IRS_Agent

I have to admit I only saw parts of the address, so I don't feel knowledgeable enough to comment, but I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and opinions.

...

GO!

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The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving.



I
#83 of 213 things you cannot do in the army.
83. Must not start any SITREP (Situation Report) with "I recently had an experience I just had to write you about...."

Doktor Goku

I will not allow you to tax my thoughts and opinions, IRS Man.

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Doc-in-training

ScratchMonkey

CNN transcript:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcript/

I'm curious to see if http://Whitehouse.org spoofs it.

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ScratchMonkey

Hey, George, listen to Ron Paul, and just eliminate the thing. Or at least eliminate it for the vast majority of taxpayers who only contribute 3% of the total. (I'd still be paying, but almost everyone I know would be exempt.)

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Kerostasis

Um...you're going to have to explain that second part to me. Given that we are thinking of cutting taxes, and given that we don't have the ability to eliminate all taxes, why would you start by eliminating taxes for those who already pay the lightest burden?

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Spyder

The lower tax bracket individuals are more likely to spend the extra money and stimulate the economy than the higher. Giving more money to people who already make good money is just a drop in the bucket. It probably won't incite them to buy more stuff. But give an unexpected check to a lower income (say, 12k a year range) person and you're likely to get them to splurge on whatever they have their eye on.

Cutting from the top will put more money into the pockets of people, but it won't help if they don't turn around and spend it.

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Kerostasis

That line of thought requires the assumption that rich people who get more money will stuff that money under their mattresses. I propose instead that once people have reached the income necessary to spend on everything they wanted anyway, additional income will go into investing instead. And Investing is every bit as important for the economy as Spending.

But that's really just a sidenote. Tax cuts do not exist solely as economic stimulus plans for struggling economies. Taxes primarily exist to promote the redistribution of wealth, and the inequity in the tax burden is high enough as it is. Why would we want to seek out those who pay the least amounts already and give them additional tax breaks, while ignoring those who pay 60 times as much per dollar earned?

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Sarcoma

Let’s just borrow more money from China, Korea and Japan to finance our economy and wars. I need to go vomit.

Study up on your mandarin language skills.

Sacroma

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Sarcoma.

tau_neutrino

你會說國語嗎?

SOTU speech was more of the same junk. Nothing really stood out. Same old male cow fecal matter.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

IRS_Agent

Interesting that you mention China... it turns out that the extra funds for this tax incentive will come largely from China's substantial amount of US Currency it has stashed away in exchange for Federal bonds. I think there's some irony in that.

__________________
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving.



I
#83 of 213 things you cannot do in the army.
83. Must not start any SITREP (Situation Report) with "I recently had an experience I just had to write you about...."

Sarcoma

lol...man will we ever learn. We can’t keep up the cycle of borrowing
from Peter to pay Paul forever.

I am a big fan of balanced budget amendments and War taxes. If its important enough for you to send your soldiers to fight and die then pony up some cash. Freedom isn’t free…$1.05…

Sarcoma

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Sarcoma.

bkelly

I don't think many would agree that investing is as important as spending. In our fiat monetary system money is created by debt, so if Americans put away more of their money and pay off their credit cards, the American economy shrinks.

I thought taxes existed to fund government. When did it become the government's responsibility to play the part of Robin Hood?

I have friends that would argue that such breaks should be given because the difference between the rich and the poor is increasing. The argument is that if that's happening, the government isn't taking enough from the rich for the poor.

bkelly

Kerostasis

What can I say? Ok, so theres "some people" who don't agree that investing is important. There's also "some people" who do agree. For what it's worth, I don't refer to "paying off credit cards" when I say "investing". I refer to business investing. You know, like investing in the stock market thats tanked 2000 points in the last few months?


I didn't say it was a good purpose. Just that its a common purpose.


You seem fond of making arguments based on what unnamed others have said. Well, the counter-argument is that the gap between rich and poor is actually not increasing, and the government has no business robbing the rich to feed the poor. Not to mention you've managed to completely contradict your previous point...

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ScratchMonkey

Take a look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxatio...x_distribution

So set an exemption to $30k, and you immediately eliminate the need to file for half the population. That's a huge labor savings, at a minimal cost to tax revenue. (Those people can then file exempt on their W-4 so no withholding is done.)

When the income tax was first proposed at the beginning of the 20th century, only the ultra-rich were supposed to pay it. The income line at which people became liable for taxes has moved steadily downwards ever since, until now it's assumed that everyone must pay, as if it were a fee for their citizenship.

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VegaBond

So can we say we are in a recession finally?

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