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This is my last attempt at reasoning with you, unless you're willing to admit to being incorrect in that statement.

There are several substantial ways in which your typical bill is different from a budgetary appropriations bill. Most importantly, the appropriations begins with a request from the White House... did the DMCA start with a similar request from the White House ?

Be honest. Not being honest is a poor technique in more manners than a rhetorical one. And yes, I am not certain you are being honest, if only because there are serious, legally defined differences between the budgetary process and a typical legislative process. So really, telling you to be honest is not a "rhetorical technique" here, but an intellectual plea for you to truthfully examine what your are presenting as fact. Look at my link- does that process look the same one used in creating the DMCA ? Or did the proposal for the DMCA originate with the legislature, rather than the executive branch ?

Or were you just actually unaware of the difference between federal budget appropriations bills and normal, legislature-initiated bills ?

• problematic human-rights records
• muted free-speech laws
• questionable taxation practices

Actually, if you check the numbers, despite revenue being lower as a portion of GDP, absolute revenue was HIGHER by the time reagan left office.

GDP Data
Revenue as a portion of GDP
GDP per capita

Taking the simple method of multiplying the revenue as a % by the gdp per capita, the revenue per capita went from $4306.54 to $4980.34 in chained 2000 dollars.

No, despite balanced budget laws at least 44 states ran a deficit in 2004.

you just might get it. According to what I've read, the income tax was supposed to 'soak the rich' but look at it now. If you taxed IP, who do you think has the pull to lobby congress to ensure they pay the least of it? And just like the income tax pretty much obliterated your right to financial privacy, an IP tax would obliterate your right to intellectual privacy. Every written work you create is automatically copyrighted under US law. Now, if the good ol' IRS is going to tax that effectively, they're going to need a copy of every email, blog, diary, picture and video you make. Do you really want that 80 years down the line. Sure, it'll start with the big guys paying all the taxes, just like income tax did. But it won't stay that way. I don't think any of us 'regular folks' want that, but the top 0.1%'er megalomaniacs would love it.

The amazing thing is they get all this law enforcement mostly for free: http://www.cbpp.org/10-16-03tax.htm

If we have a common ground on the facts, only then you could argue wether the solidarity system currently in place is worth to be saved for the price of for example one percent of your income our if you want your lifesavings to be donated to the good cause of lockheed martin.
The level of calling-each-other-asshats is just amazing and ultimatively helps noone.

Really? You coulda fooled me.

Really? You coulda fooled me.

Really? You coulda fooled me.

maybe it has something to do with the way the government treats business. Let's tax and tax some more

No. Corporate taxes have been on the decline for a long time.

Corporate tax rates have nothing to do with the issue of outsourcing.

Between State tax, Federal tax, Social Secirity tax, Town tax, Property tax, and sales tax I pay something like 45 - 50% of my income in tax

Unless you're quite wealthy, no, you don't.

That's a false bromide from the "starve-the-beasters" who want to eliminate social programs and government regulation.. A typical middle income household pays about 15% in federal taxes; combined with state and local taxes about 25-30% total.

(I'm all for lower taxes, once we've cut spending. Start with cutting the expenses of running an empire rather than a country, and the costs of locking people up for consenual acts. We can eliminate social and regulatory spending just as soon as we stop the government policies and actions that make such governors on capitalism necessary - eliminate corporate charters, reserve banking, absentee ownership of land and resources...)

No, it's called International aid and the USA doesn't do nearly enough of it

The Washington Post had an interesting article today. Here it is. It's basically a critique of Bush's tax cuts.

It all boils down to this: Bush wanted lower taxes. He lowered all the brackets that were in effect in 2000 and added a 10% bracket (details and comparisons can be found here). This ends up 'costing' the nation money, because the revenue that would have come from the additional taxes isn't going to be there. Whenever you see 'Bush's tax cut cost $X.YZ billion over 10 years', that's what it means. Also, some tax cuts are temporary. Congress passes them for a window, say 10 years, and then they have to be made permanent down the road.

