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Delta-Wye posted:You guys are really railing this guy over his 50% tax quote, but that number doesn't seem far off to me. Federal income tax comes out much lower (30-35% maybe?), but you start adding state income, sales tax, property tax, and all of the nickel and dime taxes (telecom, gas, hotels, etc) 50% sounds like a decent round number to toss out. It certainly doesn't sound all that outrageous to me, and not enough info to assume the guy is retarded and literally doesn't understand taxes. I think most people are talking about the girl in the anecdotal story turning down a raise because of tax brackets.
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Mar 12, 2015 20:49
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Delta-Wye posted:but you start adding state income, sales tax, property tax All deductible. So no. It's not accurate. And 30-35% for federal? No. That's the higher brackets. Most people's effective federal income tax rate is around 25% or less. Higher than Mitt Romney's effective rate. But not 35%. If you want to use 33% as your short hand, that's fine. But 50% means you're an idiot. Look Sir Droids fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Mar 12, 2015 |
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Mar 12, 2015 20:51
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No one is getting taxed 50% in this country, especially no one wealthy. If anyone is getting taxed half it's the working poor.
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Mar 12, 2015 20:58
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:A lot of the beltway VSPs were also saying it, since Ryan was (and for a lot of them still is) their conservative darling and was just young and dashing, whereas Biden's a buffoon, even if he was right. Here's The Wrongest Man Alive to weigh in on the matter specifically http://www.dickmorris.com/romney-obama-and-biden-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
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Mar 12, 2015 21:01
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Delta-Wye posted:You guys are really railing this guy over his 50% tax quote, but that number doesn't seem far off to me. Federal income tax comes out much lower (30-35% maybe?), but you start adding state income, sales tax, property tax, and all of the nickel and dime taxes (telecom, gas, hotels, etc) 50% sounds like a decent round number to toss out. It certainly doesn't sound all that outrageous to me, and not enough info to assume the guy is retarded and literally doesn't understand taxes. All state and local taxes combined for an average household of New York state, that is including income, sales, property etc, tops out at 12.6%. That's by far the highest average of all states, and includes the fact that proportionately NY residents are a good deal wealthier than the average American. The average household across the country pays about 18% of their income in all federal taxes. So no, If you're an average person than your total state, local, and federal taxes will be about 30.6% at most. And only the top 10 states have average state+local tax burdens over 10%, most states are around 9% and the lowest is Wyoming at 6%. You have make a pretty hefty chunk of change, and own a lot of property to get your total tax burden over 50% in America. Like making millions in straight up income, owning possibly billions of dollars of real estate personally, all that. (I got all this info from taxfoundation reports)
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Mar 12, 2015 21:03
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Look Sir Droids posted:Ben Carson. The man is one of those people who made it and started buying into their own bullshit so hard that they actually started to believe it. Back when I was in high school my school had a "Carson reading room" that was a quiet space you could go to read during lunch/free periods, I would often use it to study and read political theory, so I thought Carson was a pretty bang up guy till I actually met him. TEAYCHES posted:Jeb's email open house bonanza was possibly even more retarded, but I am mostly railing against progressives who are going to attempt to defend Clinton for something indefensible. Progressives who care more that the government is reading their emails than that the Republicans want to get rid of the Civil Rights act are insane/stupid. I won't defend Clinton, but I could not give less of a poo poo about it compared to the issues the country is currently facing. Clinton would be more progressive than Obama just by the fact she has more experience in getting things done and her tolerance for right wing lunacy is quite small.
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Mar 12, 2015 21:03
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Venom Snake posted:The man is one of those people who made it and started buying into their own bullshit so hard that they actually started to believe it. Please share more! We've had some interesting experiences with Carson in Detroit.
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Mar 12, 2015 21:15
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AsInHowe posted:Please share more! We've had some interesting experiences with Carson in Detroit. Well my school was a majority minority school (45% white) but still extremely well funded because Alexandria has a large amount of funding (especially since T.C. Williams is the only public high school in the City of Alexandria!), so we had a Carson reading room that a picture of Carson in surgeon scrubs with a inspirational quote about reading under it. I had read about Carson and thought he was a pretty cool guy for encouraging people to read more and whatnot, but shortly after his pray breakfast melt down my enthusiasm for the man died off pretty hard. He then came to to the school and met with kids that spend the most time in the room, discussing with each kid what subject they liked to read the most about (We had to register what we were reading when you came into the room and signed in). Me being the goony goon I am, I had "political theory" under my subject, and he made the funniest face when I told him the book I was currently reading was Das Kapital. He then asked what was the last book I had read, his face becoming even more confused when I said "Memories of Lenin by Nadezhda Krupskaya". What followed was a gentle if stern lecture of the dangers of leftism and how it would be incompatible with my career later in life. I think the most confusing part of it for him was I was wearing my JROTC uniform at the time.
