You do the work.
Division of labor bitches. Get used to it, because we are doing our best to elect a socialist. I read as much at Red State.
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[…] via Filed under: Uncategorized — cleek @ 10:23 am […]
boonagain
Seven days left.
(I installed Safari just for this website .
no more freezes after each refresh and no more error messages after each post
I am one happy Communist now)
cleek
you guys do the work.
i’m applying for the job of "lazy welfare King"
boonagain
Personally, I am a DFH-have been for about 40 years.
lovethebomb
The lumpen-proletariat are not qualified to remark on important issues. That is why the people’s party must speak for the people. The State is now our mother. She asks only that you render yourselves available for duty whilst you suckle. It is not too much too ask. The people are the State. The people need strong firm turgid leaders to administer the State. They need our hands for their job. Therefore, our leaders are us and we are the State. To obey the leaders is to obey ourselves. To question the state is to deny yourself. All hail the mother!
JD
He was apparently in the wrong neighborhood at an ATM machine in late August when a sharply dressed white woman demanded his money. She became enraged when she saw that he didn’t have Palin 2012 stickers on his car…
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5888/palinmugsmccainor1.jpg
mikesdak
Another old-time Republican (Larry Pressler) has voted for Obama. At this rate they’ll be nothing left but the wingnuts.
Comrade Stuck
Hey now, Redstate is bringing on the sanctimony by endorsing 2 democrats to replace the corrupt politicians up for re=election in Alaska. And they’re challenging demorats to do the same in our party. If your wondering how many dems that includes, pretty much all of ’em as far as I can tell.
Pretty clever for the wizards of wankery.
Conservatively Liberal
Right behind ya there, DFH since 1969 and still have the hair to my waist to prove it. It is a heck of a lot thinner than it used to be, but the length is there to stay.
Slacker Motto: You do it!
Words to live by… ;)
John Cole
@JD: I had something similar happen to me, but I foudn “Dexter, Season 3” carved into my ass cheek.
Really odd.
BTW, in that vein, Julie Benz made me sweat in Angel, and is still smoking hot in Dexter.
Comrade Napoleon
On a related note, I am listening to NPR this morning and they interview someone outside a McCain rally who says they are voting for McCain because Obama’s plan was to tax the people who were working and give the money to people who don’t work. At least NPR in a voiceover narrative mentioned how wrong her idea was.
Comrade Nixon Hailfire Palin
Via Eric Martin via Sully, the Repubs can’t keep their narrative straight:
uila
This was a fun article about covering the Republican candidates from Michael Hastings of Newsweek
Garrigus Carraig
@Comrade Nixon Hailfire Palin:
That slice of awesome actually comes from the Toot.
(Preview completely ate all but the second link. Odd.)
Dennis - SGMM
From Monday’s NYT:
The al-Maliki government has been replacing Kurdish peacekeepers in Mosul’s Ninevah province with Iraqi troops and national police. The Kurds see this as an attempt to thwart their territorial ambitions in the province. The Kurdistan Democratic Party controls the provincial government because of the Sunni Arabs’ boycott of the last provincial election. The Kurdish government has recently characterized al-Maliki as "the new Saddam Hussein," as tensions have risen between the Kurds and the central government.
But here’s the kicker, from Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, the general who oversees the provinces of Ninevah and Kirkuk and the Kurdish region:
J.
Aren’t we in a bad mood today? Not even a cute cat or dog picture?
Here’s a question for you (and your readers): If John McCain and Barack Obama were NFL quarterbacks, who would they be?
Have at it.
bedlam UK
I really wish someone had taken the opportunity to ask Palin what the actual Definition of Socialism is.
You know, the actual concept of it, a quote or two, an example from history.
With her inability to articulate any thought more complicated than ‘terrorist’ unless it’s written down I would love to hear her theory.
Bob In Pacifica
I gots my mansion on the hill all picked out. And maybe I’ll ravish the rich man’s daughter after I drink from his liquor cabinet.
Redistribution of wealth. You gotta love it.
b. hussein canuckistani (comrade)
If there’s one common thread through the most violent revolutions in history – Mao in China, Lenin in Russia, Pol Pot in Cambodia – it’s this; the new dictator’s first action in power was to raise the top tax rate from 36 to 39%.
Fear the Revolution, bitches!
cleek
gotta say… after the first 50 pages of Cadillac Desert, i know i’ll never be able to listen to anyone who lives west of central Kansas complain about "redistribution of wealth" again, without laughing and pointing at them.
tell ya what, rugged cowboy, you stop drinking that delicious water we’re giving you for free, so you can live in a fucking desert, and then we’ll talk about the evils of socialism.
Ted
This country is goin’ straight to hell!
– Colonel Frank Fitz, USMC
Dennis - SGMM
I’ve only been a DFH since ’66, still have the hair though now it just makes me a "character." Anyway, I became a DFH up in Berkeley and we were a pretty non-violent lot so I need to know what the order of operation is when Obama gets elected.
Is it rape, loot, pillage? Pillage, loot, rape? Or…?
libarbarian
Yes, Comrade John!
We will all contribute to this blog to make for a happier socialist future.
Writing comments gives us great revolutionary experience which we can share with others to raise consciousness.
Jon H
Deep Thought: Ayers and Wright, in their most feverish anti-American dreams, probably never thought they could actually manage to kill 4,000 American troops, grievously wound thousands more, and cost the nation $5 trillion.
George W. Bush, aided and abetted by John McCain, has done far more damage than Ayers and Wright ever had any chance to do.
fuddmain
@J.:
Obama – Joe Montana
McCain – Ryan Leaf
Comrade Nixon Hailfire Palin
@Garrigus Carraig:
My apologies to the Toot. I thought Martin’s wrapper was worthwhile.
One of the reasons I didn’t try to add a second link. :)
demimondian
@Dennis – SGMM: Listen, I scored a pair of Billy Bragg tickets; with U. Utah gone, Billy’s still the best around for those great-songs-of-the-real-workers-I-look-down-on (being a truly elistist DFH.). Lehrer had it right: "They may have won all the battles, but we had all the best songs."
tigrismus
"See, under a big government, more tax agenda, what you thought was yours would really start belonging to somebody else, to everybody else. If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody…. Higher taxes, more government, misusing the power to tax leads to government moving into the role of some believing that government then has to take care of us. And government kind of moving into the role as the other half of our family, making decisions for us. Now, they do this in other countries where the people are not free."
Come on, how much clearer can she be?
No really, I’m asking because I’m totally lost here.
cleek
the Poor Man wins the internet by proving simultaneous wingnut rotation.
moderate this! also.
El Cid
The right wing Republicans spent an awful lot of time calling FDR and the New Deal socialist and Red and the like. ‘Still didn’t keep them from losing, over and over and over.
