Biden Administration misc. activities

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Indy
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by Indy »

You would have to make 720,000 each year with zero deductions to pay 32% in federal income taxes. That means no mortgage interest deductions, or student loan deductions or anything else.

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specialsauce
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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Ok so I was off some. I was actually at 28% as a family and had just about no deductions The point is that most people are not somehow just getting away with not paying taxes. My debt to income ratio is the same in proportion, and taxes are irrelevant.

$10k/100k = $100k/$1M regardless of your generalizations that “wealthier people are just getting away with it”

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Mori Chu
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by Mori Chu »

I don't wish financial hardship on anybody, and I don't cheer for anybody losing money to Uncle Sam. But 32% is not very high compared to most developed countries. The US overall has pretty low tax rates and probably should have higher taxes (and higher benefits, too).

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefin ... t%20(OECD).

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specialsauce
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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Do we live in other countries? I can’t stand that argument. Totally irrelevant. Completely dismissive and condescending when you say “you think you have it bad well at least!!!

You think your day was bad well at least you have food to eat!!! Your work conditions are poor well at least you have a job!!! People in Africa are starving!!!

Yes. It’s clear this is all first world problems.


And again, you’re going off on a tangent. Taxes have nothing to do with forgiving loans, except that now I am paying to forgive 42M Americans loans off while I’m sitting here with half a million of my own and the government just gave me the middle finger as a salute because healthcare workers are no longer heroes, just for like five minutes enough to get a banner. Now we’re the enemy again


And if we want to play that stupid game, nobody in other countries is paying $500k for an education

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virtual9mm
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by virtual9mm »

Definitely something broken here. Diminishing professor salaries, massive armies of administrators that do nothing, tenure line faculty that focus on publishing BS papers just to get tenure, massive debt loads.

Not to mention tax rates of 8-13% on billionaires while the well to do complain about 40 percent tax rates. Never mind that maximum tax rates ran up to 70% in American capitalism's heyday in the 1950s.

But hey, I am overseas paying 15% taxes on my first 110k of income.

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Nodack
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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To me it all seems simple. Our US debt is paid by collecting taxes on US citizens. Our debt is HUGE. Obviously we don’t collect enough taxes to pay down our debt in any significant way. For most Americans it seems the answer is to always lower taxes no matter what. I’m not a financial expert by any means but, that seems so ludicrous to me. Whatever the tax rates are across the country they are obviously not high enough to even pay our minimum payment every month and we keep on having to raise our debt limit to compensate, which also seems ludicrous to me. What do Republicans run on every election? Lowering taxes. It buys votes. Doesn’t lower the debt. Biden didn’t do that. He got rid of some of the student loans for a lot of Americans. It buys votes. Doesn’t lower the debt.

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specialsauce
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by specialsauce »

Nodack wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:15 pm
To me it all seems simple. Our US debt is paid by collecting taxes on US citizens. Our debt is HUGE. Obviously we don’t collect enough taxes to pay down our debt in any significant way. For most Americans it seems the answer is to always lower taxes no matter what. I’m not a financial expert by any means but, that seems so ludicrous to me. Whatever the tax rates are across the country they are obviously not high enough to even pay our minimum payment every month and we keep on having to raise our debt limit to compensate, which also seems ludicrous to me. What do Republicans run on every election? Lowering taxes. It buys votes. Doesn’t lower the debt. Biden didn’t do that. He got rid of some of the student loans for a lot of Americans. It buys votes. Doesn’t lower the debt.
Why do we have debt? Because of all the bullshit spending the government does and gives away to their buddies. It’s all waste. I really have no interest in funding their bullshit.

If you want socialized medicine and all these other social programs, that’s fine but this debt owe currently accumulated not my problem. Stop giving money away to anyone that promises you money under the table. Stop giving billions of dollars to other countries.

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Nodack
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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Your attitude is what many Americans have. “It’s not my debt so I have no interest in paying it off.

Well, it is yours and my debt whether you acknowledge it or not. You are a US citizen, which makes it “your” debt. There is a lot of BS spending we do. Not all of it is BS. We sent billions to Ukraine to fight “their” war. In my opinion it is “our” war too. Some of us just don’t see the big picture and just live in our own bubbles where the only thing that matters is our own personal lives.

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specialsauce
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by specialsauce »

Nodack wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:46 pm
Your attitude is what many Americans have. “It’s not my debt so I have no interest in paying it off.

