phyllis

Hear ! Hear!

L0GiCaL1

Again you take part of a statement, place it out of context and then judge my opinion based on that. Sounds remarkably like the person I called a liar and a thief. Ender seems to have caught my drift yet you hold onto your imperialistic dogma that GWB can do no wrong only because he can't admit his own faults. The King is always right even if he's not. I never said Kerry wasn't a liar. But he sure as hell isn't a thief. He stands by what he believes and is capable of making an educated decision. He might change his mind but it is always for what he considered the better stand and quite possibly under pressure from what his constituents wanted. Not to mention the fact that he obviously looked deeper into the so called War on Terror funding bills that included overpriced contracts to Halliburton and chose not to support that particular portion which meant voting against the whole bill. I believe that he was looking out for what was good for America and not just what was good for his own personal checking account.

Also, if these "world leaders" (which is an improper quote to begin with as stated in another thread in this very forum) wish to remain anonymous, are you going to hold Kerry accountable? If the "leaders" don't want heat from the Bush administration I cannot blame them.

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L0GiCaL1

Funny how that doesn't work. The government controls interest rates which directly effect inflation and deflation which are predeterminations for growth or recession (respectively). The government will decrease interest rates to curb inflation and spark spending. Yet Bush actually had the Federal Reserve stop dropping the interest rate too soon which has sparked a recession of the likes of The Great Depression's beginning. The bad thing about that is we were already recessed economically and he has only made the situation worse. Sure the economy was failing when Clinton left office but it was on it's normal cycle of growth/recession. It was expected to fall. This is why first term presidents following a 2 term president often get economic upswings on which to base their reelection campaign. It is on a 8 year cycle offset from the presidential election by 6 months to a year.

FDR's New Deal did not solve the issue but definitely made things better that Herbert Hoover had them. WWII ended the depression sooner than the long term New Deal would have pulled it out.

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Wolfie

If he truly stands by what he believes, then why didn't he throw out his own medals when he was protesting? Why did he misled everyone into believing he was but instead use another vetern's medals to make his point?

Wolfie

Really? I never heard of Bush ordering the Federal Reserve to stop dropping the interest rate. I thought that was a decision that the Federal Reserve made on their own.

And I wouldn't call it a normal cycle as the growth part of the cycle was abnormal in itself. A fast expansion that composed of the dot.com boom and an out of controled stock market has the markings of a hard crash afterwards.

L0GiCaL1

Ahh, ignorance is bliss. You know as well as I do that the Federal Reserve's chairman was appointed by Bush. His path is also dictated by the Bush administration. If GWB says stop lowering interest rates, he stops lowering interest rates.

You also would call the bull market of the early to mid 90's during the tail end of George Bush Sr's administration an abnormal growth cycle? I don't. It was part of the economic upswing that occurred right on time. The dot.com boom was not disproportionally huge as to cause such a dwindling we are seeing now. This was forced upon us by the Bush administration because he thinks too much like Herbert Hoover (which I have mentioned several times). By not forcing interest rates lower and giving tax cuts to the wealthy and severely limiting any benefit to middle and lower class America (did you know the middle class tax "cuts" end this year but the high-class tax cuts are good for another 8 years), GWB has slain our economy. The only people that benefit from GWB's policies are the extremely wealthy.

You seem to be looking at everything on a percentage basis. Try breaking it down into real numbers. Here is an example showing that each person has the standard withholding deduction of 37.3% and files the same forms:

Say you make $10,000 a year (my taxable income last year). The governement gives you back 500 dollars (actually 470) with an effective tax rate of 25.7%. You paid the government 25% of your WHOLE yearly income.

Now look at somebody that made $1,000,000 in taxable income. He sees an effective tax rate of about 17.3% and gets back well over $20,000 dollars because they withheld too much.

Now the $500 dollars meant a lot to me, but the $37,300 was not a neccessity for the other person. They would have been just as happy and had most definitely the same lifestyle for even half of their tax return. Which benefits America more? My $2500 in taxes or the $18,000 they got from person that really doesn't miss it. The federal government pushed me even further below the poverty level while the other person complains about taxes being too high in their nice 5 bedroom 3 bath house in the suburbs and watching that new 60" plasma TV they got with the money GWB sent them as tax relief.