Englischlehrer
I worked my ass off today, 3 classes in 2 different towns and now it’s 2:53pm here in SW Germany and the girlfriend is coming over to cook me some food. I love being done by 3pm, woohoo!
I cannot wait for this election to be over and pray to the Real America’s God that you know who wins!
Brian J
I actually got a message last night from a friend from college who said "Obama is going to fuck me when I make $250,000 next year and I just wanted you to know that." I’m not sure if that’s really true. He’s doing very well in his law school class, but even with bonuses or whatever else he would get, I’m not sure his income would be that high. As I said to him, he might even get a tax cut credit under Obama’s plan. But regardless, I don’t think his taxes are going up by any significant amount.
Also, after playing around with the various tax cut calculators, I realized how wrong McCain was to claim that this is going to make the IRS into a welfare agency. Some of these tax credits don’t appear to be giving people at the bottom as much as I thought.
Atanarjuat
Bob In Pacifica said:
You think you’re being funny, but your ostensibly witty remark reminds me of a pivotal scene from the movie, "Doctor Zhivago," where the Bolsheviks, fresh from their victory in the Russian Revolution of 1917, have moved into the good doctor’s house, steal the family heirlooms, and chopped the finely-crafted furniture into firewood. Little wonder that the scales fell from Zhivago’s eyes and he finally saw the "oppressed people" as the lazy, wealth-redistributing peasants that they always were (and always will be).
Thanks for admitting that you’ll be one of the crazed, necklace-grabbing rioters who will be celebrating with the rest of the Marxist Mob on November 5th, should America be so unfortunate as to elect Nobama.
Country First.
cleek
does he know what marginal tax rates are ?
El Cid
So, is the logic now that being a lot wealthier isn’t worth it because you’ll pay a higher percentage of taxes on the portion of your income that makes you richer than you used to be?
J.
@fuddmain
Nice. : )
Btw, love the "Donuts & Bacon" t-shirt.
El Cid
You think you’re being clever and insightful, when what you are doing is proudly admitting your degree of unhinged derangement, and we are all laughing at you in your cold, urine-soaked underwear and your tear-salt encrusted cheeks. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Brian J
That’s what I asked. I’m not entirely sure that he does.
Brian J
Via Political Wire:
Can this PLEAAAAAASEEEEEEEE be the narrative for the remainder of the campaign? I’d love for thousands of voters in swing states to write her name instead of voting for McCain or simply not show up to the polls for either of them at all on election day.
Comrade Nixon Hailfire Palin
I’d like to start an "Upper Class Relief Fund" to which these guys can donate the additional tax cut Obama gives them as their protest against "socialism."
fuddmain
@J.:
That’s a real winner, isn’t it? I’d buy it today if I thought it would arrive by Friday without having to pay a mint. It’s the perfect canvassing t-shirt:-)
robertdsc
Barack with a Steelers jersey.
Don’t know where it’s originally from, but it was a must to bring over.
Far Left American Hater Incertus
If you haven’t seen the video of Bill Burton laying the wood to Fox News yesterday, you really, really want to see it. It’s a fucking thing of beauty.
Now I have to steel myself to walk across the campus without punching out the fucknecky douchenozzles who set up an "abortion is the Holocaust" installation about 20 yards from my office.
JL
@El Cid: I was going to respond to the delusional one but decided that it just wasn’t worth it.
Comrade Napoleon
Your friend is an idiot. Even if he happens to be at a law school that firms like Jones Day hire from, and even if he is high enough in his class to get hired by a firm like that, the last time I saw numbers (I am an attorney) first year attorneys are not getting that at those firms.
eponymous
@J.:
Even better – in what game do each play?
My take – Super Bowl III
Obama – Joe Namath ; McCain – Johnny Unitas
Namath – young, energetic and the face of change in the NFL (last Superbowl before the merger);
Unitas – distinguish veteran trying to rally his team late in the game but unable to overcome the foregone conclusion of a Jets win.
El Cid
OMG, are we seeing the formation among right wingers of the PLF — the Palin Liberation Front?
(All apologies to the failed FLP effort.)
Brian J
That’s what I thought. Other friends who were with us when he said this mocked him for suggesting that he would get that much right away, but I was a little more reserved. You can never be entirely sure, but it didn’t seem likely, particularly since I think he said he wanted to go into real estate law like his brother.
Dennis - SGMM
The shorter Atanarjuat:
What will I clutch after the mob snatches my pearls?
John PM
@Brian J: #27
So your friend is still in law school? Does he go to a top 25 school? That is really the only way he will have a chance of getting the top salary coming out of law school, which is $160,000 in New York and LA (and some Chicago firms). Does he know that many of the really large firms are cutting several layers of senior associates? Whatever amount he ends of making, he is going to have to work his ass off, so he will not have as much time to enjoy it. Also, unless he is going into bankruptcy law, he is going to be continually worrying about job security.
P.S. – No offense, but your friend is a d-ckh–d.
Walker
The fact that these people are acting like $900 dollars is the end of the world (which is the tax difference if they really are earning that much) makes me feel for them even less.
Get back to me when we hit FDR tax brackets.
Joey Maloney
Email me your admin password, please, so I can fix the code for the mobile version to allow viewing and posting comments. Kthxbai
Oh, and here’s your morning Moment of Zen: "Wasilla’s all I saw" is a PALINdrome.
Dennis - SGMM
Excellent!
Comrade Napoleon
Hey, that is what I do. Just what I need.
By the way John @44 is correct.
Comrade Stuck
A little snippet of history, Ahkbar. Did you know that when Czar Nicholas 11 and his family were executed in 1918 by The Bolsheviks, the necklaces you reference were stuffed in the Corsets the Czar’s ladyfolk for safe keeping. There presence, forced the executioners to fire several extra bullets, because the fancy jewelry stopped the first few rounds. Something to ponder one week from the end of rule by the corrupt authoritarian GOP.
You should count your lucky stars though, that we are mostly peace loving DFH’s. Mostly.
Bwaa ha ha ha !!
Comrade Darkness
That *almost* works sung to the tune of the East is Red. Kinda just have to speak it movingly over the other as background music.
Maybe we can make it an opera.
Svensker
FTW.
Re the college student getting fucked: isn’t that what most students want most of the time? But seriously, I think that someone making $250K will get an increase of $900 annually in taxes. Crushing. Actually, a friend of mine complained that he might have to buy USED ski equipment for his daughters if Obama gets in. I wept.
John PM
I see that Comrade Napoleon beat me to the punch, language and all (#39). Brian J, your friend wants to go into real estate law???? Has he been paying attention for the last few months?
