Greenspan: We can't afford McCain's tax cuts

DON'T TAX THE RICH! How else will they be able to buy off the politicians?

Gah, the Billionaires get more tax money then the bottom 99% do. How sad is that?

"Oh noes! That billionaire paid 1.2billion in taxes! We better give him 10billion back!" In Corporate welfare and tax cuts.

Wouldn't you like that kind of return? Man, if I got that kind of return back on my taxes that billionaires do I'd be retired by now!

reply to post by Krieger


Your post is full of disinfo and is factually inaccurate. Let's see who pays the taxes...

2. What income group pays the most federal income taxes today?

The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoul­dered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per­cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

Guess who really pays the taxes?

Nice of Greenspan to offer some useful suggestions on the problems he helped to make.

Here is a great snipped from; market-ticker.denniger.net...

Over the last 20 years you have been repeatedly lied to, bamboozled and scammed by those "in power", including the members of both political parties, The Fed, and Treasury.

Who has eaten the harm to your standard of living as your cost of food and fuel has doubled over the last couple of years? You have.

Who has taken the hit as our job base has gone overseas, so China can buy a trillion dollars worth of our debt to artificially suppress their currency, thereby making it uneconomic to manufacture DVD players and Cell Phones here, and costing us millions of high-paying jobs? You have.

Who took the damage when you were conned into buying houses with Option ARMs, with Alan Greenspan himself telling people that Adjustable Rate mortgages were the "best option" for many people - with rates at the bottom? You did.

Who took the hit from the credit bubble when Alan Greenspan intentionally blew liquidity into the system and held it there for an extended period of time, keeping interest rates at 1%, thereby igniting the housing and credit bubble and leading directly to this mess? You did.

Who has found that its nearly impossible to have a single-earner household with children nowdays, where one parent stays home with the kids while the other is a breadwinner, as a direct consequence of rapidly-rising costs for food, energy and housing? You have.

Who has seen medical and educational costs skyrocket at 3x the rate of inflation, fueled by an intentionally-blown credit bubble such that your son or daughter will graduate with $100,000 of debt, and you can't buy a medical procedure at a reasonable cost nor afford individual insurance? You have.

Who, all-in, has seen their standard of living stagnate and even reverse over the last few years, as all of these elements together conspire to destroy your earnings capacity and wealth? You have.

Was any of this a mistake, an accident, or "unexpected consequences"?

No - absolutely every bit of it was an intentional act by people in power in The United States - Representatives, Senators, Treasury officials and The Fed.

And that is all I have to say to Greenspan as well.

reply to post by jsobecky


250million people pay say, 2,000 in taxes. 500,000,000,000
40million people pay 10,000 in taxes. 400,000,000,000
10million pay 25,000 in taxes. 250,000,000,000
1million pay 100,000 in taxes. 100,000,000,000

Now those 1million people then get 500,000 BACK while the 250million people get 500 back.

Who's paying more?

The 1million people make hundreds of millions, or even billions. The 250million make 30,000.

Who's paying more?

I know your response already "They pay more then that!" THis is an example. Yes they pay more then 100,000 in taxes, but they get a LOT more then 500,000 back.

Here's a math problem for you.

A man makes 20,000 and pays 2,000 in taxes.

Another man makes 2billion, and pays 2,000,000 in taxes.

Who paid more in taxes? The answer will surprise you.

reply to post by Krieger

Obama's tax plan will bring in more money then McCains and unlike McCain he won't start another war, he'll actually end one.

Nothing but speculation. Obama will not end Iraq war. It is already in the process of wrapping up. Some of our troops will start leaving next year. Iraqis and US have almost agreed when last troops will leave. What war are you saying he will end?

Obama's tax plan looks great. But why don't you google his rich buddy George Soros and see how Soros get around paying taxes. I know your die hard Obama but the least you could do is look at the facts and be honest about it. You also fail to include all the other hidden taxes like the Universal Service fund that does impact middle income. Do you really think that all these rich people donating to Obama really want to pay more in taxes? Do you really think that they worry about paying the majority of taxes to support all of these entitlements that Obama wants to dish out?

reply to post by Krieger


On your math problem you only look at part of it.

First you fail to mention the tax deductibles that help the billionaire to pay such a low tax. Shouldn't we also take into consideration all the money he or she gave to charity Also should not take into consideration all of the other taxes the billionaire pays.

If the billionaire pays such a low amount it because that is the way Congress intended it to be. They have so many rich friends supporting their candidacy and then you expect them to pass legislation against the rich.

