LOL

[Wrathbringer]

@ Obama's attempt at legislating his opinion (Buffet Rule) failing in his own Democratically controlled Senate. :rofl:

[Parkbandit]

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a stalled economy because that would just take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

[Ryvicke]

@ Obama's attempt at legislating his opinion (Buffet Rule) failing in his own Democratically controlled Senate. :rofl:

So... this was a joke right? No one ever expected this to get the 60 votes it needed to avoid Republican filibuster.

The funny part is:


a Gallup poll from last week that indicated 60 percent of Americans supported the proposal, including 63 percent of political independents

one week later:


a CNN poll was released putting support at 72 percent, including 53 percent of Republicans

Can't wait to watch Obama hammer this for a few months while Romney just keeps looking like a clueless millionaire.

[Tgo01]

Since we're putting so much faith into polls, Gallup has Romney leading Obama 48 to 43.

[leifastagsweed]

http://oi44.tinypic.com/154kopc.jpg

[Allereli]

@ Obama's attempt at legislating his opinion (Buffet Rule) failing in his own Democratically controlled Senate. :rofl:

You do realize the Senate requires a super majority (60 votes) to get anything done, right?

[Ryvicke]

Since we're putting so much faith into polls, Gallup has Romney leading Obama 48 to 43.

Yep--that's today's number. +/- 3% of course.

Not to mention:


History shows that the candidates' positioning in the spring of an election year is not necessarily good at forecasting the election outcomes. For example, in an April 20-22, 1992, Gallup poll, incumbent President George H.W. Bush was ahead with 41% of the vote, compared with 26% for Bill Clinton and 25% for Ross Perot. And in an April 11-14, 1980, poll, incumbent President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan by 42% to 34%, with John Anderson receiving 18% support. Both Bush and Carter, of course, ultimately lost their re-election bids.

And Gallup also uses 60/40 landline, with additional landline respondents added depending on the region. Landline respondents being overwhelmingly more likely to be right-of-center on issues compared to cell respondents.

[Drew]

The funny part is:


Luckily in this case our legislature made a good economic decision in spite of the populace not having an understanding of the underlying economics. That said I don't think they did it because of that, but at least it was the correct decision.

[Parkbandit]

http://oi44.tinypic.com/154kopc.jpg

That's an awesome pic.. the Obama facepalm makes it epic.

[Tgo01]

And Gallup also uses 60/40 landline, with additional landline respondents added depending on the region. Landline respondents being overwhelmingly more likely to be right-of-center on issues compared to cell respondents.

Well you got me there, I'm sure CNN is very scientific when conducting their polls to make sure they get a good mix of Democrats and Republicans.

[Wrathbringer]

I don't see this defeat helping Obama. If you believe the polls, Independent voters were largely turned off by the proposal. I think Obama would have been better off to actually try to accomplish something rather than get a quick failure in before the SC pwn's Obamacare in its entirety in the coming weeks.

clueless millionaire > clueless President, at this point.

[Wrathbringer]

You do realize the Senate requires a super majority (60 votes) to get anything done, right?

Not sure what this has to do with my post. Are you disputing my statement that the Senate is Democratically controlled?

[Tgo01]

You do realize the Senate requires a super majority (60 votes) to get anything done, right?

Knowing Democrats don't have enough numbers to stop a Republican filibuster it makes you wonder why the Democrats even tried to pass this without offering the Republicans something they wanted. Or did they? I honestly wasn't paying much attention to this law because I looked at the 5 billion dollars a year it would raise and yawned.

[Parkbandit]

Knowing Democrats don't have enough numbers to stop a Republican filibuster it makes you wonder why the Democrats even tried to pass this without offering the Republicans something they wanted. Or did they? I honestly wasn't paying much attention to this law because I looked at the 5 billion dollars a year it would raise and yawned.

In 20 short years, it would repay us for all the failed solar loans Obama gave out.

That's nothing to yawn over, Mister!

[Allereli]

Not sure what this has to do with my post. Are you disputing my statement that the Senate is Democratically controlled?

The vote is par for the course for the past 3 years. The word "Control" means pretty much nothing but committee chair. But way to sensationalize it.

[Ryvicke]

Not sure what this has to do with my post. Are you disputing my statement that the Senate is Democratically controlled?

Your initial post makes it sound like you think the Dems somehow didn't carry their own caucus on their sponsored bill, but I guess I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you understand how the US Senate works, and that the 53-47 advantage the Dems have gives them very little "control."

FWIW, so you don't have to actually go and read anything, the vote was 51-45 to open debate, with Collins R-Maine voting for and Pryor D-Ark. voting against.