On a separate note, yesterday a fellow attorney at my firm e-mailed a link to the fox news story regarding Obama’s 2001 interview talking about the redistributionist Supreme Court. The e-mail was entitled: "More proof that Obama is a socialist." I replied with links to two stories where the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America state unequivocally that Obama is not a socialist. Oddly, I have not heard anything since then. However, on the elevator this morning we did talk about how his Indianapolis Colts got their -sses handed to them last night by the Tennessee Titans.
Dennis - SGMM
@Comrade Stuck:
Don’t go reciting actual history to trolls. It makes them cranky and reluctant to post.
Brian J
Wow, that was uncomfortable, like watching a husband and wife fight over dinner with the kids around. It shows why, even if I think I want to work in politics some day, I don’t think I could ever be a spokesman. Right now, most of the time, I can’t be as forceful as Burton. But more power to him. There’s simply no way that Kelly could have read what Obama said in full and then concluded that he was talking about what she claims. She either (a) has a reading comprehension problem, (b) didn’t read the original statements in full, or (c) is lying. There’s no other alternatives, unless this is some sort of post-modern style of campaigning and reporting where the truth is what you want it to be.
Faux News
I welcome our new Socialist Overlords, and I will fulfill my work quota 100% for the new 5 Year Plan!
Comrade Stuck
@Dennis – SGMM:
I know. It’s like throwing ice water on a sleeping rat.
Brian J
It’s kind of funny how most of my college friends are pretty damn conservative, but regardless, I feel the same way that you feel. If his taxes were going up $20,000-$30,000 a year, he’d have a point, but that’s so not what’s happening. Like you said, they’d go up by a small amount, assuming they go up at all. I didn’t say that he should be paying more taxes in my message to him last night, because I didn’t want the discussion to revolve around that right now, but people who make that much, in my mind, should be paying a little more.
greynoldsct00
Beautifully said!
Conservatively Liberal
You had it partially right the first time; It’s rape, loot, pillage and burn.
Burn baby burn! ;)
Comrade Ed Drone
Given the misuse of ‘logic’ so popular these days, it’s a wonder no one has pointed out the tremendous era of economic well-being we had in the Eisenhower days, when the top rate was 90%, and then suggested that we go back to that rate to improve the economy.
Ed
Atanarjuat
@fuddmain – The observation regarding the lame donut and bacon T-shirt piqued my curiosity, so I navigated to the Web site linked from your alias and noticed that frighteningprospect.com ad in the right-hand sidebar.
What a startling coincidence.
And here I thought the fanged-Palin poster was just another one of those perverted NYC abominations that ooze from the rainbow-hugging residents of Chelsea.
In fact, I snapped this photo on 38th Street and Ninth Avenue this past Saturday when I was on my way to the PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob Javitz convention center. I was saving this evidence to highlight leftist hypocrisy when the next suffocating wave of anti-Palin hatred swamped BJ, but I see there’s no need to save this particular bit of ammunition any further.
Children see this spiteful stuff on the street, too, you know — not just passing America-hating leftists and homeless filth. You pack of syphillic jackals are sickening in the extreme.
Country First.
El Cid
OMG — if I win the lottery my tax rate on the prize will be severe! This is totally enslaving. I better throw the ticket away.
Notorious P.A.T.
Just in case anyone here doesn’t know, what are marginal tax rates?
bago
You mother might want to do something about her Bush.
Incertus: "I understand you don’t like being interrupted but go ahead, interrupt me." *sign off*
null pointer exception
Today we are celebrating Diwali here in India, the festival that celebrates the triumph of good over evil. Here’s hoping that good again triumphs over evil on November 4th.
Blue Raven
I guess I was the only one paying attention in our Obama canvassing and insurgency class the day we learned the Holy Trinity of takeover raids. First rape, then you loot, and then you move in with your same-sex partner, catamite and welfare queen concubine.
Comrade Darkness
I believe it is the idea that if you surpass a certain tax bracket, you are only taxed at that rate for the monies exceeding that amount. So if you make 251,000 for the year, only 1000 of it is taxed at the highest rate. The remainder is taxed at the lower rate.
fuddmain
@Atanarjuat:
Man, you are awesome! You should be dipped in bronze and preserved forever. The sooner, the better.
OriGuy
Anyone who expects to be paying more taxes under Obama has probably lost far more money in the last month in the market.
Far Left American Hater Incertus
@Atanarjuat:
You fuckers have pictures of abortions right next to photos from the Holocaust and the killing fields of Cambodia on my college campus right now–I have to walk past them to go teach, so why don’t you save the self-righteousness for someone who gives a fuck.
Svensker
What I think is fabulous is how all these Republicans are suddenly discovering libertarianism. I expect large write ins for Ron Paul and a landslide for Bob Barr.
Comrade Darkness
@null pointer exception:
Wow, time flies. We were in India for Diwali last year. I have never seen so many fireworks in my life. About every fourth rooftop had their own show. And we waded through firecracker debris like late fall leaves while walking down the street to dinner that night. Holy crap you people really don’t do things by halves there.
Thanks for the reminder; I’ll light some candles around my sandlewood Lakshmi today. Couldn’t hurt in these times.
Zifnab
@Notorious P.A.T.: The marginal tax rate is the tax placed on the last dollar you earn. In the US, this is typically determined by your tax bracket. So if you make between $25k and $75k, you are in the 25% bracket. If you make over $250k, you are in the 33% bracket.
This isn’t actually the percentage of tax you pay on income at the end of the year because you pay less income on dollars you make before the last dollar. For instance, we have the standard deduction and the personal excemption – roughly $5000 and $3500 respectively – which are subtracted from our household incomes. So, for the first $8500 you make, you pay no income tax. Every dollar between $8500 and $25k is taxed at (I believe) the 15% tax rate. And it scales up from there.
So while your marginal tax may be 25% of your income, your actual tax will be somewhat less. 0% for the first $8500, 15% for the next $16.5k (roughly $2500), and then 25% on every dollar after. So if you make $50k, you pay 17.5% of your income in taxes even though your marginal tax rate is 25%.
Zifnab
Worth noting that after your income scales up to a certain level, the exemptions and credits start phasing out. If you make $1 mil a year, you actually don’t get your standard deduction and personal exemption. Likewise, you are limited as to how much you can claim on your Schedule A and other deduction sheets. At that point, your marginal tax rate and your actual tax rate start falling more in line with each other.
Notorious P.A.T.
Thanks )
Nylund
Does anyone know if they’ve started selling tickets for the rap concert on the "Black" House lawn yet, or is more of a "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" type of affair?
JL
@Far Left American Hater Incertus: The last thing the delusional one does is put country first.
Jon H
"You can never be entirely sure, but it didn’t seem likely, particularly since I think he said he wanted to go into real estate law like his brother."