I have a problem with GWB's math and a good majority of America does as well if they would stop and look to realize it. The marriage penalty tax relief ends this year for you married folks out there. But people within the top income brackets see the same tax relief (passed at the same time as the marriage penalty relief) for 8 more years.

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L0GiCaL1

To be honest I don't care who's medals or where they came from or what they are for. I have medals that don't belong to me. Can I throw them at you? What does that mean?
It has nothing to do with who he is or what he is about. I don't look at only the canidate and his actions. I look at his proposed administration and policies. Maybe you should stop looking at GWB's smirking face and slight of hand actions and start looking at his policies and staff.

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L0GiCaL1

To reply with new information, several world leaders have spoken out about Kerry. What does that do for your confidence in the fact that he was lying about it?

Also, I seemed to have recalled GWB saying something at the beginning of his term about Osama Bin Laden and Clinton's attempt to destroy him. The words were something along the line of: "I'm not going to waste a $500,000 cruise missle to put up a camel's ass." I'll have to look for a more direct quote but I'm sure it is available. I find it funny that he goes out and starts a BILLION dollar war instead. That is some strange math and fishy tactics. Goes to show that a Harvard CPA doesn't have to be a genius.

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USN_Squid

Sorry I haven't taken the time to completely digest your entiire post there (HUGE), but Greenspan was actually appointed during Clinton's term, and since Bush took office the fed discount rate has been dropped a record 11 times in 2.5 years. It is unprecedented, and many economists are now saying the recession would have been much worse without the quick action by the fed reserve.

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USN_Squid

Your premise is false. Someone making a mil would not have a "standard witholding" at 37.3% and they would not be filing the same forms as someone at $10k a year.

Even still, what about your standard deduction? At 10k a year your taxable income goes down to $5250 and that's before any child care credits, mortgage interest credits, medical expense, etc. You should not be paying any taxes, if you are I know a good accountant!

Those numbers are too vague and missing a lot of detail. I have had extensive conversations with my CPA about this (he thinks paying taxes is a privelige, I think I need to fire him) and he is adamant that the myth of the Rich not paying enough taxes is false.

I know thats anectodal, but my family is far from rich and the tax break that we recieved, along with my self employed business, did help.

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L0GiCaL1

The problem is exactly that they don't have the same rules applied and I'm glad you caught on Squid. My example did state that both parties only had different income levels and were otherwise essentially the same. Therefore using myself as the subject both were subject to the standard 37.3% witholding. I'm paying 25% because I'm a single male under 25 with no mortgage, children or medical expenses. Also my taxable income does not decrease to $5250. My taxable income was $9873. Hence my point. Standard witholding is $3750 and increases to $7800 if you are married and then you are taxed on the rest. It is written out plain as day on the 1040A forms. The problem lies within the special tax credits and paybacks that are heavily slanted toward the independently wealthy. Why would you give a larger(read: enormously disproportional) tax cut to the people that don't need it? I'm not saying don't cut their taxes but balance the cut so that it generates what you need. By scaling percentages reciprocal to the tax brackets (ie larger percentage cuts for the poor, smaller percentage cuts for the wealthy) you not only minimize the amount of revenue that taxes take from each individual but you also minimize the impact on the budget. $500 dollars to someone below poverty level is the difference between making rent every month and starving yourself to make the money last. If I made $1M, what would $25,000 mean to me? Is that half of my new BMW next year or something? I doubt that. I wouldn't have to worry about making rent, eating or generally just surviving unless I allowed my spending to exceed my income (which I find incredibly difficult with income of that level). Again, I am talking on a personal level and not a business entity. Personal and business taxes should be and are seperate issues. The IRS does not do a good job of seperating the 2 in terms of self employment. Of course the tax code is so horrific that nobody could possibly understand it all. I'll come back to Gen. Clark on this subject as well. Simplify the tax process.

I'll say this again, I'm not saying keep taxes the way they are. Cut taxes for everyone but do it in a way that makes sense. It is like saying you are going to pay less on your 19.99% APR credit card and pay more on your college loans at 3.75% APR. It just doesn't make sense to allow the high rate card build interest while you pay off the low interest rate loan. Why power pay on something that will save you money in the long run if you let it sit for a while and take care of the pressing business first? Lower the tax cuts for the wealthy, give it to the common American so that they can boost spending and increase demand to generate jobs. This is about as simple as it gets, there are more lower and middle class Americans that WILL spend money if they have money. Put the money in their hands and watch the economy rebound.

