By anypebrerburb

March 3, 2011 5:56 PM | Link to this

Hello. And Bye.

By hareItehast

March 3, 2011 5:54 PM | Link to this

Hello. And Bye.

By Savanation

July 15, 2008 8:53 AM | Link to this

TRS, there is or should be no debate about “higher taxes”. (In the first place, Sen Obama is about fairer taxes and reasonable taxes based on ability to fund the needs of the society as a whole. And his tax, as opposed to that of Sen. McCain, does just that, where McCain’s does not.) The debate should be about why there is a need for taxes. I have had people tell me that “their taxes are killing” them, then I watch them as they get into their Lexus and drive off to their summer home. I would venture to say that the majority of those who say their taxes are too high are the first to complain when their street isn’t paved as nicely as they would like. I am sick of the idea that taxes are too high. We should pay what it takes to make our society function. Currently our society is not functioning too well. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are mediocre as best, our healthcare system(???) is a disaster, our borders and our parks are undermanned and shameful, we haven’t enough inspectors for proper food evaluation and custom inspections, all government agencies use cars and trucks, there gas is going up[ too. But the call is to lower taxes. Exactly which bridge would you like to fall into the Mississippi so that you can pay less tax? Don’t give me any crap about government inefficiencies. Those who care in the government do a fine job with what they have. And if they don’t have it, maybe it is because someone’s voting mistake sent trillions of our tax dollars into a bottomless (100 years to go) money pit of Iraq. For NO REASON. Well maybe to line certain pockets. You poopooed “greed”. Well if there were lower taxes, do you really believe that difference would go to new job creation, or to research? When a CEO is paid (and paid above the realm of decency) to put a larger number on the bottom line and a bigger dividend in someone’s pocket, then that CEO will put that tax savings” in his pocket or the shareholder’s pocket. Abd believe me, that shareholder will buy a $100,000 car, rather than a $70,000 car with the difference. And the damn bridge will still fall and the shareholder will still say he is paying too much in taxes and unthinking folks like you will say, yea, he’s right, let’s lower taxes again. On another matter:”your comments to Ethel are mean spirited and just plan nasty”. I don’t hear you telling Ethel that her comments about Obama are “mean spirited and just plain nasty”, which they are. And ignorant, too. Sen. Obama is not on this thread, unfortunately. So if I hear silliness and lies and inane claptrap, I will be sure to point that out. To whoever is silly enough to spout it. My “issue” with her is basically she doesn’t know what she is talking about. We have had a sad history of people who didn’t know what they were talking about over the past eight years, especially. To ward off any more blunders, like 2000 and 2004, it is best that those who don’t know what are talking about are finally told to get “under control and grow up”

By TRS

July 14, 2008 11:17 PM | Link to this

Generally speaking, a policy institute that uses the buzz words low income reflects a more liberal viewpoint. They are making an argument which reflects that higher business taxes do no harm. The article I quoted dealt with a discussion among economists with Treasury Sec Paulson which reflected another side of corporate taxes. High taxes vs low taxes is one of the most classical arguments between liberal and conservative perspectives. Liberals believe in taxes - high taxes. They believe the government should play a bigger role in manipulating the economy with tax policy and seek to redistribute wealth. Historically, their policies start with higher taxes as advocated by Senator Obama. In turn, much of the money that is normally invested to expand the economy goes to the government, the economy slows, tax revenue decreases and to compensate the definition of “rich” creeps toward the middle class and their taxes increase in hopes of keeping the same revenue stream flowing. That was the situation that President Kennedy faced, President Reagan faced and President Bush and they all lowered taxes. If Senator Obama is elected we begin the cycle again. On another issue, for someone who claims to be so caring and compassionate, your comments to Ethel are mean spirited and just plan nasty. Ethel expressed her opnion, made no adverse comments about you or your posts and you attacked, belittled and talked down to her. I’m sure Ethel can defend herself but at times you are totally classless and over the top. I don’t know what your issue with her is or perhaps its women in general, but your constant belittling are really the lowest of the low. There is a difference between discussion, passionate debate and just plain classless comments. Get your emotions under control and grow up! Adults don’t act like you!

