[AlabamaBoyz]

Any additional tax revenue won't make a dent in America's financial woes, but it at least satisfies those who despise the rich; hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44563268

[CAxrrAYN]

That most likely won't affect anyone in uniform unless they hit the lottery somewhere.

[viagra-kaufen]

Nothing like a little class warfare to try to get you dismal approval ratings up before you go for reelection. I mean those evil rich only make it possible for people to have jobs and all, guess when I get out, I should start looking into being hired by a guy on street that has nothing but a welfare check.

[dayclaccikere]

I love Conservative logic. Cut welfare, cut social security, cut medicaid, cut medicare... even cut the military, and its all just "making necessary sacrifices". All these cuts affect the blue collar and middle class.

But good God, anyone dares to try and make the rich pay more, and all kinds of holy outrage from the religious right breaks loose.

Nothing like a little class warfare to try to get you dismal approval ratings up before you go for reelection. I mean those evil rich only make it possible for people to have jobs and all,

Ooh class warfare. Wow, you actually admitted class warfare exists?

guess when I get out, I should start looking into being hired by a guy on street that has nothing but a welfare check. You would be surprised what kind of money you can make on the street.

[Hftqdxpm]

I love Conservative logic. Cut welfare, cut social security, cut medicaid, cut medicare... even cut the military, and its all just "making necessary sacrifices". All these cuts affect the blue collar and middle class.

But good God, anyone dares to try and make the rich pay more, and all kinds of holy outrage from the religious right breaks loose.



Ooh class warfare. Wow, you actually admitted class warfare exists?



You would be surprised what kind of money you can make on the street.

Who's left to pay for all the free military and gov. pensions, all the disability and welfare payments, all the free gov housing that all the "victims" turn into ghettos and hell holes? Hope and change!

[Zmniubqr]

I'm not sure what that sentence even means. By "who's left" I'm assuming you mean the rich literally cannot economically survive any kind of tax increase no matter how small.

Not only is that assumption completely ridiculous - if THE RICH cannot afford to pay more, how are the poor and middle class expected to.

What I find truly amazing is how the Right will actually pay more themselves (as most Voters are poor/Middle Class) to prevent the Rich from having to pay more. Actually no, I am completely astonished by this.

That's like a blind mute with no legs sacrificing his kidney to Bill Gates.

[sitescools]

"Victims" turning free govt. housing into hellholes? LOL I love you guys.

[DenisMoor]

Here's a bats**t-crazy thought: Instead of making the rich pay more, why not just make everyone else pay less? Not only would that right the wrong of the rich paying less percentage-wise, but the increase in take-home pay for everyone else would prompt a massive wave of millions of Americans spending more. That alone might not lead to an economic boom (we need a helluva lot more than that) but it would at least stop it from swirling around the toilet, and that's half the battle.

As for the government losing revenue in the short term, well, with 480 agencies and departments, they can definitely pull a few plugs there.

[ultramDoctoo]

Here's a bats**t-crazy thought: Instead of making the rich pay more, why not just make everyone else pay less?

You're right... that is a batshit crazy thought.

Let's cut taxes even more!! And hope the deficit just fixes itself!

Not only would that right the wrong of the rich paying less percentage-wise, but the increase in take-home pay for everyone else would prompt a massive wave of millions of Americans spending more. That alone might not lead to an economic boom (we need a helluva lot more than that) but it would at least stop it from swirling around the toilet, and that's half the battle. Because only a small fraction of that money would actually make it back into the Federal coffers to pay off the deficit. Even if people just went out and spent all their tax refunds on luxury items (which people DON'T, during a recession) - so some company in Taiwan sells more televisions. How does that help us? Oh that's right, it doesn't.

Oh look, sales tax. Yippee. Give Bill Gates a hundred dollars, the government gets about $8 back. What a deal!

As for the government losing revenue in the short term, well, with 480 agencies and departments, they can definitely pull a few plugs there. Oh yes, indeed. Perhaps the kids in the child nutrition programs could go hungry a couple days. Or maybe the Marines in Marjeh could go a couple days without bullets. Or maybe we could turn off the lights in the Post Office.

God forbid we expect rich people to pay a little more. That's the devil's work!

[alex_loudermilk]

do you really believe the shit you type?

[Kennypor]

<font color="#222222">Not only does he evidently believe the shit he types, he seems extremely passionate about the shit he types. To be honest, I was just thinking out loud as I typed my suggestion. I know it's not perfect, and because I wasn't totally clear about what I was saying, Joe made some erroneous assumptions which are partially my fault. I wasn't implying that kids should starve and that Marines should go unarmed, I was thinking more along the lines of mothballing some art galleries or something. Again, just thinking out loud.