Clinton presided over a ridiculous boom in the economy, one that caused the market to surge and provided us with a surplus. When I got out of school in 2000, I was coming into the job market at the tail end of the boom. People were handing out jobs like candy, and salaries were ridiculous. It's debatable what caused that surge to end, but it had to. If you look at numbers, and I don't have any handy, but looking at the numbers from the first part of 2001 on (when Bush was innaugurated), it's pretty clear that everything had slowed down and was continuing to slow down. September 11th happened, more bad news for the economy. Whenever stuff like that happens, the markets get shaken up and tend to go down.

Additionally, there is a tax loophole that allows multinational corporations to shift tax burdens around and decrease the amount of taxes they pay in this country. Some people claim this leads to outsourcing, since it's cheaper for them to pay workers in other countries, claim profits across multiple countries yet still claim expenses here. This article is a little lengthy but explains that more.

Jobs aren't really part of the job of president, but unemployment is seen as a bad thing. The president (really, him combined with congress) can only "promote" job growth by giving companies tax credits for new hires, or by reducing their tax burden or by making it more profitable to hire people here rather than other countries (ie, outsourcing). Kerry's economic plan (read it here) wants to drop that loophole above and use it to give corporations a 5% cut in corporate taxes (that's important...not all companies PAY corporate taxes, only about 8% do). He also wants to give a two-year new jobs tax credit to companies.

If you're a Kerry supporter, Bush has a net loss of jobs, is running a deficit because he cut taxes for the rich (he cut the top tax bracket from 39.5% to 35%, saying last week on O'Reilly "Nobody should pay more than 35% in taxes") and is a spendthrift on the war.

If you like Bush, a lot of this was bound to happen anyways. The war is contentious, obviously, but tax cuts are typically viewed favorably by Republicans because money back for everyone is a good thing.

That's my take on the economy. And as a caveat, I'm a Bush supporter. I don't think Kerry has the money to enact half the things he wants. If you look at his website, he wants a "Pay as you go" policy, which means that if he gives a 5% tax cut for corporations totalling $12billion over 10 years, we need to cut something or raise taxes so that it's on the books...no deficit spending. It's a great idea...it also rarely gets talked about in his speeches and, to me, sounds like a cop out so that next year he can say "The Republican Congress wouldn't reduce spending here, so I can't give you health care like I promised. Sorry."

--trb

Check out exactly what closing those loopholes will do. Kerry released his economic plan yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, citing the $12 billion in loopholes he would close. Seem a little low? Here's why. That $12 billion is a drop in the bucket of our multi-trillion dollar budget because less than 10% of all businesses actually pay the corporate tax. So Kerry is talking about closing a loophole for less than 10% of businesses, who are then expected to go out and use all this extra cash to hire workers. It's a longshot, at best, since I doubt all $12 billion will actually go back to the companies, and I doubt all 8% of those companies will use all that money to hire people.

People in the top 2% of wealth pay over 90% of taxes.

uh, no.

taxes vs. income (see "Share of Income vs. Share of Taxes")

According to the CBO, the top 1% paid 23% of all federal taxes. However, they also made 16% of the nations income, and more interestingly, posessed 39% of the nation's wealth (see here, or just google "us wealth distribution")

Pay 23% of all taxes, and get 39% of the wealth? Sounds like a good deal to me.

France (and Germany) have been exceeding the EU's limit of deficit spending which is 3% of GDP.

In addition, it doesn't look like Europe's education system is fairing too well either, and it's generally agreed that education is required for a healthy economy.

It is hard to compare directly education between different countries, but it seems like Europe and the rest of the world has catched up a lot when it comes to science after US has dominated in science since WW II (for understandable reasones). And you do realise that even for top universities in Europe the students don't have to pay much or anything in tuition fees, so that even middle class families can send a bright kid to a top university (something like Bush being sent to Yale because he was so bright).

In other words, I'm right. You are only looking at personal income taxes, which make up only 48% of federal revenues. Try looking at the whole story.

