont understand why anyone would be for any type of taxes?

  Yeah, screw roads, bridges, sewers, basic sanitation, schools, police, fire fighters, some hospitals, parks, sidewalks, etc. We don't need them!

  The market will provide those if we just get off the gubment teat!
  
  :rolleyes:
• tk421

  

  I Wear Pants wrote:

  QuakerOats wrote:

  I Wear Pants wrote: The Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire because they shouldn't have happened in the first place.

  That will only make things worse because the majority of the job creators (read, taxpayer creators) are small businesses that pay income tax at the individual level on flow through corporate income. And since the majority of federal taxes comes from people like that, higher confiscatory rates will only further the economic/unemployment problem, thus blunting additional overall tax receipts.
  
  Of course you knew that, but just wanted to pile on with the liberal class envy crowd.
  
  The only way to solve the debt problem is to lower tax rates, stop taxing wealth creation, dramatically cut government spending, and grow your way out of the mess. Nothing else will work.

  The Bush tax cuts shouldn't have happened. He raised expenditures with two wars (one unnecessary and one that became unnecessary as time went on) and expansion of medicare. Then he cut the income of the government. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that less income and more spending is a bad idea.

  But more income and more spending is the way to go? Until (never happen) the government massively cuts the budget, we will never get rid of deficits, let alone pay down the debt. Defense, SS, Medicare Have to be cut. There is no way the government is going to be able to tax enough money to pay for these, especially with the baby boomers retiring.
• Sykotyk

  

  A query.... is there any job on Earth, that you feel, is worth over $10 million a year?
  
  Think about it. And I'm not talking about sports, etc, where the physical toll on the body decades later is being compensated up front. Is there any occupation you feel you can do that actually produces or accomplishes something that would be worth the equivalent of being paid $1,141 for every hour in a year?
  
  Is there, really?
  
  If I owned a business and made $5 million in a year PROFIT, it's because of my employees actually working to accomplish something. I was simply the steward and the guidance to that end.
  
  In 1965, the average CEO made 24x the amount of his average employee. In other words, if my average employee made $40,000 today, I'd be raking in a cool $906,000 by 1965 standards. As of 2006, the average CEO makes 282x the amount of his average employee. Which means if his average employees make $40,000, the CEO is making a whopping $11.28 million. A $10.24 million INCREASE, adjusted to inflation.
  
  Is there any revolutionary advancement to managerial expertise that actually makes a 10x increase in compensation logical?
  
  Is there anything in your job, in your current position, that you can do that will vaunt you to a 1000% increase in pay? Is there, really?
  
  You're doing exactly what the CEOs and moneychangers in this world want you to do. And that is to defend their greed because you're nothing without them. Yet, you may, just maybe, wind up in that same boat and when that day comes, you want to keep all of your ill-gotten gains.
  
  We're not a manufacturing society. We're not even a service society. We're an ownership society.
  
  People make money off of what they own, not what they produce in a job. And the key with an ownership society is that it's very difficult to lose that position when the tax laws are slanted in your favor and your own employees worship the ground you walk on for being so far above them.
  
  Capitalism only works because of greed.
  
  Note: http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/
  
  Sykotyk
• tk421

  

  Sykotyk wrote: A query.... is there any job on Earth, that you feel, is worth over $10 million a year?
  
  Think about it. And I'm not talking about sports, etc, where the physical toll on the body decades later is being compensated up front. Is there any occupation you feel you can do that actually produces or accomplishes something that would be worth the equivalent of being paid $1,141 for every hour in a year?
  
  Is there, really?
  
  If I owned a business and made $5 million in a year PROFIT, it's because of my employees actually working to accomplish something. I was simply the steward and the guidance to that end.
  
  In 1965, the average CEO made 24x the amount of his average employee. In other words, if my average employee made $40,000 today, I'd be raking in a cool $906,000 by 1965 standards. As of 2006, the average CEO makes 282x the amount of his average employee. Which means if his average employees make $40,000, the CEO is making a whopping $11.28 million. A $10.24 million INCREASE, adjusted to inflation.
  