Our economic mess is multi-faceted (deficit, taxes, gov't spending, consumer spending, jobs, etc etc etc) and I was addressing primarily the consumer spending part of it. Why? Well, I'm just a consumer I guess. Looking at astronomically huge and expansive problems from an intimately personal perspective isn't the only way I look at things, it's just one way. Anyhow, I'll switch gears.

Making the rich pay more may make people like Joe feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but even if we taxed them at say, 35%, it would do precisely jackshit towards stomping out our deficit. The Buffett Tax isn't a financial tool to help fix the problem; Obama may wholeheartedly believe it is (or not, I don't know what he's thinking), but it reeks of class warfare and it strikes me as merely an empty gesture of political will, nothing more and nothing less. Hell even if we taxed the rich at 100% (purely hypothetical, but bear with me here), it would make nary a dent in the deficit.

"Whatchoo talkin' bout, Mista D?" Well let's crunch some numbers, and see wtf I'm talking about.

Wage Statistics for 2009

Add up the total personal income of everyone earning $1 million and more and that comes out to almost $184 billion. Tax it 100% like I said earlier, take every last penny that millionaires and billionaires earn, and what would you have? As for the nations current financial position, consider the following:

US Tax Revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal Budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New National Debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National Debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent Budget Cuts: $38,500,000,000

But that's hard to relate to the average American, there's too many zeros. To make it easier, let's remove 8 zeros and pretend it's our family budget:

Annual Family Income: $21,700
Money the Family Spent: $38,200
New Debt on the Credit Cards: $16,500
Outstanding Balance on the Credit Cards: $142,710
Total Budget Cuts: $385 (Golly gee willikers, they worked really hard to cut those expenses!)

But now let's add $184 billion and see how much it really helps when we take off 8 zeros for the family budget. That gives us an additional $1,840 in annual income. How does that extra money change our family budget sheet?

Annual Family Income: $23,540
Money the Family Spent: $38,200
New Debt on the Credit Cards: $14,660
Outstanding Balance on the Credit Cards: $140,870
Total Budget Cuts: $385

$184 billion? With a $3.82 trillion budget that's enough money to keep the federal government going for 18 whole days, but that is only if you take ALL OF IT! Yeah, that really helped a heck of a lot, we finally got the rich to pay up at 100% tax rates and everyone can see our problems will finally be solved! Uh huh. Like I said before: Class warfare, plain and straight up. This will appeal to the

[WeissVine]

I agree with the President's proposal, Let's return the tax rate for top earners back to what it was in the 1990's when the economy was booming. It is unjust and cruel to continue to push the burden of paying down the national debt on the poor and middle class through more cuts to benefits while continuing the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. Call this 'class warfare' all you want, but the only class warfare is the war the rich have against the poor. The republican party has somehow convinced ordinary Americans to cut out their own flesh to keep the rich well fed.

[gastabegree]

Do you?

Surplus? CUT TAXES! Recession? CUT TAXES! Economy stays the same? CUT TAXES! This isn't economics, this is a religion.

[colmedindustry]

Nothing like a little class warfare to try to get you dismal approval ratings up before you go for reelection. I mean those evil rich only make it possible for people to have jobs and all, guess when I get out, I should start looking into being hired by a guy on street that has nothing but a welfare check.

But Obama said it is simply math not class warfare

[rionetrozasa]

Not only does he evidently believe the shit he types, he seems extremely passionate about the shit he types.

<font color="#222222">

You say that like its a bad thing. :P

To be honest, I was just thinking out loud as I typed my suggestion. I know it's not perfect, and because I wasn't totally clear about what I was saying, Joe made some erroneous assumptions which are partially my fault. I wasn't implying that kids should starve and that Marines should go unarmed, I was thinking more along the lines of mothballing some art galleries or something. Again, just thinking out loud. Well actually that was sarcasm -- but in all seriousness, what are we going to cut? The vast, vast majority of government spending goes to Social Security, Medicare/aid, and the military. Who are we going to cut? The elderly, the poor, or the troops holding back the terrorist hordes?

Our economic mess is multi-faceted (deficit, taxes, gov't spending, consumer spending, jobs, etc etc etc) and I was addressing primarily the consumer spending part of it. Why? Well, I'm just a consumer I guess. Looking at astronomically huge and expansive problems from an intimately personal perspective isn't the only way I look at things, it's just one way. Anyhow, I'll switch gears.

