Tom Toles for March 05, 2013

Sorry Barry Fans, but Santa has run out of goodies.Don’t worry tho, he’ll probably just put it on your kids and grandkids credit card again.

Yes, but the first three posters (Ima, 4my… and “Conserve…”) are not listening. They never will. They pretend “Government” does nothing for them, and so, are able to rant convincingly (to themselves) that they don’t owe the government anything.

So you think that rich people paying less than poor people in taxes and profitable corporations paying less than anyone is a good idea? Hm. Explains a lot. Don’t believe in democracy, do you?

And the Republicans ran on cutting spending only. And they lost, because it’s mathematically impossible, and Americans may be dumb but they’re not THAT dumb.

@motivemagus – Do you really believe that or are you just spouting what you have been told. Don’t confuse tax rate with tax amount.

I hear this complaint regularly where some lib whines that guys like Warren buffet are only paying 15%. But he’s paying 15% on Millions of dollars of earnings.

15% of $1 Million is $15000. Compare that 20% of $40000 which works out to be $8000.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that the rich aren’t paying their “Fair Share”.

The best thing the government could do would be to make it a flat tax or a sales tax where everyone pays the same amount.

I don’t know you motive but I gotta hunch if you were paying at my tax rate you would be encouraging the government to look for places to cut before they added on additional taxes for you to pay.

We could solve the problem with a federal luxury tax….purchasing something which the average person doesn’t need…like a yacht, or a four carat diamond should cost ya.

Ionizer: No, we are a dictatorship by a corporate-military junta. We are supposed to be a democratic republic. Democracy: The rule of the people with defined rights of the majority and minority. Republic: A governmental structure operating through representatives. It was designed to be both. For republic only (your preference), see the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Chinese People’s Republic.

“So that’s why we all pay cash when we buy a house for our future living quarters, because it would have meant spending more than we take in.”Usually, I tell anyone who compares government budgeting to household budgeting that they are using faulty logic, but this is a good point. If we expand it to include the idea that you have an indefinite life span & will generally make more & more money as time goes by, there is no reason why you can’t carry an ever increasing mortgage payment. There is always a limit on how big that mortgage can be, but assuming continued growth, we can keep paying our debts.The mortgage I had on my first home seems like a tiny amount today. The mortgage I pay now would be a burden in retirement, but if I was like government or a corporation, I could expect to be making more money 40 years from now & would not worry about paying down the mortgage.

“The rich pay the great majority of taxes. About 50% of the populace don’t pay any taxes.”More people don’t pay federal income taxes, thanks to the Earned Income Credit & stagnant working class wages. Earned Income Credits have been pushed by conservatives as a way to encourage people who are on public aid to seek employment.If we cut the Earned Income Credit & eliminate public aid, what do you think will happen?

Stimulus has yet to be tried. The Reeps kept it “to little, too late” to do any good.

creepy, scary, and sad. the stimulus created thousands of jobs and just started to give people enough money to begin to get folks buying products again.No one has to believe that, but can believe the moon is green too. I have a right to my opinion.

There’s a reason there’s so much tax revenue from the rich. They are making record amounts in income. Not because they have produced more – on the contrary, they’ve shut down what few factories we have and sent the jobs abroad – so much for job creators. Rather, they have manipulated the laws through their bought-and-paid for Congress, dictating how the laws will be rewritten to benefit their bottom line. Since they own the government, they ought to pay for it.

“The top 1% pay 39% of all income taxes.”

Sure, but “income taxes” is a red herring. If you want the real picture, look at ALL taxes – including sales tax (over 9% where I live), property tax (which you pay even if you rent), gasoline tax, Social Security and other payroll deductions…

When you look at the full picture, the top 10% pay an obscenely small tax rate compared to the rest of the country. Yes, they pay more dollars – as they damn well SHOULD! – but they’re still getting off a lot lighter than you think.

In 2010, the top 1% had 35% of the nation’s wealth, the next 9% had another 40%, and the bottom 50% barely had 1%.

I have no problem with saying that the richest 10% ought to be paying 75% of the nation’s taxes, since they have 75% of the nation’s wealth.

“And by ‘own’ most of the wealth do you mean ‘earned it’?”

Refresh my memory – how much of her fortune did Paris Hilton earn? Oh, right – her dad did all the work.

Some rich people did earn their money, and they’re generally the ones who say their taxes are too low. The ones whining about having to pay are those who inherited their fortunes and never had to learn that being part of a community means paying your fair share, not rigging the game.

“Wasn’t Romney’s plan to close loopholes and Obama said that was silly?.And tax revenues are at an all time high now.”Romney brought the loophole idea out in the first debate. Obama seemed unprepared for it, but didn’t oppose the idea. He questioned how Romney would lower rates without saying what loopholes & deductions Romney would eliminate.Tax revenues are at a post WWII low as a portion of GDP. Anyone who is serious about the deficit knows we need more revenue as well as cuts.

“Are we going to cut earned income credit and eliminate public aid?”If you want more low income people to pay income taxes, you wither eliminate the Earned Income Credit or raise their rates. Or, pay them more, which is my favorite solution.Maybe I am wrong in thinking you feel welfare programs are too big & should be cut. I’ll ask again, what you think the result would be if we reduce public aid & require low income people to pay more in taxes? Abstract policies have real world impact on people. I could guess, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

“I’m curious to know how much the US is investing”I forget which sources are ‘allowed’ on these boards . . . but here’s an article regarding the 2 trillion we need to spend on transportation infrastructure alone:The Alarming Collapse Of US Infrastructure SpendingOf course, this would be ‘reactive’ infrastructure spending, not ‘proactive’ investment, and doesn’t include things like investments in education, research, technology, skills retraining, etc.All of which are getting cut by sequestration. So that we can spend more money on useless weaponry and triple-inflated medical bills.

The president will continue to lead and get us through this failure of the GOP.

The unions and Green got their stimulus. To quote the D mantra: ‘What does it matter’ that 80% of US got nothing except extended subsistence.

How is it the “Tea Party” is destroying any jobs, the last time I looked, the “tea party” was not on any ballot in any state.Sides which “tea party” are you talking about, there are at least 3 national orgs. so tell me which one is at fault.

Not so, If I own a company I get to call the shots, don’t like the game change the rules, or do as I did, get out of the game. There is no Federal law requiring anybody to pay anybody income taxes. Several cases show the facts. Look up Tom Cryer

Here’s the deal, on Tues the Dow hit it’s highest point ever, but the last time we were here, the FED owned $890B of notes, this time the Fed owns $3T of notes. The only reason the market is up is the “free” money Bernacke is pumping in to the system, $88B a month. So it is only a paper moon. PresBo is making it look good, but it can not last.

Yup

Because half of all don’t pay any and most of the ones that voted for Barry don’t pay any, so he got a majority of “non skin in gamers” let’s try that again. We are losing the battle to Santa Claus.