This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Taxes

  • “Please raise my taxes”

    Some halfwit who claims to be “unemployed by choice” begs the President to “please raise my taxes”;

    I would like very much to have the country to continue to invest in things like Pell Grants, infrastructure, and job training programs that made it possible for me to get to where I am.

    First of all, if he’s not earning any money, he’s not paying income taxes. Maybe he’s paying capital gains on his investments, but he’s not paying income taxes since he has no income. So who is he to ask for a tax increase? he has the option to voluntarily send in some money if he feels that would assuage his guilt over not paying enough, but why is he so ready to inflict his guilty feelings on the rest of us?

    And yeah, I’d like to see kids get a decent education, I’d even be willing to pay more taxes if kids got a decent education. But, for example, at the college from which I graduated, a large number of students were psychology majors, which is an absolutely worthless field of endeavor if the student only intends to get a bachelor’s degree.

    And, oh, I learned more in high school than I learned twenty years later in college because of “education inflation.” The public schools are more focused on the social aspect of beiong a teenager than they are in educating students – because of the proliferation of grants, everyone is going to college, so let’s spend more time practicing to put condoms on bananas than on the Constitution.

    Employers don’t have job training programs? What we need is an education system that provides a baseline education so that employers spend their time and money training people for job-specific tasks. The government can’t do that no matter how much money we give them.

    ADDED: Michelle Malkin says that the guy who is so generous with your tax money is a DNC plant. This is my shocked face.

  • Just an excuse to raise taxes on the wealthy

    The Washington Post has finally decided to fact-check the President, and of course, they come to the decision that his plan doesn’t raise taxes enough…because, you know that’s all the Liberals want to do.

    …the package in the end may serve more as a campaign document. If so, that would be a shame — most of all for a country that cannot keep putting off the day of fiscal reckoning.

    Well, why shouldn’t it look like a campaign document…this administration has been in campaign mode since 2006, why should they stop now? In another piece, WaPost’s Glenn Kessler picks apart the proposal;

    Analysts have decreed that President Obama’s speech in the Rose Garden on Monday was a political statement designed to rally his political base rather than engage in real negotiations with Republicans on Capitol Hill…

    In other words, the whole purpose of the proposal is strictly to raise taxes on the wealthy to mollify the Left…it’s purely class warfare. But I don’t see anyone who thinks that everyone should shoulder their “fair share” recommending that Congress cut their staffs or reduce their pensions. So which classes are doing battle here?

  • Class warfare

    I got an email this morning from the Democrat National Committee under the guise of President Obama’s staff explaining to me how the president’s proposal to stop unemployment from rising is not “class warfare”

    Jonn —

    This morning, the President proposed the “Buffett Rule,” which would require those earning more than $1 million a year to pay the same share of their income in taxes as middle-class families do.

    This proposal makes sure millionaires and billionaires share the responsibility for reducing the deficit. It would correct, for example, the fact that Warren Buffett’s secretary currently pays taxes at a higher rate than he does.

    The other side is already saying it’s “class warfare” — that’s their rhetorical smokescreen for providing millionaires and billionaires special treatment.

    As the President said this morning, “This is not class warfare — it’s math.”

    The wealthiest Americans don’t need further tax cuts and in many cases aren’t even asking for them. Requiring that they pay their fair share is the only practical way forward. The Republican alternative is to drastically slash education, gut Medicare, let roads and bridges crumble, and privatize Social Security. That’s not the America we believe in — but many in the Republican leadership actually prefer those policies, which explains their refusal to act.

    That’s why they’ll say “tax increase” over and over again, trying to muddy the waters and trick ordinary Americans into thinking the Buffett Rule will hurt them. And if we don’t speak out right now, they just might get away with it.

    If you stand with President Obama in this fight and want to see the Buffett Rule passed — say you’ll get his back now.

    Of course, the Buffett Rule won’t really touch most Americans — only 0.3% of households will even be affected.

    And without it, the only way to reduce our debt is to savage the programs that seniors and middle-class families rely on.

    That’s exactly what the President refuses to do — in fact, he’s said he’ll veto any bill that changes benefits for folks who rely on Medicare but doesn’t raise serious revenue by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share.

