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Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

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Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

pirate said:
The optimist in me says the situation is crying out for a third party...the cynic says the two parties have so much money and so much to lose, they will fight with every low class, dirty politics tricks they have to prevent it...if money were no object it wouldn't be hard to make a ticket of two centrists (1 R and 1 D) and go after the center of the country (politically:))

Throw out a few fringe issues on each side and you could get 60% of the populace to vote for the Center Party candidate...as long as they were good looking, were funny on Letterman, didn't scream on TV and didn't show up anywhere dressed in a costume or driving a tank. Those last few would actually be the biggest factors for being elected; the platform, integrity and leadership...yeah, that would be nice and all but let's not get crazy.;)
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We almost had that in 2008 didn't we? McCain really wanted to pick Lieberman, but ended up with Palin.

That said, I'm skeptical as to the success a "Center Party" could have. What would be some of their positions on the issues?

Also, isn't there a chance that such a party could bring about some sort of Constitutional disaster? Say no one can get to 270 electoral votes, and it gets tossed to the House of Representatives, which I'm guessing won't have many (if any) members of the Center Party among it. Then say the House splits its vote along D-R party lines, and you could have this Center Party being totally shut out, despite maybe winning a plurality of the vote.
None of that is an argument against such a party I guess, just saying it could bring about some pretty crazy scenarios.
 
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Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

WeWantMore said:
Which by my math would leave 75% of the vote to be split among the Democrats and Republicans, giving the Centrists a nice 3rd place finish.;)
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I'm claiming that it gets them 25% of the vote regardless of who their actual candidates are. They could put forth a Mel Gibson - Jonathan Lee Riches ticket and get 25% of the vote on that slogan. Imagine what they could do with more serious candidates: like Stephen Colbert or a race horse?
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

busterman62 said:
I used examples from the same site to try and show 5min that "tax brackets" don't equal tax rates. I was, of course, unsuccessful.

The numbers were from the CBO's attempt to show overall effective tax rates. They were estimates. But, when compared to IRS data of income tax PAID as a percentage of AGI (thus taking into account deductions, shelters and maybe even the $50K that 5min keeps quoting from some unknown source), the numbers don't really change much. The more you make, the more you pay in taxes. As you correctly point out, and 5min ignores, the wealthy shoulder a greater burden of the taxes. Again, to say that they should shoulder a greater amount is up for argument, but to imply they are able to routinely avoid paying higher rates if simply false. Do we need to kiss their arses? No, but we certainly shouldn't accuse them of not paying either. I agree, raise everybody's rate and share the burden we deserve for voting in these clowns.
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Don't know how many times I need to say this. Everyone pays less than true govt tax brackets...the bottom 40% primarily due to the standard deduction...the top quantile due to the standard deduction plus an additional $50k that they don't pay taxes on. My source is your cbo doc...simple math, read the post.

I never questioned the various points you've been making...you questioned mine: that the rich frequently get out of paying taxes. And you have failed to follow on that post.

..and its no more complicated than that.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

5mn_Major said:
Don't know how many times I need to say this. Everyone pays less than true govt tax brackets...the bottom 40% primarily due to the standard deduction...the top quantile due to the standard deduction plus an additional $50k that they don't pay taxes on. My source is your cbo doc...simple math, read the post.

I never questioned the various points you've been making...you questioned mine: that the rich frequently get out of paying taxes. And you have failed to follow on that post.

..and its no more complicated than that.
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On what 50k of income are people magically not paying taxes? And why aren't you or I taking advantage of this wonderful $50,000 in tax free money?

What you're forgetting is that tax brackets are marginal, meaning that's what you pay for the next dollar earned. Even if you make $250k and fall into the 33% tax bracket (or whatever), you still only pay 10% on your first however many thousand dollars of income, and 15% on the next thousands, and so forth. You don't automatically pay 33% on every dollar earned.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

unofan said:
On what 50k of income are people magically not paying taxes? And why aren't you or I taking advantage of this wonderful $50,000 in tax free money?

What you're forgetting is that tax brackets are marginal, meaning that's what you pay for the next dollar earned. Even if you make $250k and fall into the 33% tax bracket (or whatever), you still only pay 10% on your first however many thousand dollars of income, and 15% on the next thousands, and so forth. You don't automatically pay 33% on every dollar earned.
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Oh, please, please, please, please let 5mn_Major not have known this fact. That would absolutely make my month - comedy gold.

Unfortunately, I suspect he's been ranting about something else, but darned if I know what.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
I'm claiming that it gets them 25% of the vote regardless of who their actual candidates are. They could put forth a Mel Gibson - Jonathan Lee Riches ticket and get 25% of the vote on that slogan. Imagine what they could do with more serious candidates: like Stephen Colbert or a race horse?
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Don't get me wrong here, I'd love a feasible 3rd party. I'm just skeptical. I mean, I don't think Ross Perot was that crazy, and he still finished a distant 3rd.
It's fine to claim to be in the middle, but eventually such a party would have to take some sort of position on things.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

unofan said:
On what 50k of income are people magically not paying taxes? And why aren't you or I taking advantage of this wonderful $50,000 in tax free money?
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Read the article...do you own math.