[Wrathbringer]

The vote is par for the course for the past 3 years. The word "Control" means pretty much nothing but committee chair. But way to sensationalize it.

I'd say it's common belief that Obama knew this wouldn't pass but he presented it anyway, wasting our government's time in an attempt to make political hay. If anyone sensationalized anything, it's him. I am in agreement with you, however, on the point that he's accomplished nothing in the last three years.

[Ryvicke]

I'd say it's common belief that Obama knew this wouldn't pass but he presented it anyway, wasting our government's time in an attempt to make political hay. If anyone sensationalized anything, it's him. I am in agreement with you, however, on the point that he's accomplished nothing in the last three years.

So you're LOL'ing about something you and everyone else knew was going to happen?

[Tgo01]

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a stalled economy because that would just take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

Yeah I thought raising taxes during a recession was a bad idea.

[Allereli]

I'd say it's common belief that Obama knew this wouldn't pass but he presented it anyway, wasting our government's time in an attempt to make political hay. If anyone sensationalized anything, it's him. I am in agreement with you, however, on the point that he's accomplished nothing in the last three years.

wow, way to twist words. Obama sensationalized it? He put an economic policy proposal to a vote. I think he did his job. Is he perfect? NO. Do I think the country is better under Obama than it was under Bush? YES. Do I think Romney will do a better job? NO.

[Parkbandit]

wow, way to twist words. Obama sensationalized it? He put an economic policy proposal to a vote. I think he did his job. Is he perfect? NO. Do I think the country is better under Obama than it was under Bush? YES. Do I think Romney will do a better job? NO.

Actually, he didn't put an "economic policy proposal" to a vote, since even he admits it would do very little to help with the current economic crisis.

[Ryvicke]

Actually, he didn't put an "economic policy proposal" to a vote, since even he admits it would do very little to help with the current economic crisis.

Although you guys keep repeating this, you guys can't quite seem to be find a source that quotes President Obama as saying this.

The Buffett rule is a great place to begin the conversation that needs to be had. It has been supported by an incredibly polarized populace and its economic gains would be a welcome beginning to, what one would hope, more significant legislation to come.

Republicans not allowing even a debate on the bill was the same "no second term at any cost" party politics they've been employing since Obama took office and the American people see through it.

[Parkbandit]

Although you guys keep repeating this, you guys can't quite seem to be find a source that quotes President Obama as saying this.

The Buffett rule is a great place to begin the conversation that needs to be had. It has been supported by an incredibly polarized populace and its economic gains would be a welcome beginning to, what one would hope, more significant legislation to come.

Republicans not allowing even a debate on the bill was the same "no second term at any cost" party politics they've been employing since Obama took office and the American people see through it.

Do you have a quote from Obama saying that the Buffett Rule will help solve our deficit problem? Debt problem? Spending problem? Revenue Problem?

No, the only thing you have is Obama saying "It's fair".

Like I said before:

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a stalled economy because that would just take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

[Stretch]

Barack Obama doesn't care about black people.

[Wrathbringer]

Knowing Democrats don't have enough numbers to stop a Republican filibuster it makes you wonder why the Democrats even tried to pass this without offering the Republicans something they wanted. Or did they? I honestly wasn't paying much attention to this law because I looked at the 5 billion dollars a year it would raise and yawned.

Honestly, I chalk this up to Obama's failure to lead. This was one of the main points of his detractors leading up to the election, and in my opinion, it's been proven well founded. If no one follows you, then by definition, you're not a leader. In the context of his office, if you can't get anything (constitutional) passed, you're a bad president.

[Wrathbringer]

Although you guys keep repeating this, you guys can't quite seem to be find a source that quotes President Obama as saying this.

The president allowed Wednesday that the move was a “gimmick” but that any effort to increase federal income in order to reduce deficit spending was worthwhile. However, with projected annual proceeds from the tax increase not equal to even one day of federal borrowing and conservatives countering that increasing taxes on investment income will further starve markets of capital, Obama needs a more compelling reason to target some 22,000 households with a special tax.
The additional reason, according to the president and his team, is to make sure that everyone is doing their “fair share”: it’s not just the money, it’s the principle.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/12/obama-willing-to-risk-accusations-socialism-for-chance-to-whack-romneys-wealth/#ixzz1sLEAG3rs

[Ryvicke]

The president allowed Wednesday that the move was a “gimmick” but that any effort to increase federal income in order to reduce deficit spending was worthwhile. However, with projected annual proceeds from the tax increase not equal to even one day of federal borrowing and conservatives countering that increasing taxes on investment income will further starve markets of capital, Obama needs a more compelling reason to target some 22,000 households with a special tax.
The additional reason, according to the president and his team, is to make sure that everyone is doing their “fair share”: it’s not just the money, it’s the principle.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/12/obama-willing-to-risk-accusations-socialism-for-chance-to-whack-romneys-wealth/#ixzz1sLEAG3rs

