StrangeSox

Serious question for the Republicans and conservatives here: do you believe Gingrich could beat Obama in the national election (barring any unknown circumstances and assuming the economy keeps at its current sluggish pace)?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 04:16 PM) How is God bless America even on there? That's a 100 guarantee. It's a question of which comes first.

"the state of the union is strong"

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 02:32 PM) I meant generally. The majority of people own their home (not outright, but have their name on the title). Most people in my generation have some college debt. Most people in my spot in life (married, settled) start having kids, etc. I don't see why we need to get rid of those small incentives just so the tax code becomes more clear. It's a simple check list like I said before. Do you have X, then Y. The code is a hell of a lot more complicated than child credits and certain interest deductions.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:55 PM) Abolish the tax on labor and tax wealth instead. Here's an old editorial, circa 1995, from Wolff (the same guy in the other link that details wealth distribution) advocating and explaining a wealth tax: http://bostonreview.net/BR21.1/wolff.html

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 10:38 AM) $6 MILLION. Do you think he gets $6 million in benefit for his tax dollars? $6 million bucks he paid. That's a lot, no matter who you are. But everyone glosses over that because the percentage isn't high enough. but when it comes to the lower 45%, percentage doesn't seem to matter. By the way, it'd take the average American family about 400 years to earn what Romney earned in 1. That's why people talk about percentages instead of dollar amounts.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 02:12 PM) Oh sure I do, but I think I represent the average American for the most part (albeit slightly young) - I'm married. I own a home. I have college/post-college debt. I'm about to have a kid in 5 months. I have a car. I pay for my own insurance. I contribute to my own retirement fund. I'm not anywhere near "poor" and i'm not anywhere near "wealthy." Etc. Etc. On average I'd say I contribute the most to the "economy" and so I should get those various deductions to assist paying a third of my income to the government, along with every other fee and tax I pay in my daily life that others don't pay (the poor) or the others that are able to dodge it/have no beef paying it since it's such a small amount compared to their overall income (the rich). I'd have no problem putting those deductions into some kind of tax bracket requirement btw. In fact that might even be best. The poor play plenty of taxes and fees: You're college-educated with an advanced degree in law. You own a home and have a retirement fund. That's not average. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not average.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:56 PM) Yes it was. I earned money. I invested that money. It's been hit with both state and federal income tax before I put it to use. It gets taxed again if that money makes more money. I'm all about RAISING taxes on the top bracket. I'm also all about REDUCING middle tax brackets and shoring up spending (from subsidizing the poor/old to worthless defense spending) You said that your money earned you an additional $3000, not that your initial capital was $3000. That $3000 that you now have has never been taxed, only your original investment money was. That original already-taxed money isn't subject to another tax.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:33 PM) Well, that begs the question of whether there should be any "income" tax. It's all a penalty. Abolish the tax on labor and tax wealth instead.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:51 PM) Then why don't we ask the question what the return on investment looks like for every other tax under the sun? How valuable are the liquor taxes we pay? Property taxes? Tolls? Sales Taxes? Fees? Why aren't we looking at how strong their returns are? I don't have a problem with analyzing the effectiveness and appropriateness of different taxes. But the cap and dividends cuts were sold with a specific message, and they really didn't work at all how they were ostensibly supposed to.

Jenks, do you see how everything you're proposing is blatantly self-serving? edit: That doesn't mean it's wrong, necessarily, it's just that every deduction you can take should be kept, your rates should be lowered, and others's rates should be increased.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:27 PM) But you don't want to limit middle class investments solely to retirement. I just think it's unfair that if i earn 3k on my investments this year i gotta pay 450 bucks. That's essentially a penalty for being smart with my money. It's a tax on earned money. You can phrase "selling your labor" as "being smart with your time" and get the same results. But that $3000 was never taxed before. I think this is a good opportunity to post this again: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf The bottom 90% of Americans hold a whopping 10.6% of stock value in this country (pg 51). The bottom 90% owns 18.8% of direct/indirect stock e.g. 401k's, but those are already given preferential tax treatment. Both yours and NSS's plans explicitly exclude the top brackets from further cuts, so I don't have a huge problem there. It wouldn't amount to much of a hit against revenues, but again it's a cut that wouldn't much at all for 60% of the country (pg 58 for breakdown of stock ownership by wealth category).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 23, 2012 -> 11:30 AM) Papa Johns, Little Caesars, Pizza Hut and Dominoes are all on the same level of suck. You can debate all you want, but in the end they are all bottom barrel pizzas. There is good reason they come for 5 bucks and 10 bucks I'd rather have DiGiorno or Freschetta than any of those garbage pizzas.