Well, it is yours and my debt whether you acknowledge it or not. You are a US citizen, which makes it “your” debt. There is a lot of BS spending we do. Not all of it is BS. We sent billions to Ukraine to fight “their” war. In my opinion it is “our” war too. Some of us just don’t see the big picture and just live in our own bubbles where the only thing that matters is our own personal lives.
If uou think those billions are just going into the pockets of the Ukrainian government to be used directly in the fight against Russia, you are very naive.

That money is dirtier than your toilet bowl after a long Saturday night of drinking beers

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virtual9mm
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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The real problem is that tax cuts are sold as benefiting the middle class when there is really no middle class to speak of.

The well-to-do in the top 1% (really, no different from the top 3%) are particularly sensitive because the doctors and the lawyers pay the taxes.

But the real problem is that the 0.1% is not at all comparable to the 1% -- people with 1 to 10 million USD are altogether different from those with 100 million or a billion -- and the 1% is paying taxes while the 0.1% is not.

This is why folks like Saucy are so angry about taxes while the billionaires scream about tax cuts for the middle class while paying next to nothing and sticking the tax bill on the Saucies of the world.

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virtual9mm
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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And yes -- I generally think the US isn't taxing enough, it is lower than the rest of the developed world in general except HK and SG -- and the reality is that they have other ways of taxing, via squeezing everyone through real estate. The government leads a real estate cartel that extracts rents.

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specialsauce
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by specialsauce »

virtual9mm wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 6:12 pm
The real problem is that tax cuts are sold as benefiting the middle class when there is really no middle class to speak of.

The well-to-do in the top 1% (really, no different from the top 3%) are particularly sensitive because the doctors and the lawyers pay the taxes.

But the real problem is that the 0.1% is not at all comparable to the 1% -- people with 1 to 10 million USD are altogether different from those with 100 million or a billion -- and the 1% is paying taxes while the 0.1% is not.

This is why folks like Saucy are so angry about taxes while the billionaires scream about tax cuts for the middle class while paying next to nothing and sticking the tax bill on the Saucies of the world.
To arbitrarily get grouped with someone making $10M annually is a complete joke. Some clown in the Biden administration decided that $124k annually is enough to get relief but someone that makes $126k annually is too rich. A complete political show by democrats.

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virtual9mm
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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specialsauce wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:32 pm
virtual9mm wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 6:12 pm
The real problem is that tax cuts are sold as benefiting the middle class when there is really no middle class to speak of.

The well-to-do in the top 1% (really, no different from the top 3%) are particularly sensitive because the doctors and the lawyers pay the taxes.

But the real problem is that the 0.1% is not at all comparable to the 1% -- people with 1 to 10 million USD are altogether different from those with 100 million or a billion -- and the 1% is paying taxes while the 0.1% is not.

This is why folks like Saucy are so angry about taxes while the billionaires scream about tax cuts for the middle class while paying next to nothing and sticking the tax bill on the Saucies of the world.
To arbitrarily get grouped with someone making $10M annually is a complete joke. Some clown in the Biden administration decided that $124k annually is enough to get relief but someone that makes $126k annually is too rich. A complete political show by democrats.
Doesn't it make you just a bit angry that the billionaires aren't paying their taxes?

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specialsauce
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by specialsauce »

virtual9mm wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 2:35 am
specialsauce wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:32 pm
virtual9mm wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 6:12 pm
The real problem is that tax cuts are sold as benefiting the middle class when there is really no middle class to speak of.

The well-to-do in the top 1% (really, no different from the top 3%) are particularly sensitive because the doctors and the lawyers pay the taxes.

But the real problem is that the 0.1% is not at all comparable to the 1% -- people with 1 to 10 million USD are altogether different from those with 100 million or a billion -- and the 1% is paying taxes while the 0.1% is not.

This is why folks like Saucy are so angry about taxes while the billionaires scream about tax cuts for the middle class while paying next to nothing and sticking the tax bill on the Saucies of the world.
To arbitrarily get grouped with someone making $10M annually is a complete joke. Some clown in the Biden administration decided that $124k annually is enough to get relief but someone that makes $126k annually is too rich. A complete political show by democrats.
Doesn't it make you just a bit angry that the billionaires aren't paying their taxes?
Of course. I would like to close all loopholes and deductions and charge a flat tax on anyone above the poverty line.

