If Obamacare is so good why is the federal government exempt?

[frumper]

because that doesn't give an accurate picture of where the problem lies.. federal spending is suppressing the private sector

Yea, ok. You could say spending relative to revenue is causing problems, but just spending isn't. In fact, despite as much deficit spending as we do, interest rates are still at record lows and inflation is very low. I would agree we're not setting ourselves up for any favors, but a quick look at the income distribution over the past few decades easily shows where private sector money is flowing. That too is a timebomb waiting to go off.

The problem with your argument really is that taxes don't match spending. Its hard for you to complain about being taxed on all the spending when we're borrowing it all and you're not getting taxed(yet). The taxation preceeds the problem you're talking about and that hasn't happened yet. Right now you're getting screwed by wall street which is setting you up to eventually get screwed by the government. You go ahead and defend wall street though. Record corporate profits are a good thing....just not when they do not pay their employees adequate cost of living increases.

[Sky High]

I've seen a lot of your comments and they're nearly always snarky remarks that add nothing to the conversation. Can you give us a reason why we should even read posts next to your name?

feel free to ignore me if you wish (means little to me). my snarky comments are a response to your blatant propaganda(which serve no propose in a conversation).

[ishootblanks]

It's not, actually, since taxes are not levied at a flat rate or at least should not be.

Furthermore, less profit does not translate to cutbacks. It translates to less profit; if they are making a profit then their operating costs are not causing them problems by definition.

profit is the money leftover after expenses are paid.. this is the money that's taxed.. if corporations make no profit it's very hard for them to grow.. and they pay no taxes.. see the catch?

this is why every single time in US history when taxes were lowered federal revenue increases.. the only time you can increase taxes without causing recession is when the economy is so strong that it can absorb the costs.. but one thing that's for certain is that it slows economic growth

- - - Updated - - -

Yea, ok. You could say spending relative to revenue is causing problems, but just spending isn't. In fact, despite as much deficit spending as we do, interest rates are still at record lows and inflation is very low. I would agree we're not setting ourselves up for any favors, but a quick look at the income distribution over the past few decades easily shows where private sector money is flowing. That too is a timebomb waiting to go off.

The problem with your argument really is that taxes don't match spending. Its hard for you to complain about being taxed on all the spending when we're borrowing it all and you're not getting taxed(yet). The taxation preceeds the problem you're talking about and that hasn't happened yet. Right now you're getting screwed by wall street which is setting you up to eventually get screwed by the government. You go ahead and defend wall street though. Record corporate profits are a good thing....just not when they do not pay their employees adequate cost of living increases.

inflation is not low.. have you bought groceries lately? the artificially low interest rates are not actually solving any problems either.. believe me I like low interest rates as much as anyone.. but right now it's effectively translating to debt.. eventually the interest rates will have to go back up and we will have to get our debt under control.. and the longer we delay the more painful it's going to be..

[Elegiac]

profit is the money leftover after expenses are paid.. this is the money that's taxed.. if corporations make no profit it's very hard for them to grow.. and they pay no taxes.. see the catch?

this is why every single time in US history when taxes were lowered federal revenue increases.. the only time you can increase taxes without causing recession is when the economy is so strong that it can absorb the costs.. but one thing that's for certain is that it slows economic growth

Again, no. You said they make less profit; less profit is still profit by definition.

And funnily enough, the economy has been better off under period of high taxation, not the inverse as you claim.

- - - Updated - - -

inflation is not low.. have you bought groceries lately? the artificially low interest rates are not actually solving any problems either.. believe me I like low interest rates as much as anyone.. but right now it's effectively translating to debt.. eventually the interest rates will have to go back up and we will have to get our debt under control.. and the longer we delay the more painful it's going to be..

Once again, bitching about something that isn't related to the problem. The Fed is doing EXACTLY what it is supposed to do as regards interest rates and monetization. The problem is the lack of accompanying fiscal policy from the government.

[frumper]

Again, no. You said they make less profit; less profit is still profit by definition.

And funnily enough, the economy has been better off under period of high taxation, not the inverse as you claim.

To be fair though, there was rampant tax evasion and tax shelters that were used to avoid those high rates. When they lowered the rates they tried to close many of the ways people used to avoid them. The effective rate was much lower, I've seen it described as 30% from IRS data, but I honestly am not sure. That was when the tax rate was 91%.