    This isn’t just a commonsense approach to cutting the deficit — it’s the only way to make sure we can provide security to people who work hard and play by the rules.

    So right now, I’m asking you to say you’ll stand with the President on something that won’t be easy. Get the President’s back today:

    Yeah, well, yesterday when the president rolled out his proposal, he said that if we don’t let him raise taxes on millionaires, he going to have to raise taxes on retirees…setting one class against another. If that’s not class warfare, I don’t understand the concept.

    And even in the letter, it explains how only .3% of tax payers will be affected by the hike…so the rest of us should feel grateful that the 99.7% of us won’t be affected. Isn’t that class warfare, too?

    Where have we heard that shit before? Oh, yeah, now I remember. During the Clinton Administration, that president promised that he was only raising taxes on the richest Americans. Soon afterward, we all discovered that we all were rich. The Clintons even raised taxes on Social Security recipients, because, you know, they’re all rolling in dough. Even my kids who were working part-time jobs after school saw their taxes increase.

    The letter also states that the President wants to protect “entitlements” to middle class families. How many middle class families depend on entitlement spending? We’re out here working because we don’t get entitlements…and just by mentioning the middle class, that proves it’s class warfare right there.

    I just don’t know how he figures that by taxing the people who hire workers will improve the rate of employment.

  • Obama introduces “Buffet Rule”

    So Warren Buffet, the third richest man in the world, is getting his wish. President Obama is prepared to introduce what the media is calling “The Buffet Rule” – an increase in taxes on millionaires and billionaires. Fox News writes;

    The measure would be in addition to $447 billion in new tax revenue that Obama is seeking to pay for his short-term spending and tax cutting plan to jump start the economy.

    Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Thursday he would oppose tax increases to reduce the deficit. Boehner has urged Congress’ deficit “supercommittee” to lay the groundwork for a broad overhaul of the U.S. tax code.

    Of course, Buffet is being disingenuous about the way the new tax will apply to him. That net worth of his, which was about $47 billion last year, won’t get taxed since we’re talking about income tax, not a tax on net worth. All Buffet has to do is make less money on paper to avoid the new tax, and if his conscience is bothering him, he’d have already checked the box to send in extra money to assuage his guilt.

    The only thing this does is make the billionaire club more exclusive since fewer people will be able to claw their way through the door since they’re forfeiting their earnings to the government. Obama only helped Buffet secure his place in the crowd.

  • Retirees get 13th paycheck this year

    The Stars & Stripes reports that military retirees will get a 13th paycheck this year because of changes to the law;

    The reason, explained Defense Finance and Accounting Service spokesperson Steve Burghardt, is that Congress changed the law this year to require that DFAS pay retirees on the first of each month, unless that day happens to fall on a weekend or a holiday.

    In those cases, the payment is to be made on the last business day before the first of the month. Because New Year’s Day, Jan. 1, is always a federal holiday, that means that going forward retirees will always receive their January pay in the previous December.

    So you know what they say about 13 being unlucky? That means you’re going to end up paying more taxes on your retirement pay than you have in the past. The Stars & Stripes makes it sound like it’s a windfall, but it could cost you if you teeter between tax brackets like I do. It probably means we’ll get our 1099Rs late, too. So forewarned is forearmed.

  • Post fact checks Obama’s “biggest tax cut” claim

    I’ve been complaining for months in our Facebook fan page about the Washington Post fact checking Republican candidates without ever having to do that on the Democrat candidate in 2012. Well, shut my mouth, they did it today on his claim the other day about his administration’s “biggest middle class tax cut in history“.

    First they bothered to call the White House to get a naseline for measuring the “biggest” and it seems their idea of “the biggest” is different from what you or I might call the biggest;

    “The point the president was making that is there is not a tax cut that has been enjoyed by such a broad section of the population,” an administration official said, pointing to a report that said that 95 percent of working families received some kind of tax cut under the Making Work Pay provision in his stimulus bill.

    Huh?

    In other words, this isn’t about the size of the tax cut, but about the fact that every working family, except those making more than $190,000, received as much as $800 in tax cuts.

