Michael, I agree that its too early to declare. But your team is actively in favor of harming the middle class, cycle after cycle, year after year. The bar is very low for her. By your own folks.
The conservatives want to get to the heart of the problem by reducing social security befits to save the trust fund they have abused all these years. They also want to revoke the ACA that provides health insurance to millions of non-millionaires. And of course they want to go muck up the middle east some more and build a Berlin wall on the southern boarder. I can’t imagine why any normal person would want to vote for them.
WiseOrator – You are pretty quick to assume that Republicans dislike Obama because he is black and will dislike Hillary because she has two x-chromosomes. You discount, entirely, the fact that we dislike their ideas on: Fairness, Capitalism, Causes for Societal Problems, and Approach to solving problems.
I don’t dislike either of them personally – I don’t know them and I certainly wouldn’t dislike them for the color of their skin or their gender. But I fundamentally reject their assumption that the answer to every problem is to take money from the producers and dole it out to to those who didn’t earn it.
“Republicans fight for the middle class? Really?Was it not a Republican, pandering to his Koch addiction who declared he would work to eliminate the minimum wage? Or work place safety regulations? Or environmental regulations of any kind? Was it not republicans who opposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau simply because it would interfere with the banking and financial industries and their ability to fleece the American public? "Sounds more like libertarians/far right Republicans, i.e, not the majority of them.
" Is it not the Republicans and CONservatives who tell, no help businesses move their production operations overseas thereby destroying middle class jobs?"Nooooo… the whole point of Republicans being pro business is to make it easier on businesses in this country so that we can keep them.
“I am not generalizing here.” Sounds like you’re generalizing in half of these and downright lying in the other half. But I guess that keeps with the answer you wanted going in, that Republicans are CONS.
Why is Hillary’s campaign logo with the arrow pointing to the right?If the country’s middle class is so destitute, who is contributing to her campaign?
i guess the media believes that they won the last two elections by using these tactics so they figure starting even earlier this time they can ho hum their way through the rest of 2015 and 2016 – i think i read this type of thing in a book once. but then again i might be mistaken since i sure wouldn’t want to ‘tick off’ big bro.
@neatslob – First of all: You have a very parochial view of what a “Producer” is. I consider a producer to be anyone who creates Wealth. I don’t own a company but I have improved the value of my farm by planting trees and improving the landscaping (that is a wealth producing activity).
Managers in companies (I think that is whom you are criticizing) add wealth to their company by guiding the company towards more efficiency and more effectiveness.
They don’t actually control the pay. They are still limited by market forces. When wages rise in an area they are motivated to improve their efficiency and effectiveness by: Outsourcing, simplification, waste elimination, etc. When those activities fail to hold down wages they have to match wage growth or lose workers.
There are things we can do as a society to give workers a better chance at earning that elusive living wage such as Restrict immigration (H1, Illegal, Legal) so that American citizens are in higher demand. Just be aware that this won’t necessarily stop progress. How many of us have grown accustomed to bussing our own table at a fast food restaurant or bagging our own groceries. Each time you increase the cost of workers you create an incentive for a clever manager to find a way around needing that worker at all.
All that being said – The fact that some workers haven’t kept their skills current and sufficiently valuable to be worth this living wage I keep hearing about does not entitle them to reach into the wallets of those who have, to sustain themselves.
It started about a year ago when the republicans started taking pot shots at Hillary because there were hits and rumors they she would run. Its all but over now because they are so busy taking shots at Hillary they can’t be bothered to figure out which one is their actual nominee. …..The more they take shots at her the more they endorse her. It is starting to sound just like the last presidential election where the republicans were so busy yelling about Obama they never realized the best candidate to beat Obama was the one they all but ignored.
Interesting that Ramirez ignores or discounts his own, as well as other conservative cartoonists, focusing on Hillary, and have FOR YEARS, as the target of their invective.
“We’ve got to help the middle-class!”This is the catch-phrase for every candidate in 2016. Elections campaigns are managed the same way as Madison Ave promotes products. It’s all about image; candidates will try to make as many suckers BELIEVE they are rooting for them. If enough “believe”, then candidate wins!
@WiseOrator – I doubt there is any way to bridge the gap between your definition of those terms and mind given the distance but I’m willing to give it a try.
First, can we agree that Special Interests lobbying congress is not limited to Republican offices? Eco-warriors, Unions, anti-trade groups etc. Frequent Democrat offices and I doubt it is just to ask about the congressman’s children. If you are so convinced that everything that comes from Republicans is evil and all that is Democrat is good then we cannot really have a meaningful dialog.