On top of everything rich people get rich off common folks like us. Whatever higher taxes they pay will only be passed down the line in the form of higher prices. In addition they will make sure to pay more expenses in order to show minimum profit. It's all a game and they have the best accountants.

So you refuse to answer?

The answer is the man who makes 20,000 and pays 2,000. He pays 10%, the billionaire pays .1%.

So yes the Billionaire "pays more" in taxes but he pays a lot less then the man who pays 2,000,000

Don't forget the former co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, Phil Gramm, and his links to the subprime crisis. There's something McCain isn't sharing with us.

McCain's Tied to the Last Two Financial Meltdowns

The first time was the Savings and Loan Crisis in the 80's & 90's, when McCain was implicated in the Keating scandal for influence peddling. The failure of Keating's Lincoln S&L meant the loss of life savings
for the 21,000 depositors, many of them elderly, who were swindled by
Lincoln. McCain's close buddy, Charles Keating, was convicted of fraud and sent to prison. Keating was a close personal friend of McCain's and McCain took unreported (until he was caught) vacations at Keatings luxury vacation homes. The S&L crisis contributed directly to the recession of the late 80's / early 90's and the government was required to bailout the bad decisions of McCain and his friends.

More recently, McCain is directly tied to the current US financial meltdown. Until last month the Chairman of McCain's campaign was none other than Phil Gramm, the former Texas Senator, Vice-Chairman of banking giant UBS and chief proponent of financial deregulation when he was in the Senate (Gramm stepped down from the campaign after calling the US a nation of whiners). UBS, not coincidentally, was one of the largest promoters of sub-prime
mortagage backed securities that have played such a significant role in
the recent financial meltdown. As Krugman, MotherJones and others have pointed out, it was Gramm's deregulation initiatives that opened the door that allowed financial companies to take enormous risks (ultimately backed by taxpayer dollars as we are now finding out) and made Gramm very, very wealthy when he left the senate. Even though he stepped down from his official campaign capacity, Gramm is still a close McCain advisor.

McCain Guru Linked to Sub-Prime Crisis

McCain and Gramm have a long political history. The two became close when they worked together as senators to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 1993 health care plan, holding meetings at hospitals and clinics across the country.

In 1996, McCain was national chairman of Gramm's unsuccessful presidential bid.

In 2000, the duo had a rare parting when Gramm backed his home-state governor, George W. Bush, for president instead of McCain. But they’ve reunited in this presidential race.

How anyone would trust McCain on the economy is beyond me.

McCain even said he knows nothing about economics. So how we can trust what he says... when he even says he knows nothing IDK.

Another good article

McCain and the Mortgage Meltdown

Ignorance is bliss, which perhaps explains Gov. Sarah Palin being so confidently wrong about the root cause of the federalization of most of the nation's mortgage market. But what is Senator John McCain's excuse? Both act as if the financial meltdown of the US economy has nothing to do with the policies of the political party they represent--but she at least may not know any better.
...
The mortgage swaps distancing the originator of the loan from the ultimate collector were made legal only as a result of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which former Senator Phil Gramm, R-Texas, pushed through Congress just hours before the 2000 Christmas recess. Gramm, until recently co-chair of the McCain campaign, also had co-authored the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which became law in 1999 with President Bill Clinton's signature. That gem, which Gramm had pushed for years with massive financial industry lobbying, destroyed the Depression-era barrier to the merger of stockbrokers, banks and insurance companies. Those two acts effectively ended significant regulation of the financial community, and no wonder we have witnessed an even more rapid and severe meltdown in housing values than during the Great Depression.

reply to post by jsobecky


You forgot to mention that that same upper 1% controls more than 40% of the nations wealth. Also I've stated it before and backed it up that this same 1% has enjoyed some $22 trillion in tax cuts since 1977 under Carter, Reagan, Clinton and both Bush's...22 trillion in cuts!

37% in taxes? I say raise it by at least 10% to begin cleaning up the mess these folks have left us and our grand children! And while their at it confiscate the bonus money the CEO's of Fannie and Freddie got to the tune of more than $15million each and put it in a trust to buy soup for the kitchens!

Unbelievable! Even worse is so many who make chicken change in comparison and barely get by support this racket and year after year without seeing desired results, continue to support the farse!

reply to post by skyshow


Who gave the rich tax cuts?

Who allows corporations to not pay taxes?

Who gives corporations all kind of breaks?

Who rewrote the bankruptcy laws to Corporation benefits?

Congress and that is both parties not just one.