Hm. Is this such a great time to be getting into real estate law? There will probably be lots of work, but I’d think the work is going to be harder and messier (dealing with foreclosures rather than money-spinning development deals), and the clients are likely to be losing money already and thus trying to reduce expenses.
garyb50
I just heard Palin for what must be the bazillionth time state that McCain knows how to win a war. I wonder what she means by that.
machine
You forgot "scruffy-looking" and "nerf herder".
El Cid
OMG I hope I don’t suddenly earn $10 million dollars this year because Republicans tell me I’d pay a lot more in taxes than on what I’m making now.
Ash Can
Does he know what fucking is?
jake 4 that 1
The opinion section of the Washingtion People’s Revolutionary Journal or Anti-America (AKA The Washington Post) feature one life-long Republican and one Independent ditching McPalin.
Joshua Norton
So we have the options of a Socialist or a Whig.
Also, it must suck pretty bad to be a Joe Lie-berman.
Cris v.3.1
SHIT! Damn, he’s been gone five months now, and I didn’t hear about it ’til now.
One of the albums I keep in my son’s room is "We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years." A priceless collection of songs by a hell of an entertainer.
pharniel
my wife nests (the nest.com) and there are alot of lawyers on the ‘money matters’ board.
in general a first year lawyer makes shit, and puts in insane hours.
several people have calculated that if they could get 90 hours at walmart or mcdonalds they’d actually come out ahead in income, because thier adjusted hourly payrate was something like 4.50 an hour.
disappointedGOPer
@Atanarjuat:
Just as long as I get to ravish your hawt daughter.
Sex-redistribution = WIN
J.
@Walker #50 and @Svensker #67:
You tell ’em!
Re the latter’s skiing story, a friend, who is voting for Obama, even though her spouse is a Republican and gives $$$ to the GOP, told me her husband said, "If you do, you can just forget about that tennis court." I am happy to report, she doesn’t give a hoot about the tennis court.
Joshua Norton
Well, they’re pretty much useless. They have the paralegals do most of their work while they hide in the law library stacks trying to figure out how to probate a will.
Conservatively Liberal
I vote for triple plate chroming. First comes the hot bath in the sodium hydroxide/water solution, forward current, a good scrubbing & then rinse in clean water. Then it is off to the 10% hydrofluoric acid dip followed by another clean water rinse, then into the Rochelle copper (cyanide copper bath) for a 30 second blast of current to flash a thin layer of copper over him. After that it is off to the two-stage dragback rinse and a dip in a 50% sulfuric acid/water bath to neutralize any remaining cyanide/copper solution.
Now it is into the acid copper process for some more juice to build a few mils of bright copper, another two-stage dragback rinse afterward and then into a nice hot acid nickel bath for a nice jolt of current to plate a few mils of nickel. Finally, that is followed by another two-stage dragback rinse and then off to the nice and hot hexavalent chromium tank for a short blast of juice followed by a final two-stage dragback rinse.
I know just the shop to get it done at but the owner would want assurances that his processes would not get polluted, so that might nix the deal.
Atanarjuat
Far Left American Hater Incertus said:
Wait… you’re comparing your supposedly "adult" sensibilities to that of CHILDREN — young and innocent children, mind you — who are needlessly exposed to the intentionally demonic image of a fanged Sarah Palin with blood (or some other body fluid) dripping from her chin? So now leftists are hothouse flowers whose fragile feelings should be protected while CHILDREN are being subjected to soul-numbing hatred in the service of liberal partisanship?
Now that’s just farking rich. Yeah, keep crying that river.
Country First.
Notorious P.A.T.
@Atanarjuat:
Is this some of that "compassionate conservatism"?
the VA estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. And nearly 400,000 experience homelessness over the course of a year. Conservatively, one out of every three homeless men who is sleeping in a doorway, alley or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served this country.
Think about that the next time you sneer at a homeless person, you piece of crap.
Cris v.3.1
The first three times I read that (in your original post and in quotes of it) I thought it read "I actually got a massage…"
p.a.
If anyone wants to redistribute some of those Wall St. bonuses of the last decade to me I would very much appreciate it. Hello…Hello…is anyone there? Hello?
demimondian
@Cris v.3.1:There was damned little that Phillips and I agreed about, but one thing I knew was that, no matter what, if my union was out, he would run a benefit for us if we asked. He was a good union man, through and through.
I got to see him live right after the BC strike where _Fed you all_ was recorded. He was even better in person.
jake 4 that 1
@Brian J: Your college pal will have to clone himself three times and all four of him work 24 hour days with only brief breaks to service the partners to make that much. If he’s past his first semester he should know that. Are you sure he wasn’t joking?
El Cid
I am not a hothouse flower. I make sure to always laugh, out loud and publicly, at the nut cases protesting about how abortion is killin’ babies and is a new Holocaust. Of course, most of these people probably wouldn’t have minded the actual Holocaust in the first place, either.
Soylent Green
She means what he means, which is that we coulda shoulda won the war in Vietnam by bombing the bejeesus out of the north entirely without regard for civilian deaths. Back to the stone age. Nothing left of the place but smoking craters. McCain still wants to get even with the gooks for capturing him and wants to be a bigshot war boss just like his daddy and granddaddy. That’s the real glory in his heritage. Iraq, Iran, doesn’t matter, any war will do.
As for Palin she is just parroting him as usual.
lovethebomb
Does this Asshat Atanarjuat think his specious bile will persuade anyone here? Why do trolls troll? A question for the ages – or merely a topic in Abnormal Psychology 101. I do see some taking the bait to return bile for bile, but this kind craves negative attention. If he/she stokes anger or rage, they giggle with childlike glee, wipe the cheeto dust from their lips, and begin typing another post designed to incite an emotional response. If you must feed the trolls, only give them witty ridicule, as that makes their testes/mammaries shrink. Then you may be thinking, who is this fuckface and why is he lecturing us?
The Moar You Know
@Atanarjuat: Good. It’s about time we stopped lying to the kids, telling them that there are such things as Santa Claus, Easter Bunnies, and decent Republicans. None of those things exist and it does our kids no good to pretend they do.
The Moar You Know
@lovethebomb: Atanarjuat is a spoof. Not a real troll, not a real right-winger. It is nothing more than entertainment.
Cris v.3.1
For what it’s worth, the question of whether Brian’s friend is going to make $250k in his first year practicing law is totally irrelevant to his argument. If he thinks an extra $900 on the top 1% is an injustice, it’s an injustice whether it happens to him or someone else.