Second – Let’s parse some of those terms the way I see it:Our Government is supposed to treat each of it’s citizens equally and that, I think, is eminently fair. But no where more obvious then the tax code does that fairness break down. The tax rates are obscenely progressive and many of the tax breaks evaporate as you move up the scale. I call that fundamentally unfair. I’m not saying I should pay less because the government needs the income but I am suggesting that many others should pay more because they fit within some group that the Government favors (That is anathema to equal protection under the law).
Capitalism works – And it should be regulated to make sure we have clean water and clean air. I think, on this point, you and I are closer to each other then you might think. Where we diverge in opinion (I think) is that I don’t think those regulations should extend to robbing the earnings from one group to give to another that is less skilled at surviving in a capitalistic society.
I’m unclear as to your message about societal ills but I wasn’t suggesting that only poor people bring them into society. I was suggesting that I, and many who think like me, don’t like the way Obama and Hillary would solve those societal ills. They take the Government knows best approach and eliminate freedoms rather then trying to use the market to solve the problem.
Government does enact laws that are not in response to an abuse or a violation of the public trust. Jim Crow laws, Blue Code laws, anti-sodomy laws are all cases where the government went beyond what was strictly necessary to keep order and decided to dictate how people might behave in their community or even in their bedroom. You seem to believe that if the government passed that regulation then it was absolutely necessary. I disagree.
As for your last tirade about the wages of workers versus the wages of CEOs – Let me offer you a different perspective and again it is based on market forces so it may be a difficult concept for you (or maybe it isn’t and you hope that if you ignore market forces they won’t exist).
A good CEO is worth a fortune (whether you want to admit it or not). His or her Leadership, thinking, intuition, contacts, and understanding of the market makes him or her a rare and valuable thing. As an investor, I am much more likely to invest in a company with a good CEO then in one with a bad CEO. That is why they command those high salaries that are often tied heavily to performance. The guy who sweeps the floors does a valuable service but there are many people who can replace him and the job would still be done just as well. The market pays more to those who have rare skills then to those who can be replaced with the next guy in the unemployment line. Supply and Demand help balance the pay of every job in the market place.
I don’t see the same gross injustice that you do. It would be an injustice to enact rules and regulations that distorted the market the way you seem to think we should: Higher Minimum wages, Bracketing CEO salaries, doing even more transfers of wealth.
@braindead08 – The Problem (or the Brilliance depending on your political bent) with the Payroll tax is how difficult it is to pin people down on what it actually is. When people talk about the money coming out of their paychecks they say it is a tax and that it balances out some of the progression in the tax code. When they talk about the benefits paid for by the payroll taxes they claim it is an insurance policy that they paid for and therefor can’t be taken away from them (even though it is a pay as you go system).
I will take a stand – The payroll taxes are an insurance policy providing security in your old age and a promise of care should you become sick or injured. Wage earners (including myself) pay now so that we will become fully insured when we are older. Both the Benefits and the Taxes are capped at a certain level and I have been maxing out my payments to Social Security for more then 15 years (You can’t max out on medicare). The payments are intentionally kept separate from Income taxes because they are “earmarked”. Yes the Government borrows against those payments but, in theory, they are borrowing it and not taking it for the general welfare.Now that we have definitions out of the way let’s address Romney’s tax rate.
It is grossly unfair and inappropriate to take an individuals tax payments; divide them by their gross income and use that as a measure of their tax rate.
The Income tax is a tax on income remaining after exemptions and deductions. Mr. Romney and his accountants were clever enough to find a way to take far more deductions and exemptions than I. Which leads us to one of the enormous problems with this system. There are far too many who want to use the tax code to loot the wealth of the 1% so they created this progressive nightmare that we all have to deal with. But the rich have accountants and lawyers so they avoid alot of that looting. But those of us in the upper brackets that don’t quite make it to the 1% take it on the chin.
I use to work in the Tax department for a fortune 50 company and my company paid and enormous amount of tax: Income tax, property tax, tariffs, import/export the list goes on and it costs companies a fortune to keep a bunch of accountants and lawyers on staff to deal with all the complexities. So I’m not in favor of corporate income tax.
I would much prefer we forced companies to disburse a certain percentage of their earnings to their shareholders every year and then taxed individuals.
I would really like to see us move to a VAT or sales tax.
“It is grossly unfair and inappropriate to take an individuals tax payments; divide them by their gross income and use that as a measure of their tax rate.”
