to each his own, I guess.

Just a week and a half left of spin before the tears and meltdowns come. Can't wait.

I know this is probably the wrong time since we are bashing away at each other, but I just want to say again how much I like this board. I started this thread hoping it would lead to some interesting discussion about the coming race, and because I know there are such diverging view-points on this board I always get a chance to see arguments coming from a different perspective. As much as people might get mad, bitch, moan and down right mean sometimes, when I look at the utter crap most political discussion threads become pretty quickly on the internet, I'm pretty proud of this board. We get about as ugly as the politicians do, but there are kernels here in there of some really good, thought out opinions.

Thank you guys. Keep it up.

Quoted for truth. I've added absolutely nothing to this thread but have found it to be the only election thread I've found to be tolerable anywhere on teh internetz.

Don't pretend that you are part of some sort of unbiased middle and then pull this statement out. If you really believe this you are no better than anyone on the right to far right who call Obama a socialist primarily on the back of one impromptu response to a question on the campaign trail.

Obama's proposals are hardly any different than the Clinton's in 1992. Same tax levels proposed under Clinton, proposing universal health care, ect. Yet the Clinton's didn't get the same type of rhetoric, they weren't called wealth re-distributors and socialists like Obama is. It's hard to pretend to be critical of the far right when you buy into its rhetoric of the day.

Absolutely. At the very least it does a good job of spotlighting FOFCers that are probably mentally ill.

Man, I'm going to miss this thread. This thread makes me feel like I'm watching someone set a cat on fire in order to get rid of its fleas.

Anyways, one of my students in my high school economics class brought up a question:
At what income tax % can a country be considered socialist? we were talking about obama's top 5% increase, which seems to me to be about a 4-5% increase. is there a threshold that this increase passes?

Interesting stuff:

Obama only talks good game on gender pay equity

:lol:

Since you are in teh large minority here, could you explain to us how McCain's social and financial policies are responsible, as opposed to Obama's irresponsible ones? I see these accusations thrown around, but I do not know the reasoning behind the statements.


As other people have said, I don't agree with those statements saying that "America Sucks", but I completely accept your reasoning. I'm sure plenty of people think that Palin is merely saying, "you guys are great," not "the other guys suck." So, what I'm saying is, thank you for giving an actual example that at least represents some form of reasoning. :)

The income tax rate isn't really a good barometer for determining socialist/not socialist. The level of government control over the production and distribution of the produced goods is a much better barometer. Of course, if the income tax rate was 100%, then it is a moot point. :) But at the other end of the spectrum, you can have socialism at 0% income tax rate. Look at some of the oil oligarchies, where the state provides everything. Those are socialist places, and they have very low tax rates.

That's the problem, it isn't being used as anything close to intelligent discourse. Socialist and Socialism are the new conservative swear words against the left. Never mind that with tax rates Obama is seeking to move back to the tax policies of Clinton. Liberal doesn't have the same bite anymore, so attack politics moved on.

My pleasure.

Why does John McCain think America sucks?

I agree with you. However one of the points of contention for some of us is that while a change will likely head in a different direction, that does not mean that it still won't be the wrong direction.

:)

100% agreed. Anybody who is sure Obama will lead us in the right direction is just as far off (in my opinion). It's just about who to give the chance to at this point and whose basic tenets you agree with (in my opinion).

I wanted to find a nice bar chart or something, but what I found was this: History of Federal Individual Income Tax Rates

I'm not sure what it means, I will leave that to the rest of you that know more about the history and politics, because I don't know how the rates correlate to economic successes and failures (I suppose I could probably find that data as well, but I think people here know it without looking).

Good to see someone ask rather than assume. As you rightly point out, the assumption is made that because I oppose many of Obama's policies, that I must think that a McCain administration would handle it well. While I will likely vote for McCain based on my belief that he'd be a better foreign policy president and the fact that I prefer his tax cut across all levels, I think some of his economic policies are outrageous. Top of my list is health insurance. McCain's plan is a great way to screw up a health care system that's already plenty screwed up. I also heavily disagree with the mortgage buyout that he's proposing for bad loans.

