Does Anyone Pay Their Taxes?

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'Your approach is what puts wind beneath Limbaugh's

Yeah, and the guy drops like a rock every time - his only wind comes out of his you know what and is a significant causative factor to climate change. Who cares anyway, he makes me chuckle and most ironic of all, he isn't good looking or bright and, yet, makes a dung load of money by talking fertilizer all day.

'by way of distraction and to squelch adverse comment, you decided to attack a former president. Kind of a "nyah, nyah, nyah, but what about......" thing.'

That wasn't all that intentional. I just wanted to make a few comparisons to show how there are rules for some and then others, in overall terms, and Bush is just such a great target.

I do think that being a politician is, overall, a thankless job. Many of them are hard-working people of principle and good intentions, but Washington culture gets in the way very often. What is the point of being at a country's controls, if there aren't some perks to differentiate those that rule from those they lead? When I play poker I love being in charge of the bank - you go figure.

Obama is exactly what the doctor ordered. He is young, handsome, intelligent, articulate and capable, plus he has a very personable, intelligent and capable wife. How well he will use his assets, we shall have to wait and see. Though, it would seem that some folks' expectations of him are pinned unreasonably high and they may end up being the most disappointed.

In direct reference to this thread, you are absolutely correct. Either side of politics love to discredit each other and people like to bitch. At least with this stuff up no innocent people came to grief. Obama should have made his cabinet appointees divulge their tax records and go through them with a fine tooth comb. Then again, wouldn't that breach some kind of privacy act? Surely, this would be a matter for the IRS to audit and arbitrate over and not CNN or FOXNEWS?
 
I see little honor in paying taxes. I advocate paying for services. No problem with paying taxes for services I actually receive. But to give money to a corrupt, violent, increasingly totalitarian government? Get a good accountant.
 
Rapunzel Clarifications

Regarding the nominees: Noone is saying that Pres. Obama should have reviewed and cross-ref.ed anyone's tax returns. That is kinda missing the point. The point is that the nominee wasn't square with Pres. O's people and Pres. Obama didn't initially, appreciate the problem. However, when the light bulb finally clicked on, he called the talking heads in for damage control. .....and in all of that, all I am positing is that if he were of a different stripe - he would have been pummeled by the press. No big deal.

Regarding Mr. Limbaugh, not sure of your point, really. And don't want to attribute stuff to you that came from others on this site, but your words were 'drops like a rock' and I tend to think of that in terms of ratings or credibility or something. But the fact that our sitting president has felt a need to acknowledge him publicly suggests something different to me. And certainly can't hurt his ratings. If I were the president, I would not have given Limbaugh the satisfaction.
 
All this railing against high income taxes for the wealthy... Should we just go back to the good old days of the 50's, when the highest income tax bracket was 90%?

Hmmm?

There is no correlation between lowering the highest income tax brackets and economic growth.

It's mainly political, not economic.
 
What I see happening is that the people in the end will not be happy with Obama no matter how hard he tries. Why? People have the impression that he is the end all for everything.

We have people running around severely upside down on their mortgages due to the drop in real estate values and they think Obama will end up paying their mortgages for them. He has disabled people thinking they will get an major increase in their income. Poor people are waiting for a hand out that will never come as Obama said he believes in projects for people who are willing to help themselves, he is not giving out handouts.
See what I mean?

I think it will take the next three of four presidents to straighten out the mess that Bush/Chaney left us no matter how good each of them may be.

I also think that Obamas "stimulus" package is really a spending package. How in the hell is giving the state of Maine money to build more schools going to help the economy in general except to enrich the companies that will build the schools?
 
Myopia

I know it is fun to beat up on Bush/Chaney, but attributing the entire current condition of the global markets to their tenure, and their influences, misses it. These factors have been pretty much operating independent of democrat and republican administrations which only add a tweak here or a twist there - and then finally...... But if we don't set your view finder wider than Bush/Chaney we won't understand the problems and certainly won't be able to solve them. I am looking forward to the decent writings on the subject by people of the caliber of Lowenstein or Dubner & Levitt.
 
Pride Doth Often Come Before A Fall

As Virgina says in "Little Foxes".

Well won't this make a fine scandal to hold over their heads.

From media reports at the time, Obama's people supposedly did a very through vetting process for potential cabinet choices. Obviously someone needs to rethink and design that application form.

Now all we need is for a Clinton to announce something.......

Really is a sad state of affairs when so many government officals, who ought to know better are found out to be playing fast and loose with their taxes.

I for one do not buy the arguement that our complex tax code is the reason for all this. That is what accountants and such are for, and these persons are NOT some lower middle class worker relying on H&R block, or the bloke down the local pub to do their taxes and or for advice.
 
