M
Marginal
Junior Member
Silver Level
I just wanna talk sugar. We end convos like this on a convenience level not on a forum but in life re earlier posts
I just wanna talk sugar. We end convos like this on a convenience level not on a forum but in life re earlier posts
ovitoo
Legend
Bronze Level
Maybe I'm just young and stupid. Maybe we speak different Englishes. But I've read this sentence 5x and I just can't make sense of it.
No offense meant by it.
Charade You Are
you can call me Frost
Silver Level
Partly because the parties have moved to their respective extremes so either choice is unpalatable on some level to a lot of people. The parties are so far apart that if you identify with one or the other, no amount of discussion is going to change your mind.
Gary Johnson, who ran for the Republican nomination, is now the Libertarian Party's candidate. He and Huntsman were really the most reasonable candidates which is why they got nowhere.
Panamajoe
Legend
Silver Level
Fortunately Mitt Romney makes it very easy for me to do whatever necessary to vote against him.
I knew your were a genius Dak, this proves it
Debi
Forum Admin
Administrator
I am neither democrat or republican and have voted both ways. As far as the discussion goes it is easy for me - I simply don't enjoy political debates with most people and limit those discussions to those whom I can enjoy or tolerate them with. I never enjoy open debates about politics in a forum type environment which is why I will rarely engage in them.
I might continue to read this thread but me participating in the discussion/debate will not be how I choose to spend my time.
BelgoSuisse
Legend
Silver Level
This is absolutely not true. Republicans have moved to their extreme, but the democrats have not done that in any way. Obama has actually enacted a healthcare reform that is essentially the same as the reform Romney did as gorvernor of massachusetts only a few years earlier. Clearly that means the democrats have moved to the center, not to their extreme.
BelgoSuisse
Legend
Silver Level
He was moderate in Massachusets, because you can't get elected there if you're not. But the economic policies he now advocates, as much as they can be scored (it's hard as he really lacks specifics) are not moderate in any way. Increased deficit, tax increase and/or benefit cuts for the bottom 90%, huge tax cuts for the top 1%. That's class warfare at its worst.
4thandinches
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Both parties are at full fault by even allowing the Port Security Act to include internet gambling. And if our government was so concerned with the potential for pathological gamblers, they should abolish the lottery and shut down Vegas immediately! I love nothing more than our inept, corrupt politicians telling me how I should live my life.
jazzaxe
Legend
Silver Level
Pres. Obama is not as bad as the Repubs say and not as good as the Dems say. I would say his term is not distinguished and he has been a mediocre President. Generally, mediocre Presidents don't get a second term. If Obama wanted online gambling you would have seen an effort of some kind in the past four years. I have not seen it. I say keep voting these guys out, the longer they stay the worse they get. If I were to vote someone a new term he or she would have to show me something more than what we have been getting.
B
Big_Rudy
Legend
Silver Level
^^Pretty-much this. I remember all the excitement when Obama got elected because he was supposedly "pro-poker". How has that worked out? What was the state of online poker 4 years ago? And what is it now?
fletchdad
Jammin................
Loyaler
I will respond later to Marg`s post, but Dax said some of the things.
But as far as who I vote for, their stance on online poker will not be high ob the list as a reason to support. More pressing situations in the US.....
Moot point anyway....
But as far as who I vote for, their stance on online poker will not be high ob the list as a reason to support. More pressing situations in the US.....
Moot point anyway....
hackmeplz
Sleep Faster
Silver Level
I'm no Romney fan, but this is a joke. How is making the tax flatter "class warfare"? Obama is the one who is trying to just tax the rich more and they already pay a higher percentage of their income. Fwiw I'm leaning Obama atm just because of Romney/the Republican Party's awful stances on social issues but anyone who is supposedly against "class warfare" and thinks Obama is the candidate to support to avoid that is just laughably wrong.
BelgoSuisse
Legend
Silver Level
Stop listening to the "flatter tax" slogan and start looking at the numbers.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=1001628
Essentially Romney wants to cut the taxes of those who make more than $200k and pay for that by increasing the taxes of those who make less than that. Considering that those who make $200k or more already enjoy the lowest tax rates since the 1920s, that does not sound like very good policy.
hackmeplz
Sleep Faster
Silver Level
Just because it's the lowest since the 1920s means it's fair? during the Jim Crow era blacks were freer than they had been in history. Was that an argument against fighting those laws? Obviously there are some loopholes and the whole capital gains issue makes some mega-rich people pay very low tax rates (lol Romney) but in general people who make 200-500k/yr and don't pay capital gains end up paying a higher percentage of their income on taxes. The fact is that even with a strictly flat tax it would still be slightly unfair to the richer people, because someone making 2x the salary of someone else generally is not getting 2x the benefits. The police don't respond to their 911 calls twice as fast. The roads aren't twice as nice. But in reality they pay several times the amount generally. I don't see how that's fair.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-individual-income-tax-data-0
The top 1% make 16.9% of the gross income in the country while they pay 36.7% of the taxes. How is that fair?
