The 2% Illusion

[cobra de capell]

The 2% Illusion
Take everything they earn, and it still won't be enough

President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.

Snip.......http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123561551065378405.html
______

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

Not only is the Obambi administration fiscally irresponsible it is financially insane. The Obambi administration is making the spending by the previous republican majority Congress look like a bunch of misers by comparison! Don’t they know our country is financially bankrupt. Can’t they get that simple fact through their thick skulls? By driving the country deeper into debt is prolonging the agony. These are irresponsible dangerous people and they should all be impeached immediately.

[Ron61]

Obama has never understood anything but what his so called advisers tell him. All they know is spend and spend more. Unless the whole mess in Washington, including the Congress, is kicked out of the country, this country will be a 3rd world country in a short time. Don't forget, our Savior has trouble even remembering which state he is in when making speeches. You can't seriously think he is going to do anything but what he is told to do.

Ron

[Fred Douglass]

..this is Gospel....my nephew-in-law, Franz Hover, is a professor at MIT. He recently had a teaching assistant/peer/whatever visit from Sweden. The guy said that, if he did all his tax-computations correctly, he'd owe 105% (or something like that---ask my sister Janie for the exact number) of his annual income. REPEAT: 105%!!!!!

Then he comes over here and realizes that Obamessiah is about to be elected! OMG! The guy must've felt his visit to Amerika was actually a punishment meted out by the Swedish tax-enforcers!

I think the guy returned to Sweden eventually (the gummint there was, o'course holding his family hostage)!

Ar-ar-ar-ar-ooooooooooogah!

Waitaminnit....what the f*ck am I (are we) larfin' aboot????

[VRM]

Originally Posted by Fred Douglass

Waitaminnit....what the f*ck am I (are we) larfin' aboot????

So what are you going to do about it? Keep voting for the borrow and spend GOP or the tax and spend DNC?
They are two peas in the same pod.

Steve

[Dan40]

Originally Posted by VRM

So what are you going to do about it? Keep voting for the borrow and spend GOP or the tax and spend DNC?
They are two peas in the same pod.

Steve

It looked to me like the posters above said Congress should be impeached. NOT just the democrats.
BO promised change. I guess EVEN more spending IS change. Well he didn't say change for the better, just promised change.

Dan

[VRM]

Originally Posted by Dan40

It looked to me like the posters above said Congress should be impeached. NOT just the democrats.
BO promised change. I guess EVEN more spending IS change. Well he didn't say change for the better, just promised change.

Dan

Dan,
Ron61 and I have agreed on both parties being bad things for a while. CdC on the other hand - he is tried and true GOP sheeple. He swallows every party line, though perhaps he is finally realising that the GOP are not our friends either.

CdC,
I am rarely on the fence on any issue. You only see two extreme sides to a problem, and to you one of them is right and one of them is wrong. Sometimes the best answer is a balance of the two, or maybe it is neither of the two, but you are incapable of thinking in those terms.

With regards to my voting record on presidential candidates the only thing preventing any candidate from winning is not getting enough votes. That is because the sheeple (like yourself) can only see either a mainstream DNC or a GOP candidate as being viable. Good for you for picking one of the two popular choices because you knew everyone else was doing it. We will continue to go around and around in this cycle of GOP/DNC stupidity until people like you are no longer allowed to vote.

[VRM]

CdC,
You have NO leg to stand on regarding spending. You favoured, and voted for, the stupidity that added $5 trillion to the national debt. I do not give Obama much credit either, but at least he is going to put war spending back in the budget - something your own personal hero refused to do.


Yeah, yeah - I know... the truth suffers...blah, blah, blah...Isn't it time for a new mantra?

Steve

[cobra de capell]

Originally Posted by VRM

CdC,
You have NO leg to stand on regarding spending. You favoured, and voted for, the stupidity that added $5 trillion to the national debt. I do not give Obama much credit either, but at least he is going to put war spending back in the budget - something your own personal hero refused to do.


Yeah, yeah - I know... the truth suffers...blah, blah, blah...Isn't it time for a new mantra?

Steve

Have you ever considered yourself ignorant?

Check my post again – I referred to the overspending by Republicans, so why would you attack me for voting for W? Gore/Kerry were the only viable alternatives. I’m not in any way like you – either on the fence on practically every issue or backing someone that doesn’t have a chance to win.

When you post; think about something interesting to add to the subject thread.

Also, if you never respond to a thread that I post – I’ll be a happy camper.

[427 S/O]

Fresh 'Bait', just arrived, 20% off.

[Fred Douglass]

Couldn't have said it better meself! Is (you-know-who) the old "Jazziz" recycled? Same scolding 'tude, gymnastic ability, etc. That reference is REALLY ancient CC site history--maybe I'm showing me (ever advancing) age.


Krikeys! Ar,ar.

[imagine2frolic]

I don't know what T. Boone Pickens made, but he claims he paid 17.7% taxes on his earnings. While his secretary making $60k paid 30% in taxes. What's wrong here?....i2f

[427 S/O]

Quote:Jazziz... but at least he is going to put war spending back in the budget.

A former aide to President George W. Bush is defending the former president's budget proposals as a war of words erupts over how to manage massive government financing.


'O'NO! criticized the the way the Bush administration budgeted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by submitting supplemental spending requests to Congress...Really!!


Tony Fratto: Putting temporary war spending in supplemental budgets was done to avoid permanently baking those appropriations into the Defense Department's baseline budget. That's good budgeting, not a 'gimmick'.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/firs...get-criticism/

[Jamo]

You know, it's been nice around here lately...

[Ron61]

Just browsing through some more of the morass that makes up the so called stimulus pork bill and found this. Notice at the end of the paragraph the politicians made sure they would get the same as the people who paid into it.

Payments to Social Security recipients: This is the obvious benefit for retirees. If you're collecting Social Security payments, you'll get a one-time $250 tax-free payment for this year, regardless of your income. Retired government workers who don't receive Social Security will get a one-time $250 tax credit instead. Since that credit is "refundable" -- i.e., you get the amount of the credit even if you owe no income tax -- it amounts to the same benefit that Social Security recipients receive. If you and your spouse are both collecting Social Security (or are government retirees), you'll get a total of $500.
Edit:

Wisdom from the Bar:
Luke ''The Drifter'' says:
"We Americans were damn tired of being thought of as dumb, by the rest of the world.
So we went to the polls in November and removed all doubt."

Still trying to be nice Jamo.

Ron

[trularin]

It is all a secret conspiracy.

He is made up to look the way he is. Secretly he is Jeb Bush in disguise.