Roach

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John F. Kerry

does anyone remember how, last december, the democrats agreed to not raise taxes?


because, 1. the election of 2010 caused them to lose massive amounts of seats in the house and senate... and the anger of the population at the liberal expansion of the wellfare state at a time when what was already in place was hopelessly unsustainable... and 2. they knew, just like republicans do, that raising taxes on anyone , at the low point in a recession, simply will make things worse.

so that was what the DEMS did, and the logic they used, not 7 months ago.


... now today, what has changed?

well....clearly obama doesnt think its smart to raise taxes now either- because he knows hes gotta turn the economy around before the election, and he knows that raising taxes right now, especially to fund handouts, is just going to make the broader economy worse.

I would think you more liberal minded people could appreciate this. Sure we need to help the less fortunate... but to do that we need to have a growing, prosperous economy. Now, whatever we do, the economy is probably not going to skyrocket upwards anytime soon... but just about everyone, except maybe congressman israel and nancy pelosi, understand that raising taxes on anyone is just not going to make things better right now... we need more people with better jobs paying taxes...not the few people that are lucky enough to have them saddled with even more.

Now just stop there. Thats not politics. or posturing. Its the truth. If you disagree with that part, then lets argue about it. Because even if you are liberal minded, that seems to me an obvious thing. Like if you have weights on a scale and you add more, the scale goes down. If you add more taxes, hiring will slow, and consumption will slow....and we need to do the opposite for both.


Do you guys remember why democrats gave in to no tax increases last december? It was because they understood this. Class warfare aside. Like I said, even if your a smart democrat, and you want to help the less fortunate. you understand that when something is unsustainable.... it has to be changed or the economy has to be much better to fund it better.... or else it will just fall off a cliff.

What would happen if obama somehow managed to raise taxes now and unemployment went to 11%? well.... the new tax revenue would be OUTWEIGHED by the new unemployed benefits we have to pay out... and both sides, the unemployed, and the newly high taxed, would be pissed. Look at the other alternative. If we do something that lowers unemployment (like making markets and the world and business see that we are tackling our 15 trillion dollar and growing daily debt) or make people think that the 40 cents on every dollar the government doles out thats borrowed, is going to get smaller and less crazy... then maybe things will improve, and with a 7% unemployment rate people would feel more comfortable about some things , like , possibly, letting the bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy.

but even obama seems to acknowledge that the first step has got to be fixing the economy..... if we dont do that, we are literally just fighting over the crumbs....which is what some of the msnbc watching, salon reading, mother jones and nation spoonfeeding liberals want. Even obama, and most of the dems, especially all the ones who agreed to temporarily keep the bush cuts in place last december, seem to agree that its a bad way to go... but if you turn on msnbc you see these toolbags just revving people up

Its no wonder that ed shultz and rachel maddow and their propoganda machines have led to this- the poor and the hardcore liberals (maybe 10% of democrats) arent even thinking clearly about which comes first, the chicken or the egg.

We need to have a strong economy before we can even pay our current bills. but these people arent even interested in a strong economy... they just want more for their constituents.... but not, like, jobs for them, or work for them, but more entitlements and handouts for them. And other people dont even necessarily have a problem with that idea... just that, right now, with unemployment at 9.5 percent, and the fact that we already are spending 40 cents on the dollar of BORROWED money... the idea that we are gonna give out more freebies is just , not just bad, or stupid, but it almost belies self interest. These people dont care if the country is in a fucking black hole...as long as they can keep getting another round of freebies, and no matter where they money comes from...whether its from higher taxes that will hurt new job growth and the economy (and thats not a republican position, the dems agreed with that in december, its a common sense bipartisan observation), but they dont even care if their wellfare benefits come from chinese loans that their own children will have to repay.... so why would we think they care whether its comming out of the "jet flying fatcats"... there is so much rhetoric on the left, and it doesnt even make any sense. No one wants poor people to not have help and various things.... but we need to get our house in order or else the wellfare state they enjoyed last century ....theres just no way we will be able to keep it going, unless we fix it.

its like the cart before the horse. but the dems have their marching orders of class warfare blame the rich.. and so they wont even acknowledge that they agreed with the republican logic in december and how taxes would hurt job creating.... but now, for some reason, they reject that as posturing or some political shit... its not.

the dems have been doing this slippery lying shit talking out of the corner of their mouth while winking to their mother jones reading elites for like obamas entire presidency...and our economy has just gone from bad to hellish, but most of them are millionaires who are doing all this as a fun exercise and like philosophical debate and they dont even see how their stagnation and their class warfare has kept the middle class stuck with 10% unemployment and the longest recession in a century.

grrrr

- wantd to post this here too cuz i didnt know which one was gonna be deleted

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Nasa under Obama

Roach

obama doesn't want to "raise taxes", he wants to eliminate tax breaks and loopholes for the extremely wealthy.(watch the video)

and only part of those.

he wanted alot of regulation, and well at least he got some, but not enough to keep the housing bubble from re-infating housing costs.

he gave in to bailing out big banks to avert a total global meltdown with the understanding that those banks/businesses would not just piss that money away but instead create jobs like the republicans in the house promised...that turned out to be a great mistake, and doubled the national debt.
Obama now realizes that in order to get America back on track the revenue of the wealthy can no longer go untaxed (thru exemptions and loopholes in the tax laws).

you can only cut spending so much , after a point you have to realize that the revenue generated by equally taxing the wealthy as you do the poor is necessary in reducing the debt and restoring the middle class.


again I'll say , obama doesn't want to raise the tax rate on everyone in order to generate revenue, he just wants the rich to pay their fair share, and stop living off the backs of the poor for a change.

