The National Weather Service is absorbing 8.2% in actual cuts because of the sequester. FEMA has been giving grants for communities in Oklahoma and Arkansas to build “safe rooms,” which were used in Oklahoma (but there wasn’t one in the school where the kids died.) But FEMA is under attack by the GOP for imagined conspiracies, and is suffering budget cuts as well. We are a great country, and have the capacity to detect and warn about storms, but can these capabilities survive Republican stupidity and anti-science bias? Are the lives of children really so much more expendable than tax loopholes for the rich?
@Trusted – I love it. You want the government to have more money but only if it comes from the Rich i.e. somebody else.
Move to a flat tax and you won’t see the Rich so resentful of increased taxes. If everyone was paying 15% or 38% (like the rich) I’ll just bet there would be demands for the government to think twice about giving Oklahoma money.
But it’s a two man game; the Dems are playing us too. The GOP are the ‘bad cops’, and the Dems are the ‘good cops’. Unless you see it the other way around – but either way, it’s a game. We’re being gamed. Until we face it, we’re cooked. Just like those frogs put in cold water and heated up. This has been going on for a long time.
However, they are both working for the same police force.
I can’t prove it, but I’d bet that part of the deal for Obama’s nomination was that he’d sign those tax extensions. Another part of the deal was almost certainly the GMOs … he had been saying that he’d deal with Monsanto and the GMO issue too. The entire government has been silent on that score.
Sorry, but there was something very fishy about that nomination. He had been campaigning all those months he talked about single payer health care, ending or at least labeling GMOs, and the rest of the stuff people are accusing him of lying about. on his own money.
Nobody seems to know or will discuss his taking campaign money in August of that year, just before the nomination.
It’s pure speculation, but I figure that was the price of the nomination. No doubt they told him they’d go with some of his interests, but the fact is that politicians do lie, and there was probably no full disclosure.
And no, none of them gives a tinker’s dam about children. Unless an opportunity presents to exploit them. As exploitation targets, they’re pure gold.
That’s how those of them who didn’t inherit their wealth got to be rich. And they’ve parked their assets offshore, and the jobs that Americans need so badly. But the goverment isn’t exactly burning up their hours trying to fix the economy. They don’t really care about the economy – they don’t depend on it, after all. Their hoards are safe in other venues.
@Hawhthorne – I don’t know your particular tax situation but I think I understand YOUR confusion. You don’t get to count SS, SSDI and Medicare. Those are insurance policies set up by the federal government. If you are retired, as you say, you will that money back AND MORE, statistically.
Federal Tax is the line item on your W2 that says Federal tax.Right now, 47% of the W2 recpients in the United states don’t have anything in that box. Or if they do have something in that box they get it all back by filing a 1040 EZ form. I help my children do that every year for their part time jobs.
That 47% are also with you in complaining that the Rich are greedy, not paying their fair share, all the while not paying anything themselves.
I actually max out my payments to SS and end up paying somewhere between 19% and 23% to the Federal government. That is why I challenge people to pay ANYTHING in Federal taxes before they complain someone else isn’t paying enough.
I also get really fed up with the word Greedy being used to describe someone who won’t voluntarily give up more money in taxes so that others won’t be burdened. I find very few people who don’t think they work hard for their money.Why should anybody become the slave of the needy involuntarily. Because that it what you are really advocating; enslaving the productive to pay for the less productive. The government needs more money to pay for: SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Foodstamps, Unemployment, and a host of other wealth transfer programs. You want the Rich to take on an even larger burden so that others won’t be taxed. And then you call them names if they don’t voluntarily do it.
Tell you what…Go to the place in your town frequented by the well heeled and call them greedy and wrong. Tell them they need to give more to the poor and to charities and to support society. You won’t get very far with them because they are already heavily taxed and most of them are supporting charities, churches, and committees for societal good. So instead, you would use the Federal Government to empty out their pockets that you might redistribute the fruits of their labor.
I feel I pay more then my fair share in taxes and I think most people feel the same way about their tax burden.
The Federal government needs to get out of the Wealth transference business. And so do you.
@Nightguant – That’s true in a sense. We all pay no tax dollars on the first dollar we make. But many of us pay 39% on the last dollar. So in a sense you are right but there are many of us who can’t afford lawyers and accountants to protect us from the storm but are considered Rich by the Federal Government.
We need a Flat Tax, Sales Tax, or VAT tax that everyone pays equally. If you want to deed back money to the poor because you feel it falls too heavily on them then let them fill out a form for compensation.
The IRS is unwieldy, excessively powerful, and now corrupt.
ARodney almost 11 years ago
The National Weather Service is absorbing 8.2% in actual cuts because of the sequester. FEMA has been giving grants for communities in Oklahoma and Arkansas to build “safe rooms,” which were used in Oklahoma (but there wasn’t one in the school where the kids died.) But FEMA is under attack by the GOP for imagined conspiracies, and is suffering budget cuts as well. We are a great country, and have the capacity to detect and warn about storms, but can these capabilities survive Republican stupidity and anti-science bias? Are the lives of children really so much more expendable than tax loopholes for the rich?
vwdualnomand almost 11 years ago
one conspiracy is that there will be fema re-education concentration camps for conservatives and right wing people.
