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SDEngineer
Participant[quote=asianautica][quote=esmith]
That’s not even the problem. The problem is that Obama appears to be more or less honest (“i’ll try to be fiscally responsible but i’ll have to raise taxes on the rich a little bit”) McCain, like Bush, is simply a populist (“i’ll lower taxes for everyone! vote for me! in the mean time i’ll continue running record high budget deficits so your dollars will be worth less and less“)
[/quote]
Since I don’t like either candidates and their plan, I’ll just stay out of the debate of who’s better. But my perfect candidate would say “I’ll lower everyone’s taxes and I’ll do A, B, C, D, etc to cut government spending so that we can have low taxes and reduce our deficit at the same time.”The only reason I brought up the nursing family example is to show how 2 middle class jobs can get to $250k and therefore, $250k is not rich. They’re well off, yes, but not rich. Isn’t this the whole point with rewarding work vs wealth?[/quote]
Aren’t they still being rewarded? They’re making within about 10-15% of 2x what they’d be making if they were working half the hours. Their spendable (after tax) income is (at a rough guesstimate) a bit over 6K/mo more than if they were working 40hrs/each and making 125K/mo combined. I’d consider that a pretty good chunk of cash.
My apologies if I fail to cry for someone who is taking full advantage of our economic system, and therefore may be asked to foot a bit more of the bill therefrom than someone who is not benefitting as much from the economic system.
Participant[quote=asianautica][quote=esmith]
That’s not even the problem. The problem is that Obama appears to be more or less honest (“i’ll try to be fiscally responsible but i’ll have to raise taxes on the rich a little bit”) McCain, like Bush, is simply a populist (“i’ll lower taxes for everyone! vote for me! in the mean time i’ll continue running record high budget deficits so your dollars will be worth less and less“)
[/quote]
Since I don’t like either candidates and their plan, I’ll just stay out of the debate of who’s better. But my perfect candidate would say “I’ll lower everyone’s taxes and I’ll do A, B, C, D, etc to cut government spending so that we can have low taxes and reduce our deficit at the same time.”The only reason I brought up the nursing family example is to show how 2 middle class jobs can get to $250k and therefore, $250k is not rich. They’re well off, yes, but not rich. Isn’t this the whole point with rewarding work vs wealth?[/quote]
Aren’t they still being rewarded? They’re making within about 10-15% of 2x what they’d be making if they were working half the hours. Their spendable (after tax) income is (at a rough guesstimate) a bit over 6K/mo more than if they were working 40hrs/each and making 125K/mo combined. I’d consider that a pretty good chunk of cash.
My apologies if I fail to cry for someone who is taking full advantage of our economic system, and therefore may be asked to foot a bit more of the bill therefrom than someone who is not benefitting as much from the economic system.
Participant[quote=asianautica][quote=esmith]
That’s not even the problem. The problem is that Obama appears to be more or less honest (“i’ll try to be fiscally responsible but i’ll have to raise taxes on the rich a little bit”) McCain, like Bush, is simply a populist (“i’ll lower taxes for everyone! vote for me! in the mean time i’ll continue running record high budget deficits so your dollars will be worth less and less“)
[/quote]
Since I don’t like either candidates and their plan, I’ll just stay out of the debate of who’s better. But my perfect candidate would say “I’ll lower everyone’s taxes and I’ll do A, B, C, D, etc to cut government spending so that we can have low taxes and reduce our deficit at the same time.”The only reason I brought up the nursing family example is to show how 2 middle class jobs can get to $250k and therefore, $250k is not rich. They’re well off, yes, but not rich. Isn’t this the whole point with rewarding work vs wealth?[/quote]
Aren’t they still being rewarded? They’re making within about 10-15% of 2x what they’d be making if they were working half the hours. Their spendable (after tax) income is (at a rough guesstimate) a bit over 6K/mo more than if they were working 40hrs/each and making 125K/mo combined. I’d consider that a pretty good chunk of cash.
My apologies if I fail to cry for someone who is taking full advantage of our economic system, and therefore may be asked to foot a bit more of the bill therefrom than someone who is not benefitting as much from the economic system.