Here's mine: CBO found that the top one percent of households paid 23 percent of all federal taxes that year, including payroll, excise and other federal taxes
Here's a news flash for you bud - personal income taxes make up only 48% of federal revenue.

Nevermind that the VAST majority (something like 80-90%) of tax revenues from income are from that tiny minority of rich folks.

Don't bog your rant down with actually looking this up though, you're on one heck of a roll.

Sorry, you're just wrong. Your hearsay anecdote is insufficient argument, please cite.

Holy shit US $5 billion, thats a lot of bread. Well I am sure the government bean counters know what they're doing. At least this likely created a lot of jobs for american companies struggling in todays economy. I for one feel better knowing that we are following through in our plans to adjust the size of our carrier fleet, as it should help us with future nescessary military plans.

Holy shit US $5 billion, thats a lot of bread. Well I am sure the government bean counters know what they're doing. At least this likely created a lot of jobs for american companies struggling in todays economy. I for one feel better knowing that we are following through in our plans to adjust the size of our carrier fleet, as it should help us with future nescessary military plans.

Actualy the US spends suprising little on aid given its GDP. Most other high income nations are far more charitable. The idea that the US spends more on aid than anyone else is one our cultural myths. You can see a chart on US aid as a percentage of GDP and federal budget. This year about 0.106% of the GDP will be used on aid, but 40 years ago in 1963 0.526% or close to 5x as much. Or viewed from the federal buget perspective this year about 0.55% of the budget, in 1963 about 2.83%. I agree

Something I read recently from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a pretty good arguement (I think) for extending the current unemployment extension for another 3-6 months--

Looking Back and Looking Forward:
An Assessment of the Temporary Federal Unemployment Benefits
Program and the Needs of the Long-term Unemployed
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.pdf - Direct link to PDF article

Basically, comparisons are made between the current extension and previous extensions (the previous ones being the recession of 1991/1992, and the one prior to that in the early 1980's), ranging from how they were implemented to the length of the extensions provided. It shows a history of shorter and shorter unemployment extensions, and that with this latest recession, instead of tieing the end of the extension benefits to the decrease of unemployment figures, they've been hardcoded to specific dates (the 1991/1992 extension, it seems, was legislated such that it would be valid until unemployment percentages dropped back to a specific point).

Another thing to keep in mind is that there's an entire federal fund set aside for emergency unemployment, and while some might not believe the current situation qualifies, I personally believe it does. There's billions of dollars sitting in this trust/account that can only be used for unemployment extensions, but this Congress/Senate refuses to act on the issue and provide the aid that more and more people (myself included) need to get by. And what makes it worse in my eyes is that instead of helping people out in the short term while providing long term growth, this Congress and Administration seems bent on only implementing tax cuts, and resisting any attempts to extend unemployment.

What really irks me though, is that they pushed through an extension of unemployment benefits for airline industry workers. Yeah the airlines took a beating after 9/11, but so did a lot of other people. It seems wrong to extend it just for people who were working in profession X but ignore everyone else.

Anyways, just some food for thought on unemployment, the benefits it can have, and maybe why it should be extended further for those who have run out of options.

Something I read recently from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a pretty good arguement (I think) for extending the current unemployment extension for another 3-6 months--

Looking Back and Looking Forward:
An Assessment of the Temporary Federal Unemployment Benefits
Program and the Needs of the Long-term Unemployed
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.pdf - Direct link to PDF article

Basically, comparisons are made between the current extension and previous extensions (the previous ones being the recession of 1991/1992, and the one prior to that in the early 1980's), ranging from how they were implemented to the length of the extensions provided. It shows a history of shorter and shorter unemployment extensions, and that with this latest recession, instead of tieing the end of the extension benefits to the decrease of unemployment figures, they've been hardcoded to specific dates (the 1991/1992 extension, it seems, was legislated such that it would be valid until unemployment percentages dropped back to a specific point).