Brian J
I’m honestly not sure. I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing him because I hate him, but he’s definitely got this habit of building up stories and traits that don’t really exist. He’s definitely doing well in law school, as he’s in the top five, as in people not percent, of his class, but his school isn’t in the top 25. And as others have said, the field he might be going doesn’t see its associates rolling in cash right now. Of course, that was what he said when we graduated, primarily because one of his older brothers was in the field, and I haven’t heard him say one way or the other if he still planned to do that. Like I said before, I never ruled it out entirely, because you never really know what’s going on in someone’s life, but then, it seemed far fetched, because of his age and status and because of the overall economic picture. So perhaps he was joking.
Brian J
That’s really funny.
Comrade Darkness
I’ll confess I’ve trolled a bit on random blogs after i was mistaken for trolling when I certainly wasn’t. Once you realize how easy it is to get other’s dander up over the stupidist difference of opinion, it’s kinda funny. And once you’ve been labelled a troll, you can come back days later when you’re bored with even a reasonable statement and get jumped on. Which is even funnier. Try it sometime and you’ll understand. Unless this is a hypothetical question, in which case, don’t bother.
Cris v.3.1
What I love about Atanarjuat is that he comes at us with a dual approach:
1. Use polite, deferential language to express complete fantasy (e.g. "The polls are all wrong, McCain is ahead");
2. Bury reasonable ideas (e.g. "guilt by association is logically wrong") in over-the-top, inflammatory accusations
…sometimes in the same post. And he never breaks character! (Except with the homo-baiting, when he sounds more immature than unhinged.)
Plus, his "signature" puts a cherry on top every time.
Country First.
Brian J
If I can be sentimental for a moment, does anyone remember the Christmas episode from the first season of "The West Wing," entitled "In Excelsis Deo"? Among other plot points, Toby the Communications Director received a call because a homeless man died in the park wearing a coat he gave to Goodwill. As it it turns out, the man was a veteran. After arranging for a funeral at Arlington using the president’s name, he was confronted by President Bartlet who said that if they did it for this guy, every veteran like him would come out of the woodwork. Toby’s response? "I can only hope so, sir." It’s easy to see why Richard Schiff won the Emmy for that episode. It was an incredibly powerful episode that I still think about years later.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Dennis – SGMM:
No, no, no—don’t get it backwards; it’s "steal the cattle, ravish the women."
Comrade Ed Drone
Joe the lawyer? Building up himself and his aspirations in stories that don’t ring true? Where have I heard that before? He should meet Joe the Plumber.
Really!
Ed
Juan del Llano
Enjoying the "hair confessions" this a.m…
I’m an ancient DFH myself but couldn’t have long hair in Merryland: just too goddamned hot and HUMID to have a wet weasel wrapped around my neck. Since moving to northern NM in ’99 — Taos being, according to a longtime resident, "the only place where Social Security really improves your standard of living" (because otherwise you’re flat-ass broke) — the normal summer humidity of around 10 percent plus rampant impecuniousness has allowed a fine mane to develop. However, my hair is also falling out. Between me and the cats, the debris is embarrassing and probably a public health hazard. My wife is not amused but still sleeps with me.
Things could be worse.
tigrismus
Wow, that Obama sure has high standards.
Brian J
Now that’s not nice. Funny, but not nice.
As it happens, if I have some time in the next day or so, I might start seeing what these nifty programs on my MacBook can do and try to create a Village People-style McCain video to the tune of "Macho Man." The idea came to me yesterday while I was at work and CNN was on showing McCain rally featuring Tito the Builder.
I get that he’s a construction worker, but is it really necessary to wear the clothes at the rally? I wonder how many people would have thought, "Well, I assumed that this man was a pediatric neurosurgeon just telling us he worked in construction, but now that I see him wearing a hard hat, I know he’s legit"?
Zifnab
@Comrade Scrutinizer: You’re clearly not from Texas.
Brian J
Ha!
smiley
@lovethebomb:
It’s selection by consequence. Some behaviors produce consequences that increase the probability of the behavior that produced them (reinforcement), other behaviors produce consequences that reduce the probability of the behavior that produced them (punishment). When people say "don’t feed the trolls", that’s why. Responding to trolls reinforces trolling.
Atanarjuat
lovethebomb said:
I’ve stated this before (and you’ve obviously missed it), and I’ll state it again: I’m not here to persuade anyone who is already clinging tenaciously to their leftist ideology like bathroom mold.
On the other hand, having my views challenged helps me to refine my own thinking. I feel this is a good way to keep myself from become entrenched in rigid ideology. What’s so ironic about all these petulant "you’re a troll!" attacks is that the left prides itself for being open-minded, and yet, here I am, willing to engage in and discuss the various issues that Americans are concerned with, and the response so far has been an epic level of vitriol spewed in my direction from the Barack-Borg Collective.
Now that’s just sad.
Country First.
Tattoosydney
@Joshua Norton:
True – that is, when they aren’t spending twelve hours a day sticking labels on documents or searching through 589 folders for every mention of the word "herring".
At least once a year we get a new lawyer who (when asked to spend their day in a tiny room doing an essentially futile task) responds "I wanted to be a lawyer, not do menial stuff."
And then we laugh, and point at them, and send them back to the photocopy room (while silently weeping in our hearts)…
Any law student who thinks they are going to be earning $250,000 next year has mental issues that may require treatment.
Brian J
Is it a matter of them being new and getting to do the bitch work, or is this something that all lawyers end up doing a lot of? In other words, will it get better over time?
I ask because it seems like a lot of people around my age think they will shoot right up to the top without much of anything. One of my brothers is like that.
Tattoosydney
For the win! Arsehat – you’re fucking funny. (Although I suspect that you may have just pressed the spoof a tad too far for it to be even vaguely credible any more…)
Rick Taylor
When it comes down to it, all that’s left of conservatism is a bunch of spoiled rich folk who are irate at the idea of any sort of progressive taxation or giving back to the nation that’s given the opportunity to succeed, a bunch of others who are terrified of gays being treated with some dignity, and a few others who think we haven’t started nearly enough wars.
demimondian
@Cris v.3.1: Atanutcase is actually a brilliant spoof of someone we knew a long, long time ago.
Warning, old timers…
Cris, meet Darrell, the guy-you-wish-was-a-troll
iluvsummr
test to see whether my sixth attempt at commenting this morning gets deleted as spam.
Tattoosydney
@Brian J:
I’m not in the US, but the situation is broadly the same…
Lawyers get very well paid, but it’s generally a few years before that kicks in properly – particularly at the moment when every client is trying to cut expenses madly.
Workwise, you do spend a lot of your first three to five years doing grunt work (collating documents etc) mixed in with a few interesting learning experiences. The problem is that lawyers fresh out of law school know a lot of law, but don’t actually know anything about being a lawyer. It’s all on the job training, which means training wheels before you get given something which might matter if you fuck it up. The proportion of paper shuffling work goes down dramatically after your first few years, but it never goes away entirely.