Participant[quote=asianautica][quote=esmith]
That’s not even the problem. The problem is that Obama appears to be more or less honest (“i’ll try to be fiscally responsible but i’ll have to raise taxes on the rich a little bit”) McCain, like Bush, is simply a populist (“i’ll lower taxes for everyone! vote for me! in the mean time i’ll continue running record high budget deficits so your dollars will be worth less and less“)
[/quote]
Since I don’t like either candidates and their plan, I’ll just stay out of the debate of who’s better. But my perfect candidate would say “I’ll lower everyone’s taxes and I’ll do A, B, C, D, etc to cut government spending so that we can have low taxes and reduce our deficit at the same time.”The only reason I brought up the nursing family example is to show how 2 middle class jobs can get to $250k and therefore, $250k is not rich. They’re well off, yes, but not rich. Isn’t this the whole point with rewarding work vs wealth?[/quote]
Aren’t they still being rewarded? They’re making within about 10-15% of 2x what they’d be making if they were working half the hours. Their spendable (after tax) income is (at a rough guesstimate) a bit over 6K/mo more than if they were working 40hrs/each and making 125K/mo combined. I’d consider that a pretty good chunk of cash.
My apologies if I fail to cry for someone who is taking full advantage of our economic system, and therefore may be asked to foot a bit more of the bill therefrom than someone who is not benefitting as much from the economic system.
Participant[quote=asianautica][quote=esmith]
That’s not even the problem. The problem is that Obama appears to be more or less honest (“i’ll try to be fiscally responsible but i’ll have to raise taxes on the rich a little bit”) McCain, like Bush, is simply a populist (“i’ll lower taxes for everyone! vote for me! in the mean time i’ll continue running record high budget deficits so your dollars will be worth less and less“)
[/quote]
Since I don’t like either candidates and their plan, I’ll just stay out of the debate of who’s better. But my perfect candidate would say “I’ll lower everyone’s taxes and I’ll do A, B, C, D, etc to cut government spending so that we can have low taxes and reduce our deficit at the same time.”The only reason I brought up the nursing family example is to show how 2 middle class jobs can get to $250k and therefore, $250k is not rich. They’re well off, yes, but not rich. Isn’t this the whole point with rewarding work vs wealth?[/quote]
Aren’t they still being rewarded? They’re making within about 10-15% of 2x what they’d be making if they were working half the hours. Their spendable (after tax) income is (at a rough guesstimate) a bit over 6K/mo more than if they were working 40hrs/each and making 125K/mo combined. I’d consider that a pretty good chunk of cash.
My apologies if I fail to cry for someone who is taking full advantage of our economic system, and therefore may be asked to foot a bit more of the bill therefrom than someone who is not benefitting as much from the economic system.
Participant[quote=fat_lazy_union_worker]
Anyway, I think some still failed to answer my original post. If he(obama) wants to call this taxing the rich, why is obama leveling this on a household and not imposing this on $125k single incomes?[/quote]
I’m going to assume you’re talking about the social security/medicare tax increase here. That tax has always applied to ALL earnings of all individual taxpayers below a certain amount, and will simply now resume on all earnings of all individual taxpayers above a certain amount. It doesn’t discriminate on filing status or number of wage-earners in a family – everyone gets hit. So if you have one earner making 265000, and another making 135000, only the earner making over 250,000 will get hit (i.e. you’ll only pay the tax on the 15K the person making 265K made over 250K). The person making 135K won’t get to the other side of the donut hole, and won’t see any additional tax.
It’s no different than me and my wife. While we jointly make well over the current max tax cap, all of her earnings still take the medicare/ssi hit (since she doesn’t make the cap), and only the part of my earnings that exceed the cap are not taxed. It’d be really nice if hers were immune, but, as I said, it’s an individual payroll tax that cannot be paid jointly.
The other taxes Obama is currently in favor of are, of course, simply letting Bush’s tax breaks lapse on the top bracket, which will affect all three tax brackets, just at different break points based on filing status.
