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

[Tundra]

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

Note that 1/50 of households in this country are paying nearly half of the income taxes... which is still pretty far out of wack even when you account for the portion of the country's income they are earning (1/4).

So think about why 2% of the households pay 60% of the federal taxes while making only 25% of total income.

the other 98% of the population is earning 75% of the income. and paying only 40% of the federal taxes. And the bottom 50% earns xx% of income but pay 1% of the (40%) federal taxes.

So get rid of the deductions and tax credits.

 

[Bob Gray]

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

Not anymore

Doesn't matter. All the talk of Social Security being set aside or whatever is mere smoke and mirrors. It's all federal dollars, and it's all spent, and then some. For there to be some meaningful separation, the federal government would need at least minimal control over itself, its accounting, and its spending, none of which we're likely to see. Congress will never stop tapping Social Security to help make things look better on the surface. Sure, at the end of the day, as with most everything the feds are doing, Social Security financial troubles will get more and more serious as the Boomers want to cash in, but if the money aint there, it aint there, and we can only borrow to paper it over for so long.

 

[Bob Gray]

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

So think about why 2% of the households pay 60% of the federal taxes while making only 25% of total income.

the other 98% of the population is earning 75% of the income. and paying only 40% of the federal taxes. And the bottom 50% earns xx% of income but pay 1% of the (40%) federal taxes.

So get rid of the deductions and tax credits.

The big chunk of lower income folks paying no taxes and even getting money back in some ways is another part of why spending is so out of control. If you never had to pay a dime into a system, wouldn't you want that system to just hand you more and more goodies all the time, for free (assuming you don't give a hoot about the long term future of this nation, which is a safe assumption the way we conduct ourselves)? Pretty much everyone should have at least a minor tax liability, so they have at least a little skin in the game.

 

[Kepler]

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

So think about why 2% of the households pay 60% of the federal taxes while making only 25% of total income.

the other 98% of the population is earning 75% of the income. and paying only 40% of the federal taxes. And the bottom 50% earns xx% of income but pay 1% of the (40%) federal taxes.

So get rid of the deductions and tax credits.

We've been told since 1980 that taxes are the devil that will destroy the middle class, so we can't raise taxes on the middle class. In fact, we're calling the bluff, and will decrease taxes on the middle class further. While it's unfortunate that the revenue has to come from anyone, our only choice is to collect it from those who can afford it.

We would have loved to help. Too bad about that last 30 years of insane GOP posturing.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

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

The big chunk of lower income folks paying no taxes and even getting money back in some ways is another part of why spending is so out of control. If you never had to pay a dime into a system, wouldn't you want that system to just hand you more and more goodies all the time, for free (assuming you don't give a hoot about the long term future of this nation, which is a safe assumption the way we conduct ourselves)? Pretty much everyone should have at least a minor tax liability, so they have at least a little skin in the game.

Everyone who works legally has a tax liability.

 

[Bob Gray]

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

Really, it's only reasonable for the highest handful of percents to pay more and more of a share of taxes, because they have a higher and higher percentage of the income. There isn't nearly the middle class in this country there used to be, with more people sliding toward high middle class/wealthy or low middle class/poor.

 

[Kepler]

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

Really, it's only reasonable for the highest handful of percents to pay more and more of a share of taxes, because they have a higher and higher percentage of the income. There isn't nearly the middle class in this country there used to be, with more people sliding toward high middle class/wealthy or low middle class/poor.

You know which side of that slide gets more, though.

A steep progressive income tax, high estate tax, and programs like the GI Bill are how we fixed this during America's economic boom years. We can restore the middle class if we can ever break the stranglehold that legalized bribery has on the political process.

Until we do that, people and companies will simply continue to spend millions to tax evade by billions. If I were them, I would too. In fact, I'm becoming them, so my days as a liberal are probably numbered.

 

[Bob Gray]

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

You know which side of that slide gets more, though.

