4 more years...of what?

[MAC]

fox --> Bush Lays Foundation of Second Term (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137614,00.html)

cnn --> Bush sets out agenda (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/04/bush.agenda/index.html)

msnbc --> set direction
for next four years (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6405260/)

reform the tax code?
If you make it simpler and more evenly spread % I like that.

reform Social Security?
If I get to putmy money into investments in BANKS in the US where the money can help the US economy instea do finto the "general fund" where it's drawn each month and doled out to the pet entitlement of the month, I like that.

I have only one probelm with that stuff (I'm not even talkign about stem cells, Iraq, etc)

you can't cut the federal gov'ts income and then increase the money it spends

no company or individual can take in LESS and spend MORE
you have to get the money from somewhere

PLEASE! Give me my tax reform and my social security reform!

but, for god's sake have the fucking balls to admit that you must cut spending!

I smell my first form email of the year.....

[Skeet]

Seriously... lets pay off the national defecit by..... GIVING RICH PEOPLE THEIR MONEY BACK!!!!!!

[MAC]

yeah fuck them!!!

Cause, like, if you make $25,000/year and pay 15% federal income tax and then some rich asshole makes $150,000/year he only pays 35% taxes!!!

He has like $97,500 at the end of the year and you only have $21,250!!!!

Considering that it costs EVERYTHING you make to live he could pay all your bills and still have $76,000 left!!! That's three times what you make in a year gross (and it only cost him 50% of what he made after taxes)!!!

that's not right!!!

he should pay "proportionately"
if you pay 15%, he should pay 86%!!!

this way his $150,000 is the same $21,000 as yours!!

this way he can live in a house no better than yours, drive a car no better than yourse and shop where you shop for no more than you can buy.

equality!

BTW: rich ppl don't get money back, incase you didn't know. rich ppl hide behind investments, realestate, trust funds, corporations, and play every loop hole possible to get out of all the taxes they can...each and every practive of which is LEGAL and written INTO the TAX CODES passed by BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES.

[Skeet]

They sure as shit all got a $500 check last time around.

[MAC]

you didn't?

[Skeet]

Nope.

[Cruise Director]

Now that the GOP has unseated Daschle and gained 4 seats in Congress, it will be interesting to see what the "Republican edge" does for tax reform.

[MAC]

did you pay anything in?

I did and I got my check.

PS:
Cruise, you need 60 votes in the senate to get a bill proposed and the republicans are still short on seats. they can PASS a bill that's proposed but they have to get it to the senate floor.....if you where a Democrat would you let ANYTHING that the republicans propose (or could use to get re-elected) reach the floor?

[Skeet]

I paid a bunch in that year. I make like 18k and they told me I didn't make enough.

[MAC]

at 18k Gross you should have paid in 10% ($1,800 or $34.62/week) + SS & medicaid
assuming no taxable interest or unemployment compensation and filing singly you subtracted $7,800 and only owed on $10,200. According to the 2003 tax table you owed $1,184.

If your boss withheld the 10% like he should have (not counting his matching) you paid in $1800, thus you got back $616

I made more than you and after taxes I actually OWED the 10% of my GROSS income (of which I got NOTHING back)

what are you bitching about?

[Skeet]

I was bitching?

[Skeet]

Yeah, I wasn't bitching about not getting money. I was talking about giving wealthy people a tax break when we have a huge fucking deficit to pay off. (defecit?, deficit?, whatever)

[MAC]

sorry, I know you weren't bitching, but I run into alot of ppl who do :)

and I agree, the deficit is ridculous.

the other day someone asked me why I liked Dubya as governor considering that the governor's office of texas has the least power of ANY of the US governors

well, in the question is the answer.
Dubya might be a great President if congress showed up once ever two years for a few months, balanced the budget and then left him to execute (see: executive branch) all the stuff they passed.