Making the rich pay more may make people like Joe feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but even if we taxed them at say, 35%, it would do precisely jackshit towards stomping out our deficit. The Buffett Tax isn't a financial tool to help fix the problem; Obama may wholeheartedly believe it is (or not, I don't know what he's thinking), but it reeks of class warfare and it strikes me as merely an empty gesture of political will, nothing more and nothing less. Hell even if we taxed the rich at 100% (purely hypothetical, but bear with me here), it would make nary a dent in the deficit. While this is true, raising taxes isn't going to magically fix the deficit - why NOT increase revenue? At least with wracking up taxes within reason, we're not damaging ourselves, as making cuts WILL disrupt the economy and make the recession worse.

"Whatchoo talkin' bout, Mista D?" Well let's crunch some numbers, and see wtf I'm talking about.

Wage Statistics for 2009

Add up the total personal income of everyone earning $1 million and more and that comes out to almost $184 billion. Tax it 100% like I said earlier, take every last penny that millionaires and billionaires earn, and what would you have? As for the nations current financial position, consider the following:

US Tax Revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal Budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New National Debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National Debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent Budget Cuts: $38,500,000,000

But that's hard to relate to the average American, there's too many zeros. To make it easier, let's remove 8 zeros and pretend it's our family budget:

Annual Family Income: $21,700
Money the Family Spent: $38,200
New Debt on the Credit Cards: $16,500
Outstanding Balance on the Credit Cards: $142,710
Total Budget Cuts: $385 (Golly gee willikers, they worked really hard to cut those expenses!)

But now let's add $184 billion and see how much it really helps when we take off 8 zeros for the family budget. That gives us an additional $1,840 in annual income. How does that extra money change our family budget sheet?

Annual Family Income: $23,540
Money the Family Spent: $38,200
New Debt on the Credit Cards: $14,660
Outstanding Balance on the Credit Cards: $140,870
Total Budget Cuts: $385

$184 billion? With a $3.82 trillion budget that's enough money to keep the federal government going for 18 whole days, but that is only if you take ALL OF IT! Yeah, that really helped a heck of a lot, we finally got the rich to pay up at 100% tax rates and everyone can see our problems will finally be solved! Uh huh. Like I said before: Class warfare, plain and straight up. This will appeal to the

[casinobonbiner]

But on that note, the majority of a wealthy person's income is not coming from wages - but from capital gain. Whats the tax rate for capital gain? 15%. You can thank Reagan/Bush for that brainchild.

Latest extension was signed by President Obama but that is still missing the point.

I don't think Buffet's editorial was intended to create a special tax on the rich but merely get rid of the special treatment of the income tax on capital gains. Put it back into the hopper with all other types of income and apply the sliding scale tax rate to the adjusted gross income just like the rest of us slobs have to do.

It doesn't matter what impact that has on the deficit (although it surely won't be a negative impact). It is just the right thing to do.

[markkisil]

Latest extension was signed by President Obama but that is still missing the point.

As I've said before, Obama is Bush III.
I don't think Buffet's editorial was intended to create a special tax on the rich but merely get rid of the special treatment of the income tax on capital gains. Put it back into the hopper with all other types of income and apply the sliding scale tax rate to the adjusted gross income just like the rest of us slobs have to do.

It doesn't matter what impact that has on the deficit (although it surely won't be a negative impact). It is just the right thing to do. What makes all this even funnier, is Obama's tax really doesn't do a whole lot - it creates what is basically a flat minimum tax rate on the rich, so they at least pay the same as the middle class - but of course Conservatives are still outraged.

HOW DARE WE TAX THE RICH AND POOR THE SAME?! THE RICH SHOULD PAY LESS!

[gopsbousperie]

As I've said before, Obama is Bush III.


What makes all this even funnier, is Obama's tax really doesn't do a whole lot - it creates what is basically a flat minimum tax rate on the rich, so they at least pay the same as the middle class - but of course Conservatives are still outraged.

HOW DARE WE TAX THE RICH AND POOR THE SAME?! THE RICH SHOULD PAY LESS!

I think you will find that both sides of the aisle are pissed over this one. It is an obvious political cookie. Once again the appearance is being held above the results...............

[Azzi_Kahlila]

Not so much appearance. Obama just doesn't have the balls to stand up to lunatics.

Ask him how old the earth is he'd probably say 6 thousand years just so the Christians wouldn't be angry with him.

[EzequielTMann]

As I've said before, Obama is Bush III.


What makes all this even funnier, is Obama's tax really doesn't do a whole lot - it creates what is basically a flat minimum tax rate on the rich, so they at least pay the same as the middle class - but of course Conservatives are still outraged.

HOW DARE WE TAX THE RICH AND POOR THE SAME?! THE RICH SHOULD PAY LESS!

The top 1% of paid 38% of all tax revenue in 2008 according to the IRS. Bottom 40%--nothing. How much more do they need to be taxed. It is easy to say "tax the rich" but they are already paying the majority of taxes that are collected. We should tax them the same...the so called poor pay NOTHING.