73% support the "Buffett Rule"

[Openmind]

The welfare state, and therefore our federal budget, was 50% smaller than it is now under Bill Clinton... I don't recall the Clinton era being a miserable time in America.

The economy under Clinton was thriving. . .for everyone
The taxes were higher, but NO ONE suffered from it, not even "the wealthy!"

So, if you recognize that higher taxes, do not lead to bad economy. . .what's the problem with going back to the Clinton era?

Face it, Bush killed us, with his expensive (and unnecessary) wars, his deregulations, and his tax breaks for the wealthy.

But, obviously, it is Obama that gets blamed!

 

[GenSeneca]

The economy under Clinton was thriving. . .

Yet you refuse to slash our budget to the levels they were at under Clinton. I've said all along that I'd be fine with returning to Clinton era tax rates but on the condition that we also return to Clinton era budgets, the largest of which was 50% smaller than our current budget.

 

[dogtowner]

From your source:

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.​

You really believe the Fair Tax can garner support from 2/3 of BOTH the House and Senate? Even if you pull off that miracle, you'd still need 38 out of 50 state legislatures to ratify the amendment... If you fail, we'd get stuck with BOTH a Progressive income tax and a shiny new national sales tax - Yay!

if Obama gets his depression I think many unimaginable things are possible. I suspect we're already up to about 28 states.

 

[dogtowner]

And. . .the transfer of money from the poor and lower middle class to the wealthy top 1% has to stop NOW! It is ridiculous to talk about "sharing in the sacrifice" when ONLY the social programs are "allowed" by the GOP to be cut, but they refuse any suggestion to curb the corporate welfare spending, and ask "shared sacrifices" from the wealthy.

The poor and lower middle class do not pay tax so your notion of some transfer of money from them by the government is poppycock (to put it nicely). When this changes then sure, lets talk about raising taxes on the rest of us.

 

[Openmind]

The poor and lower middle class do not pay tax so your notion of some transfer of money from them by the government is poppycock (to put it nicely). When this changes then sure, lets talk about raising taxes on the rest of us.

The poor pay taxes, not federal taxes, but they pay taxes on EVERY penny they make. . .because they have to spend every penny to survive, and sales taxes, and state taxes, and county taxes are paid by all.

You can't tax a person for "surviving" on minimum income. But you sure should be taxing people making millions or billions a lot more than they are now! After all, they get a lot more from our government than poor people do. . .not in "social welfare," but in "corporate welfare," that includes EVERYTHING they need to be successful in their ventures, including infrastructure, including laws, including public education that provide them with workers, including MUCH greater "FEMA" payment for their million dollar beach house after a hurricane, than people living in a $40,000 trailer!

 

[BigRob]

The poor pay taxes, not federal taxes, but they pay taxes on EVERY penny they make. . .because they have to spend every penny to survive, and sales taxes, and state taxes, and county taxes are paid by all.

You can't tax a person for "surviving" on minimum income. But you sure should be taxing people making millions or billions a lot more than they are now! After all, they get a lot more from our government than poor people do. . .not in "social welfare," but in "corporate welfare," that includes EVERYTHING they need to be successful in their ventures, including infrastructure, including laws, including public education that provide them with workers, including MUCH greater "FEMA" payment for their million dollar beach house after a hurricane, than people living in a $40,000 trailer!

Do consumer not benefit from the infrastructure? Does a shopper at Wal-Mart not benefit that the store is able to be stocked?

Fact is, ALL people benefit from infrastructure, not simply the rich...frankly, the economic benefit created by a company like Wal-Mart is greater than what we pay the owners.

Can businesses that have to train their workers upon hiring them (because the school system failed) take a deduction for their troubles?

 

[dogtowner]

The poor pay taxes, not federal taxes, but they pay taxes on EVERY penny they make. . .because they have to spend every penny to survive, and sales taxes, and state taxes, and county taxes are paid by all.

no they don't. sure they pay sales tax but that is hardly a tax on every penny. not all pay state or local and about to the extent that they miss out on paying federal. but I'm not disputing anything other than federal as that is the area under discussion.

You can't tax a person for "surviving" on minimum income. But you sure should be taxing people making millions or billions a lot more than they are now! After all, they get a lot more from our government than poor people do. . .not in "social welfare," but in "corporate welfare," that includes EVERYTHING they need to be successful in their ventures, including infrastructure, including laws, including public education that provide them with workers, including MUCH greater "FEMA" payment for their million dollar beach house after a hurricane, than people living in a $40,000 trailer!

of course you can and the4 issue is fairness.