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Mar 12, 2015 21:35
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Pragmatica posted:CPAC Straw Poll in super small town Boone, IA this year, instead of Ames. gently caress my life. I wonder if it will coincide with Pufferbilly Days?
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Mar 12, 2015 21:55
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The best way to find out how low taxes really are is to do them, personally. For most people this isn't very complicated. It's most complicated if you're rich enough to have a proper tax lawyer instead of H&R block. I'm a DINK household in the top quintile of earners and our effective tax rate was something like 12% in 2013 IIRC, and it would be even lower if we'd bought some overly expensive house because housing deductions basically subsidize the real estate market.
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Mar 12, 2015 21:55
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People talking about taxes also usually lump Social Security into their "taxes" because they don't think of it as a program they'll receive payments on later. (Some of which is assumptions that an insolvent government will never actually pay you out Social Security, some of which is just being pedantic about SS being a Ponzi scheme so the payment pays other people.) Having said that, I make well above the median income for my state and even with SS and Medicare included, my net pay is still over 50% of my gross, so either he's stupid, exaggerating for effect, or is making mid-6 figures.
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Mar 12, 2015 21:59
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Chalets the Baka posted:There are holocaust deniers with PhDs. Having an education does not mean you're not stupid. Look at the European Union: it has 200 million more people than the United States, yet those member countries largely have better infrastructure, much higher union membership, universal healthcare, education, and robust worker's and women's rights compared to the United States. That's a failure of the US government, and a failure of the US people. The fact that Americans largely don't even understand how they're even taxed or where it goes is just evidence of that. Well, I think there's a pretty easy solution to the mystery; the country doesn't function. There was some really good discussion over in UsPol about how the Constitution has been sufficiently resilient to withstand three major shifts in governance. I think that we can see the most recent one now; namely, the privatized state. We've seen some poo poo before, but there has never been a time that compares to this last 35 years for the sheer intensity of defunding, breaking up, or selling off perfectly functional public services. In truth, it's hard to think of an area of governance outside of the core administration that doesn't contract out their work to private industry. From prisons to schools to infrastructure to finance to even regulatory agencies, it's all contract work. In theory, the government should at least play the role of referee, making sure that contracts are fulfilled to standards of public safety, but a few million in lobbying here and there, and Johnson and Johnson are out there selling baby Tylenol that they know has metal in it. Meanwhile, Buckeye Lake in Ohio is about to go Katrina, and the only answer is to drain the fucker. See, once the profit is sucked out of these things, private industry has no reason whatsoever to improve their function at the cost of a lower quarterly earnings report. So the answer is that the country DOESN'T FUNCTION. I mean, we've got a lot of businesses making product, but we have governments on the federal, state, and local level that are all bankrupt, run by people who say government doesn't work, and are doing the opposite of getting things done, eg Rick and Jeb and the magical Florida Light Rail system. I don't know how we can look at a Congress like our last one and talk about things functioning. We've got a Supreme Court scratching out parts of the voting rights act and Southern states immediately heading for voter suppression mechanisms. gently caress, we have the F-35. I mean, I know the streetlights are still on, and the IRS still collects taxes, but I think this just covers up the ugly truth that nobody wants to admit. I think that one of the major foundational purposes of a government is to achieve society-wide advances that smaller groupings of people simply can't pull off on their own. By this measure of judgment, our government is non-functional because of a 35 year old, novel, and dangerous idea that we should trust profit-seeking individuals to best serve the public good. Every one of those public goods you pointed out for the EU are governmental achievements. The people united, and helped each other. We know very well what's happening in America now: we'd much rather defeat our opponent and win for our side than consider the public good, and that's the straightest path to a non-functioning government.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:20
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If you're making enough money that on a valid rough guess you should be paying about 50% in taxes and you pay 50%, you're doing your taxes wrong.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:25
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Good work Jebquote:Prominent evangelical attorney Jordan Sekulow announced that he had signed on as senior adviser to Bush’s Right to Rise political action committee. Sekulow, the 32-year-old executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), is notorious within LGBT advocacy circles for his support of anti-gay legislation abroad, particularly in Africa, where he has worked to keep homosexuality a criminal offense.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:28
