There are a certain number of McPalin supporters who are voting for them because they see Palin as the next incarnation of Bush. They don’t expect McCain to live long, and then the neocons can move back into the White House. Those boneheads can stop reading now.
Ok, so what does that leave? Bigots.. you can leave too. So can those who have so bought into the Republican “brand name,” that you couldn’t get them to vote Democrat if Ronald Reagan came back from the dead and ran as a Democrat.
Now, what do we have left? A pretty healthy number of people who have been swayed by this awful idea that Obama is going to expect the uber-wealthy to pay more taxes. Not that I think that is a bad idea. Over the past 8 years, the country has gone into its worst debt situation ever, the economy is worse than it has been since the Great Depression, yet the top of the income pyramid has become richer than ever.
Doesn’t that ever make you just wonder why the hell they shouldn’t have to pay more to get us out of this mess? They were the primary beneficiaries of the past 8 years’ failed policies. Why shouldn’t they pay more now?
Ok, lets say that this doesn’t persuade you. I have a plan:
Per the Tax Policy Center, here is how Obama’s tax plan breaks down for individuals:
-
$0-$18,891 = $567 tax cut
$18,982-$37,595 = $892 tax cut
$37,596-$66,354 = $1,118 tax cut
$66,355-$111,645 = $1,264 tax cut
$111,646-$160,972 = $2,135 tax cut
$160,973-$226,918 = $2,796 tax cut
$226,919-$603,402 = $121 tax increase
$603,403-$2.87 million = $93,709 tax increase
$2.87 million-plus = $542,882 tax increase
If you are a McPalin supporter in the three brackets that will have a tax increase, please send me your name and address.
If you are a McPalin supporter in the six brackets that will get a tax cut, do the same.
If Obama wins, I will then match up the lower-class McPalin supporters with the upper class McPalin supporters. Next April, when the lower-class ones get their tax refund, I will then send it along to the poor multi-millionaires who had a tax increase. That way, those of you who make less than $226,919 can relieve yourselves of the burden of that tax cut that Obama will give you. The poor multi millionaires can get checks to off-set the tax increase that Obama will slap them with. So, the wealth redistribution will be reversed — but, we won’t have to look down the barrel of the social conservative nightmare that a McPalin presidency will bring us!
Ok, sign up now.
Sound like a good compromise?
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great post! Sounds like a good compromise indeed.
http://culturedecoded.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/closingarguement/
Aren’t you the diplomat? I love it! Now those tax-thrifty McPalin supporters have no excuse not to vote for Obama.
It’s important to note that those numbers omit the proposed changes to payroll taxes. This dramatically obscures the impact the Obama plan has on how we fund entitlement programs and overall tax burdens. For every dollar a person earns over $102K, they would be subject to an effective 11.5% tax. When you consider marginal tax rates, things can very quickly creep past 55% for a top bracket taxpayer in a high tax state.
While I take issue with Obama’s tax plan in this respect, the rest is solid. I’m hopeful that the Social Security proposal thus far reflects the political necessity of having a talking point, and not what the actual policy goal will be.
So… do I have to offer a cell phone pic of my ballot, what about a copy of my tax return? Can I get a binding contract on this? Because if enough poors opt into your program there’s a vote in swing-state VA up for sale.
AVID, you’re not quite right on the Payroll tax issue.
Obama’s plan isn’t to remove the cap, but instead to introduce a donut hole.
Today, earnings over $100k are exempt. Obama’s plan is to have the first $100k taxable just as it is today, the next $150k not taxable, and then everything after that is taxable.
Instead of touching the cap, he leaves it where it is, and just reintroduces the tax at a higher income level. People making less than $250k a year won’t see any increase, and people making more than that will only see an increase in tax paid on anything earned above $250k.
An economist explains our tax system:
“Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
“If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
“The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
“The fifth would pay $1.
“The sixth would pay $3.
“The seventh would pay $7.
“The eighth would pay $12.
“The ninth would pay $18.
“The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
“So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers, he said, I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.
“Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
“The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
“But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’
“They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.!
“And so:
“The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%savings).
“The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
“The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
“The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
“The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
“The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
“Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
“‘I only got a dollar out of the $20, ‘declared the sixth man.
“He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got $10!’
“Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man.
“‘I only saved a dollar, too.
“It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’
“That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’*
“‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’
“The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
“The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
“(The 10th man was originally paying $59 of $100, then $49 of $80)
“And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking
overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.”
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia
Jason,
I know you to generally be a person of above average intellect. That is why I’m so disappointed to see that you would post the words of a viral e-mail (which has been proven factually inaccurate a multitude of times) as if it is a correct analogy of the workings of the U.S. tax system; but, more importantly, I’m disappointed in your, lack of effort to perform a two-second fact check; if you had done so, you would have found that these words were never actually written/spoken/thought of, by the Professor they are attributed to.
A simple Google search (which literally took me two-seconds to perform) would provide you with a vast amount of evidence, proving that this analogy, is nothing but inaccurate bullshit, attributed to a number of professor’s, in order to fool the weak-minded, easily fooled, or just plain lazy.
Luckily, I know that you’re none of those things; but please, next time, don’t be so quick to post the words of idiots, as if they hold an pound of intelligence in them, without first checking to make sure you won’t get pwned by someone who knows how to use teh googles (I’ll stipulate that the quote has an ounce of sense, but the ounce is far outweighed by it’s right-leaning ridiculousness)
- Zac Papantoniou