 

[Dr.Who]

Flat tax... Everyone pays the same %, it's still "Progressive" in the sense that the richer you are the more money you actually pay but every single person pays the exact same % of their income. That is the text book definition of FAIR.

Who could refute such obvious truth?

OK we know the answer to that. But they are wrong.

 

[Dr.Who]

So, you think it is fair for a family of 4 making $22,000 a year to pay $2,200 in taxes, and be left (after working full time, sometime 2 jobs) with $19,800 to pay their housing, their food, their health care, their transportation, and . . .obviously, save to be able to send their kids to college, so they can have "equal opportunity" to become millionaires. ..

when another family of 4, making $22 millions a year pays $2.2 millions in tax, and is left to raise their kids, pay their mansion's mortgage, their Lexus and their Mercedes, their Summer beach house, their health care (including cosmetic surgery!), their home designers, their jewelers, and their yachts with ONLY $19.8 MILLIONS?

Yep. . .I can see this is very fair: a family of 4 surviving on less than $20,000 a year, and a family of 4 surviving on less than $20 millions a year.

That's perfectly fair!!!!

Thou salt not covet...

Yes it is perfectly fair. 10% of each person income. The same rule is applied to both. The same rule can be applied when individuals decide that they would like to assist people who do not earn much but choose not to assist those who earn a lot.

 

[Dr.Who]

Well, thanks to Obama, at least workers with a smaller income benefitted more from the payroll tax breaks. . .because it means SO MUCH MORE in term of percentage of their income!

And that's the way it should be.

The "fair tax" reminds me of an obese man, ordering 5 big macs for himself, and a small fries for his kid. . .because his kid is so much smaller, he doesn't need so much food!

Obamas policies have hurt the poor more than the rich. Even the black caucus admits as much.

 

[Dr.Who]

Do you REALLY think YOU could live on $8,500 a year?

Obviously, in your book, it should be just as normal and easy as on $850,000 a year, right?

Give me a break! Is that what you REALLY call fairness?

Tell you what, Let's say that the first $30,000 a year are taxed (for EVERYONE) at 0%, and any income over $30,000 a year is taxed for everyone at 20%.

I could ALMOST go for that. . .if for every dependent, there was an additional $3,000 a year deduction. Which means that a family with 4 children would pay no tax on their income below $42,000 a year, and then would be taxed at 20% over that amount.

if we had a fair government that respected rights it just might be that almost no one who needed more would make less.

 

[Dr.Who]

Hoarding anything, but especially money, while others do without necessities of life, and fall deeper and deeper in debts by no fault of their own, then pointing the finger at their "laziness" is hypocritical and totally unworthy of Christian or human values.

Yes it is. When you meet such people you should try to educate them. What you should not do is expect the gov to make laws against hypocracy and then to confiscate money from them for uses that are not consistent with the const.

Anyone who feels as strongly as you do about it should not only be giving greatly from what they have but they should probably put in as much effort as they can to earn even more so they can give more.

ANd you think that children should just thrive in a family where BOTH parents are working full time to make a total of less than $30,000 year, with the cost of child care, and the deep costs of children growing with little guidance, little role models, little time to experience family life?

Some could thrive and some could not. That decision is best left to the parents to decide and then to make life choices based on what they decide.

If they can avoid what they think to be undesireable then they should. If not then they should work harder and ask for help as they need to. They should not expect that we perpetuate an injustice on the whole of the american people in a misguided attempt to fix the first problem.

 

[Dr.Who]

Considering all the government assistance programs that someone making $10k a year would qualify for, they could easily have $10-15k (or more) in benefits from government assistance programs bringing their total $20-25k per year. Yeah, I could live on that...

many of the programs cost a lot of money and we would all be better off if we were taxed less and saved more of our money. Maybe we could get that hypothetical 10% tax rate lower so it would be less of a burden on the poor. Not that 10% is really all that much of a burden.

We should also get rid of those programs that are so poorly designed that they actuall increase poverty and drive up the cost of living. The gov should also spend no time redistributi9ng and actually making sure that the poor (and the rich) are not the subjects of fraud.

With lower taxes, no incentives to make bad choices, a lower cost of living, and a gov that reduced fraud to low levels, the poor wouild be far better off. Then that smaller number of poor people who are less poor than they otherwise would be could more easily avail themselves of assistance from those who should be providing it.

 

[Dr.Who]

As an Atheist I'm not 100% up to speed on the bible but I'm pretty sure Jesus never told anyone to use force, threats, and coercion against one group of people in order to benefit another.

Not in the way some here have described such a benefit.

 

[Dr.Who]

So is it a necessity of life to have a stay at home parent?

Stay at home parents can earn money. My widowed grandmother raised three boys alone in the depression by doing laundry for people in her home.