Senate GOP puts price on a blue-state tax cut

[LSK]

Senate GOP puts price on a blue-state tax cut
By Jessica Holzer
October 24, 2007

Senate Republicans are demanding the extension of President Bush’s signature tax cuts before they cooperate on hemming in another tax that they contend affects mostly “blue state” voters living along the coasts.

At issue is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which will hit an additional 20 million taxpayers next April unless Congress takes action. The problem for Democrats is that they will need Republican support to shield people from the tax, and Republicans are signaling they will have to pay a price.

snip

Kyl said Republicans would ask for the extension of cuts on marginal rates, capital gains and dividends as well as estate tax relief as a price for cooperating on the AMT patch.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/senate-gop-puts-price-on-a-blue-state-tax-cut-2007-10-24.html

This should be a reminder of how disgusting the Republicans are.

:grr:

[NYVet]

1. Why shouldn't we keep the marginal tax rate cuts?

If I build a better mousetrap and setup the company that makes it with my own cash, then I sell it in stores and make 1 million dollars a year, why shouldn't I keep most of that money, since I was the one who had the idea and took the risk to provide the product to the general population?


If I remember correctly, the current top tax rate is appx 36%, and I think that 1/3 of the money you make is a fair amount to give to the government.

[LSK]

2. because the founding fathers did not want an Aristocracy in this country

Read Thom Hartmann's Screwed. The founders did not want large amounts of wealth being kept in the same families and one of the best tools to prevent that was progressive taxes. The founders were not extremely wealthy, they were probably upper middle class at best.

There are other reasons as well.

When the top income tax rate was the highest in the 50s we had great economic prosperity for the middle class (the bulk of Americans).

We are also in a war so isnt it your patriotic duty to pay taxes (like we did in World War 2)?

We have serious national debt problems and countries like China and Russia are financing our debt. Don't you want your country to pay its bills? Where do you think the tax revenues should come from?

If you make $1million dollars per year, do you really need all that money? The average makes barely 5% of that. Are you really that greedy?

And finally, why should you be a freeloader? You use our countries currency to sell your product, you use our roads to transport it, you use our utilities to build your product, you use our court and legal system to protect your product, you used our public school system to learn to read to know how to make the product in the 1st place.

Dont buy into the anti-tax propaganda.

If you still fear taxes after all of that, I ask you how is that Euro doing?

[NYVet]

4. The Founding fathers didn't have a national income tax.

The founders did not want large amounts of wealth being kept in the same families and one of the best tools to prevent that was progressive taxes. The founders were not extremely wealthy, they were probably upper middle class at best.

The sixteenth Amendment which covers Income Tax wasn't enacted until 1913

There are other reasons as well.

When the top income tax rate was the highest in the 50s we had great economic prosperity for the middle class (the bulk of Americans).


We were also in the middle of an economic boom which gave EVERYONE economic prosperity.

We are also in a war so isnt it your patriotic duty to pay taxes (like we did in World War 2)?

During the Vietnam War era, JFK proposed tax cuts. The proposal JFK put forward on January 24, 1963, would have cut the top individual income-tax rate from 91 percent to 65 percent, and reduced the maximum capital gains tax from 25 percent to 19.5 percent.


We have serious national debt problems and countries like China and Russia are financing our debt. Don't you want your country to pay its bills? Where do you think the tax revenues should come from?

I think that we should be responsible and just like families, not spend more money then we earn. Sure, everyone has a wish list of things that they want. I want a mint condition 67 Mustang convertible. My current financial condition allows me a 97 Taurus Wagon with some dents in the doors.
I DO want my country to pay its bills, however, I also want my country to live within a budget, just like I do. Tax revenue can come from many places besides our wallets. Imports tarrifs from countries that impose them on our goods, licenses, fines, permits, etc are all sources of revenue.

If you make $1million dollars per year, do you really need all that money? The average makes barely 5% of that. Are you really that greedy?

Honestly, if I made a million dollars a year, I would be taking care of my immediate and extended family, and also setting up some charities.
Did you know that unless they were on Active Duty orders, National guardsmen and Reservists have zero support from the military if they suffer a fire, flood, medical emergency?
I would put about 1/2 of the money I make every year after taxes into a foundation to provide a safety net for Guardsmen and Reservists.

[LSK]

6. rebutal

"Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by
the individual." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1784.

"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is
to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the
higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they
rise." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785.

http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff5.htm

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What created that economic boom?

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The Vietnam War did not get fully raging until LBJ's Gulf of Tonkin incident.

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The national debt will soon be over $10trillian. China will soon be loaning us $1trillian. Over 30% of our federal budget goes only to interest payments on the debt.

We cannot afford tax cuts of any sort.

I suggest you read Hartmanns book and study Europe where their higher taxes does not cut into their standard of living and they have superior healthcare systems.

[NYVet]

10. An interesting set of quotes for you

"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue." -Thomas Paine

"Any tax is a discouragement and therefore a regulation so far as it goes." -Oliver Wendell Holmes

"If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute." -Thomas Paine

The national debt will soon be over $10trillian. China will soon be loaning us $1trillian. Over 30% of our federal budget goes only to interest payments on the debt.

And in 2005 the bill for earmarks from Senators and members of the House for pet projects in their districts was $47 billion. In all, there were roughly 15,000 congressional earmarks in 2005. Why did we spend that much money to keep our senators in office?

We need a return to the mentality that the money the government brings in is that of the people and our senators need to be mindful that they, just like the American family, have a budget. If the outgoing expenses exceed the revenue, then something needs to be trimmed.
If we can find a cheaper way to manage a program, let's do it.
If we have to cut a bigger and "better" toy for the military, let's do it.
If we find that keeping a base in Europe or some other region of the world is going to be more expensive then putting that unit on a base in the US, close the base overseas and bring the troops and their families home.

We cannot afford tax cuts of any sort.
What we can not afford is the fact that the government grows faster than the ability of the people to pay for it.




Sourse for the information about the earmarks and the total for 2005 is
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Earmarks

[SharonAnn]

3. Because there's a cost to the infrastructure that allows you to do this.

Patent protection, intellectual property rights, courts to ensure contract and business law (most cases in the Federal courts, by a large margin, are business related), property protection, law enforcement, banking and financial system regulation, Securities and Exchange Commission. The transportation system for your raw materials, shipping your product, and getting your employees to and from work, traffic regulation, school system to educate your workers and provide consumers who earn enough to buy your product, etc.

Just a few of the costs that are incurred by those who do business in this country.

[NYVet]

5. And those are paid for by

Corporate taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and property taxes in the locations where I have factories to build the mousetrap, etc...

[TahitiNut]

8. Corporate tax rates have neve been lower than during Cheney/Bush ...

... unless we go back to the "Gilded Age" right before the Great Depression.

[TahitiNut]

7. Insane.

[hfojvt]

9. uhm, what you are talking about is profit - Schedule C

the rate cuts are on Dividends - Schedule B, and Capital Gains - Schedule D.

The current top rate on dividends and capital gains is 15% and it is bullshit to have non-work income only pay a 15% rate when wage (and profit!) income is taxed at 15.3% on FICA taxes alone, to say nothing of top rates that you are talking about.

The dividend tax cut is a cut that saves the Walton kids about $40 million a year in taxes on UN-earned income.

edit "is" not "it"