[ishootblanks]

Again, no. You said they make less profit; less profit is still profit by definition.

And funnily enough, the economy has been better off under period of high taxation, not the inverse as you claim.

- - - Updated - - -



Once again, bitching about something that isn't related to the problem. The Fed is doing EXACTLY what it is supposed to do as regards interest rates and monetization. The problem is the lack of accompanying fiscal policy from the government.

please give me an example of where our economy improved after taxes were increased.. if you say during Clinton's presidency you would be wrong.. Clinton only raised the top marginal income tax rate.. he also created many new deduction and loopholes and decreased capital gains from 30 to 25%..

and yes I will agree that the Fed is currently doing the best they can with what they have to work with.. unfortunately though this trend can't last.. rates have to come back up at some point... it's like paying the minimum payment on your maxed out credit cards..

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair though, there was rampant tax evasion and tax shelters that were used to avoid those high rates. When they lowered the rates they tried to close many of the ways people used to avoid them. The effective rate was much lower, I've seen it described as 30% from IRS data, but I honestly am not sure. That was when the tax rate was 91%.

you are exactly right.. nobody would even bother going to work if they lost 91% of their income to taxes.. but leftists love this type of tax code.. where they can carve out different deductions and rules so that they can dictate the market.. nobody pays attention to changes in deductions.. but it's very easy to see the difference between a 70% top rate and a 25% top rate..

another reason to have the lowest possible rates is to get rid of all the deductions.. it typically costs me about $300 to have my taxes prepared and filed.. I would have no problem at all paying an extra $150 in taxes if it meant I could just fill out a 3x5 card with my joint income and sign my name and call it a night..

[Valerean]

Lower taxes, close loopholes, everybody wins.

[frumper]

Lower taxes, close loopholes, everybody wins.

/prediction
I NEED MY HOME LOAN INTEREST DEDUCTION THOUGH!

[Ausr]

When liberals get their way and the nation becomes a coast-to-coast Detroit and collapses the survivors will be the exactly the type of people that liberals mock ...creating communities based on the values and ethics that liberals despise ...and succeeding once again because of the ambition and personal responsibility that liberals evade.

What American liberal voters can't seem to understand is that their leadership is warping every resonable concept. They've been so mentally abused that they can't see the majority opposition isn't against things like green energy, or improved health care, or immigration. What they're against is the vindictive malicious tactics of liberal leadership which invokes emotion from ignorant people using the guise of a general idea while deploying a strategy that has no chance of actually making it work and all along blaming the other side.

Please begin to question the motives of the people the the Daily Show tells you worship.

Yeah, those liberal daily liberal show viewers liberally liberate their outdated and liberal like Detroit ideas against non liberal conservative bastions of glory need to liberate themselves from our progressively liber... err.. I mean, conservative nation. Detroit liberals, all of you.

Course, I kinda wonder what your post has to do with the current topic of hand aside from just spouting Fox News talking points. Obama's fault, I guess.


OT: I kinda wish Obama had stuck to his guns and gone straight to single payer Medicaid type system.

[Orbitus]

careful zombergy... not being a liberal makes you about 50 time more likely to receive an infraction for posts like this..

Well judging by your signature, you received infractions for bashing people which is 100% against their rules here. Not because of your political affiliation. But I guess you don't care about that because you think the government probably controls this board too right?

[Spectral]

And funnily enough, the economy has been better off under period of high taxation, not the inverse as you claim.

While marginal rates have varied wildly and the exact tax structure has changed regularly, the actual effective tax burden relative to GDP has stayed within a pretty tight range in the post-WW2 era. Here, check this out: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfa....cfm?Docid=200 . It looks like the two lowest years were '49 and '50, at 14.4 and 14.5%. The highest was 2000 at 20.6%. That's actually kind of remarkable, right? That the extremes aren't wider than that? In most years, the range is much smaller than that. I think the deltas are sufficiently small that it'd be hard to draw any real conclusion about effective tax rates versus economic success.

- - - Updated - - -

please give me an example of where our economy improved after taxes were increased.. if you say during Clinton's presidency you would be wrong.. Clinton only raised the top marginal income tax rate.. he also created many new deduction and loopholes and decreased capital gains from 30 to 25%..