My guess is that most voters likely won't have to worry about it anyway. Considering the current financial situation, I doubt that either candidate will be able to make any substantial health care changes and McCain's mortgage buyout doesn't have a chance in hell of passing.

:+1:

I'll be overjoyed if either of these candidates make 20% of the impact that they claim they'll be able to make in 4 short years, especially given the financial troubles.

So that chick in Pittsburgh admits making up the story about being attacked.

http://kdka.com/local/attack.McCain.....2.847628.html

Frankly, I'm glad she's facing charges, and I hope they don't allow her to plea bargain. This is exactly the kind of bullshit that drives me crazy. Her dishonesty will end up reflecting badly on College Republicans and I'm sure, to a certain extent the McCain campaign. What a twit.

At least you don't support taxing health benefits. :)

Thanks for the answer. I think everyone on here gets foggy on the fact that supporting one candidate over another does not mean that you support them on every issue. I would say this board (and, if the rest of America thought about it, I think it would be very widespread) is largely in the "we need more parties" camp. I would actually say I am more in a Libertarian camp, but social issues are more important to me than fiscal issues, thus I lean Democrat. Most people I know that feel they follow Libertarian values are more concerned with fiscal issues than they are social issues, so they lean Republican.

Give me a party that supports staying out of social issues (legalize marijuana, allow same sex marriages, allow stem cell research, etc) and a minimal (but not extinct) federal/local government to handle infrastructure and MINOR social programs (unemployment, for instance) and I would be very happy.

"In other words, send us the cure, we've got the sickness already."

-Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof

I don't see how it hurts McCain, and it shouldn't hurt the College Republicans. Along with facing criminal charges, I hope she gets some good mental health help. That level of personal destruction isn't at all healthy.

Quite the opposite. I support a straight tax rate. It can still be stairstepped as it is now or it can be a flat rate. I don't care in that regard. The credits, deductions, tax shelters, etc. are ridiculously out of control. I just want a system where I pay XX% of my salary with no futher calculations.

McCain does not favor that method, so I suppose we disagree about that as well.

With ya for the most part.

Well, I think Republicans, as much as they want to lower taxes, would certainly be against removing loopholes. However, maybe the argument that is they want the loopholes there to get closer to a "flat" tax rate. I should really just remain a spectator in these conversations because I don't know/care enough about it to be a valuable contributor regarding tax rates. :)

There was an interesting article I read about an IRS study that showed something like 60% of "rich" people underreport their income, and that doesn't even include a lot of these offshore hiding places. Something that people in the middle class are actually "better" about paying their taxes. Sort of defends raising the levels of those over a certain amount since they appear to be cheating more. Not that it matters since I'm not sure what % of tax revenue those different classes account for.

I agree with the point in the study that the wealthy either underreport their income or they have the tools/money to hire people to manipulate their assets to help with tax avoidance.

With that said, that's an argument that the government needs to do a better job of policing the enforcement of the tax code and/or to remove the credits/deductions/shelters that those people use. It is not a reason to raise the level of taxes for those individuals. That approach is a band-aid that does little to solve the inherent problems of the current tax code. My opposition to any deductions/credits/loopholes is that the wealthy are much more likely to exploit those advantages within the law rather than the middle and lower classes. Rarely do the benefits to the middle and lower class outweigh those handed to the wealthy simply because they aren't in a position to capitalize on those rules when compared to the wealthy.

Another excuse they use is all of the tax business like HR Block that will have to find other sources of income along with firing some workers since a major portion of their income will be gone with a simplified tax code. I agree in the months after the change that will cause some pain, but the overall benefit would be much greater over the long haul.

This is why the tax rate should be the same for everyone and across all sources of revenue (ie capital gains). The only deduction is for kids.

Of course, making everyone's tax rate 20% would require doing away with our militaristic foreign adventures, which at this point is about as likely as McCain becoming President.

Could we still bail out wall street executives?

Eh. Flatter would be fine, but still needs to be somewhat graduated. 15/20/30, or something like that.

Shame that HR Block won't be able to operate as a loan shark then.