Roach

you haven't a clue what the fuck you are talking about here.

social security (an entitlement) is not a "freebie" as you think. I've been paying into it twice as long as you have been alive. Neither is unemployment , your employer pays a percentage of your wages into it. (but I'm guessing you also never ran a business )



here is an older list (could not find a current list) of "entitlement programs".

these are programs meant to be paid for with our (including the wealthy) tax dollars, note that bailouts is NOT on the list....but pell grants are.
and "some" are/were total bullshit.

http://funding-programs.idilogic.aid...ding-programs/

John F. Kerry

my sympathy for you and other old people would be greater, roach, if i didnt feel like you older people dont care at all about the next generation. you baby boomers had 40 years of prosperity, high wages, good jobs, and solvent medicare.... now, my generation has to pay for it.

i think you deserve every dollar back you paid into medicare. but we both know that what you were promised is like 10x more than you paid in. actually, id like an honest test case. how much do u think you paid in compared to how much you expect to get back?

theres basically no way for you to answer that question because if you live another 40 years, it could be 10 million dollars or more, if you have a long term disease or need long term care, it could be 20 million dollars. who knows? a system where people get guarenteed payouts for any expense regardless of how much the paid in, and even if what they paid in was like 1/100th of what they take out.... like for a long time i had sympathy for older people.... and even now, the ryan plan called for NO CHANGES to anyone over 55. but like, this country cant end when your generation is gone.... i have some sympathy for you guys, but its getting less and less each day as i imagine how much more debt im going to have to saddle my children with- im basically going to have to enslave my children to chinese overlords so you can enjoy your promised benefits.




... so maybe my numbers are a bit exaggerated but here is something i found "Consider an average-wage two-earner couple together earning $89,000 a year. Upon retiring in 2011, they would have paid $114,000 in Medicare payroll taxes during their careers. But they can expect to receive medical services – including prescriptions and hospital care – worth $355,000, or about three times what they put in. [...]"

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Nasa under Obama

stoneric

I have no problem with slashing "entitlements" as long as not one dime is given out in foreign aid and the pentegon budget is halved.

stoneric

How are you paying for my "40 years of prosperity, high wages, good jobs"?

John F. Kerry

because at least since raygun its all been paid for by ious.

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Nasa under Obama

John F. Kerry

im fully willing to blame bush too. at least clinton had the right idea and managed to start to pay down the debt. people originally liked obama because they thought he would be like clinton.... but then the national debt went from 7trillion to 15 trillion in 3 years... and... he lost all claim to being clintonesque

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Nasa under Obama

farmergiles

Why not reduce military expenditure? There's a lot of money could be saved there.

It's not like Obama's going to lose a lot of votes that way.

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Cultivate a stoic calmness

stoneric

You said your generation was paying for the baby boomers having "40 years of prosperity, high wages, good jobs". How is that? What exactly are you paying for as a result of these specific things? Are you saying we would have left you solvent if we had 40 years of poverty, low wages and shitty jobs?

kamikazi89

if you look at that graph, the deficit really started taking off in '03..same year of the Iraq invasion: coincidence?- not at all-

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katie west is the best

Roach

slash entitlement programs and you'll get riots in the street , I can guarantee it.

Roach

over 4 trillion of the deficit was a loan made to the government FROM fucking social security. !


And dear misguided john,

cuts in social security and medicare will not affect me in the slightest...they will affect you and your generation.

kamikazi89

i think it's all a shell game..i suspect the president wanted to look like he was willing to compromise on entitlements in exchange for tax reform(and that's what it was, reform)
but wasn't willing to pay the price politically..
the Republican leadership, on the other hand, walked away from trillions in spending cuts because they couldn't sell their caucus that reform does not equal tax hikes(particulary when obama was willing to reduce the marginal rates)

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katie west is the best

Roach

obama has been more that willing to come to the table without party ties, the other side has not. Republicans only represent the wealthy elite. Obama is trying to represent the people/nation.

republicans caused the problems of low revenues and war deficits, and do not want to admit it. They would rather keep the middle class on it's spiral to poverty by redirecting their mistakes onto the population.

stoneric

The second time. We started climbing during the wonderful raygun years.

Canuck Wisdom

Yea, politicians use politics, i.e. Im not saying he's lying, but a lot of what we hear about deals that don't happen is probably spun up to make whoever look good.

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-Knowitall A&P type-

HTAM

John, I'm cherry picking here, but exactly how much of your annual taxes are paying for us older folks?

Put the pie chart up. You're fighting for the puppet masters who look down their noses and laugh as the infighting continues.

kamikazi89

which included a Democratic congress

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katie west is the best