You're a good little Fox News parrot, of course, they only quote one sentence out of the speech and took the "gimmick" line out of context:

Here's the full text--there's no pictures and lots and lots of words, so I doubt you'll read any of it.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/11/remarks-president-buffett-rule

Full quote:


As I said, for most of the folks in this room, taxes are lower than they’ve been, or as low as they’ve been, in 50 years. There are others who are saying, well, this is just a gimmick. Just taxing millionaires and billionaires, just imposing the Buffett Rule won’t do enough to close the deficit. Well, I agree. That’s not all we have to do to close the deficit. But the notion that it doesn’t solve the entire problem doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it at all.

[Parkbandit]

You're a good little Fox News parrot, of course, they only quote one sentence out of the speech and took the "gimmick" line out of context:

Here's the full text--there's no pictures and lots and lots of words, so I doubt you'll read any of it.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/11/remarks-president-buffett-rule

Full quote:

http://img1.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.53785853.jpg

[Ryvicke]

I'm hoping that pin has something to do with Jimmy Buffett and we've come full circle.

[Parkbandit]

I'm hoping that pin has something to do with Jimmy Buffett and we've come full circle.

It has nothing to do with Jimmy and everything to do with liberal mouthpieces like you.

Just squawk away.

[poloneus]

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a stalled economy because that would just take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

While I've heard this plenty of times, what is the evidence that this really matters? Putting extra money in the pockets of businesses has not exactly worked. See Hoover (Great Depression), Reagan (stock market crash of 1987), and Bush (our current economic collapse).

[Drew]

In the stagnant days of the Carter administration, when inflation was approaching 13.5% and interest rates were peaking at 21.5%, income was more evenly distributed than in any period in 20th-century America. Since the days of that equality in misery, the measured income of the top 1% of income tax filers has risen over three and a half times as fast as the income of the population as a whole.

This growth in income inequality is largely the result of three dynamics:

1) Changes in the way Americans pay taxes and manage their investments, which were a direct result of reductions in marginal tax rates.

2) A dynamic shift in the labor-capital ratio, resulting from the adoption of market-based economies around the world.

3) The flourishing of economic freedom and technological advances in the Reagan era, which were the product of lower tax rates, a reduced regulatory burden, and an improved business climate. These changes have not only raised the measured income of the top 1%, they benefited the nation and the world.

While income distribution has become a source of protest and political debate, any analysis of taxes paid in high tax-and-spend countries shows that the U.S. has the most progressive income tax system in the world. An inconvenient truth for the advocates of higher taxes on America's rich is that big governments in developed countries are funded not by taxing the rich more than the U.S. does, but by taxing everybody else more.

In 1986, before the top marginal tax rate was reduced to 28% from 50%, half of all businesses in America were organized as C-Corps and taxed as corporations. By 2007, only 21% of businesses in America were taxed as corporations and 79% were organized as pass-through entities, with four million S-Corps and three million partnerships filing taxes as individuals. By reducing personal tax rates below the level of the corporate rate, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 dramatically influenced how entrepreneurs structure businesses.

This has had a profound effect on what is now measured as the income of the top 1%, since a significant amount of what is now declared as personal income is actually income from businesses that are now taxed as individuals.

In 1986, just 5.6% of the income of top 1% filers came from business organizations filing as Sub-chapter S-Corps and partnerships. By 2007, almost 19% of income declared on tax returns filed by the top 1% came from business income. A significant amount of income that critics claim is going to John Q. Astor actually is being earned by Joe E. Brown & Sons hardware store.

The reported income of the top 1% also significantly increased as tax rates on capital gains were lowered, first under President Bill Clinton and then under President George W. Bush. At a top tax rate of 28%, realized capital gains were 2.5% of GDP and made up 17.7% of the income of top 1% filers. As the top tax rate fell to 20% in 1997 and 15% in 2003, realized capital gains rose to 4.6% and then to 5% of GDP. The percentage of the income of top 1% filers coming from capital gains grew to 26% in the 1997-2002 period and 28.1% during 2003-07.

By reducing the penalty for transferring capital from one investment to another, these lower tax rates increased the mobility of capital. High-income taxpayers sold more assets, declared more income, and paid more taxes.

Similarly, when the tax rate on dividends fell to 15% in 2003, dividend income for the top 1% grew 178% by 2007 to make up 5.6% of the income of these filers. In 2007, immediately prior to the recession, capital gains and dividend income combined was equal to the amount of salary, bonus and exercised stock options earned by the average top 1% filer.