Some words of wisdom from my father that he reminds me of constantly and also makes me think about the current and past political environments.

Economics is a source of employment for economists.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

I put a lot of faith in the last one because it makes sense. How can you explain high consumer confidence and low spending? A lot of the current economic indicators are contradictary at the moment. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but someone's lying about our current economic status. Now it is just a matter of who and why.

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USN_Squid

We're definitley getting away from John Kerry now, and we've gone through the tax thing a few times before, but I just wanted to make a couple points.

First, we need a fair tax: http://www.fairtax.org

Second, people in this country making over $26,000 a year pay almost all of the tax burden. They keep the government running, period. People below that level are not going to spur economic growth with $500, it takes jobs to do that, and the people making more money got there by investing it, which creates jobs at a greater rate than spending a few bucks.

Third, it is socialism pure and simple to say that you need your money more than someone else does. Everyone should be able to keep the money they earn at the same rates. In other words the government should be taxing everyone at equal rates.

Fourth, your blanket statements about economists is just silly. There are liars in every profession; Doctors, Daycares, Cops, donut counter workers.....And just like them, there are good people working in economics that tell the truth and work hard for the good of our country.

Just to make a feable attempt to get back on subject here; John Kerry, and most democrats, use these same arguments above to create a culture of fear and envy in order to get the votes of people in lower incomes. Our democracy will fail once the majority of people believe these misconceptions and they vote themselves more money out of the pockets of the rich.

A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship.

(Written by Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago while our thirteen original states were still colonies of Great Britain. At the time he was writing of the decline and fall of the Athenian Republic over two thousand years before.)

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L0GiCaL1

Of course the people who make $26,000 to $60,000 a year pay a majority of the taxes. That is middle America and holds the most numbers of working citizens if you are looking at averages. Again you are looking at percentages instead of the actual numbers and how they impact people differently. The problem is fair tax isn't possible unless you levy a per BTU energy tax. People who make less money tend to use less energy. It also forces people to drive economical cars and forwards the progress of alternative energy sources that are cheaper and cleaner. Instead of asking for fair tax and offering no solution, try thinking of a way to make tax fair. It is harder than you think unless you find the common denominator between all your taxable citizens. Instead of amending a tax system that does not work and only causes contraversy, why not adopt a whole new system? Simplified tax structuring would save tax payers billions (because time is money and we spend way too much time doing taxes).

Those were 2 seperate statements that I made hence the double carriage return.

Economics is a source of employment for economists. That is not a broad statement. It is a fact. Liars exist everywhere but I was not calling every economist a liar. Economics is not a science. It is a dark art. Two economists can look at the same set of numbers and draw totally different conclusions about our current status. Some just use a little more mumbo jumbo than others. Some are paid to make things look good. Some think they have to make things look good to keep their position. We can argue semantics all day on this issue but I would rather not waste the time. It is a moot point and I really don't put much faith in their statistics. Not because they are economists but because statistics are the most inaccurate method of calculation I have ever seen when applied to money.

If you hadn't noticed, we don't live in a democracy. We are a socialist state. That is why you have parties called Democrats and Rebulicans. One wants to turn this into a democracy and the other wants to turn this into a republic. The differences between the 2 are very big although we commonly equate them to the same thing. Your quote is dead on, though.

Also I missed the Alan Greenspan comment earlier, but I'm going to correct the statement. Alan Greenspan was appointed by George Sr and still has strong ties to the Republican party. He actually cost George Sr his reelection by doing the same thing he is doing for George Jr. Letting the economy slide BACK into recession.

It is nice to actually have an intelligent, factual conversation with someone that doesn't get huffy and start name calling and mud slinging. Lets do this again sometime Squid.

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luna

I have to agree with your assessment of this debate, Logical- I have enjoyed watching the information you two have been presenting, and feel that much more informed because of it.

Keep it up!

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L0GiCaL1

Feel free to chime in at any time Luna (or anyone else for that matter). The more information that is presented the better, more educated decision we can all make.

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Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - Douglas Adams