Grover Norquist's worst nightmare...

Joe wrote:

LadyJazzer wrote: If that's the best you got, then I'm a happy camper...

Kill the Bush Tax-cuts
Pass the Buffett Rule
Close the loophole that lets Vulture Capitalists like Mitt Romney pay 13.9%; and hedge-fund managers pay capital-gains rates on their income
Kill the subsidies for the Oil Companies
Close unnecessary bases, decrease the military budget
Close the corporate-tax loopholes that let G.E. and others get away with paying NO taxes
Penalize the vultures who send jobs offshore instead of rewarding them with tax loopholes

A few tens-of-billions here, a few tens-of-billions there...Pretty soon it adds up to REAL money...

I think you guys should give LJ a thumbs up for posting what she stands for (for a change).
I don't agree with all of it, but a couple items are ok.
Good post LJ!

Thank you... I had more, but those were the ones that I could think of off the top of my head...

(And by the way, that is not the first time I've published "what I stand for"...)

There are a couple of big problems I see with Obama's Buffett rule tax.

First of all, he has been elusive about it and it's not been specifically described yet. So it's tough to support it or argue against it at this point.

But I'll take it at face value that he will tax everyone making over $1 million at an effective rate of 30%.

The problem is right now the top 1% pay an effective rate of about 20%. So if you are making $999,999.99 your tax bill would run about $200K. With Obama's plan, if you make one penny more, you now owe $300K. That is a very unfair tax.

We currently have tax brakets and at some point if you make one penny more you would go into a higher tax bracket. But only the money you make above that amount would be taxed at the higher rate. All the rest of your money is taxed at the lower bracket rates. Obama's plan taxes everything at 30%.

Clearly everyone making close to $1 million is going to do all they can to avoid making over $1 million to avoid paying an extra $100K in taxes. With those people, Obama's plan will collect less from them than we are getting now.

It's a dumb populist plan which is unfair and makes no sense. If you want to tax the rich more, just raise the current tax bracket rates.

Its a new super AMT on top of an existing broken AMT. Its just stupid patchwork policy, do it right and stop campaigning.

One thing I've always liked to see is for the favored Long term cap gains rate to be longer than 1 year, it used to be 18 months at one time... If you made it 3 years, it would take care of a lot of this perceived unfairness in rates. 1 year is just not "long" term investing.

And current law already has cap gains going up to 20-24% and dividends to up to 43% in 2013. (Due to Obamcare tax and expiration of the Bush/Obama tax cuts for the rich)

The Buffett Rule isn't tax policy it is a campaign issue.

If it punishes the rich, we don't care about the unintended consequences. Watch company cars come back into style and/or condos.
We will pay you $900,000, give you stock options, a Range Rover company car and let you use the company plane on vacations.

Yes I predict if the rule passes- all kinds of evasive tatics will be employed to evade the 30% tax, including having the rich skip on over to some tax haven for their new homes.

But I wanna ask- what makes a tax fair? 1% of the top producers already pay 36.73% of all federal taxes (2009). Is a tax fair because Obama the king says it is? Is paying the same rate across all income levels fair?

Is it fair that 50% of all workers in the USA do not pay any federal taxes? Just what is fair?

Is it fair just because 51% of voters say it's fair?

Here's a question for the women out there- if 51% of your friends vote for you to have sex with some man- is that fair and moral? Would you just shut up and do it- just because your friends vote for you to do it?

Or- is it your own moral choice? HUH?

When government taxes us beyond it's original purpose- it is immoral. Our earnings and hard work belongs to us first- not to the government first. It's the same thing as your friends who want you to have sex with some guy of their choosing- our hard earned money should be ours to keep, with the exception of those few services that the constitution says the government should be doing.

Using government force to tax- is the un-moral thing. Obama saying that we don't pay enough taxes is immoral- being a Socialist is immoral.

It is immoral to spend money we have not earned yet- in the name of "common good". What we earn is ours- it belongs to us and that is morality.

We deserve that choice for ourselves- and we americans deserve not to have our labor stolen and squandered by an immoral government.

Joe wrote: 1 year is just not "long" term investing.

And current law already has cap gains and dividends going up to 20-24% in 2013. (Due to Obamcare tax and expiration of the Bush/Obama tax cuts for the rich)

It depends on how old you are. :Whistle


Are lt cap gains going up on every one or just "the rich"?

The Buffett rule vote failed in the Senate.

Surprise Surprise Surprise! Keep up the good work Congress.

http://lifeisacookie.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/surprise.gif?w=455

Yep..And now they have the voting records of the GOP in the Senate as a campaign issue. Duh!

Another filibuster... Imagine my surprise?!?! :VeryScared:

Schumer vowed to keep bringing the Buffett Rule back until Republicans give in, the way they did on the payroll tax cut fight.

"We'll keep pushing this issue all year long, and we think we'll pick up more and more Republicans," Schumer said.

House Republicans are planning to counter the Buffett Rule push later this week with an attempt to cut taxes. A proposal by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) would cut small business taxes by 20 percent. Since his bill would provide a disproportionately large benefit for the wealthy, it would mark an especially sharp contrast with the Democratic measure.

Jus' keep doin' what yer doin'...

Well a posturing, do-nothing, "kick the can" Congress makes for good political campaigning now, but after November when a lame duck Congress is scrambling to pass tax policy and debt ceilings, and the economy and stock market are caving it won't be so entertaining.

neptunechimney wrote: Are lt cap gains going up on every one or just "the rich"?

I think cap gains go back to 20% for most, and taxes on dividends go to ordinary rates 10-39%, and Obamacare adds another 3-4% to cap gains and dividends on top of that. And then the Buffet rule gets added to all that. Simple really. Did you follow all that, or do you need an accountant?

Yeah, all you millionaires out there, who only rely on capital gains, better start sweating that Buffet rule. Y'all let me know how many of you in 285Bound-Land that actually affects. We wouldn't want you "job-creators" to suffer too much.