The income gap is pretty alarming. Reaganomics makes it worse. Bush followed reaganomics. Therefore, Bush made the income gap worse.

I would answer different taxes and a better job. I mean, as I pointed out, we already have nearly half of all wage earners not paying any income tax. This should suggest that taxes do need to be increased on a significant portion of the population. I'm a proponent of the Fair Tax myself. I personally prefer that to a flat tax but that would be better than what we have now, too.

If by "other countries", you mean Singapore and Hong Kong, then I agree entirely.

It's about time that we raise the **** out of taxes. Where's Roosevelt when you need him? The wealthy aren't paying nearly enough. State politicians are pissing in their pants at the mere thought because they know that Americans may not re-elect them.

Sorry, that wasn't an option, try again.

Less taxes, or better jobs. Pick one.

Why the choice? You're implication is that one excludes the other. The oversimplification is extremely arbitrary as well. Less taxes than what? Better jobs than what? So, assuming that you are going to tell me that further explanation is not an option I guess you force me to say "less taxes". Taxes are, after all, imposed by the government where one's ability to acquire good employment is somewhat self-regulated. So, there you go. You have succeeded in forcing me to choose a position that I can't effectively debate now because I've already insinuated that taxes, in some manner, should be increased on nearly half the work force (although I also suggested that the Fair Tax is a better option so that nearly all in the US would pay taxes). This must all indicate that I'm for raising taxes. It's very confusing.

I'm fairly well versed in the Fair Tax, but thanks for the link, if not a somewhat biased one.

I would also like to add that while people on the right try to point out that the poor don't pay federal income taxes (this isn't actually true), they do indeed pay a wide variety of taxes (e.g: sales tax, fuel tax, utility tax, insurance, vehicle registration). The poor also pay a higher percentage of their income to social security because the wealthy have already hit the "ceiling". The same is generally true for state & local taxes. The refund that the poor receive each year isn't because they don't owe any federal income tax, it's because they're owed more in federal aid (e.g: Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which was created by Nixon & expanded by Reagan).

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf

It's easier to say non-Fox News sources are "biased" than it actually is to prove it.

Biases exist in all forms of media. The difference is in whether they are conceled or not. Fox News conceals no biases and neither did this factcheck.org article.

Thanks, Captain Obvious! If it wasn't for you we'd all still think that homo-sapiens are infallible. If you'd do a little research on FactCheck, read the associated polls & statistics, you'd see that they do indeed claim little to no bias. However, it's easier for you to attack the source (regardless of whether or not they're known to have relatively little to no bias) than it is to prove your case. For someone that's so quick to defend Fox News, I'd expect more. If we're going to attack every source of information based on something other than its claims then there's no point in debating at all (this is essentially how fundamentalism works).

Of course it is but that is beside the point. I was careful to make sure people understood I was talking about income tax.



Like everybody else.



I assume your talking about state and local non-income taxes. Of course they are paying a higher percentage, all of these things are regressive. Corporate taxes are also a regressive tax on the poor. These are all reasons I support the Fair Tax. At least we could correct these things at the federal level and there is some hope that states could follow suit.



Yeah, that was my point that Bush even further increased this welfare by his tax cuts. And, to be clear, for many it is a combination of not owing a dime in federal taxes, thus being refunded the entire year's withholdings and receiving further credits which essentially amount to higher income wage earners subsidizing the tax liability of the poor.

I didn't attack factcheck.org. I just pointed out the the article in question was somewhat biased. The main reason so many of you have such a problem with me is your panties get all bunched up way too easily.

Wookie, your argument is pretty strange. Generally the cutoff for paying no federal taxes is like, less than 15k. They pay a MUCH higher percentage of their earnings on those same taxes as you do like vehicle registration. And yes, they do pay taxes, just like everyone else, and in the meantime the government invests their money before they give it back.

