90% of Americans will pay less taxes under Obama than McCain

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/11/141710/932/876/534084

NIIIICEEEEE

You don't pay taxes at all, if you're as poor as you claim. Why are you so hard up to socki it harder to people who already pay the majority of taxes for programs that would benefit the poor? Shouldn't you, if anyone, pay more in taxes? Pay your own way and spread it around?

Oh, for fuck's sake. You think that people with less money should pay more taxes than those who have money? Seriously?

I'm not going to argue progressive taxation with you, since I know you're against it, but arguing that the poorest people in this country should have tha majority of the tax burden? Isn't that a bit extreme, even for you?

Stockulogic, again.

As poor as you claim?

You mean earning less than $112,000 a year? Or are you referencing some other figure that AceT has posted before?

Dude, when I'm lucky enough to find employment, I usually wind up making less than $18K/year, and I can assure you that I most definitely pay taxes.

That said, despite the pittance I earn, I wouldn't mind paying taxes if they went to things that were beneficial, instead of say, a pointless $100+ billion/year war, or ~$20B year in subsidies to oil companies when gas is $4.00+/gallon.

Absolutely not. If the poorest had to bear the burden of socialism, they'd be much less in favor of it. Since they bear none of the cost and nearly all the benefit by pursuing 'progressive' redistributionist tax schemes, they have incentive to elect politicians who advance destructive policies that promise to punish the hard-working and financially shrewd and transferring their wealth to the self-destructive who perpetuate their poverty.

This is akin to paying unskilled laborers the same as physicians like they did in Cuba. It's not fair. It destroys incentive. Why work when all you toil for will be taken by the government and given to the idle and useless?

Stockula is referring to another thread. My tax status has lurked around claiming 20,000 per year earnings for the last several years.


But Stockula actually has me pegged.

Stockula: heres the breakdown: Because I am not a successful artist, I spend more unpaid time at my labor than most people do. I often work enough to make the ends meet and spend the rest trying to make the art-business grow, so I can actually have money doing the work I like, and still have leisure time.

Stockula has me pegged as a deadbeat who should grow up and get a real job he hates, so he can make enough money to be taxed.

But heres what you didnt understand, stockula, i wasnt just NIIIICEEEing for me, I was doing it for the country. we need to let bush's tax cuts expire (and make the rich pay even more) so that those who make money off the labor of the rest of us AND gain the benefits of a federal government are actually taxed fairly, which is to say, progressively.

Im a massive commie that way.

science damn it, can i live in your world where the poor (those making under $100k, apparently) don't pay taxes?

because that'd be fucking awesome.

Absolutely not. If the poorest had to bear the burden of socialism, they'd be much less in favor of it. Since they bear none of the cost and nearly all the benefit by pursuing 'progressive' redistributionist tax schemes, they have incentive to elect politicians who advance destructive policies that promise to punish the hard-working and financially shrewd and transferring their wealth to the self-destructive who perpetuate their poverty.

This is akin to paying unskilled laborers the same as physicians like they did in Cuba. It's not fair. It destroys incentive. Why work when all you toil for will be taken by the government and given to the idle and useless?

Punishing the poor for being poor and useless and not giving them a security net will spur them to be productive and not a useless drain on the productive.

Most artists struggle. I believe in you

no you don't.

Oh christ, the richest .01% of this country have the largest amount of the tax burden. Which is a world-the-fuck-away from everyone getting paid twenty dollars a month, regardless of their occupation.

Either way, I'm done with this debate since I don't grant your premise that all people who are lower class or in poverty are there because their own failings.

Yes I do. Artists are the best.

Of course not, but soaking the rich helps them none.

those aren't your good pants, the ones that you're wearing, are they? because i would hate for your good pants to be lost to the flames that will consume them for saying that.

yeah, forgive me if I take that statement with a grain of salt stockula.

Anyway, we are over due for a tax shift in this direction. the rich in america have gained something like 20-30 percent of wealth in the past ten years by sitting on their butts, while real wages for most americans have declined. (ie, our raises are not keeping up with inflation.) the clock has turned back to the 1920s the gilded age.

You cut me man. You cut me real deep. Here I am, trying to buck up a struggling artist who's on a path I am not courageous enough to take, and all you can do is put me down.

Yes, you should get a job in a factory making $25,000 a year with little to no benefits. Work for 29 years, just long enough to be let go just before your retirement benefits kick in so that the large corporation doesn't have to pay for your old useless ass.

In the meantime you can suck in horrible toxins because they have done away with things like the EPA and OSHA. You won't have to worry about where your money is coming from that as you're dieing of progressive lung cancer and you're not going to make it another year.

Of course you won't have any homeless shelters or medicaid because they've done away with things like that too, you will die in some back alley while lying on a sewer grate for heat and drinking your own urine since you can no longer find clean water in the city.

Where do you get off trying to live your dream? This is America dammit, get in line like a good citizen and ensure that the rich get richer and the poor stay poor and die and pay the brunt of the taxes.

[/sarcasm]

well, if you wouldn't lie, then i wouldn't have to call you a liar.

You have to understand stuff from his perspective. Most artists are underproductive leeches on the ass of capitalist society. In the grasshopper and the ants, I am the grasshopper. and Ill probably pay for it.


and its ok if stockula mocks me. we have something in common.

See, I'd agree with your quote 100% if in the current state of the US physicians and whatnot were in the top 10% of the money bracket.

While some may be, the top is held together people whose jobs are simply profiting on the pain of others. Stock holders, real estate, CEO's, Oil Tycoons, (Aren't actors and professional sports players also there?). These are people who make their millions by, in basic terms, ripping the lower and middle class off. For the furthering of society, their jobs mean shit...yet they make so much.

Now, if Doctors, psychologists, TEACHERS and other people who helped make the world a better place, I'd rethink my stance on taxes.

If you want to talk about 'unskilled' labor, I say we tear down the aforementioned people. The Oil Tycoons, the Real Estate agents, and the stock traders...the people who can only make money by keeping others down. They are the skillless workers of the world.

Skilless: If money were not acquirable, their job would be devoid of meaning.

oh, i do, i do. which is why i want to berate him mercilessly.

Here's a simple equation: Rollback the Bush tax cuts, balance the budget. Withdraw from Iraq, generate a surplus. Invest in technology and education and achieve long-term innovative and economic advantage. Finally PAY DOWN THE CRIPPLING DEBT!!!

While Obama's distribution is clearly superior, without spending cuts, both plans will be bad long term.