Participant[quote=fat_lazy_union_worker]
Anyway, I think some still failed to answer my original post. If he(obama) wants to call this taxing the rich, why is obama leveling this on a household and not imposing this on $125k single incomes?[/quote]
I’m going to assume you’re talking about the social security/medicare tax increase here. That tax has always applied to ALL earnings of all individual taxpayers below a certain amount, and will simply now resume on all earnings of all individual taxpayers above a certain amount. It doesn’t discriminate on filing status or number of wage-earners in a family – everyone gets hit. So if you have one earner making 265000, and another making 135000, only the earner making over 250,000 will get hit (i.e. you’ll only pay the tax on the 15K the person making 265K made over 250K). The person making 135K won’t get to the other side of the donut hole, and won’t see any additional tax.
It’s no different than me and my wife. While we jointly make well over the current max tax cap, all of her earnings still take the medicare/ssi hit (since she doesn’t make the cap), and only the part of my earnings that exceed the cap are not taxed. It’d be really nice if hers were immune, but, as I said, it’s an individual payroll tax that cannot be paid jointly.
The other taxes Obama is currently in favor of are, of course, simply letting Bush’s tax breaks lapse on the top bracket, which will affect all three tax brackets, just at different break points based on filing status.
Participant[quote=fat_lazy_union_worker]
Anyway, I think some still failed to answer my original post. If he(obama) wants to call this taxing the rich, why is obama leveling this on a household and not imposing this on $125k single incomes?[/quote]
I’m going to assume you’re talking about the social security/medicare tax increase here. That tax has always applied to ALL earnings of all individual taxpayers below a certain amount, and will simply now resume on all earnings of all individual taxpayers above a certain amount. It doesn’t discriminate on filing status or number of wage-earners in a family – everyone gets hit. So if you have one earner making 265000, and another making 135000, only the earner making over 250,000 will get hit (i.e. you’ll only pay the tax on the 15K the person making 265K made over 250K). The person making 135K won’t get to the other side of the donut hole, and won’t see any additional tax.
It’s no different than me and my wife. While we jointly make well over the current max tax cap, all of her earnings still take the medicare/ssi hit (since she doesn’t make the cap), and only the part of my earnings that exceed the cap are not taxed. It’d be really nice if hers were immune, but, as I said, it’s an individual payroll tax that cannot be paid jointly.
The other taxes Obama is currently in favor of are, of course, simply letting Bush’s tax breaks lapse on the top bracket, which will affect all three tax brackets, just at different break points based on filing status.
Participant[quote=fat_lazy_union_worker]
Anyway, I think some still failed to answer my original post. If he(obama) wants to call this taxing the rich, why is obama leveling this on a household and not imposing this on $125k single incomes?[/quote]
I’m going to assume you’re talking about the social security/medicare tax increase here. That tax has always applied to ALL earnings of all individual taxpayers below a certain amount, and will simply now resume on all earnings of all individual taxpayers above a certain amount. It doesn’t discriminate on filing status or number of wage-earners in a family – everyone gets hit. So if you have one earner making 265000, and another making 135000, only the earner making over 250,000 will get hit (i.e. you’ll only pay the tax on the 15K the person making 265K made over 250K). The person making 135K won’t get to the other side of the donut hole, and won’t see any additional tax.
It’s no different than me and my wife. While we jointly make well over the current max tax cap, all of her earnings still take the medicare/ssi hit (since she doesn’t make the cap), and only the part of my earnings that exceed the cap are not taxed. It’d be really nice if hers were immune, but, as I said, it’s an individual payroll tax that cannot be paid jointly.
The other taxes Obama is currently in favor of are, of course, simply letting Bush’s tax breaks lapse on the top bracket, which will affect all three tax brackets, just at different break points based on filing status.
Participant[quote=fat_lazy_union_worker]
Anyway, I think some still failed to answer my original post. If he(obama) wants to call this taxing the rich, why is obama leveling this on a household and not imposing this on $125k single incomes?[/quote]
I’m going to assume you’re talking about the social security/medicare tax increase here. That tax has always applied to ALL earnings of all individual taxpayers below a certain amount, and will simply now resume on all earnings of all individual taxpayers above a certain amount. It doesn’t discriminate on filing status or number of wage-earners in a family – everyone gets hit. So if you have one earner making 265000, and another making 135000, only the earner making over 250,000 will get hit (i.e. you’ll only pay the tax on the 15K the person making 265K made over 250K). The person making 135K won’t get to the other side of the donut hole, and won’t see any additional tax.