  Is there any revolutionary advancement to managerial expertise that actually makes a 10x increase in compensation logical?
  
  Is there anything in your job, in your current position, that you can do that will vaunt you to a 1000% increase in pay? Is there, really?
  
  You're doing exactly what the CEOs and moneychangers in this world want you to do. And that is to defend their greed because you're nothing without them. Yet, you may, just maybe, wind up in that same boat and when that day comes, you want to keep all of your ill-gotten gains.
  
  We're not a manufacturing society. We're not even a service society. We're an ownership society.
  
  People make money off of what they own, not what they produce in a job. And the key with an ownership society is that it's very difficult to lose that position when the tax laws are slanted in your favor and your own employees worship the ground you walk on for being so far above them.
  
  Capitalism only works because of greed.
  
  Note: http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/
  
  Sykotyk

  What exactly does this crap have to do with a VAT and the budget? Get a life.
• Sykotyk

  

  Because the VAT covers consumption. The lower end of the economic ladder tends to pay out all of their earnings to cover their living expenses. Wealthier people tend to save their money because, regardless of why, they don't actually need it all to live. So a VAT would be much closer to taxing the poor and not taxing the wealthy (proportionally).
  
  If you make $10 million and only spend $2 million in a year, that's only $2 million of the GNP that will be taxed ($8 million will be untaxed by a VAT). If you make $20,000 and you spend $20,000, the entirety of your part of the GNP would be taxed ($0 untaxed).
  
  Therefore, the only way to avoid the tax would be to not spend your money (if you're wealthy, that'd be much easier to do, obviously).
  
  Besides that point, tk421, I was mainly rehashing a response by queencitybuckeye to an earlier comment I made in this thread regarding wealth and worth.
  
  Using the phrase 'Get a life' doesn't really contribute to the dialogue here. Please feel free to respond when your primitive grunts and snorts evolve into something more substantive.
  
  Sykotyk
• IggyPride00

  

  BHO yesterday was claiming "things have changed" from when he made his initial tax pledge in early 2008 because he wasn't planning on coming into office with a $1.3 trillion dollar inherited deficit as well as a surging national debt adding trillions a year....or something along those lines.
  
  He is looking for an out to be able to raise taxes, and after the November election is over and his commission recommends tax increases batten down the hatches because a brawl is going to happen in Washington over the new methods of "enhancing revenue" that are to come.
• queencitybuckeye

  Sykotyk wrote: A query.... is there any job on Earth, that you feel, is worth over $10 million a year?

  Certainly.
  

  Think about it. And I'm not talking about sports, etc, where the physical toll on the body decades later is being compensated up front. Is there any occupation you feel you can do that actually produces or accomplishes something that would be worth the equivalent of being paid $1,141 for every hour in a year?

  Again, yes.
  

  If I owned a business and made $5 million in a year PROFIT, it's because of my employees actually working to accomplish something. I was simply the steward and the guidance to that end.

  The word "simply" refutes your argument. It makes it obvious to those of us who have done it that you have no earthly idea what it takes.
  

  We're not a manufacturing society. We're not even a service society. We're an ownership society.

  Tell you what, go work for 20 or 30 years to accumulate a little bit of money, and then risk every dime of it and borrow substantially more to create something out of nothing. Then come back and minimize ownership.
  

  People make money off of what they own, not what they produce in a job.

  Where do you believe the funding for that ownership comes from. Inherited wealth? Tiny fraction. The overwhelming majority of businesses in this country are created from nothing through a combination of hard work, a little bit of smarts, more hard work, a bit of good fortune, and a little more work. You may of course choose not to believe this, you're simply wrong.
  

  Capitalism only works because of greed.

