Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Also, replace the income and corporate taxes with a flat consumption tax? Not only will doing that fail to balance the budget, it'll be horribly regressive.

No, it would be progress. I get to keep what I make, excessive junk regulations and laws that exist to add tax revenue would be exposed and have no legs to stand on. Take DOMA, for example. Its designed to give exclusive tax benefits to married heterosexual couples. If everyone's paying the same taxes, however, what is the point of DOMA aside from religion? And wouldn't a immigrant who was able to take more money home deeply consider the path to citizenship? Wouldn't that create a strain on the immigration system that would force legitimate reforms rather than the circle jerks and profiteering that the government enjoys now on visa fees? The corruption of the system would be exposed.

And if we're all paying 27% on goods and services that means the same tax on alcohol as cigarettes when you think about it. They're now both more cost prohibitive and equally so. Same thing if drugs were legalized, same thing with eating out. You'd be forced to consider your own choices more deeply.

And so would the government. They'd have to reduce their size and live within their means, which means national defense would be prioritized over wars for resources.

So with all that in mind, please explain to me why corporate and income taxes are a good thing.

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Worth noting that this 27% tax would also apply to corporate acquisitions. They're not getting a free pass by this, just being held to the same standard as everyone else.

Also, "The proposal also calls for a monthly payment to all family households of lawful U.S. residents as an advance rebate, or "prebate", of tax on purchases up to the poverty level."*

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Taiwanese median outlet, New Media, put out an interesting and funny video. It was better than the effort by Simpson/Family Guy animators to make Obama's weak debate points look a strong speech.

vs.

The first video is funnier because they don't have a stake in it. The second one was made by cheerleaders and since most of Obama's speech was canned and predictable anyway, easy to produce a fancier video for. Also worth noting the juxtaposed conservative commentators that tend to be highly against the Republican establishment with the Republican establishment.

Also more Bush blame, which is getting tiresome. When do Obama and his cronies stop blaming Bush and start accepting responsibility? There's literally no difference between what Bush did between 2006 to 2008 and what Obama has done these last for years. 2006-2010 was when we had a Democrat supermajority, BTW, which is why Bush's late years strongly resemble Obama's first term. They shouldnt' really be blaming bush, they gave him a third term in Obama.

[Firewind]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

So with all that in mind, please explain to me why corporate and income taxes are a good thing.

Second Law of Thermodynamics. It applies to economics as well.

Money that is hoarded offshore is for all intents and purposes money removed from the economy. Tax avoidance is one of the contributing factors of the huge national budget deficits you are seeing in many countries today, particularly in Europe. If nothing it being put into the economy then how can it grow? Now tell me what happens to the growth of ANY system where what is being put in is taken out.

Which is why the Conservative party in the UK of course have suddenly decided to fudge the figures and quietly sweep under the rug that fact that many tax avoidance loopholes are still open, and refusing to go through with their plans to tax large properties, second properties and estates; all while small business owners, the middle class, and poor pay for the elite who contribute nothing to society.

This is also the same party that is slashing the welfare safety net that more and more people are being forced to rely on due to the clusterfuck that is the current UK Economy and using it to justify further cuts to public spending, which further destroyed economic growth as more people lose jobs, which leads to more people claiming welfare, and the government again pointing fingers at "lazy" people who lose their jobs due to budget cuts and cuts to public spending. Do you want to know how many people are applying for each open job position in the UK? 70.

Yes even a job cleaning toilets in a truck stop will have an average of 70 people applying for that one job. Also add in how much Mr Cameron and co love to fudge figures by simply moving people around. People on volunteer work programmes but still claiming welfare? Well technically they are employed so we get to fudge the unemployment figures! Disabled unable to work claiming welfare? Just rename the benefit that they claim! Crime rate soaring to uncontrollable levels? merge Police forces and use the crime statistics for both areas to get a lower crime rate figure! NHS failing? Chop it up into competing departments only interested in meeting budget and waiting list targets! Ultra-Rich and Corporations avoiding hundreds of billions in unpaid taxes? Close a couple of loopholes and out a few fall guys and claim that there's no more tax avoidance going on!

The UK is doing everything that the Republicans want to do and it is not working. And I don't just mean it's doing badly, I mean we are pretty likely to have a repeat of last year's riots if someone in government doesn't stop dropping the fucking ball.

[Raydeus]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

The UK is doing everything that the Republicans want to do and it is not working. And I don't just mean it's doing badly, I mean we are pretty likely to have a repeat of last year's riots if someone in government doesn't stop dropping the fucking ball.

It is working, for the people at the top of the Corporations that are profiting from it. It may look like an economic disaster to everyone else, but these guys can profit even more from a falling economy than from a healthy one because of how they rigged the game deceptively named Capitalism in their favor. And socializing their loses while capitalizing their gains is just one aspect of it.

Once the income unbalance is like it is right now in the US they are able to grab even more land and power cheaply than they ever could if the wealth was distributed amongst the population. That is why they undermine the people at any chance they have. Their rights, their wealth, their land, their Government. The more things they can take from the general population the more they can profit from it.

This is how and why the US and the UK (and obviously Israel) have sponsored dictatorships all over the place for decades. The weaker the population is the easier it is to take wealth from them, and all they have to do is throw some of it at the corrupt collaborators in power who have no problem selling their country to the "1st world" for profit.


