CARDRUNNERS

Nov 5, 08 11:22:34

ship it

mrsoncommand

Nov 5, 08 12:17:03

I am curious. You are ok with taxing the wealthy more? Will this change your taxes or are you already paying out the you know what due to being a "gambler" for a living.

BCheezy

Nov 5, 08 12:23:48

Spread the wealth. Yay socialism!! Make more money for the lower income people because they deserve it more than you. I mean seriously??

Nickw1979

Nov 5, 08 13:01:24

If he implements his proposed tax policy he will be giving refundable tax credits to people whos effective tax rate is 0%. Basically welfare without calling it welfare.

BingoFred

Nov 5, 08 13:52:16

Your reasons for wanting Obama mirrored mine to a T. Good entry bud.

Spudt24

Nov 5, 08 14:26:36

McCain is a better than his campaign portrayed. But he made a grave mistake in the direction that he took. Should have been himself.
As far as spreading the wealth, republicans do it to, except they just directly hand out checks. Bush did it this past year. And Palin does it in Alaska w/ oil money. Giving working people (the overwhelming majority of this country) some tax relief at the affordable expense of the rich (tiny fraction of the pop) is a good thing imo. But I can see why republicans dont like it,

Dixon Yass

Nov 5, 08 14:51:51

BCheezy and Nick,

Yes I am ok with taxing the wealthy more. Under Obama's plan, all working Americans who make under 250k get breaks, and all over 250k get taxed more. While I fall into category B, pretty much every family member and friend who I'm close with fall into category A. If I get taxed a bit more, I'm still going to live a very comfortable lifestyle. On the other hand, the breaks that those close to me will receive will have a solid positive impact on their lives. I'm surprised I didn't actually list this in my post because it was another factor that tipped the scale for me.

Stinger885

Nov 5, 08 14:56:08

BingoFred,

I think I remember reading somewhere that this was changed, but I could be wrong. Do you have a source?

Stinger885

Nov 5, 08 14:59:24

dang Stinger, sounds kind of altruistic to me. u must be a socialist. all that "caring about others", yuck

Dixon Yass

Nov 5, 08 17:07:31

Obama's health care plan care doesn't prevent you from still buying additional private health insurance, so you can still receive a high level of quality as long as you are willing to pay for it, as it is now. It does provide coverage for people who have no coverage right now...

chrisred

Nov 5, 08 19:40:47

Right on! Well said.

sonic

Nov 6, 08 08:33:00

Brian

Very good rationale. I am glad you took the time to really think through the choice you made, not just vote on a sound bite from a tv commercial.

I personally voted for McCain for reasons I'll go into below, but I respect your opinions and am legitimately excited for what Obama brings to the table (a Kennedy-like ability to motivate us to achieve a larger purpose and an ability to bring prevoiusly disgruntled groups into the mainstream and increase the overall political education level of our country).

The reason some people are "afraid" of Obama's programs is because he is promising to take capital from those most adept at using it (corporations and high income individuals) and give it to those least adept at using it (government and low income individuals). This leads to a decrease in the productivity of capital, meaning we create less with the same opportunity. Additionally, it disincentivises people from taking risk because they know they will receive a smaller portion of the reward (communism is of course the most extreme example of this; NOT saying Obama is a communist, just using a very extreme example).

As an example, I was on a plane on Monday with a developer. He owns several types of businesses and was considering opening a new dog hotel in his city (he already has a couple; high end doggy day cares). However, in his research He was convinced that Obama's planned tax increases would make it unprofitable for him to run his business, so he let his option on the property expire ahead of a planned Obama victory. By not going ahead with this venture, the 19 jobs he was going to create don't exist. Now imagine this across the country over a period of years; the jobs and lack of growth can add up. This example is why Republicans generally believe in a lower tax rate, because it incentivizes those with the ability to create jobs and growth to take risks and create.

This theory is best explained in Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged. It is a fictional story about the few people who drive the world deciding that everyone else is getting too lazy and dependent and deciding not to produce any more. The result is chaos. Long book, too wordy at times, but "blow your mind" quality thinking.<BR><BR>I hope this helps provide perspective and wasn't too rambling. I wasn't trying to be comprehensive with my qualitiative examples, nor was I trying to change your mind, just throwing out food for thought.

Cheers

StayingWarm

StayingWarm

Nov 6, 08 12:03:22

I voted for Obama, but redistribution of wealth is one of the many points I disagree with him on.

When you tax the rich more to pay for government that's one thing, but when you decide you took too much and instead of giving it back in the proportions you took it from them you give back everyone basically the same amount (stimulus checks, another is in the works), you just played Robin Hood and took money from the rich and gave it right back to the less rich/poor.

And for anyone that thinks the rich don't pay most of the tax in this country, this is a great site:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

Table 6 shows 2006 results, the top 1% of incomes paid 40% of the entire countries taxes.

Don't get me wrong, its not a liberal/democrat thing, Bush did the same crap. But I believe for left leaning folks like Obama, its a central tenet of their philosophy in politics.solinarsolinar

solinar

Nov 6, 08 15:32:33

Stinger,

Here on Obama's site if you go to the Full Obama Tax Plan you will see that the Working Pay Tax Cut is a refundable tax credit. This is his main "tax cut" that he giving. It is refundable, so for the people already at 0% tax liablility and the people it takes beyond 0% it will be welfare.
http://origin.barackobama.com/taxes/

BingoFred

Nov 6, 08 18:53:27

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ttt

Nov 6, 08 18:53:27

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I can offer a rakeback to the players between 32% and 56%, we need to talk first, I will make u some questions and after that me and the rakeback manager will decide what rakeback aply to you.