By Savanation

July 14, 2008 1:57 PM | Link to this

Sorry, the last word should have been “yourself”. Ethel just gets me so excited and blushing, my fingers don’t hit the right keys.

By Savanation

July 14, 2008 1:53 PM | Link to this

Ethel, maybe you have helped prove Sen. McBush’s top advisor,Phil Gramm, correct. You seem to be a large part of McBush’s “Nation of Whiners” all by ourself.

By Ethel S.

July 14, 2008 1:39 PM | Link to this

There is one Sen. Obama supporter who thinks that using foul language is nice and being offended by it means that the Sen. McCain supporter does not have the right equipment? There are three things that can be done in this situation. First, a letter could be written to Sen. Obama to bring a bar of soap to Ohio when he comes, a simple apology for the use of such language and not to use it again would work the best, and to ignore the ranter when there are no proper manners. So far, I have to ignore the ranter.

By Savanation

July 14, 2008 8:16 AM | Link to this

“reflects a somewhat left leaning perspective”(TRS) Hmmmmmm? The Center for Budget and Poloicy Prioritites: The Center conducts research and analysis to inform public debates over proposed budget and tax policies and to help ensure that the needs of low-income families and individuals are considered in these debates. We also develop policy options to alleviate poverty. In addition, the Center examines the short- and long-term impacts that proposed policies would have on the health of the economy and on the soundness of federal and state budgets. Among the issues we explore are whether federal and state governments are fiscally sound and have sufficient revenue to address critical priorities, both for low-income populations and for the nation as a whole. Over the past two decades, the Center has gained a reputation for producing materials that are balanced, authoritative, accessible to non-specialists, and responsive to issues currently before the country. Our materials are used by policymakers and non-profit organizations across the political spectrum, as well as by journalists from a variety of media outlets“‘Gee, TRS, it would be really terrible if those damn Lefties at The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities fulfilled their mission, wouldn’t it? So you have a better idea - quoting the Bush Administration Treasury Sec. Hank Paulson. Or who did you quote? I don’t think you mentioned. But, I tell you what, I think I will believe the folks who have the “left leaning” mission of creating fairness for all and prosperity for the whole country, not the Bush Administration and it’s sponsors.