Thing is now with the Petrodollar on the decline they are turning to the 1st world to cannibalize it too.

[Raydeus]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Well... they can't really take anything from the people. But all they need to do is convince them the system is how things are and that are immutable so they don't think about just ditching the current system that give the Elites power.

People will get addicted to it and defend the system even if it's slowly enslaving them. In the end it's all a big scam people need to sheepishly buy or it wont work. Because those Elites? The have nothing of their own, they produce nothing and they can't really monopolize land or resources on their own. Like all parasites they need the people to provide for them as long as they can keep them fooled with the "system".

[Malacite]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

It's much more fair for one thing. Taxing only consumption hurts the poor and middle class worst because overall we spend the most and comprise the bulk of the tax base.

The Ontario govt recently put in the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) which is essentially a flat 13% across the board on everything and it sucks.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Those are talking points, Firewind. Non-answers. What's more is none of it answers why corporate and income tax are good and fair tax is bad. Its just the usual political fire and brimstone because you differ from conservatives. I'm not talking about something conservatives are proposing.

And lets be clear. "Republicans" in America are fiscally liberal and socially conservative and Democrat is fiscally liberal and socially liberal (HINT; Why we're up Shit Creek without a paddle, because Republicans and Democrats work together, just like your liberals and conservatives do).

A Libertarian is fiscally conservative, socially liberal and has real ideas. The Green Party is liberal except, like Libertarians and unlike Democrats they have ideas. And they like trees.

What's NOT working here is just letting the pendulum swing hard left and hard right all the time. We have a very clear history all over the world through business, politics and religions that over regulation is a consistent problem and more regulation is not the solution. It is, in fact, why people settled in America and why we had the Revolutionary War in the first place. The church and monarchy had too much reach, we didn't like it so we left them and late drove them off the land. You will be amazed how many conservatives and liberals in America can tell this story, but live like they don't understand it in the way the govern.

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

How do you figure that the poor and middle class spend more than people who have several houses and fucking jets?

[Icemage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

How do you figure that the poor and middle class spend more than people who have several houses and fucking jets?

If you look at sales tax as a function of income, it makes more sense. Remember, people in the upper echelons make more money than they can spend, so their effective taxation rate from a sales tax is lower because they spend a much, much smaller ratio of their income on products that are subject to sales tax. You only get hit with sales tax if you buy something, so someone making, say $500K per year and tossing 300K into savings is going to end up paying a lot less sales tax proportionally than someone living paycheck to paycheck at $25K per year.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

It's much more fair for one thing. Taxing only consumption hurts the poor and middle class worst because overall we spend the most and comprise the bulk of the tax base.

How does it hurt it more if everyone is taxed at the same rate? If the rich have more money they spend more and are taxed more. Your spending would likely remain in proportion to what is now, its just under a plan like this everything would seem more expensive for a short while because you're ALL of you money home.

I don't think that's what Ontario is doing unless corporate and income tax have been abolished. Given how Canada can be, I somehow doubt they just altruistically gave that up if they're still run the parties they have.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

If you look at sales tax as a function of income, it makes more sense. Remember, people in the upper echelons make more money than they can spend, so their effective taxation rate from a sales tax is lower because they spend a much, much smaller ratio of their income on products that are subject to sales tax. You only get hit with sales tax if you buy something, so someone making, say $500K per year and tossing 300K into savings is going to end up paying a lot less sales tax proportionally than someone living paycheck to paycheck at $25K per year.


Icemage

And the guy pulling in $500 is still going to pay more taxes proportionally. They do now. Obama defines "rich" as making $200k, which is why small businesses are hurting. They might make $200k a year, but they're paying other people, too. $200k is not what they take home.

[Icemage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

And the guy pulling in $500 is still going to pay more taxes proportionally. They do now. Obama defines "rich" as making $200k, which is why small businesses are hurting. They might make $200k a year, but they're paying other people, too. $200k is not what they take home.

Do you ever gut check yourself before you hit that post button? I'm literally stunned at how clueless this comment is.

Someone who owns a small business who generates $200K in revenue but pays out $150K in expenses does not have 200K in income. You "could" make the case for a sole proprietorship, but even that would be a dubious claim and no one in their right mind would consider even a sole proprietor with $200K business revenue and $150K expenses to have "$200K of income" except in the broadest use of an accounting definition.


Icemage

[Taskmage]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Assuming a linear relationship between income level and savings rate (it almost certainly isn't, but just for the sake of argument) and using a 3-member household to define the poverty level at $19,000/yr, I plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet and got the following numbers:



So it seems that in this simulation, a flat consumption tax with taxes up to the poverty level rebated would be progressive up to an income of about $150k/yr, after which point the effective rate becomes regressive as a proportion of total income.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Melody's Melodramatic Meltdown on Mitt Romney (Tounge Twister?)

Do you ever gut check yourself before you hit that post button? I'm literally stunned at how clueless this comment is.

Interesting, because you repeated my intent;

Someone who owns a small business who generates $200K in revenue but pays out $150K in expenses does not have 200K in income.

Obama would raise taxes on everything to pay for his programs so the owner wouldn't even be taking $50k home. The point of owning a small business is gain wealth, expand and employ more people, not still be paid like wage slave and be unable to hire people.

Also:



To be fair, it seemed like Obama was scribbling notes during the debate, too.