Yeah, kick it in at about 5k per person, and get rid of all the stupid things like EIC, SS tax and medicare tax.

Why do we need it to be graduated?

Take it to another thread, flat taxer.

Because it will never go to college unless it graduated.

It makes all feel just a little bit better about people that have more money than us.

Yeah, my wife would be out of a job. :) (No, she does not work for HR Block)

Just curious on some of your thoughts as long as we are on the tax subject.

This probably pertains to any business but it is somewhat of a loophole we use on our farm. Before December 31st, we buy as much in inputs for the following year that we possibly can in order to under-report our income from the current year for tax purposes. In essence, we have two sets of books. One is for the banker, and the other is for the IRS.

Anything wrong with that picture? Or just smart business practice?

Yup, it is all about punishing success. :)


No. I think the post ealier from one of the founding fathers of our economy said it best. Taking very little money from lower incomes is much more detrimental to them than taking an even higher amount from the rich. ie. 15% from the lower class hurts them more than 30% from the upper.

If it is legal, then just smart business practice. I had the same thing on a personal level where I had some very good tax advantages that allowed me to legally under-report taxable income, but when I went to the bank it was all accounted there.

Ya, it's all about how much of your paycheck goes to essentials. The poorer you are, a higher percentage of your pay gets eaten up just by food, clothing, housing, basic transportation, etc. As you earn more money, the percentage of it that is more 'disposable' rises, so taxing you at a higher percentage doesn't affect your standard of living to the same degree.

I agree, and am just being cynical. There's people that have opinions based on legitimate, if debatable, economic ideas and those who just don't like the fact that people have more then them.

Obama is about the former, but can't help but rally the latter up into a tizzy as well. You can feel it, I won't call it "class warfare", but he's appealing to that kind of element, which is a tad scary in a way that it wasn't with Clinton.

I'm curious, wouldn't that only work once (the first year)? Because next year you have all these excess inputs kicking around so you don't actually need to buy as many, and then when you do the same thing on Dec 30 at the end of the year, aren't you just where you would have been?

Dola

Or if you keep using all your extra money to buy more inputs regardless of need, don't you eventually end up with an excess of inputs?

Of course it's legal. I guess it's kind of a no-brainer stupid question so let me word things a little differently.

Is it fair that a business owner can under-report his/her income by practices such as that to avoid taxation while a regular Joe that picks up a paycheck really can't do the same thing?

The way around it is to have a bit higher floor where income is tax free; say 10k instead of 3k (or whatever it is now).

Exactly, and it isn't like "tax them to the poor house" kind of need for equality. Just an "fair" spread of the damage, basically. A good tax would be the one equally felt IMHO. About as much damage done to the $35,000 income as to the $125,000, even if one is paying 15% and the other 25%.

Not necessarily, because inputs are in different classes. For example, a new piece of machinery may be needed one year which can soak up any excess income. The next year it could be an improvement to a building or other upgrade that is completely different than the year before. All are inputs, just inputs of varying kinds.

All I know, for as long as I can remember, our farm appears to have made no money whatsoever when you look at the bottom line at the end of the year. But when you dig deeper, that's the not the story whatsoever.

Somewhat (which was the way I understood the Forbes flat-tax to be), but everything I saw still ended up with a net increase to the middle class and huge relief to the upper incomes. Graduation, even slight, would eliminate some of that.

Fair? Not much of our tax system is fair. But a small farm paying less taxes seems fair to me.

I "lose" about 10-20 bucks per day on my current job after the mileage deduction. Such a shame ;)

Heh, depends on your definition of small. I've also been accused of being a large factory farmer.

This year might be different though. One arm of the business has already plowed over $1 million in equipment purchases this year and other rising input costs might make it hard to horde on some things before January 1st.

We just might have to pay taxes this year!

Here's an interesting analysis of why Obama is leading:

I think I posted that a page or three back :)

edit: minus the cool image in the spoiler tag!

ABC News: New Allegations in Mahoney Sex Scandal

This Mahoney thing is getting uglier and uglier. Mahoney still hasn't dropped out of the re-election campaign, but pulled out of tonight's debate.. saying that he didn't want to be a nationally televised circus. Why, you may ask?