  I'd argue that greed is far more about "how" than "how much". It would be difficult, for example, to claim that Bill Gates is greedy when he's given away more than the rest of us combined will earn in a hundred lifetimes.
• Belly35

  

  Greed is a desire to possess more than one needs or deserves
  
  Greed ......... is also wanting something for doing little or nothing
  
  Now what aspect of our society fit into that "area of greed"
  
  When the word "greed" is thrown out ..many only think of the top end of greed but what about the bottom end ..see greed is just not confine to rich
  
  I never worked for a greedy poor man ..have you
  I never been hired by a greedy unemployed person ....have you
  I have need been paid by a greedy welfare individual ...have you
  Greed does create employment but then again greed in the hand of the most greedy does nothing.......
• I Wear Pants

  So unemployed and poor people are greedy?
• majorspark

  

  I Wear Pants wrote: So unemployed and poor people are greedy?

  They can be. Greed is a condition of the heart. Belly is right. Greed is measured in the heart, not in material wealth.
• Belly35

  

  majorspark wrote:

  I Wear Pants wrote: So unemployed and poor people are greedy?

  They can be. Greed is a condition of the heart. Belly is right. Greed is measured in the heart, not in material wealth.

  Thank you majorsparks for understanding
  
  I'll be here all week and you can visit ..Deep Thought of Belly35
• Ghmothwdwhso

  Sykotyk wrote: A query.... is there any job on Earth, that you feel, is worth over $10 million a year?
  
  Think about it. And I'm not talking about sports, etc, where the physical toll on the body decades later is being compensated up front. Is there any occupation you feel you can do that actually produces or accomplishes something that would be worth the equivalent of being paid $1,141 for every hour in a year?
  
  Is there, really?
  
  If I owned a business and made $5 million in a year PROFIT, it's because of my employees actually working to accomplish something. I was simply the steward and the guidance to that end.
  
  In 1965, the average CEO made 24x the amount of his average employee. In other words, if my average employee made $40,000 today, I'd be raking in a cool $906,000 by 1965 standards. As of 2006, the average CEO makes 282x the amount of his average employee. Which means if his average employees make $40,000, the CEO is making a whopping $11.28 million. A $10.24 million INCREASE, adjusted to inflation.
  
  Is there any revolutionary advancement to managerial expertise that actually makes a 10x increase in compensation logical?
  
  Is there anything in your job, in your current position, that you can do that will vaunt you to a 1000% increase in pay? Is there, really?
  
  You're doing exactly what the CEOs and moneychangers in this world want you to do. And that is to defend their greed because you're nothing without them. Yet, you may, just maybe, wind up in that same boat and when that day comes, you want to keep all of your ill-gotten gains.
  
  We're not a manufacturing society. We're not even a service society. We're an ownership society.
  
  People make money off of what they own, not what they produce in a job. And the key with an ownership society is that it's very difficult to lose that position when the tax laws are slanted in your favor and your own employees worship the ground you walk on for being so far above them.
  
  Capitalism only works because of greed.
  
  Note: http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/
  
  Sykotyk

  One occupation that never gets ridiculed for how much money they make is "entertainment" i.e. Actors. Many of them complain publicly about a, private company's CEO, making $5 mil a year when they are hauling in 10-20mil per film.
• Ghmothwdwhso

  BoatShoes wrote:

  tk421 wrote:

  BoatShoes wrote:

  tk421 wrote: Hmm, this thread is pretty quiet. Where are all the liberals who voted for Barack "No new taxes for anyone making less than $250,000" Obama? I guess people making less than 250,000 don't buy anything in this country? What a freaking joke.

  Well this VAT tax would certainly make the 47% who don't pay federal income tax contribute to the non-medicaid/non-ss federal coffers. So, if the fact that 47% of Americans don't pay federal income tax...perhaps a VAT shouldn't bother you.
  
  It means nothing to me that Barry told gullible folks out there that their taxes would not be raised when an unsustainable debt situation is on the horizon...Perhaps he's at least smart enough to wait until his second term.