It’s no different than me and my wife. While we jointly make well over the current max tax cap, all of her earnings still take the medicare/ssi hit (since she doesn’t make the cap), and only the part of my earnings that exceed the cap are not taxed. It’d be really nice if hers were immune, but, as I said, it’s an individual payroll tax that cannot be paid jointly.
The other taxes Obama is currently in favor of are, of course, simply letting Bush’s tax breaks lapse on the top bracket, which will affect all three tax brackets, just at different break points based on filing status.
Participant[quote=asianautica]
Do you have proof of this limited vertical mobility you’re claiming to exist? Some how, I just don’t see it. We still have much lower unemployment rate than France, which are much more socialistic than we are. I see plenty of smart people doing start-ups and making it big or just move up the corporate rank because they’re very smart and know how to play politics. I also know people who work extremely hard and be very frugal and doing very well for themselves even though they work in what you’d call middle class jobs. Once you accumulate enough capital, the stock market is wide open for everyone. You can make it big in options if you’re good, or put your $ in mutual funds and let the index work for you. I just don’t believe the theory that it’s that much harder today vs 20 years ago. You also forgot that the amount of people who make millions now is much larger than 20 years ago. So to me, it seems like the smart and hard working will always find way to get rich.Knowing the rule of the game and use it to your advantage is how you succeed in this country. Bitching, whining, and asking for handouts will not get your very far. If you change the game, guess what, the smart and nimble will just adapt to the new rules.
Also, last I check, increasing tax on the business owners will not decrease their profit, they’ll just squeeze their employees.[/quote]
Yes, I do have proof.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility
Economic mobility between income quintiles has dropped in the US versus other industrialized countries.
And yes, of course their is still some mobility – but how many TODAY do you know who really bootstrapped themselves all the way up? I know VERY few. Yeah, if you were born into a nice upper-middle class family and could afford to go to top (or near top) schools you could do it, but how many people do you REALLY know who grew up in, for example, a southern ghetto who’ve been able to make anything for themselves RECENTLY?
As a side note, one reason why we have “low” unemployment is the WAY we calculate unemployment. Essentially, if you’re unemployed more than 6 months (the limit for federal unemployment), you’re no longer counted. Ditto if you’re just out of school and can’t get a job. In Europe, they count both cases.
Incidentally, I don’t see the poor and middle class usually “bitching, whining, and asking for handouts.” You know who I DO see doing those things? Corporations and the very wealthy.
Participant[quote=asianautica]
Do you have proof of this limited vertical mobility you’re claiming to exist? Some how, I just don’t see it. We still have much lower unemployment rate than France, which are much more socialistic than we are. I see plenty of smart people doing start-ups and making it big or just move up the corporate rank because they’re very smart and know how to play politics. I also know people who work extremely hard and be very frugal and doing very well for themselves even though they work in what you’d call middle class jobs. Once you accumulate enough capital, the stock market is wide open for everyone. You can make it big in options if you’re good, or put your $ in mutual funds and let the index work for you. I just don’t believe the theory that it’s that much harder today vs 20 years ago. You also forgot that the amount of people who make millions now is much larger than 20 years ago. So to me, it seems like the smart and hard working will always find way to get rich.Knowing the rule of the game and use it to your advantage is how you succeed in this country. Bitching, whining, and asking for handouts will not get your very far. If you change the game, guess what, the smart and nimble will just adapt to the new rules.
Also, last I check, increasing tax on the business owners will not decrease their profit, they’ll just squeeze their employees.[/quote]
Yes, I do have proof.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility
Economic mobility between income quintiles has dropped in the US versus other industrialized countries.
And yes, of course their is still some mobility – but how many TODAY do you know who really bootstrapped themselves all the way up? I know VERY few. Yeah, if you were born into a nice upper-middle class family and could afford to go to top (or near top) schools you could do it, but how many people do you REALLY know who grew up in, for example, a southern ghetto who’ve been able to make anything for themselves RECENTLY?
As a side note, one reason why we have “low” unemployment is the WAY we calculate unemployment. Essentially, if you’re unemployed more than 6 months (the limit for federal unemployment), you’re no longer counted. Ditto if you’re just out of school and can’t get a job. In Europe, they count both cases.