My only good piece of advice for your brother: Don’t treat the secretaries like servants, because they will destroy you. You get the occasional young lawyer who thinks that, in the first week, s/he can order around the middle aged personal assistants who have been with the firm for twenty years and know where everyone’s skeletons are buried. Fail. Be nice to the secretaries.
mannemalon
Obama = Brady or Montana, or really some combination of Brady and Randall Cunningham (the total package with all the intangibles and ice water in his veins)
McCain = old (current) Brett Favre or year 2 Brett Favre. That’s a good one. Others would be Scott Mitchell, Jon Kitna. But yeah, I don’t think you can do better than old (current) or early Brett Favre. Erratic, gimmicky, cranky(now), not nearly as good as his reputation(now).
mannemalon
Don’t forget, Rooney endorsed him in the primaries.
Ron
@Comrade Stuck:
They since wussed out and just said "Don’t vote for Stevens or Young"
Mrs. Peel
How true. Some of them show up and basically say "here’s my diploma, when am I due at the Supreme Court?"
They barely last the first year.
Brian J
That’s what I figured. In that respect, it seems like most other jobs. That’s why, while I never completely rejected my friend’s idea, I was pretty skeptical. Now I see he’s delusional.
This one brother isn’t a lawyer, and I don’t think he treats anyone badly in that way. What I meant was, he’s the sort of person who thinks he’ll go in making great money right away, without the requisite effort, time, or experience. He’s said for years now he wants to be his own boss, but he doesn’t have much experience doing anything. In other words, if he was hired by a bank, he’d expect to be running the bank as opposed to working as a teller and then moving up when he first started out. Or so that’s the impression I’ve gotten of him in the past few years.
Grumpy Code Monkey
2008 Tax Schedule
For single filers, the marginal tax rates for 2008 are (God I hope this works)
<ul>
<li>10% on income between $0 and $8,025
<li>15% on the income between $8,025 and $32,550; plus $802.50
<li>25% on the income between $32,550 and $78,850; plus $4,481.25
<li>28% on the income between $78,850 and $164,550; plus $16,056.25
<li>33% on the income between $164,550 and $357,700; plus $40,052.25
<li>35% on the income over $357,700; plus $103,791.75
</ul>
So let’s say you make $150k in 2008. That puts you in the 28% bracket, so you pay .28 * ($150,000 – $78,850) + $16,056.25 = $35,978.25, or 23% of your total income.
If you make $250k, that puts you in the 33% bracket; you pay $68,250.75, or 27.3% of the total. If you make $500K, that puts you in the 35% bracket; you pay $153,596.75, or 30%.
So yeah, you can bitch about having a quarter to a third of your income going to taxes (and I’m not going to deny that hurts), but you have a good chunk left to get by on compared to the proles making $30K a year. I’m not going to feel sorry for someone who has > $150K left over after taxes.
Jay C
@Brian J:
There you go, then: he’s already prepped for a career in Republican politics!
binzinerator
That’s a good observation. When I worked construction I sure as hell didn’t wear my work clothes around anywhere else. I mean, they’re your work clothes fer chrissake. You’d only wear them after work if you like wearing sawdust and drywall dust and sweat and dirt and mud and want to track it everywhere. Or if you’re a pig, I guess.
Guy’s another fucking stage prop, like that non-plumber plumber with his imaginary quarter mil income.
cain
@null pointer exception:
Ravana wasn’t precisely evil although he was demonic. He was more of a dick. Indian epics don’t generally have a villain, they have dicks and assholes. Apparently, demons have enough faith and devotion to call up one of the three gods and get their hearts desire. What they do with it is of course is turn into an asshole. Kind of like a rich guy with a tax cut. :-)
cain
Krista
Nice catch! It does seem rather cartoonish, doesn’t it? What’s next, McCain talking to a farmer, who just happened to bring his tractor and livestock to the rally?
Calouste
@Comrade Napoleon:
That’s pretty much what has been happening over the last eight years, has it?
Calouste
@Brian J:
The guy sounds fairly much divorced from reality, or in other words, a typical Republican. I guess reality has to slap him in the face before you can get any sense in them. Expect to listen to him for the next 2-3 years about how underpaid he is for what he does and how a do-nothing has been promoted over him.
OniHanzo
Outstanding.
Chunked together because blockquotes blows here.
cain
@Brian J:
I ranted about this some months ago. The current generation seems to think like that. They want to do as little work as possible. I think the dotcom boom has fucked us up. They all see it as a matter of chance rather than hard work and moving up the ladder. I’ve had this conversations with people who were shift supervisors in the 80s as well. It seems to be in all class levels.
cain
wakeupUSA
It’s a pleasure to be witnessing the decimation of a party and an approach that has devastated our country, economically and spiritually. The buttheaded wingers will finally pay a heavy price.
Go to: http://www.buttheadpolice.com
Vote for extreme winger buttheads like Palin and McCain to get asses stamped on their heads. Spread the word!!
Atanarjuat
OniHanzo quoted and then said:
Indeed, it is outstanding to take two separate statements out of context, concatenate them with a deceptive ellipsis, and then pretend an "aha!" gotcha.
With such integrity, you might want to help fill in for Keith Olbermann on those days he calls in sick.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin’s effigy is hanged by a noose in West Hollywood, and the giggling jackals of the left think it’s just good Halloween fun.
Now that’s truly outstanding moral relativism, lefties.
Country First.
tigrismus
Then Western.
Church Lady
I realize that, as usual, I am opening myself to the ridicule of the masses here, but you grossly underestimate the tax ramifications of the Obama’s various tax plans on the top two brackets.
It’s not just the increase in rates of 3% or 3.9%. It’s also the proposed increase in payroll taxes for only those earning over 250K (and the businesses that employ them), plus accelerating the phaseouts on deductions and exemptions. All told, you’re talking about putting a lot of people in a position of paying well over 50% of their income in taxes, even before taking into account the increase in capital gains that Obama has talked about, or his proposed increase in corporate tax rates (which he vacillates on).
I know a number of professionals (doctors, lawyers, small business owners, etc.) that have told me that if Obama is elected and Congress does put these tax proposals into effect, their attitude is F-it. They will sell their practices and businesses and either retire to enjoy the fruits of their labors or scale down hours worked drastically, in order to bring income down to a level that will avoid increased taxation.
All of these people have two things in common – every single one of them works greatly in excess of the common 40 hour work week, in order to increase income, and they all employ people. If they don’t see the benefit in working those extra hours, due to diminishing returns on the investment of their time, or they just close up shop, what happens to the people that work for them? Those employees either have their hours cut back, which decreases their income, or they become unemployed.