  Perhaps instead of raising taxes, the federal government should cut the freaking budget and live within their means, just like every household in this country does. Why anyone would support giving the government increased revenues is beyond me. They already take in plenty of money. Time for massive cuts. Everyone in America will have to suck it up and deal with it.

  
  How do you cut.
  1. social security
  2. medicare
  3. Defense
  
  Everything else, Pork, NASA, Student Loans, Pell Grants...that's nothing compared to those 3. And you can't cut Interest which is also huge.

  With all respect, your #1 and #2 example, are a great example of the "slippery slope". Many in Gov. want to add to the entitlement programs, but the problem is, once they get entrenched into society, it's very/nearly impossible to reduce or remove them.
  
  If SS nor medicare were never put in place at that time, and someone now was proposing it, it would seem outrageous to add them. This country endured nearly 160+ years without those programs, but now after 70+ years they are untouchable.
  
  How would we have survived the past 70+ years without them? We would have, like generations before. Give a person a fish..............etc
• I Wear Pants

  majorspark wrote:

  I Wear Pants wrote: So unemployed and poor people are greedy?

  They can be. Greed is a condition of the heart. Belly is right. Greed is measured in the heart, not in material wealth.

  It's not a condition of the heart. It's a condition of nature.
  
  Dogs will hoard their bones, we hoard our money.
• I Wear Pants

  Ghmothwdwhso wrote:

  BoatShoes wrote:

  tk421 wrote:

  BoatShoes wrote:

  tk421 wrote: Hmm, this thread is pretty quiet. Where are all the liberals who voted for Barack "No new taxes for anyone making less than $250,000" Obama? I guess people making less than 250,000 don't buy anything in this country? What a freaking joke.

  Well this VAT tax would certainly make the 47% who don't pay federal income tax contribute to the non-medicaid/non-ss federal coffers. So, if the fact that 47% of Americans don't pay federal income tax...perhaps a VAT shouldn't bother you.
  
  It means nothing to me that Barry told gullible folks out there that their taxes would not be raised when an unsustainable debt situation is on the horizon...Perhaps he's at least smart enough to wait until his second term.

  Perhaps instead of raising taxes, the federal government should cut the freaking budget and live within their means, just like every household in this country does. Why anyone would support giving the government increased revenues is beyond me. They already take in plenty of money. Time for massive cuts. Everyone in America will have to suck it up and deal with it.

  
  How do you cut.
  1. social security
  2. medicare
  3. Defense
  
  Everything else, Pork, NASA, Student Loans, Pell Grants...that's nothing compared to those 3. And you can't cut Interest which is also huge.

  With all respect, your #1 and #2 example, are a great example of the "slippery slope". Many in Gov. want to add to the entitlement programs, but the problem is, once they get entrenched into society, it's very/nearly impossible to reduce or remove them.
  
  If SS nor medicare were never put in place at that time, and someone now was proposing it, it would seem outrageous to add them. This country endured nearly 160+ years without those programs, but now after 70+ years they are untouchable.
  
  How would we have survived the past 70+ years without them? We would have, like generations before. Give a person a fish..............etc

  Consider that those 70 years were better than any other.
  
  Though I would like to see those programs majorly overhauled. Getting rid of them would be a pipe dream at this point.
• majorspark

  

  I Wear Pants wrote:

  majorspark wrote:

  I Wear Pants wrote: So unemployed and poor people are greedy?

  They can be. Greed is a condition of the heart. Belly is right. Greed is measured in the heart, not in material wealth.

  It's not a condition of the heart. It's a condition of nature.
  
  Dogs will hoard their bones, we hoard our money.

  I can buy that. It is a human condition, not a condition of wealth.
• queencitybuckeye

  I Wear Pants wrote: So unemployed and poor people are greedy?

  Being poor does not preclude one from being greedy, IMO.