Incidentally, I don’t see the poor and middle class usually “bitching, whining, and asking for handouts.” You know who I DO see doing those things? Corporations and the very wealthy.
Participant[quote=asianautica]
Do you have proof of this limited vertical mobility you’re claiming to exist? Some how, I just don’t see it. We still have much lower unemployment rate than France, which are much more socialistic than we are. I see plenty of smart people doing start-ups and making it big or just move up the corporate rank because they’re very smart and know how to play politics. I also know people who work extremely hard and be very frugal and doing very well for themselves even though they work in what you’d call middle class jobs. Once you accumulate enough capital, the stock market is wide open for everyone. You can make it big in options if you’re good, or put your $ in mutual funds and let the index work for you. I just don’t believe the theory that it’s that much harder today vs 20 years ago. You also forgot that the amount of people who make millions now is much larger than 20 years ago. So to me, it seems like the smart and hard working will always find way to get rich.Knowing the rule of the game and use it to your advantage is how you succeed in this country. Bitching, whining, and asking for handouts will not get your very far. If you change the game, guess what, the smart and nimble will just adapt to the new rules.
Also, last I check, increasing tax on the business owners will not decrease their profit, they’ll just squeeze their employees.[/quote]
Yes, I do have proof.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility
Economic mobility between income quintiles has dropped in the US versus other industrialized countries.
And yes, of course their is still some mobility – but how many TODAY do you know who really bootstrapped themselves all the way up? I know VERY few. Yeah, if you were born into a nice upper-middle class family and could afford to go to top (or near top) schools you could do it, but how many people do you REALLY know who grew up in, for example, a southern ghetto who’ve been able to make anything for themselves RECENTLY?
As a side note, one reason why we have “low” unemployment is the WAY we calculate unemployment. Essentially, if you’re unemployed more than 6 months (the limit for federal unemployment), you’re no longer counted. Ditto if you’re just out of school and can’t get a job. In Europe, they count both cases.
Incidentally, I don’t see the poor and middle class usually “bitching, whining, and asking for handouts.” You know who I DO see doing those things? Corporations and the very wealthy.
Participant[quote=asianautica]
Do you have proof of this limited vertical mobility you’re claiming to exist? Some how, I just don’t see it. We still have much lower unemployment rate than France, which are much more socialistic than we are. I see plenty of smart people doing start-ups and making it big or just move up the corporate rank because they’re very smart and know how to play politics. I also know people who work extremely hard and be very frugal and doing very well for themselves even though they work in what you’d call middle class jobs. Once you accumulate enough capital, the stock market is wide open for everyone. You can make it big in options if you’re good, or put your $ in mutual funds and let the index work for you. I just don’t believe the theory that it’s that much harder today vs 20 years ago. You also forgot that the amount of people who make millions now is much larger than 20 years ago. So to me, it seems like the smart and hard working will always find way to get rich.Knowing the rule of the game and use it to your advantage is how you succeed in this country. Bitching, whining, and asking for handouts will not get your very far. If you change the game, guess what, the smart and nimble will just adapt to the new rules.
Also, last I check, increasing tax on the business owners will not decrease their profit, they’ll just squeeze their employees.[/quote]
Yes, I do have proof.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility
Economic mobility between income quintiles has dropped in the US versus other industrialized countries.
And yes, of course their is still some mobility – but how many TODAY do you know who really bootstrapped themselves all the way up? I know VERY few. Yeah, if you were born into a nice upper-middle class family and could afford to go to top (or near top) schools you could do it, but how many people do you REALLY know who grew up in, for example, a southern ghetto who’ve been able to make anything for themselves RECENTLY?
As a side note, one reason why we have “low” unemployment is the WAY we calculate unemployment. Essentially, if you’re unemployed more than 6 months (the limit for federal unemployment), you’re no longer counted. Ditto if you’re just out of school and can’t get a job. In Europe, they count both cases.
Incidentally, I don’t see the poor and middle class usually “bitching, whining, and asking for handouts.” You know who I DO see doing those things? Corporations and the very wealthy.
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