By TRS

July 14, 2008 12:02 AM | Link to this

As is typical Savagenation has cut/pasted a somewhat biased perspective. The Mission statement of the Center of Budget Priorities from which he quotes reflects a somewhat left leaning perspective. Here’s another analysis which admittedly takes another perspective on corporate income taxes and who it actually hurts. “Today Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will lead a discussion on the effects of the corporate tax on our economy. It will, in part, be a political discussion, as Democrats want to increase taxes on corporate capital while Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate (a position championed by President George W. Bush). But the more interesting part of the discussion may well come on two issues: Whether corporate taxes are an effective way to raise revenue for the government. And, importantly, who really pays the tax. Economists have stressed for generations that corporate taxes distort the allocation of capital between the corporate and noncorporate sectors and that they also distort corporate investing and financing decisions. This distortion prevents the tax from “efficiently” raising revenue — that is, the tax imposes a larger cost on the economy than it raises in revenue. In the early 1990s, both the Treasury Department and the American Law Institute recommended removing one layer of our current double taxation of corporate equity capital, which is subject not only to the corporate tax but to investor-level taxes on dividends and capital gains. In 2003, President Bush’s tax cuts reduced — though they didn’t eliminate — this double taxation. That the corporate tax is inefficient in these ways is not controversial among economists. A traditionally less-settled question has been one of incidence: Who bears the corporate tax burden? Some may be tempted with a quick answer, “corporations.” But that is clearly wrong. The Econ 101 admonition that people pay taxes — in this case, suppliers of capital through lower returns, workers through lower wages, and/or consumers through higher prices — remains true even when the tax is aimed at capital. And the category “owners of corporate capital” (that is, stockholders) is also too narrow. In his celebrated analysis of the corporate tax almost 50 years ago, Arnold Harberger showed, for a closed economy, that a separate tax on corporate capital would reduce returns to all owners of capital, making it a tax on saving (and, in a framework more general than Mr. Harberger’s, on investment). Recent research has cast an eye in a somewhat different direction, showing that the tax may be borne not entirely (or even principally) by owners of capital, but by workers. Globalization plays a role. In an open economy, with mobile capital, a source-based tax like the corporate tax will lead to a capital outflow, reducing investment and productivity and wages. Indeed, Mr. Harberger’s updated research on the incidence of the corporate tax concluded that labor bears not just the brunt of the tax, but a burden that may be larger than the tax itself. In other research assuming that the world-wide capital stock is fixed, William Randolph of the Congressional Budget Office finds that labor bears about 70% of the corporate tax. More generally, the burden on labor is higher to the extent that saving is responsive to after-tax returns and the country has a small effect on world prices of goods. Most of this research has relied on theoretical models, albeit sometimes with parameters calibrated from actual experience. But direct empirical tests of the effects of openness, corporate taxes and their combination on workers’ wages tell a similar story. A recent paper by Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur of the American Enterprise Institute analyzes data across countries and over time, concluding that for countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a 1% increase in corporate tax rates results in a 0.8% decrease in manufacturing wage rates. (Economic intuition suggests significant negative effects of the corporate tax on manufacturing wages because of the complementarity of capital and labor for skilled workers.) Wage effects of this size suggest labor bears much of the burden of the corporate tax. In fact, workers collectively would be better off if they voted for higher taxes on labor with corresponding cuts in the corporate tax. Sound crazy? Well, while this economic research has been carried out in the U.S., tax action has occurred abroad. Not only has the U.S. corporate tax rate been high by the standards of the rest of the industrial world, but other countries continue to reduce their rates. A recent survey and study by KPMG shows, for example, that competition for investment continues to drive down tax rates around the globe, with further cuts in the pipeline from China, Germany, Singapore and Britain, among others. The desire for these cuts comes in part from the significant responsiveness both of real investment and taxable income to corporate tax rates. Among our European competitors, reductions in corporate tax rates are being financed by increases in consumption taxes, akin to the “vote” I described earlier. This is also similar to the fundamental tax reform advocated by many economists, where corporate taxes are replaced by consumption taxes. How much offsetting revenue (or lower government spending) would we need to finance a cut in corporate taxes? The answer is not entirely clear. The old economists’ maxim of “broaden the base, lower the rates” is sound advice, though economically wise base-broadening alone is not likely to finance a significant rate cut. Recent research by Michael Devereux of the University of Warwick suggests, though, that the revenue-maximizing corporate tax rate in OECD countries is likely less than 30%. That is, higher corporate investment (and subsequent corporate profits and corporate tax revenue) and shifts in taxable income by multinational firms will substantially reduce the revenue “cost” of a corporate rate cut from the present 35% to, say, 30%. Cutting the corporate tax rate would be positive for investment, productivity and economic growth. It would also reduce a tax burden now borne in large part (or even entirely) by labor, bolstering wages. And business responses to the tax cut will offset much of the “static” revenue cost.” In all reality we have a lousy tax system period. Versions of The Fair tax or a Flat tax are worth exploring. Today’s system is far to complicated, has far to many loopholes and is easily manipulated by politicians, none of whom can be trusted, particularly liberal Democrats. For them there’s only one way for taxes to go - up…