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:Good work Jeb Wikipedia posted:During President George W. Bush's 2004 Campaign, Sekulow served as the National Youth Coalition Director for the Bush-Cheney Campaign. In the 2008 Presidential Republican Primaries, Sekulow worked for Mitt Romney, serving as a Vice-Chair of his National Faith And Values Steering Committee.[
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Mar 12, 2015 22:32
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Right to Rise still sounds really off to me. Even when I'm trying to block out my own bias. Especially for someone who probably wants to shake off an air of entitlement to the presidency. Even in my most rosy view it still brings up connotations of the last Batman movie.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:39
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Quidam Viator posted:So the answer is that the country DOESN'T FUNCTION. Agreed. I don't know how long the US can sustain what it's doing. As long as conservative/neo-liberal policy remains the norm, it's only going to get worse. The US is already decades behind in terms of social freedoms, and economic inequality is accelerating. The future doesn't look good, and if there's a Republican in the White House in 2016, I'd say that's game over.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:43
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Eschers Basement posted:People talking about taxes also usually lump Social Security into their "taxes" because they don't think of it as a program they'll receive payments on later. (Some of which is assumptions that an insolvent government will never actually pay you out Social Security, some of which is just being pedantic about SS being a Ponzi scheme so the payment pays other people.) I just did the math and the difference between net and gross pay thanks to the federal government's various taxes and withholdings is well over 30%. Add in state taxes and other stuff, and the number seems reasonable even if he is exaggerating for effect. Hell, I looked it up and a reasonable house (very small, etc) has property tax in the ballpark of 5%, for instance. I guess it's time for me to find some loopholes 
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Mar 12, 2015 22:48
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Again, state tax and property taxes are deductible. 50% is not a reasonable exaggeration of 35%. It's 30% off the mark. quote:I just did the math and the difference between net and gross pay thanks to the federal government's various taxes and withholdings is well over 30%. Somebody needs to make some changes on their W-2. If you get a sizeable tax return every year, you don't have to let so much get withheld. What's pulled out of your paycheck isn't what you actually owe in taxes.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:53
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Intel&Sebastian posted:Right to Rise still sounds really off to me. Even when I'm trying to block out my own bias. Especially for someone who probably wants to shake off an air of entitlement to the presidency. Righttorise posted:
Those rich are making out like bandits! So vote Republican, that'll show 'em!
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Mar 12, 2015 22:59
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Look Sir Droids posted:Again, state tax and property taxes are deductible. 50% is not a reasonable exaggeration of 35%. It's 30% off the mark. Being 'deductible' just means you get the federal taxes you would have paid on that amount back. Is 15% (?) back on your local taxes really enough to make up the difference?
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Mar 12, 2015 23:58
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Deptfordx posted:Is this some wierd American thing, not understanding graduated taxation that is. I've heard accounts of people saying this sort of thing in America here and in other sites on numerous occasions. Michael Caine believes this! So, you know, have fun with that. Edit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/5219642/Sir-Michael-Caine-warns-further-tax-rises-will-force-him-to-move-abroad.html
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Mar 13, 2015 00:38
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Chadderbox posted:There are 300+ million of us. You're displaying some of your own bias/ignorance in lumping us all together. If Americans are all as stupid as you say then why do so many people from around the world want to come here to study at our universities? You have better weed than most of europe.
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Mar 13, 2015 00:47
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Delta-Wye posted:Being 'deductible' just means you get the federal taxes you would have paid on that amount back. Is 15% (?) back on your local taxes really enough to make up the difference? Wait, according to your reasonable exaggerations you get about 50% back. What's this 15% business? Which is it? You can't have it both ways.
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Mar 13, 2015 00:49
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Yessss, let it come out. If you have hate in your heart let it out.
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Mar 13, 2015 01:27
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Given the current state of the primary, how many Democratic primary debates do you think will be held and when will the first one be scheduled? I'm guessing only two or three and we'll get one in September, and one between Thanksgiving and Iowa, with a post-Iowa debate scheduled that won't end up happening. Most of that depends on O'Malley sticking around until Iowa.