Awesome, and exactly why I ignore all of the twitter trade/signing rumors.

One interesting unintended consequence in the current tax code: when banks have foreclosed on a house and have it listed for sale, it counts as an inventory item. That means they can't take deductions for various expenses incurred on the property for upkeep, cleaning, repair, etc. until the property is actually sold.

That list of "best films" really highlights how mediocre this year's been.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 10:51 AM) The whole reason regressive vs progressive vs flat tax structure is even a discussion is the sliding scale of utility of each dollar. The first $10k someone makes is one heck of a lot more important to them that than the 10th $10k. It is the transition from absolute needs, to marginal needs, to reasonable wants, to luxury items. I am sure you must realize this. And let's stop with the talk that 45% of the country doesn't pay taxes, which is 100% false. Not only do they pay sales taxes (and at a much higher relative rate), along with property taxes and other non-payroll-based fees and taxes, they also pay the SS payroll tax (which is regressive), and Medicare, and often state income tax. Once you take into account all taxation, our system is barely a progressive one. Yet every single GOP candidate would love to significantly cut the taxes for the wealthy, even to the point of having an overall regressive system.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 10:51 AM) That all said, I have no problem with the fact that Romney pays only about 15% in taxes. There are very good, valid reasons why the cap gains, dividend and interest taxes are set lower than the top line income taxes. I'd also be OK with him paying 20%, as part of a broader plan to get the deficit and debt under control. But not much more than that. No, there's not really good reasons to have those at the low rates they're currently at. It's a recent policy and there's no evidence that it's encouraged investing. These were the promises behind Bush's tax cuts on these categories but they completely failed to pan out.

I'd be more inclined to tax wealth instead of labor. But, keeping the current taxation system largely in place, make the brackets substantially more progressive (1990's or higher) and bring capital gains and dividends taxes in line with everything else.

Tax rate is the entire point. Or should everyone just pay a flat dollar amount regardless of income? EDIT: and $6M isn't a lot when you're making $40M+ and are already worth hundreds of millions. It has zero impact on your life. When you're making $20k a year, an extra $1000 makes a huge difference to your life and essentially zero difference to federal revenues even when spread out over say 20M people.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 09:40 AM) It's reflected in "lower wages by the employee", but if you want to be rigorous and ask the question "are people who earn $10k a year on minimum wage getting off too easy or are people who earn $40 million a year getting off too easy", then failing to consider that 6% is pretty important. Some quick googling seems to show on the balance that it actually is 100% or damn close to it, and that it's entirely reflected in wages and not employment. Mitt Romney paying 14% is punishing success, mere politics of envy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 09:36 AM) It really should get counted as a tax that is being paid by the employee anyway, because it really is, it's just hidden. I doubt that the tax incidence is 100%, but it is reflected in wages.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 09:34 AM) And it never gets included when people refer to the tax burdens of the corporations... Tax policy analysis can be quite lazy in general. edit: lazy isn't the right word, intentionally shallow so as to obfuscate is more accurate.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 09:23 AM) It's not really an extension, it's a new means of enforcement. And even though you're worried about the doomsday prophecy, it's not happening. No, they keep granting extensions to the length of copyrights. There's one particular property that keeps driving these extensions. edit: they want infinite copyright status and Draconian enforcement rules that get compared favorably by industry heads to how China "manages" their internet. Two different but related issues.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 09:10 AM) Isn't that EXACTLY what the entertainment industry is asking for? A never-ending extension of copyright protections to enable limitless rent-seeking? Absolutely! It's hard to make an argument that these sorts of extensions are inline with the intent behind patents and copyrights.