Update: Half of households in US pay no income tax.
Yeah, this is fair. Note that I’m not in the top 10% – not even remotely close, but I say that just isn’t fair at all.
The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
Here’s the knife to the heart…
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.
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Operation Remodel continues on. I am continually amazed at the stupidity of the people who owned the house before us and I now actively hate them.
Father-in-Law – aka Crash Bandicoot fell two days ago and wrecked his shoulder. He still can’t lift a weight (other than the weight of his arm) to shoulder height. Bad fall and that was just walking across the driveway.
Told him to relax and not worry about the remodel, I can certainly try to do it in steps that will minimize damage to myself. Note I did not say “No damage.” There will be pain. Not looking forward to it, but it has to be done.
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All the hopesy-changey people who love Obama and are willing to suckle at the Great Teat (aka the Largesse of the Taxpayer) for free have been confused, the poor dears.
It seems that they thought things would be free, free, FREE. And right now.
I’m tickled that they are disappointed.
I know that they have very real serious problems that are hardships, and I do feel for them. I also know that the US was clearly not founded to be a Socialist State. Asking me to pay for someone else’s health care just increases the welfare state.
Volcker’s Value Added Tax is a way to increment taxation while making it less obvious to the taxpayer.
Acknowledging it would be a highly unpopular move, White House economic adviser Paul Volcker said yesterday the United States should consider imposing a “value added tax” similar to those charged in Europe to help get the deficit under control.
A VAT is a national sales tax that, like state and city sales taxes, would be collected by retailers.
Volcker, at the New-York Historical Society, told a panel on the global financial crisis that Congress might also have to consider new taxes on carbon and energy.
“The President has passed historic tax cuts for middle-class families and continues to push for more tax cuts. The President is not proposing to cut the deficit at the expense of middle-class families,” said a White House official asked for comment.
See the bold type up there? Historic tax cuts? I’m going to get reamed for more health care dollars and they call this tax cuts? All this extra spending has to come from somewhere, and it won’t get paid for by tax cuts.
Whatever happened to cutting fat out of the budget as opposed to spend-spend-spend and take more from taxpayers to cover it?
He added, “If, at the end of the day, we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes.”
With their current plans, taxes will have to be raised.
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WikiLeaks, which really is pretty much a biased show, showed video skewed to make it look like the US carried out unprovoked attacks on civilians. Two Reuters photographers died during the strikes.
Civilians don’t carry AK-47’s AND RPG’s.
Hanzlik called the death of the Reuters photographers “incredibly unfortunate.” That sad part is, he said, they weren’t wearing any markings or jerseys that would have signaled to U.S. forces they were members of the media.
Unmarked reporters hanging out with militants who are attacking the US forces should not expect safety.
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How come Tea Partiers are continually considered an all-white organization? To the best of my knowledge there were no requirements to join and that it actually was fairly diverse. Oh, that’s right… Brightbart.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – They’ve been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement—and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation’s first black president.
I would think taking heat on something like this would be a badge of honor – standing up for what you believe in, even if it goes against the flow of a number of your contemporaries – not taking the easy route and standing up for what you believe in.
“You have to be honest and true to yourself. What am I supposed to do, vote Democratic just to be popular? Just to fit in?” asked Clifton Bazar, a 45-year-old New Jersey freelance photographer and conservative blogger.
“That widespread misconception may have originated in part from distorted rhetoric about the legislation bubbling up from the hyper-partisan debate about it in Washington and some media outlets, such as when opponents denounced it as socialism.”
Gee. Couldn’t it have also been due to its proponents proclaiming that everyone and their dog would get coverage, coverage, coverage and generally trying (and succeeding with the help of ‘some media outlets’) to hide everything that might have made people understand what they were actually doing?
Hi Nicole!
I’m thinking you’re right. It might have something to do with it…
1) One thing I did notice about the *spit* Wiki video was that the journalists never once used their cameras, IF that’s what they were carrying.
And Reuters has never come forward and explained just what they were doing there, either.
2) There is no way the administration will win points with a VAT. A VAT will tax EVERYONE EQUALLY.
3) As to the dumbasses confused about UHC, cry me a fucking river. We told you so.
OOooh… sweet talking there, sugar-mouth. 🙂
Good point – you’d think Reuters would be more forthcoming if things were totally up-and-up.
Thing about the VAT is, there’s a technique where you show people the most horrible dire possibility ever, then when they recoil, you offer something distasteful but relatively palatable. Usually that second thing wouldn’t have stood the light of day if it had to stand all by itself.
Misdirection, I think they call it.
Either that or disingenuous honeyed bait-and-switch.
Damn, keep forgetting it’s a family-friendly blog. Sorry!
Hoodwinking is what I call it 😉
When we lived in Germany, most Germans I met had no idea how much they actually paid in taxes. Most had no clue as to the VAT. Almost every tax is “hidden”. One of my friends came to Indiana for a visit, and she was OUTRAGED that when she went to pay for a $24.95 skirt, her total came out to be $27.05. In Germany, you just pay the advertised price, right? Well, she didn’t understand that the 20 Euro shoes she bought were actually 12 Euros, with 8 Euros in taxes. She had no idea her taxes were so high.
Just kidding you, Aggie. The only family members that would read this won’t be traumatized.
How about this for taxes…?
Add up every tax the government places, divide by the number of people – use the progressive scale even – so that what you pay in all those little hidden places is put on a bottom line for each person in one lump sum – and watch people drop dead of a coronary and/or (in a slightly different order) run out to give their elected representatives a blanket-party.
THIS just shown on drudge…
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1
I keep reading about the outraged German friend and I’m still sitting here saying “Huh?” How could they NOT pay attention to what is being charged?
I guess it’s no different than trying to unravel the tax code here but … STILL…
Sheesh.
HALF????
Time for a fair tax, IMO.
GAH!!!!!!!!
Steve Forbes was totally right when he suggested a flat 10% tax on everyone. Period. No more, no less.
I’ve read it suggested that if we wanted a more fair tax system, we should stop the collection of tax throughout the year and make everyone pay it in April in one lump sum. People would get outraged then. Like progressivism and socialism and other isms, it is the creeping, incremental nature of it that lets it sneak by most people.
I agree with that completely. If people really knew what they personally owed, they’d either be thrilled (in the case of the portions of the population that sucks off the rest of us) or totally completely ginormously angry.
It is no accident that Tax Day is very far from Election Day.
People have short term memories.
In one sense having them far apart is good because any attempt to change the tax code to look good just prior to the election looks very obvious.
People have short term memories but only for things that don’t matter to them. Unfortunately they aren’t aware of just how bad the tax situation is – or even aware period – so it won’t ever go from the short-term-memory buffer to the indelibly-engraved-on-my-brain long-term storage area.
For those people, the government sends them a payment.
OUR money. This is indentured servitude.
IS IT THERE YET?????
I hate waiting….
I don’t pay any taxes since I get money FROM the guvernment after filing every year! WHOOT!! In yer face suckers!!
On a non-harumph note, now that I am where I can watch video, that’s damn cool. And damn catchy.
I actually looked at how much I paid in taxes this year.
I’ll never do that again.
My buddy has a house that is about funny when you try to fix something.
It’s no more than 20-30 years old, it’s a beach-front design nowhere near a beach in Manassas.
It was obviously worked on by a caricature of a redneck, the plumbing he “fixed” would give Escher a headache.
The funniest was where the guy “fixed” a wall, there was a tree in place of a post inside the walls.
Velly funny.