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Mori Chu
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by Mori Chu »

specialsauce's comment is a good example of why universal programs are better than means-tested ones. When you ask people, "Should you relieve student debt?" or, "Who should get free health care?" a lot of people say, "Well, give it to people who need it, but not to the rich." Which seems like it makes a lot of sense: why give free money or benefits or relief to people who are already rich? But when you really look at it, setting boundaries and limits like that causes a bunch of problems. It introduces thresholds like Saucy mentioned, where if you make $X a year you're in, but $(X + 1) you aren't. It makes anybody over the limits deeply resentful and dislike the program and want to get it killed; and those angry people have money and influence. It divides us rather than brings us together. And frankly, even though the rich may not "need" the benefit as much, there just aren't that many of them, so if you give them the benefit it doesn't actually increase the program's total cost that much. And now everybody benefits and likes the program and wants to keep and support it. Lastly, it is much easier to develop and administer a simple, universal program than one that has a bunch of restrictions and limits that you now need to check and kick people off the program if they don't qualify.

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Nodack
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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Rettig won’t hold the wealthy accountable — the IRS needs new leadership
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/362 ... eadership/
Over a decade of painful budget cuts and expanded responsibilities has left the tax-collecting agency barely able to perform its most basic duties, but help is on the way. President Biden recently signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), which allocates $80 billion in additional funding to the IRS, with over half designated explicitly for tax compliance enforcement.

Rettig, appointed by President Trump in 2018, has since proven himself unwilling to identify and punish wealthy tax evaders. Under his leadership, rather than completing audits on the rich, the IRS audited workers making less than $25,000 five times more often than all other filers. Rettig’s IRS audited the poorest Americans who used the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at a higher rate than every other tax bracket, save for the absolute wealthiest Americans. They even reduced the number of millionaires audited to 13,725 in 2021, just a third of the amount 10 years ago.
The decline of audits on the rich isn’t entirely Rettig’s fault. Over the last 10 years, a 20 percent funding cut left the IRS lacking investigators with the expertise required to go after rich people and their complicated finances, making audits of the richest of the rich more difficult to pursue widely. But the choice to audit working people at a considerably higher rate instead of going after the worst and the wealthiest tax cheats was just that, a choice.

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virtual9mm
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

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I will simply say that there is something to be said for progressive income taxes and that inequality is fueling political dysfunction and social instability. Sure, government needs to stop being so damned inefficient, too, but income taxes are close to the lowest they have been, ever.

Then again, why does the US spend 3 billion on an AEGIS destroyer when the Koreans are fielding a better ship for a billion?

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Nodack
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by Nodack »

And now they want to scrap that destroyer because it doesn’t hunt subs like it was supposed to.

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Indy
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by Indy »

virtual9mm wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 6:09 pm
I will simply say that there is something to be said for progressive income taxes and that inequality is fueling political dysfunction and social instability. Sure, government needs to stop being so damned inefficient, too, but income taxes are close to the lowest they have been, ever.

Then again, why does the US spend 3 billion on an AEGIS destroyer when the Koreans are fielding a better ship for a billion?
progressive taxes are almost always better than flat ones. The two things that fuck up the US is that our tax rates stop escalating at too low of a rate, and at too low of an income, and we have too many deductions.

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specialsauce
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Re: Biden Administration misc. activities

Post by specialsauce »

Mori Chu wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 7:34 am
specialsauce's comment is a good example of why universal programs are better than means-tested ones. When you ask people, "Should you relieve student debt?" or, "Who should get free health care?" a lot of people say, "Well, give it to people who need it, but not to the rich." Which seems like it makes a lot of sense: why give free money or benefits or relief to people who are already rich? But when you really look at it, setting boundaries and limits like that causes a bunch of problems. It introduces thresholds like Saucy mentioned, where if you make $X a year you're in, but $(X + 1) you aren't. It makes anybody over the limits deeply resentful and dislike the program and want to get it killed; and those angry people have money and influence. It divides us rather than brings us together. And frankly, even though the rich may not "need" the benefit as much, there just aren't that many of them, so if you give them the benefit it doesn't actually increase the program's total cost that much. And now everybody benefits and likes the program and wants to keep and support it. Lastly, it is much easier to develop and administer a simple, universal program than one that has a bunch of restrictions and limits that you now need to check and kick people off the program if they don't qualify.
Exactly. So if a household makes more than $250k per year, your shit don’t stank so go ahead and drive a gas guzzler because we’re not going to incentivize you to drive an electric vehicle.

But $249k peoples shat is dirty so here’s $7500k to get you to go green?

So what is the goal here? If it’s to get people to go green, then why set a limit? So stupid. I refuse to spend $7500 more than someone else for the exact same product out of principle.

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