"a) Calling Allen (his Mistress) late in the evenings and demanding "phone sex;"
b) Demanding that Allen answer his calls or face termination;

c) Demanding that Allen attend fundraisers and "tease c-ck" to bring in more donations from the male members of the public;

d) Demanding that Allen engage in sexual conduct with another woman for his enjoyment."

Current and former staffers told ABC News the allegations contained in the "demand letter" sent to Mahoney were backed up by tape recordings of phone calls between the Congressman and Allen.

McCain and his wife stopped in town this afternoon to have lunch a sit-down burger place - along with John Elway and John Lynch (plus a few others). I showed my son the picture with Elway and he absolutely freaked.

"Tease c-ck"? Umm... no thank you!



Why is it that pols never cheat with somebody hot?

She wasn't bad:

And of course she wasn't bad, and with enough money you could have had her too:

Can a campaign wrecker ever be considered hot? GrantDawg says YES!

wanted to point out Palin finally testified before someone in Troopergate. Better late than never.

Palin testifies to investigator in ethics dispute - Yahoo! News

With Obama the clear favorite now, I was thinking about the tradition that the networks have followed in the past when a candidate gets over the magic 270 electoral votes. They typically show a regal portrait of the president elect with his full name, and the commentator will say "Ronald Wilson Reagan" "George Herbert Walker Bush" "William Jefferson Clinton" etc. "has been elected the xxth President of the United States".

Want to bet that the tradition is broken this year if Obama is elected? After all, following the past tradition would be considered "racist" and not "politically correct."

Do you keep practicing your one-lines for this thread? We get it - Obama's a scary Black Muslim Socialist Arab (I'm sure you could go on). :rolleyes:

That has nothing to do with the point that I was trying to make.

Seriously, VV, were you viciously attacked by a rabid donkey at some point in the last four years or something? Seems like a deeply scarring incident must lie behind all this.

Uh-oh. When QS calls you out, you are in serious trouble.

Not really. I'm just disappointed in the demise of the DLC, which was instrumental in getting Bill Clinton elected. I had a really hard time voting for Gore and Kerry, as they were much farther to the left than my political views. My votes in 2000 and 2004 were more or less anti-GWB votes, and I would have even voted for Obama or Hillary in those cases. However, when it became apparent that McCain was going to be the nominee against Hillary or Obama, it was an easy decision for me. The Democratic party is now controlled by its far left, and it will be virtually unchecked in January with the three headed super majority of Obama/Pelosi/Reid.

Well, as a comfort...I think it is pretty safe to say they have two years to do what they can. 2010 could see the House turn red, or the Senate. At the least, well probably see both sides of congress at pretty close to 50/50.

The problem with this is that Clinton's proposals and actions during his first couple of years were more left wing that anything Obama is likely to do. CLinton started with gays in the military, higher taxes for nearly everyone, and an attempt to bring single-payer universal health coverage. Regardless of his DLC connections, Clinton came to office with a very liberal policy agenda that only modified after the 1994 elections.

And we will see that again (hopefully)?


I take no comfort in that. If it's so obvious that the voters will turn them out in two years, why does anyone think what we will have to go through the next two years is a good thing (unless you are on the "far left" as been mentioned)? Is it really all just oppositional politics, taking revenge when one can do so? How noble and worthy.

Ugh, can we please stop this "OMG, why is it wrong to use his middle name?" nonsense. This has already been dealt with numerous times.

Yes, the media will use it when he wins, and no it won't be racist.

His bringing up "gays in the military" was a mistake, but it was also blown out of proportion, and it certainly wasn't a priority. He raised taxes after exhaustive discussions with Robert Rubin, who convinced Clinton that getting the deficit under control was the single most important thing at the time, and that it would be in the long term interest.

Clinton was hardly a favorite of his party's left. He often infuriated them with his stands on issues like NAFTA and welfare reform. He had a long track record as a centrist governor before he was elected president.

Well, it is just historical. The president's party loses ground in congress in the first mid-term election. Bound to happen. Right now, though, it is especially true. The economy is no going to suddenly get better, and that will be bad for the Dems as the party in complete power, even though there is absolutely nothing that could be done to change that.