A steep progressive income tax, high estate tax, and programs like the GI Bill are how we fixed this during America's economic boom years. We can restore the middle class if we can ever break the stranglehold that legalized bribery has on the political process.

Until we do that, people and companies will simply continue to spend millions to tax evade by billions. If I were them, I would too. In fact, I'm becoming them, so my days as a liberal are probably numbered.

The biggest problem in restoring the middle class is that we're gradually losing the middle class-type jobs in this country. You can fiddle with taxes until you're blue in the face, but if people don't have decent jobs, it won't matter much to them. And given the world and domestic economic situation, I'm not sure how we retain and increase middle class-type jobs.

 

[Bill]

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

We've been told since 1980 that taxes are the devil that will destroy the middle class, so we can't raise taxes on the middle class. In fact, we're calling the bluff, and will decrease taxes on the middle class further. While it's unfortunate that the revenue has to come from anyone, our only choice is to collect it from those who can afford it.

Or we could implement a Flat Tax or a Fair Tax and have everyone contribute equally.

 

[Red Cloud]

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

Or we could implement a Flat Tax or a Fair Tax and have everyone contribute equally.

That's racist.

 

[pirate]

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

Everyone who works legally has a tax liability.

and they get it back and then some...we've been down this path a half dozen times...40+% of the taxpayers get back what they paid in, or more

 

[Bakunin]

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

Tundra - as long as the current tax code remains in place, it'll be extremely difficult to eliminate deductions and credits. Anyone who suggests dumping the child credit would be called "anti-family". Anyone who says mortgage interest shouldn't be deductible will be accused of wanting homes to be less affordable. You could come up with any number of attacks for eliminating all the other credits and deductions.

It's probably easier to just dump the system and replace it with a flat tax or sales tax than it is to go line by line eliminating credits and deductions.

 

[Patman]

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

It's probably easier to just dump the system and replace it with a flat tax or sales tax than it is to go line by line eliminating credits and deductions.

you see, I'd agree with you... but that's also the argument for universal healthcare.

 

[St. Clown]

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

you see, I'd agree with you... but that's also the argument for universal healthcare.

Since I'm not going to read through here, I'll assume people at least mentioned the 75,000-90,000 leaked documents (I've seen both numbers, though mostly the 90k), I just thought it would be good to get the Atlantic's take on this: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/the-most-revealing-wookieleaks/60583/

 

[SteveP]

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

Despite the effort of the MoveOn folks, Major Garrett now has a front row seat in the WH briefing room:

The board of the White House Correspondents Assocation (WHCA) has decided to move the Associated Press to the frontrow center seat in the White House briefing room. It gets the seat that had been held by UPI's Helen Thomas, whoretired after her remarks suggesting Jews get out of Palestine were roundly criticized.

Fox, will move up from the second row to AP's front row seat, and NPR will move to Fox's second-row seat next to Bloomberg.

"It was a very difficult decision," said the the association in a statement.

The board further agreed to move Fox News to the front row seat previously occupied by AP, and relocate NPR into thesecond row seat previously held by Fox, next to Bloomberg News. "The board received requests from Bloomberg and NPRin addition to Fox for relocation to the front row and felt all three made compelling cases."

Moveon.org was circulating a petition (http://pol.moveon.org/nprvsfox/?id=22165-14413344-u_r5Rdx&t=3 ) over the weekend to try and get the White House Correspondents Association to give Helen Thomas' front row center seat at White House briefings to NPR. But as important to the group is that it not go to Fox.

 

[WeWantMore]

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

Despite the effort of the MoveOn folks, Major Garrett now has a front row seat in the WH briefing room:

I don't think the decision was as "difficult" as they made it sound. Was unanimous according to reports I've seen.

 

[pirate]

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

Heard on the radio the other day but haven't been able to confirm, 1 out of 2 new doctors in the US is not originally from the US. I can't say what ratio of technology professionals is but from experience it might be 1 out of 4 (or worse) are from the US.