I don't wear panties despite my wife's claims of comfort. I'll withdrawal the word "attack" & replace it w/ "criticize" if you'll comment on the relevant sections of the FactCheck argument that was presented (e.g: those that dispute your claim that this "fair"). We all know that humans are fallible, that groups of humans can be fallible & that there's bias in this world but the purpose of me posting the article was for you to dispute their claims. If you're not interested in doing so, just say so & I won't bring it up again. I'm genuinely interested in where they've gone wrong because their statement(s) make a good deal of sense from where I'm sitting.

Like I said, I understand the regressive nature of people with lower incomes paying the same sales taxes and flat fee taxes as higher income people. But they are already doing it. Scrapping the federal tax system for a "regressive" one (Fair Tax) that reduces everyone's liability seems preferential. Last year the standard deduction for married filing jointly was $11,400. Add $7,300 for two exemptions and a married couple with no children pays $0 up to $18,700. Add $3,650 for each of any kids. Those figures result in filers receiving all withholding back plus whatever credits. Of course as income rises above these levels there is a small tax accumulation. So small that someone with a taxable income of $20,000 (gross minus deductions and exemptions) is paying something like 5% and that isn't factoring in whatever credits there are "entitled" to.

Cool, see if we remain calm and conversant we can have a good time. Unfortunately, I'm already mismanaging time right now so I will comment on sections of the article later. Promise.

Regarding Mentat's factcheck.org link:

My first problem with the article is the first thing it decides to discuss in the nature of the inclusive tax. The Fair Tax is a national sales tax that is embedded in the retail price of an item. It is 23% of the total cost. A $100 item would have a tax of $23 embedded. No matter how many times I figure it, $23 consistently works out to be 23% of $100. However, because people are so used to calculating the sales tax on the price of the register, opponents love to point out that this is equivalent to purchasing a $77 item and then being charged 30% sales tax. That might sound nice and scary but one should remember current prices of products and services are already inflated by the tax the entity that provide said goods or services (and every entity involved in their production) already pay.

The article also makes this list of items people would now have to pay tax on:
* Purchases of new homes
* Rent
* Interest on credit cards, mortgages and car loans
* Doctor bills
* Utilities
* Gasoline (30 percent in addition to current taxes, which would not be repealed)
* Legal fees

The items I've bolded are no-brainers. They are already inflated from the effects of our current tax scheme. I would need to do some research as to how it suggests interest would now be taxed. My initial thought is that because the tax is embedded in the costs of goods or services that when said cost is financed you end up paying interest on the tax. If that's the case, seems like that is already occurring. I would agree that current gasoline taxes should be repealed or that fuel should not be subject to the Fair Tax.

It then goes on to state "A $150,000 new home would run $195,000 – plus the 30 percent tax that the buyer would pay on the interest on the mortgage.". This purposely refrains from taking into account the fact that the home would no longer be a $150,000 home. All of the goods or services needed to produce the home would no longer have tax related expenses so that cost of doing business would no longer inflate the price of the home. This is the sort of deception that opponents of the measure frequently use.

The article does spend three paragraphs discussing the argument that these eliminated taxes are already essentially paid by the consumer. They are three of the weakest paragraphs in the article as it doesn't really draw a conclusion on the matter. Just sort of throws up some theoretical points and smoothly moves on.

The last several paragraphs contain nothing near as inflammatory. There is some sort of "subjectification" going on. It even goes on to state that most critics agree that the economy would grow and wages would rise as a result. I dislike the editorializing comment that "t is possible that the Fair Tax would make most people better off, but much of that gain would be a direct result of making the tax code less fair."

Simply put, the author's anti-Fair Tax attitude seems obvious for much of the article. In the end, even anti-Fair Tax rhetoric couldn't seem to negate the positive effects expected (although he still needed to take one last cheap shot at it). In this case I think I would have to agree with Pelosi. We really just need to pass it so that we can really see what's in it.

This "debate" is ****ing worthless since it keeps shifting topics as Wookie ignores more and more posts.

What on Earth are you talking about? I've answered several posts now from Jon`C, CM, Mentat, and Freelancer. Are there some in particular that I missed that you have a burning desire to see my answer to?

Yeah, I pretty much checked out after his "reply" to me. It had no content... aside from upgrading his quibbling to a full-blown red herring.