As much as you might want to deny it, tax policies in this country do drive most business decisions.
cleek
blah blah blah. people say the same thing every goddamn time there’s talk of changing the tax laws.
we had doctors and lawyers in the 50s, when the high tax brackets were absurdly high. and we’ll have them if they’re slightly higher than today’s. and if people who want to make more money want to quit being doctors, then that’s good for everyone else : lower medical costs!
Comrade Jake
@Church Lady:
Quantify "a lot of people" relative to the number of people who’ll get a tax cut, and then we’ll talk. Until then, you’re blowing smoke.
dslak
@cleek: Yeah, I don’t recall anybody complaining when Bush gave them two wars and new entitlements with deferred payment. Looks like the grace period is over!
"Oh, but people don’t like paying higher taxes!" Maybe people should vote for fewer wars.
Brian J
@ Church Lady:
Let’s assume that Obama does in fact get all of his tax wishes, at least as far as income and payroll taxes go. (It’s not entirely clear what he would do with corporate tax rates, and while he is proposing possible increases in dividend and capital gains tax rates, it’s not certain where we would end up, nor do I feel like speculating on how much a couple has in this sort of income.) You can play around with the numbers here, and when you do, you’ll see what Obama is proposing is hardly the end of the world. For instance, a couple making $400,000 filing jointly in 2008 would be paying $111,575 income taxes, but if the rates were restored to the 2000 rates, they would be paying $131,068, a difference of $19,493. It’s not a small amount of money, but this couple would be making far more than most people in the country. A possible payroll tax increase of two to four percent on earnings over $250,000 would generate an additional $6,000-12,000 or so. Again, this isn’t chump change, but it’s hardly the end of the world.
If you’d like to propose a transaction tax on stocks and other investments, go right ahead.
Tattoosydney
This is such bullshit. The top tax rate in Australia is 45% which cuts in at $180,000 (increased last year from $150K), plus 1.5% Medicare levy (universal healthcare, bitches!) plus 10% goods and services tax.
Our economy works pretty well, people run businesses. No-one (repeat no-one) decides to work less just because they are going to pay an extra marginal rate of 3c in the dollar, unless they are a fucking idiot.
Comrade grumpy realist
Wanna-be rich people who hate to pay taxes don’t know much history, obviously.
Progressive taxes are the insurance you pay against having revolutions.
Make sure the middle class is a) large, and b) happy, and they will not start them.
(Revolutions don’t get carried out by the lumpenproletariat. Scratch that–*successful* revolutions don’t get carried out by them, because the middle class gets scared and sides with the nobles. Every single damned peasant’s revolt in Europe got squashed–witness Martin Luther and the Peasants’ Rebellion, or the Commune in Paris.)
Shygetz
@Comrade grumpy realist: Careful, Comrade realist. I tried to make that same point several days ago and essentially got called a communist. Progressive taxes or progressing torches is the way of the world, and I say "tax me".
nitpicker
John McCain: Stuck between bullshit and batshit crazy.
Cris v.3.1
@tigrismus:
We play both kinds of music!
Paul
@Church Lady: Hellooooo?
is this the silly argument that people end up with less money when they hit a new tax bracket? Or is it something less silly, but just a bit less?
If a doctor is unhappy that he/she hits a higher bracket, cutting back the hours worked won’t actually save them money.
As marginal rates go up, each dollar earned accrues additional money (at a slower rate, admittedly) to the person, but you never, ever hit a point where rising to a new and higher tax bracket causes a decrease in income.
Take a look where Bush’s tax-cuts of the last 4 years went (no, *really* look) and tell me that the $250K lawyer is who McCain cares about (or you for that matter).
The $250K crowd are nothing but the wedge-vote; McBush tax-cuts are for people in the "F**k You" money bracket – millions and billions, and if you truly look at the tax-rates they pay, remember what Leona Helmsley told her maid about 15-20 years ago : "taxes are for little people".
Face it Church Lady – you’re shilling for people who despise your (and my) income level;
Cris v.3.1
@demimondian: Thanks for the history lesson. That’s definitely before my time (obviously, since I’m part of the there-goes-the-neighborhood flood of socialist hippie immigrants who set up their teepees here after John finally flipped his lid). Looks like those were some good times, good abuse.
Brachiator
@Church Lady:
This is total nonsense. Bush’s current tax system, in which capital gains are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income, encourages small business owners to cash out instead of running a going concern. And greedy, voracious business owners do all kinds of crap to maximize their income — such as cutting back worker hours or outsourcing jobs — no matter what the tax rate is.
During the nearly 8 years of the Rule of Dubya, incomes have stagnated and there has been a net job loss. Even with tax cuts. Obviously, there is more to spurring economic growth than just inane whining about tax rates.
As an aside, I am amazed at how McCain and conservatives in general pretend that a $700 billion plus bailout and $700 billion in war spending will magically pay for itself.
Zuzu's Petals
@Church Lady:
Which brings me to ask yet again, CL, if you are ever going to answer the question I have asked you repeatedly over more than one thread. That is, exactly how is Obama going to raise your corporate tax rate?
Be specific, please.
Personal Designation
Anyone care to talk about FKKK You mega rich democrats? I like to see those explanations because they dovetail with the obnoxiously rich republicans.
And as far as "income", income is an abstract accounting term destined for super rich agitation and then dropped into a super rich spin cycle that is wrinkle free. The rich have no taxable income as a millstone around their neck like the unsavvy not so rich, they have business losses and offsets and interest draws while their principal inches towards the heavens. Taxes are not for little people. They are for small minded rugged individualists who cannot excel by their bloodline, marriage vows, non political affiliations, and understanding of up to the minute tax law changes.
Comrade Darkness
Especially since he doesn’t have to raise them, just cut the loopholes. The effective tax rate average with loopholes is 22%, rather than the published 35-38%. Loopholes are worse than simply having a lower tax rate because they are arbitrary and create damaging market distortions. Real capitalists would shun loopholes.
Thoughtcrime
@Cris v.3.1:
Stein? Ha. You’re gonna look pretty funny tryin’ to eat corn on the cob with NO FUCKING TEETH!
Personal Designation
I just read this. . .
Now if we only knew the definition of less fortunate and wealthy in this statement. It all depends on what the meaning of "is" is, I reckon.
If Obama isn’t going to raise the corporate tax hike then we have nothing to worry about! Well, politically speaking anyway.
If the NRA says guns don’t kill people, people kill people, then the DNC could say democrats don’t raise corporate taxes, ballots do. This makes perfect sense in a world where all GOP & DNC statements and political appeals are specious.