Mephistopheles almost 11 years ago
I like the Sequester. It seems to be the only way to wean the government off it’s insatiable demand for money and control.
Mephistopheles almost 11 years ago
@Trusted – I love it. You want the government to have more money but only if it comes from the Rich i.e. somebody else.
Move to a flat tax and you won’t see the Rich so resentful of increased taxes. If everyone was paying 15% or 38% (like the rich) I’ll just bet there would be demands for the government to think twice about giving Oklahoma money.
Hawthorne almost 11 years ago
Make that ‘inane greed’ and I’m with you.
But it’s a two man game; the Dems are playing us too. The GOP are the ‘bad cops’, and the Dems are the ‘good cops’. Unless you see it the other way around – but either way, it’s a game. We’re being gamed. Until we face it, we’re cooked. Just like those frogs put in cold water and heated up. This has been going on for a long time.
However, they are both working for the same police force.
Hawthorne almost 11 years ago
Obama has been doing no such thing.
The media has been claming that.
More smoke and mirrors, more slander, more scandal.
See a pattern?
Hawthorne almost 11 years ago
Obama has been doing no such thing.
The media has been claming that.
More smoke and mirrors, more slander, more scandal.
See a pattern?
Hawthorne almost 11 years ago
They don’t even need tax attorneys to do that. A CPA will do the job just as well, and at a lower rate.
I worked for CPA firms. Most of those people pay less tax than we do, whatever bracket they fall into.
Hawthorne almost 11 years ago
I can’t prove it, but I’d bet that part of the deal for Obama’s nomination was that he’d sign those tax extensions. Another part of the deal was almost certainly the GMOs … he had been saying that he’d deal with Monsanto and the GMO issue too. The entire government has been silent on that score.
Sorry, but there was something very fishy about that nomination. He had been campaigning all those months he talked about single payer health care, ending or at least labeling GMOs, and the rest of the stuff people are accusing him of lying about. on his own money.
Nobody seems to know or will discuss his taking campaign money in August of that year, just before the nomination.
It’s pure speculation, but I figure that was the price of the nomination. No doubt they told him they’d go with some of his interests, but the fact is that politicians do lie, and there was probably no full disclosure.
And no, none of them gives a tinker’s dam about children. Unless an opportunity presents to exploit them. As exploitation targets, they’re pure gold.
That’s how those of them who didn’t inherit their wealth got to be rich. And they’ve parked their assets offshore, and the jobs that Americans need so badly. But the goverment isn’t exactly burning up their hours trying to fix the economy. They don’t really care about the economy – they don’t depend on it, after all. Their hoards are safe in other venues.
Mephistopheles almost 11 years ago
@Hawhthorne – I don’t know your particular tax situation but I think I understand YOUR confusion. You don’t get to count SS, SSDI and Medicare. Those are insurance policies set up by the federal government. If you are retired, as you say, you will that money back AND MORE, statistically.
Federal Tax is the line item on your W2 that says Federal tax.Right now, 47% of the W2 recpients in the United states don’t have anything in that box. Or if they do have something in that box they get it all back by filing a 1040 EZ form. I help my children do that every year for their part time jobs.
That 47% are also with you in complaining that the Rich are greedy, not paying their fair share, all the while not paying anything themselves.
I actually max out my payments to SS and end up paying somewhere between 19% and 23% to the Federal government. That is why I challenge people to pay ANYTHING in Federal taxes before they complain someone else isn’t paying enough.
I also get really fed up with the word Greedy being used to describe someone who won’t voluntarily give up more money in taxes so that others won’t be burdened. I find very few people who don’t think they work hard for their money.Why should anybody become the slave of the needy involuntarily. Because that it what you are really advocating; enslaving the productive to pay for the less productive. The government needs more money to pay for: SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Foodstamps, Unemployment, and a host of other wealth transfer programs. You want the Rich to take on an even larger burden so that others won’t be taxed. And then you call them names if they don’t voluntarily do it.
Tell you what…Go to the place in your town frequented by the well heeled and call them greedy and wrong. Tell them they need to give more to the poor and to charities and to support society. You won’t get very far with them because they are already heavily taxed and most of them are supporting charities, churches, and committees for societal good. So instead, you would use the Federal Government to empty out their pockets that you might redistribute the fruits of their labor.
I feel I pay more then my fair share in taxes and I think most people feel the same way about their tax burden.
The Federal government needs to get out of the Wealth transference business. And so do you.
Mephistopheles almost 11 years ago
@Nightguant – That’s true in a sense. We all pay no tax dollars on the first dollar we make. But many of us pay 39% on the last dollar. So in a sense you are right but there are many of us who can’t afford lawyers and accountants to protect us from the storm but are considered Rich by the Federal Government.
We need a Flat Tax, Sales Tax, or VAT tax that everyone pays equally. If you want to deed back money to the poor because you feel it falls too heavily on them then let them fill out a form for compensation.
The IRS is unwieldy, excessively powerful, and now corrupt.