Pat Oliphant for May 16, 2013

Petulant Pat. Take two pills and get a life.

Riiight, the people who say they don´t want to pay taxes are the “honest and ordinary” :D.

I have personally found it FAR easier (and even more kind and compassionate) to deal with the IRS than ANY in the private financial sector!!Perhaps the seemingly little known fact that those in the governmental service (and that includes the employees of the IRS) are also generally middle class taxpayers themselves might also be pertinent here?

We already disliked the uber wealthy and their tendency to do as they like. We were just happy to elect an intelligent, well spoken, President who had actually been poor and had read more then a book; A President who knew what the rest of us are going through because he’d been there and had made his way up without his daddy’s help.

The toon makes a good point. The IRS can’t afford to go head-to-head with General Electric’s thousands of accountans and attorneys who do nothing but shave tax bills. And even if they could, they’re also facing laws that were bought by their lobbyists.

It’s inevitable that these fake “social welfare” organizations will soon be staffed the same way. If the Koch Bros fund accountants and attorneys for teabagger groups, the IRS will have to counter. But with what?

This wasn’t an “investigation” of the Tea Party, this was an illegal abrogation of conservative organizations ability to obtain, legally, tax exempt status. During the same time period consevative organizations were thusly harrassed, liberal organizations’ tax exempt status requests had greased skids and shot through the system without a hitch.

Care to provide examples of “hate” from any of the organizations or people you cite? And, remember, disagreeing with your politics is NOT hate.

Was that Bush appointee the one who ran the department that abused the conservative organizations?

Don’t think so….

Saul Alinsky! SQUAWK!!!!’Community organizer! SQUAWK!!!’Harley has clanging cymbals for his big ol’, dulled by a lifetime of his myopic clap-trap nattering on about all things liberal—BAD!!!

Give an asshole a little bit of power and…………………..

That would be far too logical and make too much sense.

Inexcusable behavior.

But he’s scared $hitless of the big corporations and the top 1% with their battery of lawyers, you bet!

Uncle Joe got it right.Every one applauded Bush and his Tax cuts. Now we pay for them. We will do the same thing with Obama. Every one may applaud him now but you will pay later. That’s the way it goes and will go. If you try to stop it the whole thing will fall down. If you are working and living to a good level of comfort then you are okay. Your basic needs are sustained. Now you want more, better, stronger, faster then get ready to make it or break it. And when it fails and you fall back you may find that level you ONCE had is now occupied by someone else. Where do you land?

“You decry a correct statement about tax revenue which performed as claimed and produce a chart of percent of GDP without showing its growth. All you need is a bonfire, grass skirt and mask for your Voodoo finance "I wonder how you can simultaneously hold the notion that Obama is destroying the economy while pointing out the fact that GDP has recovered well since 2008-2009.I’ve dropped a similar chart to yours here, but I like the fact that it contrasts the US recovery with the Austere-o-zone recovery. Looks like the Obama stimulus wasn’t the worst thing after all.The economy is growing, the nation is growing, but tax revenues have lagged behind. The other things that have lagged behind are employment & income growth for people who actually work for a living. Many people who are doing well are whining about taxes, despite historically low tax burdens. I think lma is more into the grass skirt thing.

“What you have proven is that lower taxes produce increase Growth.”Wow, that’s a slam dunk if you pretend the stretch from 1950 to 1970 (or 1993-1999 for that matter) didn’t exist.Tax rates for high income earners:Share of income for top earners:GDP growth:

Never mind that the issue has nothing to do with taxpayers……only non-profit (snicker) applicants.

Pretty obviously a spoof of rightwing “thinking” points.

You don’t seem to have caught on to what Caron was saying. He was not saying rich people have always paid an effective 20% tax rate. His “effective marginal tax rate” of 20% is the average of all taxpayers.Here is where he sort of had a point:“Many pundits and policy advocates claim history proves we can tax the rich with economic impunity. They base their claim on an historical comparison between the top statutory individual income tax rate and various economic indicators. Yet this comparison is based on an incomplete and misleading measure of the overall tax burden. Before Congress decides it can raise the top rate without any adverse effects, policy makers need to get the relevant facts about how taxes affect the economy.”Back when the top tax rate was 90%, people paying that rate looked for any way to hide income. There is truth to the idea that raising rates past a certain point actually reduce tax revenue.I actually think the rates on top earners are ok, but I’d like to see short term capital gains & carried interest should be taxed as ordinary income. The confusing & expansive rules on deductions need to be fixed. Romney’s $75,000 horses are a perfect example of this.We’ve made a decent start on reversing a very unhealthy trend. I’m more worried about income distribution than I am about taxes. Good conservatives used to believe in an ideal called “making work pay”.

I can’t find a chart going back to the 50’s but this shows effective tax rates on the top 1% since ’92.

Typical half-wit.

It is also called “projection” and you are 100% right.

Tax cheats deserve to be ruined.

For some people believing evil ones stand just on the other side of a government agency doing their evil things.

Personally I doubt it for a couple reasons. We all want to pay our bills and have steady income i.e. jobs. Anyone “out to get” others will be got themselves eventually because those are the rules and for obvious reasons. Second, these supposedly super bad people gain absolutely nothing materially for their job risking bad deeds.

What about the obvious answer. Are these groups claiming a no tax status and spending their efforts promoting political agendas? If possible they also have names with similar words or indications of their agendas which most astute readers of politics and many others know about.

Lastly hard right conservatives hate government. Their own words. They would like to dismantle it and what better way than tear up the IRS? If you think the IRS is your enemy and destroy it you will destroy the word America and all it stands for.

No nation in all history has existed without government and taxes to pay for it. Even our troops can’t be “heroes” without taxes. Unfortunately too many have bought into to hating the IRS so even the Democrats have to play the game and act outraged. I am quite willing to listen to other views not insults.

When the Federal Government comes to tap your phones, monitor your speech, search your house, will you then want the Tea Party to help defend your Constitutional Rights?

I though so.

When the IRS comes and asks what I pray for,I will tell them I pray for a free United States of America.