I also don't think there is going to be a whole lot accomplished in his first two years. The economy is definitely going to be a distraction. With tax receipts going down on top of that, the likely-hood of Obama's tax cuts or any raises is very slim. Not to mention the health-care thing will never fly when the government is going to be covered in red.

Obama is probably going to look a lot like Clinton in his first term. He'll push through what he can by executive order to undo much of the damage Bush has done in his tenure. He'll make the right mad, and they'll enrage the people over minor nothings that will be blown out of proportion. Then after the mid-term, he'll move to the center and maybe pass some cuts in taxes and the budget. About the end of his term, the economy will start looking up, and he'll have a shot of re-election. (That is of course something majorly bad happens, like Russia invading the Ukraine, or the financial system hits another crisis and collapses under the strain. Then things might get interesting).

What are Obama's positions that are far to the left of Clinton's? As far as I know there's nothing he's proposed that's far to the left of where Clinton was.(with the possible exception of trade issues) He's also been consulting with Rubin on his tax policy and he also has a record as a pretty pragmatic guy when it comes to policy.

There are plenty of good reasons not to vote for Obama, but I honestly don't understand how being left of Clinton is a serious concern.

Sure, but JPhillips was right on in that he did not govern from the center early on. He never mentioned welfare reform from the time he left the campaign trail till the time the Republicans took the House. His moves to center (which is how he ran in both elections) didn't come till he stopped listening to Hillary's gang and started listening to Dick Morris (the sleaze bag).

All we have is his voting record, which granted is a somewhat small sample size on the issues that he's actually bothered to cast a vote. You can spin it however you want, but Hillary Clinton and Obama aren't anywhere close to being centrists.

Where on the voting record are they substantially different? There just aren't many liberal issues that have been voted on during their time in the Senate. If you have specifics I'm more than willing to admit I'm wrong, but I haven't seen any evidence that Obama pursues a radical left-wing agenda.

Look at Clinton in 1992-93, he was for higher taxes, less military spending, gays allowed in the military, universal, single-payer healthcare, high speed rail funding, and tougher environmental standards. As one who would like to see some liberal policies enacted, I see Clinton as more left in most every area.

To be fair, I think that you also need to look at Obama's voting record as a state senator in Illinois, which comprises the bulk of his political experience.

I'm not sure how looking at voting records is a good sell for John "I voted with Bush 90% of the time" McCain.

If not, let's see how many times Obama or McCain has been willing to stand up to their party's establishment.

If you believe the polls, the democrats will have more than enough votes in the house and senate to force through any of Obama's policies they like. I could see them passing the national health care plan, rolling back the Bush tax cuts (esp cap gains) and even repealing all the drilling they supported before the election by next November.

My fear is that all that will get rubberstamped and we'll be in the middle of a recession with a pending tax increase (esp on cap gains) and this enormous health plan starting soon with no real way to pay for it (much like what Hawaii found out).

The last president who raised taxes during a recession was Herbert Hoover.

Hoover raised the top bracket from 25% to 63%. I don't think anyone is talking about a change quite that drastic.

I'd be happy if there was a supermajority, as long as they backroom deal Pelosi out of the speakers chair. And maybe HilRod will unseat the Navada gangster.

dola-

And how exactly does the speaker vote work? Could the republicans nominate and back someone like Dennis Moore(D-Kansas) for speaker? And maybe get enough blue dogs to beat Pelosi.

I think just about every Dem not related to Harry Reid would rather see Hillary in the Senate Majority slot... let's see if they have the balls to can Harry Reid's worthless ass though.


Yes. It's basically a whoever gets the most vote. Usually each party nominates their person and everyone in the party votes for that nominee (and you better if you want the good slots).

WSJ has an interesting article on both candidates' tax plan:

The Election Choice: Taxes - WSJ.com

Your only looking at one component of what Obama says he will do. The total tax increase is greater than what Hoover did in 1932. For example, Hoover's Revenue Act of 1932 implemented a tax of 13.75% on corporations (much less than Obama). Also, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (passed in 1930) was in full effect and added fuel to the fire and of course a world wide depression resulted. Yeah, it didn't work for Hoover in the middle of a recession and it won't work for Obama either.