Jon`C, you do a wonderful job a steering a debate to make it appear that my de facto position is the one opposite your argument. Remember, I joined the discussion with a comment that GWB tax cuts give thousands of dollars to people beyond a simple tax return. Or, I should say, greatly expanded the giving. That should not have implied I was interested in defending his economic policy.

Yeah, my ****ing MATHEMATICAL PROOF that your original argument was incorrect.

Less taxes, bring home more money.. better job, pay more taxes, bring home same amount of money.

I bet most people would say, Less taxes. Why take a better job with presumably more responsibility for the same amount of money? That's why I don't think this question works. How about, less taxes and better jobs.

This? It has been addressed it in previous posts. Not a direct answer to whether or not I saw any blatant fallacies in "what I just wrote" but I certainly addressed the substance by stating that George W. Bush increased the number of people and dollar amounts involved. In fact, I've probably stated that several times now. And I provided evidence in a post that Jon`C chooses to ignore.

You mean your mismash of incoherent thoughts in the past page and a half? Oh, yes, such a wonderful rebuttal.

You've never written a formal argument in your life and I don't think you understand what the difference between logical validity and logical soundness. In fact, I don't think you know what either of them mean.

Just what in the hell is that supposed to mean?! Um, no, really, what's that supposed to mean?

It means you can't comprehend the structure of an argument so there's no way I can expect you to make one. I give up.

Jeez, you're wound up so tight you can't even get a joke thrown blatantly in your face.

You weren't joking. You just really have NO IDEA what I'm talking about and now you're backpedaling.

I think he's just saying that your arguments tend to be meandering, piecemeal, and all over the place. Even if the logical progression makes sense in your head, you rarely communicate that progression.

You know I have no special attachment to either your or their arguments, but I have to say that although I suspect I understand what you might be arguing, I see no legitimate support for it in your arguments (and therefore as an observer I cannot agree with them), you just keep stating "If A then B! Because A! C! D! See? B!" amidst a concurrently-running argument about each other's methods. You need to formulate a clear logical support for your conclusions.

You need to state exactly how A implies B, B implies C, and C implies your statement. AND you need to give support for A actually being true.

It can even be a free form argument. But it still has to be sound and valid.

Hooray! A Greasemonkey script to completely hide ignored users.

That's a good idea. Is there one for Chrome?

Edit: Nevermind. I can't ignore people.

For reference, here's an FF extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7023/

And a userscript that also works in Chrome, but doesn't seem to hide threads started by ignored users (its the only one that seems to work with the newer versions of vB): http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/26567

Yes, again, I was joking when a couple posts ago. It was blatant. I guess I over did it with the "Um, really" part.



This is quite ridiculous. I have fully supported the fact that GWB's tax cuts increased the number of people paying no taxes and increased the additional money they are given beyond their refund. Thus, my initial statement "No, GWB's tax "cuts" give loads of money to the poor. Many people get all of their withholding plus thousands of dollars each year." remains true. The fact may be that the "progressive" nature of our tax code had been doing that for awhile but, as I cited earlier in the thread, GWB exacerbated the problem. Any of Emon's criticisms are purely semantic and another frequent adversary of mine, Mentat, actually seems interested in having a discussion with me.



I believe I have done so although I admit not in a very streamlined manner. I look forward to this discussion moving forward.

Just out of curiosity, why? I added Mort to an ignore list once but I almost always ended up clicking to show it anyway so I removed him from that list. In the end I figured why restrict the information I see on a discussion board? It just seemed childish.

Haha. I have fgr on ignore and I still read everything he posts. I don't remember why he's on ignore, probably i was drunk and got mad about burgerboys. Now it is just a fact of massassi for me that I click an extra button sometimes.

FUN FACT : The fair tax is not fair.

FUNNER FACT : To work, the 'Flat Tax' would have to double the tax burden of the middle class!

FUNNEST FACT : Firefox' spellcheck thinks funner and funnest are words!

(This thread is awesome with wookie on ignore.)