Another thing to keep in mind is that there's an entire federal fund set aside for emergency unemployment, and while some might not believe the current situation qualifies, I personally believe it does. There's billions of dollars sitting in this trust/account that can only be used for unemployment extensions, but this Congress/Senate refuses to act on the issue and provide the aid that more and more people (myself included) need to get by. And what makes it worse in my eyes is that instead of helping people out in the short term while providing long term growth, this Congress and Administration seems bent on only implementing tax cuts, and resisting any attempts to extend unemployment.

What really irks me though, is that they pushed through an extension of unemployment benefits for airline industry workers. Yeah the airlines took a beating after 9/11, but so did a lot of other people. It seems wrong to extend it just for people who were working in profession X but ignore everyone else.

Anyways, just some food for thought on unemployment, the benefits it can have, and maybe why it should be extended further for those who have run out of options.

Oops, looks like you made up your point too... http://www.cbpp.org/4-16-02tax.htm

For example, I can tell you how much my family has spent on dairy products thus far ($73.87 total, with $5.57 going to half-n-half for my tea and coffee), tax not included.

I also break down all of the taxes I pay everywhere. From income witholding, to sales and gasoline tax, to various taxes levied on utilities. It's totally insane:

Total income received so far: $4328.34. Total taxes paid: 772.03. Percentage of my paycheck extorted from me: 17.8%. That's not even accurate, as I save a lot of money and I haven't spent the rest of the remainder. I've only actually spent $2310.32 so far, of which is a whopping 33.4% for taxes.

Mind you, I'm married, have 2 kids and own 3 pieces of real estate, and dump a bit of money into savings bonds -- quite the example of a middle class household. I get child tax credits, can deduct interest on my properties, and my health insurance is deducted from my paycheck pre-tax. Over the past 3 years, I've upped my withholding exemptions to 8 so that I damned near break even come tax return time, so my tax figure above includes my witholdings (which should be dead-on). No interest-free loans for my government, thankyouverymuch.

People without property or kids, those who are single, or those who are simply much lower income must simly get raped by the Tax Man. They must pay 30%-to-50% when all is said and done. It's insane, I tell you.

It's so damned irritating, that I've given serious consideration to simply picking up a job that will maximize (after deductions/credit) the earned income credit, just out of spite to The Man. Our family is heading that way already (being very frugal types, as it is), so it's quite possible to achieve. The maximum adjusted earned income you can get (in 2002) and get the maximum EIC of $4140 is $14,500. Yes, I realize just how small a number that is compared to the ~$50k I earn now. But look at just how much I loose as it is (granted, the regessive taxes like sales and utility franchise taxes wouldn't change, but still...).

Face it, there's too much damned pork in our government as it is. Enough already.

(Back on topic. If they really wanted to easily tax mail/internet orders, they should levy a special tax on whoever does the shipping (UPS, fed-ex, US Postal). That way, you unload the burden of the tracking to a select few centralized companies, rather than each and every single vendor out there. The cost would get passed on to the buyers anyway, but without the buyers or sellers having to track it. Easy, eh?)

Second, the tax reductions are greater on a percentage basis for the poor.

This is the big lie that conservatives keep repeating, desperately hoping to convince the poor and middle class that the government isn't screwing them over at the behest of the rich. The petitioner follows the so-called "liberal" media in repeating unchallenged the White House's deceptive numbers, which deliberately omit the effect of the proposed estate tax repeal that disproportionately benefits the rich. When the entire tax proposal is considered, the richest one percent, who pay 20 percent of all federal taxes, will receive at least 36 percent of the tax cuts -- some estimates put it as high as 43 percent.
--
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require 6.0;

Race is not the signifigant correlation to criminal activity.... economic status is!

But one could argue that race and economic status are related, because of my next point...

Despite the standard propaganda "anyone can become anything they want to in America!"

The possibility exists, the reality is far different. It's a basic outcome of free-market capitalism, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

Some people like it, some don't. Guess which ones are which. Guess which ones are in jail.

--