Meanwhile the bottom 50% make 13.5% of the gross income while they pay 2.3% of the taxes.
This is not unique to just those 2 groups. Just look at the chart.
So I'm not sure why you seem to think the rich paying more and the poor/middle-class paying less is the answer. Just because we used to make the rich pay for everything doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, and although I don't think Romney is the answer and I don't even think he understands economics at all, the Obama approach of "oh let's just tax (steal) from the rich and we'll be fine" is the class warfare, not the other side.
BelgoSuisse
Legend
Silver Level
hackmeplz;1951872[url said:
I hope you realize the "tax foundation" is a very right-wing think tank funded by the extremely right-wing Koch family.
The reason the federal income tax is progressive is that the rest of the taxes are regressive. Singling out the federal income tax from the rest is the typical way to cherry pick data by Koch family sponsored foundations.
If you want to look at the alternative point of view, may I suggest a somewhat left-wing think tank instead?
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2011.pdf
Now it is true that taxes overall are somewhat progressive. Not as much as the Koch people think, but somewhat. There are very good reasons for taxes to be progressive, though. Ability to pay or equal marginal sacrifice principle, for instance. Depending on your values, the definition of "fair" will vary. Taxing everyone at the same rate is certainly not more fair than what you guys have now from my point of view.
BelgoSuisse
Legend
Silver Level
"Equal marginal sacrifice" fair versus "Flat" fair: if you tax everyone at the same rate, it's fair in the "flat fair" sense. But that could mean that for a poor person, paying his taxes requires that he skips lunch twice a week because he can't afford to pay for it, while for a very rich person it means he has to forgo a gold-plated bathroom in his third yacht. That would be extremely "Equal marginal sacrifice" unfair. So it makes a hell of a lot of sense to tax the very rich guy a higher rate than the poor guy, because the marginal utility of the dollars in their pockets vary immensely, and taxing marginal utilies is arguably more fair than taxing dollars.
BelgoSuisse
Legend
Silver Level
Note that on the full "Equal marginal sacrifice" which nobody actually advocates in the US, the fair tax law would tax the richest people strictly in order to maximize tax revenue, since their dollars have the least marginal utility. That means the top marginal tax rate would be at the top of the Laffer curve, which is approximately a 75% tax rate according to most serious studies.
The fact that the richest people get most of their income taxed at 15% Romney-style means that the US is very very far away from "Equal marginal sacrifice" fairness. In other words, the class war has already happened and the rich guys won it.
The fact that the richest people get most of their income taxed at 15% Romney-style means that the US is very very far away from "Equal marginal sacrifice" fairness. In other words, the class war has already happened and the rich guys won it.
hackmeplz
Sleep Faster
Silver Level
You make some fair points (and thanks for that link btw, interesting stuff), but I guess the main disagreement we have is what is fair? If you take your perspective which seems to be "we need x dollars, let's take them such that each person suffers somewhat equally in what they lose", then yes of course you would logically reach the conclusion you have that the tax code is too flat. If you take the other perspective though, which is that "we need to pay for this stuff, the people who use it should be the ones paying for it", and you can see why some think currently the rich pay too much.
One of the "regressive taxes", is the medicare tax. It's something like 7.5% and 7.5% from employer (15% for poker pros/self-employed) up to something like 110k. So to someone making millions, this is a very small % of their income. To someone who makes anywhere from $0-110k they effectively pay 15%. But that's because someone who makes millions is getting the exact same thing out of medicare. Now the guy making 110k is actually getting the same as the guy making 15k, so you do end up having to make some compromise. We obviously can't tax the guy making 20k/yr 15k for medicare just because the guy making 100k/yr also pays 15k. So we have to compromise somewhat. I'm also fine with somewhat of a safety net. This also means not taking everything the poor make even if that would be "fair" in the sense of getting what they pay for in government. you talk about gold-plated bathrooms in 3rd yacht vs. lunch. What about comparing rich vs. middle class? Why does the guy who legitimately makes enough to buy a gold-plated bathroom on his 3rd yacht charged more so the middle class guy can afford his 2nd big screen TV or a maid to clean his house?
But the majority of Americans are or at least consider themselves middle class. No one likes to consider themselves on either extreme so people who can afford food and don't have multiple yachts (aka guys making anywhere from like 40k-300k, which is a huge ****ing range) all consider themselves middle class. So the politicians have to cater to these people to get votes, so they use the class warfare tactics of just getting all the money from taxing the rich (despite the fact that most studies show that will not actually work to help our deficit/debt problem). And the poor and the middle class eat that shit up.