    Funny, but when I think of “biggest tax cut” I think of it terms of how it helps me and my family, not how many other people are getting a paltry sum more in their checks. But, that’s not how the White House sees it. Remember that’s how he justified the tax hikes that have occurred since – because we already had this huge tax cut that should help us pay for the shit he levied on us.

    The Post goes on to admit that the Bush tax cuts benefited the middle class more than the Obama tax slice;

    the income tax provisions of George W. Bush tax cuts are more than twice as large as Obama’s tax cut over the same three-year time span. (Yes, a large portion of Bush’s tax cut went to the wealthy, but it also benefited the working poor. We still don’t know what Obama means by “middle class,” since his definition also seems to include the working poor.)

    That must’ve really hurt them to admit that Bush tax cut were more humane than Obama’s $15/week. I wonder if they’ll admit that Bush’s tax cuts actually gave the working poor no tax bill at the end of the year.

    It’s funny that when the media actually do their job, they can usually find their working class heroes don’t quite measure up to their expectations.

  • The dumbest crap ever written

    I thought I’d read the dumbest shit ever written at Veterans Today and from Gordon Duff, but this one from the Old Media has everything over there beat hands down. In the Minnesota Post is an article written by Doug Grow entitled “This week’s American Legion gathering is latest evidence that government does create jobs”;

    It has become popular — especially among conservative voices — to say that government doesn’t create jobs and economic growth; that only the private sector can do that. Government, the voices say, needs to get out of the way.

    But this week, more than 10,000 members of the American Legion will be in the Twin Cities, filling up hotels and restaurants throughout downtown Minneapolis. Before they leave, the delegates to the convention are expected to spend from $17 million to $22 million in the region.

    Much of the money will end up in state coffers directly through sales taxes and indirectly by income taxes paid by people whose jobs depend on tourism dollars. According to Explore Minnesota, there are 70,000 people in Hennepin County alone whose jobs revolve around travel and tourism.

    The point: The Legion delegates — and the thousands of delegates from dozens of other large conventions — wouldn’t be here without the Minneapolis Convention Center.

    The convention center is a product of government. It’s owned by the city. It’s built — and maintained — through a variety of hotel, restaurant and entertainment taxes. Authority for levying those taxes came from the 1986 Legislature.

    Government doesn’t create jobs? The convention center would seem to be a small example of a different reality.

    Fucking brilliant. One local government builds a convention center and it’s proof that conservatives are bone heads. How can Grow translate that into a national jobs program? Is Obama going to fund a series of convention centers?

    The structure, which opened in 1989, is not self-sustaining. Tax collections from hotel, liquor and restaurant taxes amount to about $48 million a year. $18 million of that is used to subsidize operations of the building, and the rest goes to pay off debt and keep the center as current as possible.

    But by continuing to invest, Tennant said, “the building remains ahead of the [national] competition.”

    “It’s designed to be a loss leader,” said Tennant. “There’s an effort to minimize the losses. But in every way, it’s been a great public investment.”

    Oh, so it doesn’t make enough money to be profitable without continuously dipping into taxpayer pockets, but somehow it’s proof that government creates jobs, huh? Funny, but something that costs more in taxes than it’s worth is hardly an asset to taxpayers, Mr. Grow.

  • Zombie: Voluntary Tax Rates and Personalized Earmarks: How to Solve the Debate over Taxes

    Our friend Zombie sent us a link to the latest post at Pajama Media in response to the recent spate of the real rich (as opposed to us regular people who the Democrats consider “the rich”). Zombie offers a solution to those rich folks who don’t think they pay enough in taxes and a new 1040 tax return form for the masses so we won’t feel guilty about not paying “our fair share”;

    Recently, billionaire investor Warren Buffett publicly announced that he wants the government to raise his taxes, because, he feels, he just isn’t paying enough. Soon after, fellow billionaire Donald Trump joined Buffett in announcing the he too would at least be willing to pay more taxes if necessary. Then millionaire TV host Jerry Springer joined the chorus of wealthy Americans demanding that their own tax rates be raised.

    These high-profile champions of increased self-taxation are simply the most visible members of an entire sector of the American public who demand that we as a nation raise our own taxes to pay for our ever-increasing expenses.

    Go read the rest.