Look at my link above; when Clinton took office, the total tax receipts were 17.5% of GDP. They gradually increased over the course of his Presidency, with rates at 19.9%, 19.8%, and 20.6% in the last three years of his Presidency. That is, by any definition, an increase.

[Serath]

As the title says.
Why is federal government exempt if it's such a good idea?

Do your homework
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...all-congress-/

[Rukentuts]

Do your homework
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...all-congress-/

Republicans telling flat-out falsehoods? Say it isn't so.

Edit: Although the irony of this one is overwhelming. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...mocrats-have-/

[Pitkanen]

please give me an example of where our economy improved after taxes were increased.. if you say during Clinton's presidency you would be wrong.. Clinton only raised the top marginal income tax rate.. he also created many new deduction and loopholes and decreased capital gains from 30 to 25%..

You have a government, it has revenue and it has spending.
Increasing the tax rate will always take money out of the economy.
Decreasing spending will always take money out of the economy.
In other words, fixing the deficit will always result in a short term economic loss.

I personally can't think of a time where deficit neutral bills of huge significance have been passed. I also haven't seen a bill that greatly increased government spending (other than funding Halliburton) during a time where the worlds economic factors weren't stronger than the bills.

Within my own life, the biggest tax "change" i have been aware of is the Bush tax cuts. They didn't seem to do much for economy relative to the 4-4 trillion or so dollars we've paid back out because of them.

The question is not "When have tax increases boosted the economy?" the question is "When has 1$ of government spending produced more economic growth than 1$ of tax breaks." My perception from economist interviews is that overwhelmingly the non-heratige foundation economists tend to think the spending accomplishes more, largely because tax changes have such a low impact. But I'm no expert on the math behind that. I bet google is though.

[ptwonline]

Lower taxes, close loopholes, everybody wins.

Until the lobbying gets those loopholes put back in, and then we are left with lower tax rates AND loopholes. Outcome? Poor will have their benefits cut to pay for it.

- - - Updated - - -

the federal workforce has been rapidly increasing.. remember when Obama took office the federal budget was 2.7 trillion.. today (via CR) it's 3.8 trillion...

Higher budget does not automatically mean higher workforce.

When Obama took office the federal government had 2,790,000 employees. Now it has 2,804,000 empoyees. In other words, it has grown far slower than the national population growth, and right now is at a much smaller relative level than it was in, say, the 1970's.

If you look at TOTAL gov't employment (so including state and local) it has dropped dramatically under the Obama Admin. This, of course, is the result of states requiring balanced budgets and getting hammered by the recession and their battle against each other with ever-lower tax rates. This is also despite getting billions and billions of dollars from the federal gov't so that they would NOT have to cut so many workers.

more spending > more debt > more taxes > less profit > cutbacks

it's that simple..

NO! It's it NOT that simple. A lot of gov't spending is actively beneficial to businesses, and helps them make their money. For example, by providing transportation infrastructure for their workers, customers, and goods. By providing security. By providing trade agreements. By creating and enforcing standards. By creating and maintaining a unit of currency. And so on. Businesses then make more profits and pay more taxes, and so you don't automatically just get more debt from more spending.

[Tinykong]

Although the irony of this one is overwhelming. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...mocrats-have-/

Please tell me you are honestly not surprised that young GOP'ers are deft at spending thier parent's money?

[Rukentuts]

Please tell me you are honestly not surprised that young GOP'ers are deft at spending thier parent's money?

It's more of the hypocrisy of it all.

It's terrible to be a "moocher" only when it's someone else, apparently.

[Tinykong]

It's more of the hypocrisy of it all.

If Republicans are good at anything, it's taking advantage of the things they complain about.

Also, are 26 year old people really unable to afford health insurance? Might be time to move out of the basement and stop posting on theblaze.com and get a job.

[ptwonline]

Please tell me you are honestly not surprised that young GOP'ers are deft at spending thier parent's money?

Actually, I wonder if it could be because more Democratic supporters are poor and currently can't even get a health care plan, and so of course their kids can't sign on to it.

[Payday]

Please tell me you are honestly not surprised that young GOP'ers are deft at spending thier parent's money?

More deft than those free loadin' liberals. Much akin to the whole red state vs. blue state welfare spending conundrum. Your hands sir, they are waiving!