One of the "regressive taxes", is the medicare tax. It's something like 7.5% and 7.5% from employer (15% for poker pros/self-employed) up to something like 110k. So to someone making millions, this is a very small % of their income. To someone who makes anywhere from $0-110k they effectively pay 15%. But that's because someone who makes millions is getting the exact same thing out of medicare. Now the guy making 110k is actually getting the same as the guy making 15k, so you do end up having to make some compromise. We obviously can't tax the guy making 20k/yr 15k for medicare just because the guy making 100k/yr also pays 15k. So we have to compromise somewhat. I'm also fine with somewhat of a safety net. This also means not taking everything the poor make even if that would be "fair" in the sense of getting what they pay for in government. you talk about gold-plated bathrooms in 3rd yacht vs. lunch. What about comparing rich vs. middle class? Why does the guy who legitimately makes enough to buy a gold-plated bathroom on his 3rd yacht charged more so the middle class guy can afford his 2nd big screen TV or a maid to clean his house?
But the majority of Americans are or at least consider themselves middle class. No one likes to consider themselves on either extreme so people who can afford food and don't have multiple yachts (aka guys making anywhere from like 40k-300k, which is a huge ****ing range) all consider themselves middle class. So the politicians have to cater to these people to get votes, so they use the class warfare tactics of just getting all the money from taxing the rich (despite the fact that most studies show that will not actually work to help our deficit/debt problem). And the poor and the middle class eat that shit up.
BelgoSuisse
Legend
Silver Level
Only, "the people who use it should be the ones paying for it" is impossible to figure out in most cases, because the government is most useful when it provides public goods, and how much each individual benefits from public goods is not quantifiable.
Even things that would appear as pure transfers are not. To take an extreme example, if rich people refused to get taxed to pay for food stamps, they'll need to pay much more for police protection and jails to avoid the hungry mobs from stealing their properties. so in a sense, rich people do benefit from food stamps in the form of a safer society.
woohoo sue
Brings Laughter
Loyaler
Fortunately Mitt Romney makes it very easy for me to do whatever necessary to vote against him.
ditto ditto ditto and if anyone cares about women they should do the same!
woohoo sue
Brings Laughter
Loyaler
so the 12 year olds need to find other ways to fund their poker......gasp! lol
woohoo sue
Brings Laughter
Loyaler
For the record I don't like Obama either.
But I am not going to get into a political debate or discussion here beyond what I have said already.
ditto....Hilary should have won our nomination 4 years ago......but that said....the Republican Party has sold their souls to a far right religious/militant base for votes.......too scarey for my vote ever.
dj11
Legend
Silver Level
Am enjoying this discussion. I just wiped out a long, ramble about 'everything' and decided the answer is still 42.
Fresh ramble.
The economy of the world will need a whole new paradigm soon. Either that or a huge plague or massive nuclear war that doesn't wipe out the human race. Even as we approach 1 Trillion humans on this planet, most are content with life. Yeah yeah, millions have little to nothing of consequence, but overall much of that can be attributed to local conditions. IN the developed world, most folks have what they need, and the whole economy tends to boil down to what do we all want.
Need is covered, want is not covered yet. Close but not yet.
Sort of boils down to what do the people of the world do? With machines doing more and more of the work, what will the people do? It will soon, give or take a dozen years, be a world being maintained by machines, not so much people.
Remember the Ludites?
IMHO, the world can not provide the number of jobs needed, and this will not improve. So what do the people do in the not so distant future? I envision masses upon masses of idle humans, fed and content for the most part, but with nothing to do other than sit idly at their screens absorbing data.
To the Republicans who believe that lower taxes will make more work....Prove that it has ever worked.
Fresh ramble.
The economy of the world will need a whole new paradigm soon. Either that or a huge plague or massive nuclear war that doesn't wipe out the human race. Even as we approach 1 Trillion humans on this planet, most are content with life. Yeah yeah, millions have little to nothing of consequence, but overall much of that can be attributed to local conditions. IN the developed world, most folks have what they need, and the whole economy tends to boil down to what do we all want.
Need is covered, want is not covered yet. Close but not yet.
Sort of boils down to what do the people of the world do? With machines doing more and more of the work, what will the people do? It will soon, give or take a dozen years, be a world being maintained by machines, not so much people.
Remember the Ludites?
IMHO, the world can not provide the number of jobs needed, and this will not improve. So what do the people do in the not so distant future? I envision masses upon masses of idle humans, fed and content for the most part, but with nothing to do other than sit idly at their screens absorbing data.
To the Republicans who believe that lower taxes will make more work....Prove that it has ever worked.