Xenos
My wife and I expect (god willing) to tip over the 250,000 annual income mark in about two years, after 17 years of very hard work to get to that point. If the new administration is going to guarantee healthcare to my children, and keep them out of pointless wars, that administration can consider itself entitled to whatever marginal tax rate it wants. Seriously – they can have an Eisenhoweran 90% for all I care.
$250,000 annually is a lot of money, even for a big family with kids who expect to go to college. And what price would you put on having a functional country where you don’t have to worry all the fucking time about the long-term health and safety of your kids?
jcricket
A-men to that. My wife and I are in the same boat. I will happily pay more taxes if it means a country that is doing shit that benefits us all. By the way, I fully believe in trickle-up economics. That by rejiggering the economy in a way that doesn’t so thoroughly fuck the lower and middle classes, additional activity will occur that ultimately benefits those of us in the upper middle class.
Sure, the ultra-wealthy might suffer a little, but fuck em. And if I ever become ultra wealthy ($1m/year plus) I think I can survive another 5-10% tax hit.
Church Lady
Zuzu- I have to assume it because he has said it a number of times, although since the economic meltdown, he has started vascillating on whether or not it would be a good idea. The AP has a good rundown of each candidates policy proposals. I would suggest you look under the section on taxes.
To all others – As I again state the obvious: Obama is not offering any tax cuts. He is offering tax credits, and the lower your income, the larger your credit. As your income rises, your credits will be phased out, thus increasing your marginal rate. The tax brackets under the top two will not change. They will still be 15%, 25% and 28%. As higher income earners (who pay the vast majority of revenue into treasury) disengage and find ways to reduce or shield income, tax revenues paid into the treasury will fall, forcing rates in lower brackets to rise and forcing a cut in the tax credits that Obama is now promising.
It is basic economic theory – the lower the reward for work, the less incentive there is to work. It will not only apply to those in the upper income brackets, but will also apply to lower income wage earners. If, as I work harder to increase my income, I start losing my tax credits due to phase outs based on increased income, where is my incentive to work harder in order to increase my income?
If, instead, the lower brackets were actually reduced, there would be more incentive to try and increase income.
After basic requirements are met (food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc.), would you be willing to expend more hours working, and risk more capital, knowing that you will only get 45 to 50 cents for every dollar you earn? I doubt it.
Brachiator
@Church Lady:
You’re just making stuff up. The tax brackets would change under Obama’s plan. And since people can easily check this for themselves, at Obama’s site or elsewhere, why do you even bother?
Your flirtation with "trickle down" here is both wrong and irrelevant. High income earners look to shield income no matter what, even under the current tax system, and no matter how low the tax rate is. And the plain fact is that the current tax system favors investment income over ordinary income, which leads to all kinds of distortions and, with other flaws in the system, actually shifts income away from the middle class to the wealthy, with no increase in overall economic good. Former NY Times business reporter David Cay Johnson has written a couple of great recent books about this, which I encourage those interested to google or amazon search and check out for themselves.
This is actually the heart of Obama’s plan. Go figure.
Odd, then, that a billionaire like Warren Buffet is on the record as stating that the current tax system gives him pointless extra advantages, and that he would still work hard, and still make more money, if he were taxed a bit more. And, as others have noted, great fortunes have been made even when the top marginal rate was 70 and even 90 percent.
Zuzu's Petals
@Church Lady:
I would suggest that you re-read my question and try your best to answer it.
You have stated several times that Obama would raise your corporate tax rate, and at least once that that raise would "start at dollar one of net profits." Yet, though I have asked you five times now, you have refused to answer exactly how he plans to raise that rate.
I’m not being sarcastic when I ask: "Do you have a comprehension problem?"
So for the SIXTH time, please explain exactly how Obama plans to raise your corporate tax rate.
Be specific.
cleek
basic economic theory fails to account for the entire work/salary/tax experience.
i can work my ass off for the next four weeks, and i won’t see another dime in my paychecks. and, i can get a raise just for having been at the company another year – and i won’t refuse it even if some part of that raise gets taxed at a higher rate than the rest.
Econ101 might be fun for chalkboard scenarios, but it is not sufficient to model real life.
cleek
why the fuck do my comments keep disappearing?
cleek
it’s also basically inadequate to account for the full reality of employment, salary vs hourly vs piecework, taxes, benefits, pride, competition for its own sake, etc..
few people making $250K are working piecemeal, so the connection between the reward for working harder and earning more is not as direct as Econ101 would have you believe. and for people earning a salary, the connection is very loose. i can work 50% harder for the next four weeks, but i won’t see another dime in my pay checks for it. the only way i’ll see more is if my boss remembers my effort the next time the fiscal calendar flips over and he can hand out raises. and there’s always the chance that i won’t see any raise, no matter how hard i work. and there’s the chance that i’ll get outsourced, despite working my ass off. or, maybe i just like working for the sake of working, or because i take pride in my job, or because i want to be the guy in the next cube – none of which are related to money.
(apologies if this turns out to be a repost – my comments keep not showing up)
Church Lady
@Brachiator- Fail. Suggest you go back to your beloved’s website and re-examine his tax proposals for the so-called middle-class tax cut. Absolutely no where does it say that current rates/tax brackets will be lowered. Instead, under his current plan (ever evolving), the lower three brackets will stay exactly the same as they are now, and the two highest brackets would be increased by 3% and 3.9%. Every single thing he has proposed for "middle-class tax relief" is in fact a refundable tax credit, and each of those tax credits will be phased out (reduced) as taxable income increases. In other words, as you make more money, your amount of your tax credit will go down, eventually phased out to zero.
@Zuzu- I guess it’s hard to get more specific than Obama saying he thinks the corporate income tax rates can be increased. Since you seem to take every word that drops from his mouth as unvarnished truth, do you have a problem with me believing him when he says that he thinks corporations should be paying more in taxes? He has spoken repeatedly about closing so-called loopholes, but since I don’t own some large multi-national conglomorate, those don’t seem to apply to me. If my CPA could only find me one of those nifty things, why I’d ride in my limo to the bank to deposit all my ill-gotten loot just as fast as my driver could get me there. The only thing I deduct from gross income are actual business expenses. But an actual increase in the corporate rates, which he has also spoken, will definitely affect the bottom line of the business and the decisions we make. If that is not specific enough to satisfy you, then you cannot be satisfied.
Zuzu's Petals
@Church Lady:
How about a link showing exactly where and how Obama said corporate income tax rates should be increased?
After all, I gave you at least one link showing he actually plans to leave the corporate tax rate where it is. Want another one? Okay:
CBS News
So, for the SEVENTH time, please back up your claim…and show us exactly how he plans to increase your corporate tax rate. Not simply close loopholes, but increase the rate.
Be specific.