Okay, we have a fundamental disagreement here. How else can you measure an individual’s real tax rate? And remember, it’s not a one year thing. And they aren’t just exemptions and deductions in the sense that you or I are allowed to invoke them. Romney, Buffett, et al are taxed using an entirely different system where capital gains, business deductions for dressage, and carry forward interest and lots of stuff known only to that group are allowed.
@OldCoal & Braindead – Because Rate isn’t the measure of how much tax you paid!!!!! What you paid in taxes is the amount of your taxable income (net or Income – exemptions and deductions) * tax rate. The guy who nets $100K and pays 20% pays $20,000. The guy who nets a million dollars and pays 16% pays $160,000. So we expect the guy who netted $1,000,000 (in this example) to pay 8 times what the guy who netted $100k paid in taxes and many of you still want to complain that he isn’t paying enough in taxes.
Focusing on tax rate is just a way another way for progressives to falsely justify putting in scrweball ideas in the taax code like the AMT and phasing out deductions. I don’t get to deduct the tuition I pay for my Children’s college (I pay it all) because I’m above some artificial threshold. And that’s how it got so complex. It also allows them to have their cake and eat it too based on the comments by you two because you both seem to think that somehow he got a sweet deal while you got screwed even though I’m sure he paid a hell of a lot more in taxes then all three of us combined. The progressives love to foment envy against those who have become successful.
Beyond the incredible unfairness of the progressive nature of our tax code is the unprecedented lack of privacy it provides us from the prying eyes of our neighbors and our government. It really isn’t anyone else’s business how much I donated to charity or paid in interest or medical bills or even how much I earned. That’s one of the primary reason I lobby for blind taxes like VAT or Sales that happen at the point of transaction.
As to Capital gains – I wholly approve of making it a 15% rate. The reason they did that was because they realized that taxing Capital gains led to many of us paying upwards of 55% on earnings. Let’s use an example. Imagine I own 100% of the shares in a company and that company earns $100. The Government first takes 35% of that at the corporate rate leaving me with a net of $65. Even if I’m only paying 25% in personal income tax; I would get to keep $48.75 so I would be paying a marginal rate of 51.25% on the earnings of the company. Even many Democrats (other then that Doofus Bernie Sanders) had to admit that was obscene.
Many of you like to think that only rich guys earn capital gains but many of us have our retirement savings and our kids’ college funds in instruments that pay both corporate and personal income tax.
Back to a point I made earlier. If the Government would do away with the corporate income tax and place the burden of taxation on the individuals receiving proceeds from their investments I would be fully supportive of Capital gains being taxed at the same rate as regular income.
Of course it wasn’t just the unions….it was the Democrats running the city and the state who helped the unions destroy a great city. If you look at every great city / state that has devolved into a debt ridden slum you will see that they have been led by a democrat.
@warjoski – The perennial reason the tax code can’t be reformed is that there are many with a vested interest in keeping it the way it is. Not just Corporations or the Koch brothers but: Lawyers, Accountants, Tax Software Companies are the first to suffer if it gets easier. Then there are the myriad of industry groups who don’t want to see it change: Real Estate Agents and owners of expensive homes don’t want to see the Home Interest Deduction go away, Investors don’t want to see their favorable treatment on capital gains go away, etc. etc. etc.
The current stumbling block, even though Obama and the Republicans agree there should be reform, is that Obama wants to increase Revenue and the Republicans do not.As long as they can’t agree on that there is no point even getting started.
Mephistopheles – If you increase revenue but don’t decrease spending then you are spinning your wheels. Obama and the Democrats want to increase revenue (tax increases) so they can increase spending on social engineering (buying votes) with our tax dollars. Reducing taxes while reducing spending will increase revenue with which to pay down our debt. A flat tax of 17% will increase revenue exponentially. But, if you continue to spend more than you bring in, you are going backwards.
neatslob Premium Member about 9 years ago
I think it’s pretty safe to say ahead of time that the GOP doesn’t care diddly about the middle class.
Kylop about 9 years ago
Michael, I agree that its too early to declare. But your team is actively in favor of harming the middle class, cycle after cycle, year after year. The bar is very low for her. By your own folks.
Theodore E. Lind Premium Member about 9 years ago
The conservatives want to get to the heart of the problem by reducing social security befits to save the trust fund they have abused all these years. They also want to revoke the ACA that provides health insurance to millions of non-millionaires. And of course they want to go muck up the middle east some more and build a Berlin wall on the southern boarder. I can’t imagine why any normal person would want to vote for them.