Lower tax rates made dividend-paying stocks more attractive to high-income investors and made dividend payouts more attractive for companies that would have previously retained those earnings or bought back their stock. Capital trapped in companies with below-market rates of return was redeployed and the entire economy benefited.

All of this has had a huge impact on the measured income of the top 1% and the growth in income inequality. This impact can be estimated by examining what would have happened to the income of the top 1% if tax rates had not been lowered and these economic transformations had not occurred.

If the share of income coming from businesses, capital gains and dividends had remained at the levels before the tax rate changes of 1986, 1997 and 2003 respectively, the income of top 1% filers would have been 31% lower in 2007. The growth in income since 1979 for top 1% filers would have been only 2.5 times as large as the income growth of all taxpayers—not 3.6 times as large.

More businesses would have remained C-Corps and been taxed as corporations, fewer assets would have been sold and thus fewer capital gains would have been declared, and fewer dividends would have been paid. All of this would have lowered the income declared by the top 1%. Economic growth would have been lower and aggregate measured income of all taxpayers would have fallen, but the distribution of income would have been flatter.

The growing participation of China, India, Brazil, Russia and Turkey in the world economy has also affected income inequality. The vast expansion of labor engaged in world commerce has raised the return on capital and reduced the relative return on labor. The share of income flowing to capital—both traditional and human capital such as education and training—has risen.

In relative terms, the return to unskilled labor has fallen. Short of a crippling reversal in world trade, which would reduce the value of both labor and capital, this effect will dominate world markets for the foreseeable future. Since high-income Americans own more capital and have higher levels of education and training, their incomes have grown faster than everyone else's.

The flowering of talent from the expanded freedom and technological progress ushered in by the Reagan era has also played a role. Inequality is a natural result of the expansion of liberty and the development of new technology and new products. Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Sam Walton and Bill Gates caused the income distribution to become more uneven, but they enriched the world.

To vilify success and the rewards it garners is an assault not just on capitalism but on liberty itself. As Will and Ariel Durant observed in "The Lessons of History" (1968), "freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies . . . to check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed."

Nowhere is the political debate over income inequality more detached from reality than the call for the top 1% of American income earners to pay their "fair share." The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data on the ratio of the share of income taxes paid by the richest taxpayers relative to their share of income show that the U.S. has the world's most progressive tax burden.

The top 10% of earners in the U.S. pay 35% more of the income tax burden than in Sweden and 22% more than in France. These figures—from the 2008 OECD publication "Growing Unequal?"—include all household taxes imposed on income at the federal, state and local level, including social insurance taxes.

In an eternal irony unique to large welfare states, it is the expansion of government in the name of the poor and middle class that always costs poor and middle-class families the most. When the U.S. collects 16.1% of GDP in income taxes, the top 10% of taxpayers pay 7.3% and the other 90% pick up 8.9%.

In France, however, they collect 24.3% of GDP in income taxes with the top 10% paying 6.8% and the rest paying a whopping 17.5% of GDP. Sweden collects its 28.5% of GDP through income taxes by tapping the top 10% for 7.6%, but the other 90% get hit for a back-breaking 20.9% of GDP.

If the U.S. spent and taxed like France and Sweden, it would hardly affect the top 10%, who would pay about what they pay now, but the bottom 90% would see their taxes double.

Since OECD members have significantly higher consumption taxes on average than the U.S., the total tax burden of bigger government is even more heavily borne by lower-income citizens in developed nations than these numbers suggest.

The real and alarming message in these OECD numbers is that there appear to be limits in the real world to how much tax blood can be extracted from rich turnips. With much higher marginal income-tax rates, countries that are clearly willing to soak the rich have proven to be incapable of doing so.

Proposals to raise taxes on high-income Americans in the name of "fairness" not only threaten economic growth. The experience of nations with large governments shows that this argument is simply a red herring for a massive tax increase on middle-income Americans.

In the end, taxing is about feeding government, not redistributing wealth. What nation ever set off on the road to big government promising to tax middle-income workers, and what nation ever got big government without doing it?

Good reading.

[poloneus]

It has nothing to do with Jimmy

Really?

[Parkbandit]

While I've heard this plenty of times, what is the evidence that this really matters? Putting extra money in the pockets of businesses has not exactly worked. See Hoover (Great Depression), Reagan (stock market crash of 1987), and Bush (our current economic collapse).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

[Parkbandit]

Really?

Really. You can go to the website from the button.. and you would see these buttons that also have nothing to do with Jimmy Buffett:

http://img1.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.114829153.jpg

http://img2.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.187457254.jpg

[4a6c1]

Dawww. Those buttons are so cute.