Your figure looks impressive. 22 trillion in cuts. But I am sure that figure alone doesn't tell the whole story. How many businesses were created with that money? How many jobs were created with that money? How much of that money went to charity to help good causes? How much of that money was reinvested in our economy?

The blame lies with Congress. You are going to tell me that Congress wasn't aware that everyday American were getting ripped off on the housing market with outrageous contracts?

The problem is that Congress is reactive instead of proactive. If Democrats really thought that taxing the rich was the solution then why didn't they do it in 2006?

this blog article is pretty good and it blames Congress, not a party.

When home prices rose 60% from 2000 to 2005, Congress should have been asking why. Congress should have been interviewing Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC, NYSE: BAC) CEO Angelo Mozilo at that time, not now that naive mortgage borrowers are losing their life's savings.

source


Likewise, when Congress writes tax laws they know beforehand who will benefit the most.

Upperclass tax cuts during a war alone is a recipe for disaster.
The move to make them permanent is outrageous.

Greenspan is right, but then again it is simple logic if you don't regard him as a reliable source.

- Lee

reply to post by jam321


Not to be a smart arse, but another good question to add to your list might be:

Who spent the surplus and ran the deficit up higher than ever in US history?

Who pushed hard and what party supported deregulation of the banking system?

Who pushed hard and what party supported deregulation of oil speculation that has lead to massive increases in the cost of oil ?

Who ignored the intelligence data prior to 9/11 but accepted false info (WMD) against the advice of top advisors and took us to war with Iraq?

Who hired totally green, inexperienced, and incompetent people to run the occupation's economy and ends up unable to account for more than $9 billion?

Who allowed the crates of brand new $100 US Federal Reserve notes to go over to Iraq to be distributed (litterally handed out to whomever by whomever for whatever) subjectively in the country side? Do we know if it actually all got distributed? Did it have it's desired effect?

Who said "we'll smoke em' out" and then let him get away?

Who was on the White House balcony enjoying a Brandy and smoking a cigar on the evening of September the 12th?

Who authorized all the Bin Laden family members to fly out of the country after US airspace was shut down?

Who praised Browny (was head of FEMA when Katrina hit) and promoted him saying almost a week after the hurricane "Browny you're doing a heck of a job!", and then later fires him after the public demanded it, and then hires him back to be a FEMA consultant?

Who took the fall for Cheney in Vallery Plame, and why?

Do I need to go on or do you get the picture? If not, run a google search on lists of Bush administration & Republican scandles. One guy has more than 60 ongoing...

Cheers, and happy surfing,
Sky!

[edit on 15-9-2008 by skyshow]

reply to post by skyshow


You quote a bunch of half truth in an attempt to make the Republicans look bad.

We could go both ways but I choose not to. If you look back at my post, I blamed nothing on Democrats.

The only thing I said about Democrats is why didn't they enact taxes on the rich in 2006. That is a legit question. Why does the American public continue to have to wait till somebody gets elected before passing relief upon Americans?

Guess you don't mind waiting...Cheers to you too.

It is obvious your more content on putting up for the Democrats than the American public. I choose to condemn both Republicans and democrats for what they have done and continue to do.

reply to post by jam321


But you don't point out any "half" truths. You just say it and expect people to take it as fact.

reply to post by Krieger


Go 4 posts up and answer all of those questions and the answer is Congress.

There is no half truth to it.




But thanks for your 2cents anyway.

But you said half truths. Then you say its not.

And WHO CONTROLLED CONGRESS FOR 6 YEARS WITH A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT! That's right, the Republicans. And that is when everything got messed up.

Originally posted by jam321
the answer is Congress.

Congress is not a party. During the past 8 years, Congress was controlled by Republicans for the first 6. You cannot blame the country's ills on the last 2 years. You can't hand over a failing economy to someone and then blame them for the failure. Bush/McCain economics are what have gotten us here. And we can't afford it any more.

I like pictures...

Are You Better Off?

Things have been ,messed up for a whole lot longer than 6 years. You are a fine Democrat walking the Democrat talking points. Why don't you take an independent view and take fault with both parties?

This isn't about Obama or McCain. It is about America. Both tax plans will hurt us. Our tax laws are too extensive and full of loopholes and there is no way they can plug every single one of them.

Both are still talking about spending more, not less.

As long as you continue the blame game, it doesn't help resolve the real problem. And that problem is that both parties prefer corporations interests over Americans interest.

Regardless of which one wins expect more of the same. It is Congress that passes the bills.