Obama probably has no clue what happened in 1932. Heck, his Vice Presidential candidate thinks Roosevelt (FDR) was president in 1932.

Unfortunately, I think the debate is about over at this point. I'm astounded at the number of friends that I have, most of whom are very intelligent, who get indignant over any criticism of Obama, despite the fact that they can't cite any accomplishment or any substantive policy issue that they think he will implement. They just "like him" and think it's "time for change." I think that's where the bulk of the country is at right now.

Considering the amount of different kinds of taxes we have now compared to 1932, I would think it would be rather easy to have a "total tax increase greater than what Hoover did" after you added everything up.


Which was an increase of 1.75% in corporate net income tax (which was a flat tax back then). Is Obama planning a larger increase in that tax? A quick google search only shows that McCain plans to lower it, but nothing on Obama doing anything to it.


Trust me, I know all about that one. I may have ranted about it at some point in that past on here.


Don't take my reply earlier as a defense or support for Obama's tax plan. From what I see, we're probably screwed with either Obama's or McCain's plan getting passed. I just think the comparisons to Hoover are pretty silly (which would put them on par with just about everything else going on in this election).

Have the masses ever talked deeply about policy? If Obama wins, he would have put forth more specific policy details than any elected President in my lifetime. His tax proposal alone has more specifics than any candidate has put forth in decades.

Sounds a little bit like you "just don't like him." Or at least some of bandwagoning going on around him. Thats just presidential politics.

I wonder how many people think that that's what Social Security is supposed to be, anyway.

You been listening to the same guy I have?

Dang, Palin just needs to stay away from hockey games. First the booing, and now this:

Goalie injured after tripping on Palin carpet | ajc.com

Goalie injured after tripping on Palin carpet

By JIM SALTER
Associated Press Writer
ST. LOUIS — Blues goalie Manny Legace left after one period Friday night with a hip injury that occurred when he slipped on the carpet placed on the ice for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The Alaska governor dropped the ceremonial first puck before the Blues hosted the Los Angeles Kings. A narrow carpet walkway was placed from the gate at the Blues bench to center ice for Palin, her husband and two of her daughters.

Just before the ceremony, Legace was the first player onto the ice for St. Louis. A team official pointed to the carpet. But Legace said the official moved his own foot from the carpet just as Legace stepped down, causing the carpet to slide.

Legace fell, then gingerly made his way to the crease. After Legace's mishap, the official rolled up enough of the carpet so other players wouldn't have to step on it.

Legace described the injury as a strained left hip flexor. He doesn't believe it is serious but said it is painful. He said he won't play Saturday when the Blues host Florida, but wasn't sure if he'd miss any additional games. "I felt a pull right away," Legace said. "I was hoping it would just go away." But after making his first save, the injury felt worse, Legace said. He played one period, giving up two goals on 12 shots. After the intermission, the team said he suffered a "lower body" injury but did not immediately elaborate. He was replaced by Ben Bishop, making his NHL debut.

Legace is 4-2 with a 2.94 goals-against average in six games this season. He is 313-291 in his nine-year career. He was selected to the Western Conference All-Star team last season.

It was Palin's second appearance at an NHL game this month. She also dropped the ceremonial puck at Philadelphia on Oct. 11.

Legace didn't blame Palin for the injury.

"She's been pretty good for our game," Legace said. "I'm starting to like her more and more. No grudge."

The Flyers finally won yesterday, their first win since Palin dropped there a few weeks ago. With Legacy's injury and the Blues losing last night I guess the curse has been passed on.

Maybe not. The Flyers won on the road, not at the Wachovia Center. ;)

Agreed, but apparently Harry Reid is beloved by his colleagues. And Pelosi, for all her flaws, is a bare-knuckled politician, and I'd be shocked to see her lose that role.

Christian right intensifies attacks on Obama - Yahoo! News


Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.

Do they not realize how incredibly counterproductive this is and how idiotic it makes them look?