but this "tax break for the rich" mantra is just tripe.
everyone in this country pays federal taxes (either income or regulatory fees) based on a ridculous book full of rules. And, unfortunately the more you make, the higher % you pay. It's not that someone made 10x what you made, it's that they paid 3x the base taxes to begin with then they had more stuff tacked on because "they can afford it". this is a capitalistic country and our primary (although unnamed) right is to CHOOSE what we spend our money on. we don't get in bread lines and get what everyoen els egets and we don't bribe the gov't officials to have something better (like in napoleanic societies). We walk into the stores and we buy what we want. If it's not there someone will make it for you if you just let them know you want it.
I don't see where the tax break was a greater % for anyoen group so I fail to see how it is unfair to th elower brackets, infact it seems to fail at offsetting the imbalance as-it-is. This is a bad case of expectations. Every american expects Bill gates to pay millions in taxes because he has billions, mean while every american hopes they get a tax return...

I know I beat it into the ground but I consider this "means based taxation" to be just as asinine as dubya's cutting taxes and then increasing spending by billions

BTW:
does bush make clinton look like a frugal house wife?

clinton's last term (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/citizensguide.html)
please note that clinton drew up the 2001 budget.

2003-2005 can be found here (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/index.html)

[zim]

did i just misread that, or was mac explaining a preference for clinton?

[Skeet]

He has a whole box of Clinton flavoured cigars.

[MAC]

skeet is a big fat liar!
my cigars do NOT taste like a fluffy intern

now my question about bush verses clinton springs from a few simple facts

clinton in 2000 was collecting 19.4% of the GDP for a federal budget of $1.8trillion and cut 365,000 federal jobs
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy00/guide05.html

in 2002 dubya only collected 18% of the GDP for his $2.2trillion budget and he made the largest employer in the nation the dept of homeland security.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy02/pdf/guide.pdf

something here doesn't fit rush limbaugh's show prep....

I want everyone to realise something, personal income tax is 55% of the federal budget which the president must send to congres BALANCED. CONGRESS changes said budget and starts passing SPENDING BILLS.

Spending is broken into two types: discretionary & mandatory

Bush is "discretionarily" spending his ass off to kill terroroists.
Where do you think congress got that "$200B" John kerry kept crying about for the war in Iraq?

You see, the congress under clinton simply didn't spend all his money so clinton told you he had a surplus. Then they projected future income (which was HIGH to match taxes) and they made the surplus grow. Normally that surplus is used to repay the principle on national debt. But no one likes to get their pay check and spend it on bills.....do they?

2005 budget (http://a255.g.akamaitech.net/7/255/2422/02feb20041242/www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/pdf/budget/overview.pdf)

oh, BTW:
in 2002 $1.1 trillion dollars was paid in by the % of working taxpayers who actually pay taxes.

even in skeet's example above he paid in $1184 last year after making $18k, but when you figure it up that was just over 6-1/2% despite being in the 10% bracket

it would take 929,054,055 skeets to pay in that much income tax at that rate
if you up`d him to his 10% you’d only need 611-billion
what if he paid 38% like the TOP tax bracket?

161 billion skeets

(Please note I didn’t separate out the SS paid in to the fed from the base income tax that skeet paid so actually…this represents paying 10% tax and NO SS or Medicaid which is figured into the budget…sound like a flat tax to you?)

that's alot of skeets

[GoFuckYourselves!]

4 more years of greatness!

[Escape Artist]

"you can't cut the federal gov'ts income and then increase the money it spends

no company or individual can take in LESS and spend MORE
you have to get the money from somewhere"

You can with good old fashioned DEBT, Mac! So we're now at 8 trillion dollars - so what?

I guess that Canadian dollar is catching up to dangerously close levels, China's gonna start uninvesting in us, reinvesting in the Euro...

But we're OKAY, man! Y'know, we're on fucking top here.
We're goddamned America, bro!

Well, so the federal idiots either can't find their asses with both hands or they don't want to; hey, fuck it: we've got LOCAL gov't!

If the federal nutjobs can't get everything nice and square, by god, we'll exercise our state rights to screw everyone.

All I will say is..well, don't drive in Michigan and do some research.

We're all okay, though. We're a war-machine.

Now, Mac...about those fingerprints...you are a Patriot, right?