Mephistopheles about 9 years ago
WiseOrator – You are pretty quick to assume that Republicans dislike Obama because he is black and will dislike Hillary because she has two x-chromosomes. You discount, entirely, the fact that we dislike their ideas on: Fairness, Capitalism, Causes for Societal Problems, and Approach to solving problems.
I don’t dislike either of them personally – I don’t know them and I certainly wouldn’t dislike them for the color of their skin or their gender. But I fundamentally reject their assumption that the answer to every problem is to take money from the producers and dole it out to to those who didn’t earn it.
Weboh about 9 years ago
“Republicans fight for the middle class? Really?Was it not a Republican, pandering to his Koch addiction who declared he would work to eliminate the minimum wage? Or work place safety regulations? Or environmental regulations of any kind? Was it not republicans who opposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau simply because it would interfere with the banking and financial industries and their ability to fleece the American public? "Sounds more like libertarians/far right Republicans, i.e, not the majority of them.
" Is it not the Republicans and CONservatives who tell, no help businesses move their production operations overseas thereby destroying middle class jobs?"Nooooo… the whole point of Republicans being pro business is to make it easier on businesses in this country so that we can keep them.
“I am not generalizing here.” Sounds like you’re generalizing in half of these and downright lying in the other half. But I guess that keeps with the answer you wanted going in, that Republicans are CONS.
canFunny about 9 years ago
Why is Hillary’s campaign logo with the arrow pointing to the right?If the country’s middle class is so destitute, who is contributing to her campaign?
manteo16nc about 9 years ago
Hilary doesn’t even speak to the middle class unless there’s a camera running. (Cursing at Secret Service agents does not count.)
Saddenedby Premium Member about 9 years ago
i guess the media believes that they won the last two elections by using these tactics so they figure starting even earlier this time they can ho hum their way through the rest of 2015 and 2016 – i think i read this type of thing in a book once. but then again i might be mistaken since i sure wouldn’t want to ‘tick off’ big bro.
Mephistopheles about 9 years ago
@neatslob – First of all: You have a very parochial view of what a “Producer” is. I consider a producer to be anyone who creates Wealth. I don’t own a company but I have improved the value of my farm by planting trees and improving the landscaping (that is a wealth producing activity).
Managers in companies (I think that is whom you are criticizing) add wealth to their company by guiding the company towards more efficiency and more effectiveness.
They don’t actually control the pay. They are still limited by market forces. When wages rise in an area they are motivated to improve their efficiency and effectiveness by: Outsourcing, simplification, waste elimination, etc. When those activities fail to hold down wages they have to match wage growth or lose workers.
There are things we can do as a society to give workers a better chance at earning that elusive living wage such as Restrict immigration (H1, Illegal, Legal) so that American citizens are in higher demand. Just be aware that this won’t necessarily stop progress. How many of us have grown accustomed to bussing our own table at a fast food restaurant or bagging our own groceries. Each time you increase the cost of workers you create an incentive for a clever manager to find a way around needing that worker at all.
All that being said – The fact that some workers haven’t kept their skills current and sufficiently valuable to be worth this living wage I keep hearing about does not entitle them to reach into the wallets of those who have, to sustain themselves.
Not the Smartest Man On the Planet -- Maybe Close Premium Member about 9 years ago
Liberal media? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/07/1229087/-15-things-everyone-would-know-if-there-were-a-liberal-media?detail=email
tengu99 about 9 years ago
It started about a year ago when the republicans started taking pot shots at Hillary because there were hits and rumors they she would run. Its all but over now because they are so busy taking shots at Hillary they can’t be bothered to figure out which one is their actual nominee. …..The more they take shots at her the more they endorse her. It is starting to sound just like the last presidential election where the republicans were so busy yelling about Obama they never realized the best candidate to beat Obama was the one they all but ignored.
Dtroutma about 9 years ago
Interesting that Ramirez ignores or discounts his own, as well as other conservative cartoonists, focusing on Hillary, and have FOR YEARS, as the target of their invective.
Yes, ’toonists ARE part of that “media”.
moosemin about 9 years ago
“We’ve got to help the middle-class!”This is the catch-phrase for every candidate in 2016. Elections campaigns are managed the same way as Madison Ave promotes products. It’s all about image; candidates will try to make as many suckers BELIEVE they are rooting for them. If enough “believe”, then candidate wins!