By Savanation

July 13, 2008 8:33 AM | Link to this

“US corporate taxes are too high compared to most of the world which drives investment off-shore” ‘Fraid that’s not really so: The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities puts is this way: “U.S. corporate tax rates are lower, and the economic effects of the U.S. corporate income tax likely smaller, than is often suggested. Some have claimed that the U.S. corporate tax rate is out of line with international norms and unduly burdens American businesses. However, these critics typically focus only on the statutory marginal tax rate. The Treasury Department, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and other researchers have found that effective corporate tax rates — the share of the return on corporate investment that is actually paid in taxes — are far lower than the statutory rate and, depending on the category of investment, are similar to, only modestly higher than, or significantly lower than effective corporate tax rates in other developed countries. As the Treasury Department explained, the United States has a high statutory rate but a low effective rate because of its “narrow corporate tax base,” which is the result of “accelerated depreciation allowances [and] special tax provisions for particular business sectors … as well as debt finance and tax planning.”[4] Moreover, while there is good reason to think that the corporate income tax has some economic costs, claims that it greatly harms the U.S. economy or significantly reduces U.S. wages rest on studies that are not applicable to the United States or that suffer from a number of other problems. As the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded in a recent report, “many of the concerns expressed about the corporate tax are not supported by empirical data… Claims that high U.S. rates will create problems for the United States in a global economy suffer from a misrepresentation of the U.S. tax rate compared to other countries and are less important when capital is imperfectly mobile, as it appears to be.”[5] Unpaid-for corporate rate cuts are unlikely to significantly help the economy; in fact, a Joint Committee on Taxation study found they could harm it.[6] This could occur because the deficits and debt that result from unpaid-for tax cuts have negative economic effects, which can outweigh the economic benefits of the tax cuts themselves. Furthermore, in the long run, deficit-financed tax cuts have to be paid for, either through increases in other taxes or through cuts to government services. Given these eventual financing costs, unpaid-for corporate tax cuts would likely leave most Americans worse off in the long run, even if they generated modest economic benefits.” Obviously Ethel and Hechy belong to that vast army of “Whiners” which McBush thinks is the American People. I think that when refering to “clueless” people, you guys out to look to McBush’s chief economic advisor, Phil Gramm. That is if you can get your head out of your “mental recession” and stop your “whining”. Now, to Ethel, the unknowing. “And how is Sen. Obama planning to cover that loss of revenue. Sen. Obama needs to discuss a plan to balance the budget and to reduce our debt”(Ethel). Ethel, please, please, please(I have shown you what to do many times) log onto Sen. Obama’s web site. It isn’t too hard to find. And go to the section marked “Fiscal” (that means “money”, Ethel) since you don’t seem to know the simplest things, that site will give you all the information you need to know. And Ethel I have told you that you shouldn’t post things that are wrong or that you know nothing about. But you keep on doing it. That’s not nice.

By Ethel S.

July 13, 2008 12:37 AM | Link to this

Sen. Obama’s economic policies will be typical tax and spend. As an example, this Taxocrat wants to increase retirement savings accounts by providing a new automatic workplace pensions and a $500 matching tax credit for the workers’s savings. It is a burden to the many small businesses to require them to do all this unnecessary paper work. If someone wants to start a retirement savings plan, then it is quite easy to open any variety of IRA plans. And how is Sen. Obama planning to cover that loss of revenue. Sen. Obama needs to discuss a plan to balance the budget and to reduce our debt. Sen. McCain understands that the small business owners are the backbone of our country to provide the majority of our jobs, they do not need unnecessary government regulations,and he has discussed the need to start to balance the budget and reduce our debt. I hope that the Straight Talking Express Bus droves right up to the front door of the White House in 2009.

By Heckofaman

July 12, 2008 1:12 PM | Link to this

US corporate taxes are too high compared to most of the world which drives investment off-shore. Obama’s tax plan doesn’t address that basic issue for job growth. Instead he wants to raise taxes on high incomes, many of which are generated by small business owners, which again will reduce jobs. Clearly Obama is clueless when it comes to economic policy…he is even against developing known US oil reserves in ANWR and coastal areas…again depressing economic growth.

By Heckofaman

July 12, 2008 1:11 PM | Link to this

US corporate taxes are too high compared to most of the world which drives investment off-shore. Obama’s tax plan doesn’t address that basic issue for job growth. Instead he wants to raise taxes on high incomes, many of which are generated by small business owners, which again will reduce jobs. Clearly Obama is clueless when it comes to economic policy…he is even against developing known US oil reserves in ANWR and coastal areas…again depressing economic growth.