The President's Organization

I think that one of the most frustrating things for the president is that his organization - which outperformed everyone during the campaign - is failing him. Hopefully they will all get in a hot tub with a few bottles of wine and get it back on track.
 
Problem is they are trying too hard to be too many things to to many people.

Mr. Obama won by cobbling together an assortment of voters beyond the traditional Democratic base, and then went on to reflect the same in his cabinet. Considering work was going on behind the scenes on cabinet choices and such, long before the election and all during after, certianly all those coming forward now with problems had ample time before hand to get themselves straight.
 
What we are seeing are the effects of globalization

"The global economy" and the "new economy" of the 90's has had a direct impact on our current economic malaise.

We outsourced a lot of our manufacturing overseas as trade barriers fell and companies were all but encouraged to fire people here so that they could hire people in China and India.

The false notion that we could then start a new economy based solely on "service" type jobs then carried the day. Until the dot com bust proved that notion to be full of hot air.

Bush & Co. made things much worse by: encouraging regulators to drop restrictions on who could get what type of mortgage, by launching an extremely expensive and from our economic point of view unnecessary war in Iraq, and by failing to address our growing dependence on imported oil. The net effect was to funnel more of our wealth to Iraq and OPEC, as well as accelerate our dollar drain to China and India.

The logical endpoint of all this is when the globalization reaches an equilibrium - where everyone in the global economy makes the same wage, has the same level of wealth. Kind of frightening, when you consider the mud huts some people live in.
 
Mortgage Restrictions - Data Source Please

Sudsmaster, help me here about the source of the subprime mortgage problem. You indicate "Bush & Co ... encouraged regulators to drop restrictions..." Please share whose history of the subprime you are reading? Would you admit that programs pre-dating W might be in play?
 
Subprime Lending

You see, my understanding is that "subprime lending" became legal in Reagan's time but my recollection is that it really started happening in the mid 90's - can't remember who the president was in '95 - (probably a Bush or an Anheiser or someone). I remember because we were trying to get those folks out of mud huts and into homes. It's starting to come back to me. I thought the mud huts they were living in were, well, charming.
 
There have been arguments from both sides that various federal and local programs, many of which pre-date GWBII's terms in office, and came into existence under both parties,had some role in the "sub-prime" housing mess.

Many fingers point to the federal statues requiring banks to lend in and to communities that were "disadvantaged", or "minority". Others point to the push via HUD, FHA, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to increase homeownership to the point that standards were lowered, and the various strange types of mortgages such as interest only, and so forth were designed to get persons into homes who otherwise would not qualify.

Barney Frank and others will dispute any of this, just as there are those who will cite there own numbers to justify their position. However the fact remains the federal and local governments for decades now have pushed home ownership as the ultimate part of "The American Dream".

The problem is that for over twenty or so years now, the cost of buying a home had out paced inflation, and to make things worse the average American worker simply does not earn no where near enough to save for the traditional 20% down payment, much less carry a mortgage the way many were structured.

First salvo in this war was to introduce the 30 year mortgage, which while one paid more in interest (due to the length of the loan), monthly payments were smaller because one was spreading out payments over a longer period of time verus the old 15 year mortgage.

The rest we know about, no interest, no down payment, no income check, interest only payments and so forth, were all designed to get persons who otherwise could not get into a home, into one.

All of the above worked quite well as home prices went through the roof, people could either sell, refinance, or otherwise pull the equity out of their homes to live a lifestyle they couldn't afford, mainly because much of their money was tied up in that house. However once the housing market began to nose dive, and homes were worth less, sometimes much less than what people paid, you have the mess we are in today.

When this problem clears up, as it eventually will, things are never going to be the same. Banks aren't going to allow persons to pull all the equity out of a home with "refi" or other credit based on the house. Banks also aren't going to lend money to any Tom, Dick or Harry with a pulse, on any property. With tighter credit, Americans are going to have to live off what they earn, which as previously stated, often leaves things very tight.

Finally the large smelly rat buried under the rug in the front parlour is this: many Americans counted on their homes as a huge if not major part of their retirement, if housing prices remain low, and or people remain "under water" with their mortgages, it is going to create some huge holes in people's plans.

Anyone who owned a home for more than say ten years and sold perhaps around the 1990's or so, got themselves a pretty decent return on their investment, on average. Many of our parents paid about 15K to 30K for their homes in the 1960's or 1970's and sold or could have sold for 250K to 500K or more during the height of the housing price boom. Many did take the money and ran, however for their children things are going to be very different.

L.
 
I know two couples who sold their homes in the rising curve of the housing boom. They moved to more rural locations, bought homes with cash, and basically retired. In one case, there was an inheritance that helped quite a bit. In another case, things are a bit more tenuous but they are managing because their new property has a rental unit on it.
 

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