Mephistopheles about 9 years ago
@WiseOrator – I doubt there is any way to bridge the gap between your definition of those terms and mind given the distance but I’m willing to give it a try.
First, can we agree that Special Interests lobbying congress is not limited to Republican offices? Eco-warriors, Unions, anti-trade groups etc. Frequent Democrat offices and I doubt it is just to ask about the congressman’s children. If you are so convinced that everything that comes from Republicans is evil and all that is Democrat is good then we cannot really have a meaningful dialog.
Second – Let’s parse some of those terms the way I see it:Our Government is supposed to treat each of it’s citizens equally and that, I think, is eminently fair. But no where more obvious then the tax code does that fairness break down. The tax rates are obscenely progressive and many of the tax breaks evaporate as you move up the scale. I call that fundamentally unfair. I’m not saying I should pay less because the government needs the income but I am suggesting that many others should pay more because they fit within some group that the Government favors (That is anathema to equal protection under the law).
Capitalism works – And it should be regulated to make sure we have clean water and clean air. I think, on this point, you and I are closer to each other then you might think. Where we diverge in opinion (I think) is that I don’t think those regulations should extend to robbing the earnings from one group to give to another that is less skilled at surviving in a capitalistic society.
I’m unclear as to your message about societal ills but I wasn’t suggesting that only poor people bring them into society. I was suggesting that I, and many who think like me, don’t like the way Obama and Hillary would solve those societal ills. They take the Government knows best approach and eliminate freedoms rather then trying to use the market to solve the problem.
Government does enact laws that are not in response to an abuse or a violation of the public trust. Jim Crow laws, Blue Code laws, anti-sodomy laws are all cases where the government went beyond what was strictly necessary to keep order and decided to dictate how people might behave in their community or even in their bedroom. You seem to believe that if the government passed that regulation then it was absolutely necessary. I disagree.
As for your last tirade about the wages of workers versus the wages of CEOs – Let me offer you a different perspective and again it is based on market forces so it may be a difficult concept for you (or maybe it isn’t and you hope that if you ignore market forces they won’t exist).
A good CEO is worth a fortune (whether you want to admit it or not). His or her Leadership, thinking, intuition, contacts, and understanding of the market makes him or her a rare and valuable thing. As an investor, I am much more likely to invest in a company with a good CEO then in one with a bad CEO. That is why they command those high salaries that are often tied heavily to performance. The guy who sweeps the floors does a valuable service but there are many people who can replace him and the job would still be done just as well. The market pays more to those who have rare skills then to those who can be replaced with the next guy in the unemployment line. Supply and Demand help balance the pay of every job in the market place.
I don’t see the same gross injustice that you do. It would be an injustice to enact rules and regulations that distorted the market the way you seem to think we should: Higher Minimum wages, Bracketing CEO salaries, doing even more transfers of wealth.
Mephistopheles about 9 years ago
@braindead08 – The Problem (or the Brilliance depending on your political bent) with the Payroll tax is how difficult it is to pin people down on what it actually is. When people talk about the money coming out of their paychecks they say it is a tax and that it balances out some of the progression in the tax code. When they talk about the benefits paid for by the payroll taxes they claim it is an insurance policy that they paid for and therefor can’t be taken away from them (even though it is a pay as you go system).
I will take a stand – The payroll taxes are an insurance policy providing security in your old age and a promise of care should you become sick or injured. Wage earners (including myself) pay now so that we will become fully insured when we are older. Both the Benefits and the Taxes are capped at a certain level and I have been maxing out my payments to Social Security for more then 15 years (You can’t max out on medicare). The payments are intentionally kept separate from Income taxes because they are “earmarked”. Yes the Government borrows against those payments but, in theory, they are borrowing it and not taking it for the general welfare.Now that we have definitions out of the way let’s address Romney’s tax rate.
It is grossly unfair and inappropriate to take an individuals tax payments; divide them by their gross income and use that as a measure of their tax rate.
The Income tax is a tax on income remaining after exemptions and deductions. Mr. Romney and his accountants were clever enough to find a way to take far more deductions and exemptions than I. Which leads us to one of the enormous problems with this system. There are far too many who want to use the tax code to loot the wealth of the 1% so they created this progressive nightmare that we all have to deal with. But the rich have accountants and lawyers so they avoid alot of that looting. But those of us in the upper brackets that don’t quite make it to the 1% take it on the chin.
