I love this table. Mainly because you can use it to bang any drum you choose to.
3 Likes
Especially when a person can claim the Democrat Party isn’t the traditional party of slavery, Republicans before LBJ were Democrats & Republicans in the time of Lincoln were actually Democrats. And I guess using that logic all 3r Party candidates & independents were either capricorns or lactose intolerant?
Southern Democrats actually were the traditional party of slavery, and they eventually started a war to boot, and even when they lost the war they resisted all attempts to integrate society. So much so that federal troops were required to force desegregation on those same Southern Democrats.
If the Republicans are the party of Lincoln and the South now votes predominantly Republican where are all the memorials and statues of Lincoln across the South? Why won’t all the Republicans in the South put up statues and memorials to Lincoln all across the South?
5 Likes
Mic drop!
1 Like
Roosevelt and Wilson look horrible, but than you realize, world wars cost a lot!
4 Likes
Proposed budget will increase the debt limit by 4 trillion dollars in the US.
The deficit will likely rise even more as Musk/Trump fires 6700 IRS workers. What business that is in financial straits fires a huge number of their workers in accounts receivable? The tax gap which is the amount owed vs paid was 696 billion in 2022, likely more now and he cut the number of people that collect this money?
7 Likes
We need a much simpler and fairer tax system that is harmonized with our trading partners.
Basically a VAT Tax (similar to a sales tax, which is paid on imports, but refunded on exports).
With a sales tax, when you buy something at the store, you pay the tax. No tax return to file. If you don’t want to pay the tax, just stay home and save the money.
We would still need an income tax, but it could be a much simpler income tax that would exempt the the first $200,000 in income. Make less that 200,000, no tax return to prepare or file and no audit by the IRS. A relatively small number of taxpayers would need to file and a relatively small number of IRA agents could process the returns.
2 Likes
We could also stop giving loans to the rich and make them pay their fair share in tax. Congress has given billions upon billions of tax avoidance schemes over the years to those who make billions. Why is it that every time people talk about the debt they talk about cutting service to the middle class and poor. But they never consider making the rich pay their fair share? Below is about Elon but he is just one of many. Meanwhile my income got taxed +30% before I even received my paycheck. Why should working folks subsidize these people? Well, because the politicians of both parties decided that’s the way it is.
Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person. The payments stretch back more than 20 years.
5 Likes
No we’re just going to invite more rich folks to pay $5mil for a green card because they’re going to pay so much taxes…
1 Like
It’s not buy a Greencard for $5 million.
It’s invest $5 million in the US and get a Greencard.
Potato, potatoe.
1 Like
No.
Paying $5 million to the government and getting nothing but a Greencard (with no cash value),
is very different from investing $5 million in the US and keeping your investment which will hopefully be profitable, and getting a Greencard as a perk.
For example, buy a $5 million apartment in New York from Trump ( you get to keep, or eventually resell the apartment) and you get a greencard.
Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and many other countries have offered similar “Golden Visa” programs, but current EU rules discourage that now.
2 Likes
I don’t care, anything is better than the open border, catch & release, “here’s a court date 3 yrs from now” system we had before. If the Spanish speaking news outlets run this story there’s going to be several million, recently arrived immigrates laughing their asses off because all they had to do is walk north into a desert & flag down a border patrol agent for a free ride into Joe Bidens & the Democrats open arms. $5 million for a pass that 10 - 20 million people got for free is a joke. I much rather have $5 million in the coffers than millions of medical bills from mothers who don’t pay a penny to have their kids born here. Only Democrats would complain about getting $5 million dollars from a law abiding immigrate compared to handing out 5 million monthly food stamp cards.
4 Likes
When i look at the debt chart the interesting thing I see is how small the increase in national debt is during the Vietnam War period.
At the time the war cost about $168 billion or so ($1 trillion in today’s dollars). But the increase in debt in the Johnson/ Nixon administrations were nowhere near the amount of debt run up for WW2. And 1968 was at the height of spending for social programs and space program. You would expect a lot of debt then but there was very little, according the the chart.
The answer may be taxation rates. In the Vietnam War period tax rates were much higher than today, because we were still paying off WW2. It may be that the high tax rates allowed more revenues, reducing the amount that needed to be borrowed to finance the Vietnam War.
1 Like
I think historic tax rates throughout most the 20th century are pretty amazing. Anyone who complains about high taxes now should look and see what their parents and grandparents paid back when “America was Great” especially if they were high earners.
The income tax rate for high earners during the 50’s and 60’s were pretty incredible (the top marginal tax rate was as high as 91% from 1951 to 1963) and even if we just went back to what tax rates were under Clinton we would get a lot closer to a balanced budget.
Compared to the good old days the rich get off super easy these days. No wonder so much wealth is concentrating in so few hands.
The tax rate is progressive…you are taxed at x% up to $y in earnings, then an increase to z% of the amount above $y and so on. “Effective” tax rate is the total % you pay of your total income, less deductions. My wife and I are fairly generous, (school band/scouts/DU/TU), but don’t get close to the standard deduction so itemizing is not a thing for us. Still, sailing as Master with a working spouse, our EFFECTIVE tax rate is around 24%.
Have I ever gamed my days to not get to the next bracket? Not intentionally, but 32% of some amount over the next lower threshold is not going to break the bank for us…geez, if you get a couple grand over, you pay another $640 and are still $1360 to the good. Taxes suck and I wish some of my $ didn’t go to gov’t waste, but the boys get set, the ice gets broken, and the VTS is there.
Wilson abolished tariffs and started the income tax to pay for government operations…good plan? Bad plan? It sure made manufacturers and farmers happy, but I am not sure he intended for it to spiral to what we have today.
Good book; “The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made”. Author is Patricia O’Toole, definitely worth the read.
2 Likes
True if we made amercia great again like it was in the 50’s,60’s the top tax rate would be from 70-90% and a lot less deductions allowed. I remember my grandfather saying to me he wished he owed a million dollars a year in tax. When I asked why he said the tax rate is 70% so how many million would I have to have to be forced to pay a million?
The mindset of the wealthy is best described by a quote from Leona Helmsley who owned the Empire State building among many others,
"We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes." She later went to prison for tax evasion and of course said she never made that statement.
2 Likes
The debt is getting ready to shoot up with the new budget coming up in March. But what is more concerning is all the private information the DOGE boys are walking out the door with. These lads have no security clearance but are hoovering up information for Elon. They already have your tax information which includes your investment accounts as listed on your returns. Nobody is seeing what these hackers have in their back packs when they leave every day. Glance at Wired, they have been covering these hackers since the beginning
1 Like
What, in your opinion, is “their fair share in tax”?
If you’re taxed at +30%, as a rich guy, I’d opine you are being taxed according to your wishes. So, which is it?
The other part causing me some concern is you conflating Musk’s contracts [payment for work or services], with loans [borrowing money], subsidies, and tax credits [given to poor business owners too] by government entities to a achieve some governmental goal.
I’d say a good start would be to tax capital gains at an equal or higher rate than earned income. Right now the income I earn, literally, by working with my time and effort is taxed at a higher rate than income that is unearned by simply selling stocks or reaping gains from financial transactions. Capital gains should at least be taxed the same as earned income but in reality it should be higher than earned income that comes via wages.
Right now the system penalizes those of us that make the majority of our money from labor and wages, and then rewards the investor class who make very large sums of money via transactions that are taxed at a lower rate.