LynahFan said:
Oh, please, please, please, please let 5mn_Major not have known this fact. That would absolutely make my month - comedy gold.
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or try to say something...when you have nothing to say...
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

5mn_Major said:
Read the article...do you own math.
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Obviously I'm not alone here in my confusion. LynahFan, unofan, & Walrus just can't seem to figure this out either. Like Denzel said in the movie "Now, explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old."
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

5mn_Major said:
Read the article...do you own math.
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Not sure which article you're talking about, but if it was that 4-page CBO report that had about 5 paragraphs of text followed by 2 pages of tables, then your interpretation of the data is completely at odds with what was reported. No where does it conclude, report or even imply that people are making money tax free. (EDIT: I should say nowhere does that report state that people in the highest quintile are making money tax free. Actually, it says that people in the bottom 40% are paying negative income taxes, in other words not only are they making it tax free, but the gov't is also paying them to do so through programs like the EITC).

(BTW, you also completely mischaracterize the numbers, and actually do so in a way unfavorable to your own position. But I'm not going further down that road since its effect on the debate at hand is zero.)
 
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Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Here's a simple scenario to explain the effects of marginal rates on overall effective rates:

Suppose in Mr. Rogers' World of Makebelieve, people earn Mythical Dollars (MD). The tax structure is such that for every 1MD earned, the marginal rate goes up by 1%. So a person making 1MD falls in the 1% bracket, a person making 2MD falls in the 2% bracket, and so on until a person making 100MD falls into a 100% bracket.

A person making 1MD has an effective rate of 1%. Pretty obvious
A person making 2 MD has an effective rate of 1.5%. He pays 1% on the first MD earned and 2% on the 2nd MD earned. In total then, he pays 3 mythical cents in tax on 2 MD earned, a rate of 1.5%.
Likewise, a person making 3 MD has an effective rate of 2% (1% on the first MD, 2% on the 2nd, 3% on the third - 6 cents in taxes on 3MD is 2%).

Continuing the trend, a person making 4 MD has an effective rate of 2.5%, and a person making 5 MD has an effective rate of 3%, a person making 10 MD has an effective rate of 5.5%, and so on.

Skipping to the end, a person making 100 MD has an effective tax rate of 50.5%, even though they fall in the 100% tax bracket.

Your argument seems to be that they are making ~ 50 MD tax free since their effective tax rate is equal to the marginal tax rate for someone earning roughly 50-51 MD. But that's not the case.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
I'm claiming that it gets them 25% of the vote regardless of who their actual candidates are. They could put forth a Mel Gibson - Jonathan Lee Riches ticket and get 25% of the vote on that slogan. Imagine what they could do with more serious candidates: like Stephen Colbert or a race horse?
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Or Jesse Ventura:D

If the Center Party polled and found which issues crossed lines then they'd have their platform.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

pirate said:
Or Jesse Ventura :D
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Who was a complete disaster and couldn't get anything done because the House was full of the parties that he crushed in the election.

3rd party is a non-starter for President. If the 3rd party could find a way to get a foothold in Congress and tip the scales to the point where they had a block of 25%+ then one of them taking power in the hot seat might yield some results.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

ScoobyDoo said:
Who was a complete disaster and couldn't get anything done because the House was full of the parties that he crushed in the election.
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Part of Jesse's problem was the he came in when the state had a deep surplus and the economy was pretty solid. He gave away the surplus, and the economy slowed down by his midterm. When he had to make the hard choices of legislating, and actually deal with the legislature, he all but took his ball and went home.

I actually voted for him as a "protest" vote against Coleman and Humphrey(?). I was sitting with friends in Eli's watching the election and as it became apparent Ventura would win, we all drank more because we had all voted for him for the same reasons. :eek: :D I worked at TCF at the time, and the day after the election I thought Bill Cooper (GOP chair at the time) was going to throw himself into Lake Minnetonka.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Angus King did fine as an independent...but it was Maine;)

Bill Bradley considered it briefly but I think it would be a case of having to pile up a few rows of dead bodies before a candidate could make a real charge at winning
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

WeWantMore said:
Don't get me wrong here, I'd love a feasible 3rd party. I'm just skeptical. I mean, I don't think Ross Perot was that crazy, and he still finished a distant 3rd.
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He was pretty crazy, and for a while there, before the whole drop out, re-enter, Bush is bugging my daughter's wedding thing, he was doing well.
 
Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

pirate said:
Angus King did fine as an independent...but it was Maine;)
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Ross Perot did fine in Maine also, I think he got over 20% of the vote, including mine:D . He actually had quite an organization here for awhile.
 
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