I would suggest our schools be repositioned to teach a greater percentage of technical skills and change the focus of all vo-tech schools to weight more heavily towards computer technology. I would add a technical segment of the SAT's testing knowledge of code development and data structures and require that all GED's include technical sections.

I understand that not everybody can develop code or build servers but there are plenty of jobs in the technical arena...I'd be ok with the government subsidizing help desk companies to on-shore those jobs and subsidizing technical companies who train XX volume of code developers etc.

 

[Bob Gray]

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

Heard on the radio the other day but haven't been able to confirm, 1 out of 2 new doctors in the US is not originally from the US. I can't say what ratio of technology professionals is but from experience it might be 1 out of 4 (or worse) are from the US.

I would suggest our schools be repositioned to teach a greater percentage of technical skills and change the focus of all vo-tech schools to weight more heavily towards computer technology. I would add a technical segment of the SAT's testing knowledge of code development and data structures and require that all GED's include technical sections.

I understand that not everybody can develop code or build servers but there are plenty of jobs in the technical arena...I'd be ok with the government subsidizing help desk companies to on-shore those jobs and subsidizing technical companies who train XX volume of code developers etc.

I think the fundamental problem is that few kids in the U.S. are interested in going into those fields, even if there's good money to be made there. Those fields are viewed as too hard.

 

[Tundra]

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

Heard on the radio the other day but haven't been able to confirm, 1 out of 2 new doctors in the US is not originally from the US. I can't say what ratio of technology professionals is but from experience it might be 1 out of 4 (or worse) are from the US.

.

I think that's from the 1990 immigration laws allowing h1 visa for doctors.

http://shusterman.com/physiciansimmigrationguide.html

The Immigration Act of 1990 comprehensively revised the H-1B category. In doing so, the section barring physicians from utilizing this category in order to treat patients was omitted, perhaps inadvertently.

Prior to its effective date of the 1990 law, the Senate passed an amendment to the law which reimposed the bar. However, the House of Representatives, heeding the pleas of small town and rural hospitals urgently in need of physicians, refused to go along with the Senate. Instead, an amended law was passed which allowed certain foreign-born physicians to obtain H-1B status in order to render patient care.

This compromise legislation, which was contained within the Miscellaneous Technical Immigration and Naturalization Amendments of 1991 (MTINA), allows physicians to obtain H-1B status by the following two methods:

short on doctors since 1960? article from Times.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895084,00.html

Medicine: Plight of Foreign Doctors
Monday, Dec. 05, 1960

Medical Mecca. The qualifying examinations had their origin in the postwar emergence of the U.S. as the world's medical mecca. Foreign physicians wanted to study in the U.S.—just as U.S. doctors, before World War II, wanted to study in Germany. In theory, hiring foreign doctors for U.S. hospitals is mutually advantageous: the hospitals flesh out their staffs to adequate size; foreign physicians add to their medical skills and go back to improve medical care in their native lands. The program won the support of both the U.S. and foreign governments.

But there have been many difficulties. Some of the poorer hospitals exploit the visiting doctors as semi-slave labor, e.g., to replace orderlies; and they offer the foreigners little professional training. Thus treated, the foreign doctor is often a liability to patients in his care.

In 1957, the A.M.A., together with the American Hospital Association, Association of American Medical Colleges and Federation of State Medical Boards, created the Educational Council for Foreign Medical Graduates. Its job: to set standards for foreign-trained doctors, administer qualifying tests. To win permission to work in a U.S. hospital, a candidate must score 75% or better on the Educational Council exam. If he scores 70% to 74%, he can stay in the U.S., bone up to take the exams again

 

[Tundra]

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

It's probably easier to just dump the system and replace it with a flat tax or sales tax than it is to go line by line eliminating credits and deductions.

Sounds like some people have a problem with people paying no taxes (unemployed, underemployed, seasonal workers, part-time, deductions etc..). the best way would be national sales tax or VAT, when everyone will be taxed, even the homeless.