I use to work in the Tax department for a fortune 50 company and my company paid and enormous amount of tax: Income tax, property tax, tariffs, import/export the list goes on and it costs companies a fortune to keep a bunch of accountants and lawyers on staff to deal with all the complexities. So I’m not in favor of corporate income tax.
I would much prefer we forced companies to disburse a certain percentage of their earnings to their shareholders every year and then taxed individuals.
I would really like to see us move to a VAT or sales tax.
braindead Premium Member about 9 years ago
“It is grossly unfair and inappropriate to take an individuals tax payments; divide them by their gross income and use that as a measure of their tax rate.”
Okay, we have a fundamental disagreement here. How else can you measure an individual’s real tax rate? And remember, it’s not a one year thing. And they aren’t just exemptions and deductions in the sense that you or I are allowed to invoke them. Romney, Buffett, et al are taxed using an entirely different system where capital gains, business deductions for dressage, and carry forward interest and lots of stuff known only to that group are allowed.
Good discussion, though.
Mephistopheles about 9 years ago
@OldCoal & Braindead – Because Rate isn’t the measure of how much tax you paid!!!!! What you paid in taxes is the amount of your taxable income (net or Income – exemptions and deductions) * tax rate. The guy who nets $100K and pays 20% pays $20,000. The guy who nets a million dollars and pays 16% pays $160,000. So we expect the guy who netted $1,000,000 (in this example) to pay 8 times what the guy who netted $100k paid in taxes and many of you still want to complain that he isn’t paying enough in taxes.
Focusing on tax rate is just a way another way for progressives to falsely justify putting in scrweball ideas in the taax code like the AMT and phasing out deductions. I don’t get to deduct the tuition I pay for my Children’s college (I pay it all) because I’m above some artificial threshold. And that’s how it got so complex. It also allows them to have their cake and eat it too based on the comments by you two because you both seem to think that somehow he got a sweet deal while you got screwed even though I’m sure he paid a hell of a lot more in taxes then all three of us combined. The progressives love to foment envy against those who have become successful.
Beyond the incredible unfairness of the progressive nature of our tax code is the unprecedented lack of privacy it provides us from the prying eyes of our neighbors and our government. It really isn’t anyone else’s business how much I donated to charity or paid in interest or medical bills or even how much I earned. That’s one of the primary reason I lobby for blind taxes like VAT or Sales that happen at the point of transaction.
As to Capital gains – I wholly approve of making it a 15% rate. The reason they did that was because they realized that taxing Capital gains led to many of us paying upwards of 55% on earnings. Let’s use an example. Imagine I own 100% of the shares in a company and that company earns $100. The Government first takes 35% of that at the corporate rate leaving me with a net of $65. Even if I’m only paying 25% in personal income tax; I would get to keep $48.75 so I would be paying a marginal rate of 51.25% on the earnings of the company. Even many Democrats (other then that Doofus Bernie Sanders) had to admit that was obscene.
Many of you like to think that only rich guys earn capital gains but many of us have our retirement savings and our kids’ college funds in instruments that pay both corporate and personal income tax.
Back to a point I made earlier. If the Government would do away with the corporate income tax and place the burden of taxation on the individuals receiving proceeds from their investments I would be fully supportive of Capital gains being taxed at the same rate as regular income.
Gerald Henley about 9 years ago
Of course it wasn’t just the unions….it was the Democrats running the city and the state who helped the unions destroy a great city. If you look at every great city / state that has devolved into a debt ridden slum you will see that they have been led by a democrat.
Mephistopheles about 9 years ago
@warjoski – The perennial reason the tax code can’t be reformed is that there are many with a vested interest in keeping it the way it is. Not just Corporations or the Koch brothers but: Lawyers, Accountants, Tax Software Companies are the first to suffer if it gets easier. Then there are the myriad of industry groups who don’t want to see it change: Real Estate Agents and owners of expensive homes don’t want to see the Home Interest Deduction go away, Investors don’t want to see their favorable treatment on capital gains go away, etc. etc. etc.
The current stumbling block, even though Obama and the Republicans agree there should be reform, is that Obama wants to increase Revenue and the Republicans do not.As long as they can’t agree on that there is no point even getting started.
Gerald Henley about 9 years ago
Mephistopheles – If you increase revenue but don’t decrease spending then you are spinning your wheels. Obama and the Democrats want to increase revenue (tax increases) so they can increase spending on social engineering (buying votes) with our tax dollars. Reducing taxes while reducing spending will increase revenue with which to pay down our debt. A flat tax of 17% will increase revenue exponentially. But, if you continue to spend more than you bring in, you are going backwards.