My messenger and e mail is LFPB4@hotmail.com

The payements of the rakebacks are made on day 1th of all months


This offer is valid only for your first 9 months in the site, after that the % of rakeback will be renegociat with u, depending of how much rake u produced in the last 9 months.

ttt

Nov 7, 08 09:14:07

StayingWarm,

Nice post, I'm still just confused about how Obama's tax plan hurts small businesses. I understand that the developer's personal income is being taxed more, but everything I've read and heard (and I just read everything about his tax plan on his website) leads me to believe that Obama is giving tax breaks to small businesses. He plans to eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and lower corporate tax rates for new businesses that create jobs. These are facts, but as they are from his own website facts outlining the negatives of the plan for small business owners could certainly be left out. I'm very curious about this, if you can explain a bit better that'd be awesome.

Stinger885

Nov 7, 08 09:16:59

solinar,

As a top 1% earner, I still feel like I can afford to pay a greater share of taxes percentage-wise than a working couple making \$75k a year. In this sense I am for redistribution of wealth, but I am NOT for increased welfare benefits for those not working. My perspective may be skewed about this though because I feel like as a poker player many others work harder than me for much less money.

Stinger885

Nov 7, 08 09:24:02

BingoFred,

I read through the full tax policy. I'm still a little confused on the Making Work Pay credit. It seems pretty clear that it's only given to working people, i.e. not those trying to live solely on welfare checks. However, I take it that the problem is for those who are working but making very low incomes. I just looked up the income tax brackets and from what I gather, this would only be welfare for those making less than \$5k/year. Obviously no full-time jobs pay this low, so I guess the problem is people who will work low-paying jobs for very few hours (probably less than 10 hours a week) and then try to otherwise live off welfare benefits. Am I on the right track here?

Stinger885

Nov 7, 08 13:36:12

Stinger,

Don't go by straight tax brackets b/c that doesn't include deductions and credits that people are already getting. There are itemized deductions, personal exemptions, Earned Income Credit, Child Tax Credit, Child Care Credit, Hope Credit(college),etc..., which put plenty of households below the AGI where they start paying Federal Income Tax.

In 2005 32.6% (44,000,000) of all returns filed didnt pay any tax. (http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=155).

Just as an example i made a ficticious return in my tax prep. software. A single parent making \$25,000 in taxable wages with \$2,500 withheld for federal income tax would get a refund of \$3,001. This is now not with future credits. So they would be getting back \$501 more than paid. This is due to Earned Income Credit (which he wants to expand) and Child Tax Credit.

Also as far as small businesses go, many small business file as sole proprietors and as LLCs treated as sole proprietors. So they are taxed at their individual tax rate. The Capital Gains tax elimination is a bunch of nonsense. Its a tax that doesn't apply to most small business on a yearly basis. It was just something he threw in to make it look like he was doing something.

Also the overseas job thing is aimed at bigger corporations. He talked about a credit for small business owners for creating jobs but i dont see it on his site now. It wouldnt be that effective anyway b/c most business owners arent going to hire someone if they get a one time credit. If you lower their tax bracket and they know it will be more permanent then they would be more willing to take on additional labor.

None of this includes what Obama said he wants to do the social security tax. Right now you stop paying S.S. tax on your income after you've reached about 100,000. He wants to raise that amount for higher income earners without giving them any extra S.S. benefit. So he wants the higher earners to subsidze the lower even more. This is really bad for small businesses or self employed b/c they have to pay both sides of their S.S. tax.

BingoFred

Nov 7, 08 15:42:15

Marriner S. Eccles, FDR's Federal Reserve Chairman during the Depression:
"The United States economy is like a poker game where the chips have become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and where the other fellows can stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit runs out the game will stop."

And right now 1% of the pop owns 40% of the wealth. Imagine a 100-man rebuy tourney w/ non-escalating blinds that consisted of a) Justin Bonomo, and b) 99 donks w/ limited bankrolls.

Unlike a poker tourney where the whole point is for 1 player to get all the chips and the rest of the field to go bust, when it comes to the economy we dont want large chunks of the population going busto. So how would u rememdy this? One idea is to make the bigger chipstacks post larger blinds and antes than the shorter stacks post. Makes the game tougher to "win" but it least the game keeps going.

Its not just all about protecting the financially elite, businesses, wealthy people. Without the middle/working class our economy doesnt work either and in case nobody has noticed thats whos in serious trouble right now,

Dixon Yass

Nov 12, 08 22:26:17

blog about your big win

mrsoncommand

Nov 13, 08 18:35:06

I'm kind of tired of hearing the word socialism being so badly misused. The fed announcing it wants a share in al the banks we're bailing out is socialistic. Changing the tax brackets is not a change to the fundamental structure of our ecomony. So save the scare words, they are losing their meaning.

The top tax bracket is half what it was when Regan took office. Prior to that, it hadn't been below 60% since 1931. Adjustments to the tax schedule have been in favor of the uppper classes for a couple of decades now, so a little balance in favor of the middle class is long overdue.

I can't believe that a couple of percentage points on that part of profit above 250k would keep people from starting businesses. They would still be better off making more and paying a bit more than not making the money at all. What exactly is the negative part about makinng more money?

Dasher

Nov 19, 08 20:26:53

can you please comment on Zigmund saying that you are a computer hacker please.

jkipfer