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Mar 13, 2015 02:09
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Joementum posted:Given the current state of the primary, how many Democratic primary debates do you think will be held and when will the first one be scheduled? Good god, that's a low guess. I was going to say eight for the entire primary, agreeing with starting in September.
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Mar 13, 2015 02:26
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Aliquid posted:Good god, that's a low guess. I was going to say eight for the entire primary, agreeing with starting in September. How can you justify 8 debates when it's 1 candidate, 1 angry uncle making a point, and a couple jokes with less of a chance than the Socialist Super For Real Communist Party of getting elected?
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Mar 13, 2015 02:41
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So, can I tap into the Joementum knowledge and everyone else? How weird is this primary situation for the Democrats? We're talking about a two-term Democratic president, whose VP is likely not going to run, and essentially ONE viable candidate scaring everyone else off the field. Is there any precedent for something like this? It really does feel like Hillary and everyone else just wants the primary thing to be a fait accompli.
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Mar 13, 2015 02:43
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The term that's being widely used is "coronation" and it's accurate.
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Mar 13, 2015 02:47
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There are a Governor, former Senator and sitting Senator also running, it'd hardly undemocratic that nobody wants to vote for them.
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Mar 13, 2015 02:55
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Quidam Viator posted:So, can I tap into the Joementum knowledge and everyone else? How weird is this primary situation for the Democrats? It's only strange because the post-68 primary reform has offered very few similar opportunities for Democrats. True, the presumptive nominee isn't the VP, but she's the very-very-near runner-up from the last primary and the current VP is four years older than her and a twice-already failed Presidential candidate. She was also Secretary of State since her last primary run and in the top three best known Democrats, with the other two being ineligible to run. More to the point, this really isn't a coronation: she worked to create this situation, through her Senate position, her 2008 run, and her stint as SoS. Take out any one of those thing she actually worked at doing and she's not even close to the position she's at right now in the party. The closest comparison to this in the Democratic party would be RFK's 1968 run, which he'd have won easily, but that's obviously (and hopefuly) a lot different than Hillary's situation now.
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Mar 13, 2015 02:59
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TEAYCHES posted:The term that's being widely used is "coronation" and it's accurate. Anyone who wants can challenge her and see if the base likes them more. Its her fault no-one thinks they'd be more popular and doesn't want to waste their time?
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Mar 13, 2015 03:10
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But who would the base rally around? Warren? If so, how long would it be before the whole "electability" thing drags the party back towards Clinton?
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Mar 13, 2015 03:16
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Fulchrum posted:Anyone who wants can challenge her and see if the base likes them more. Its her fault no-one thinks they'd be more popular and doesn't want to waste their time? The best person the Democratic Party could nominate for the presidency is the wife of a previous president. Here's hoping the Republicans nominate the brother of a previous president, who was the son of a previous president. Welcome to unashamed oligarchy.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:18
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TEAYCHES posted:The best person the Democratic Party could nominate for the presidency is the wife of a previous president. Here's hoping the Republicans nominate the brother of a previous president, who was the son of a previous president. So we should ignore the most qualified candidate, based on who they are married to. Thats totally not just as bad as nepotism. Amazingly, Hilary Clinton has accomplishments that aren't "married Bill Clinton", and people are supporting her based on that.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:29
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Sick_Boy posted:But who would the base rally around? Warren? If so, how long would it be before the whole "electability" thing drags the party back towards Clinton? We'd likely hit the "she doesn't want to " thing first.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:31
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TEAYCHES posted:The best person the Democratic Party could nominate for the presidency is the wife of a previous president. Here's hoping the Republicans nominate the brother of a previous president, who was the son of a previous president. You're only finding out now that political dynasties are a thing? 
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Mar 13, 2015 03:35
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Fulchrum posted:So we should ignore the most qualified candidate, based on who they are married to. Thats totally not just as bad as nepotism. That we believe that the most qualified candidate is the wife of a previous president is part of the problem. No, being skeptical of dynasty is not "just as bad as nepotism" that's dumb as hell. Vienna Circlejerk posted:You're only finding out now that political dynasties are a thing? I'm not naive about the existence of political dynasty; I think that it's wrong and unhealthy in a democratic system, and should be discouraged.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:36
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I think it is only fair to worry about a "Clinton dynasty" when Chelsea is running for the white house. Reminder that the Kennedys, Rockefellers, and Roosevelts and several other families have had dynasties as well. It isn't new.
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Mar 13, 2015 03:41
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