Les Jones

I expect to pay more taxes under an Obama administration.

Was Bill Clinton still a good president as he was for years after Sept 11, or is he now bad?

He was good, but not because he raised taxes. He was coming off the Reagan tax cuts, so he had some room to go up. He also had a a Republican Congress for the last six years of his administration to keep spending in check. (Not for younger readers: this was back when there were actually Republicans who believed in small government and fiscal responsibility.)

Clinton also had Ross Perot. Perot’s 1992 campaign (in which he took almost 20% of the popular vote) convinced the country we had to reign in our deficits.

Right now small-government advocates and fiscal responsibility advocates are a constituency without a party. There’s no one of any prominence against big government programs and deficit spending.

The Democrats sometimes use the deficit to beat up on Bush, but they’re no better. The Democrats have controlled Congress for the past two years and we’ve still got plenty of pork and big budget deficits.

Anytime a tax hike is proposed, I vote against it. Raising taxes has always been the government answer to budget problems.
What about cutting back on expenditures? That is what I did recently during the current economic downturn. He##, I had to.
So, I cut back on my expenditures but give the government more of my share so THEY can meet budget?
No way.

My reference is mostly because of the proposed tax increase from 9.25% to 9.75% on the Blount County ballot; but the principle holds the same for the Federal government.

First, let me start out by saying reverting a tax schedlue to a previously established baseline (yes, I’ll use the Clinton years as the baseline) does not a “tax hike” make. The cuts Bush was able to push through originated with the false premise of trickle-down economics* in an effort to stimulate the US econonmy after the dot-com bust. He then managed to put through additional measures shortly after 9/11 again in an effort to stimulate things but didn’t bother reducing spending (I’ll grant him he was no fortune teller to realize we’d still be in both countries but borrowing at a harrowing level for hubris’ sake doesn’t seem wise to me.)

Overall, I think a more thorough reading of Obama’s tax plan is in order.

His proposal will not increase your tax, as you say, on the first dollars earned.
His proposal will not increase your withholdings for Social Security above the current earnings cap of $102k.
His proposal will increase your tax if you make more than $250k/year.
His proposal will increase your capital gains to 20% from 15% but is only pertinent if you actually HAVE a capital gain to report (highly unlikely given the current market - both stock & housing).

Les, I can’t disagree with your statement that your family benefited under the Bush schedules but I think most people have to ask themselves at what cost did they benefit?

Did you benefit at the expense of those who saw government services reduced?
Did you benefit at the expense of your own (future) health?
Did you benefit at the expense to those who do earn less than you in some way?

Not to go all kum bay yah and all but that which benefits the masses generally benefits greater. Calling it socialism is a straw man at the least.

To lan67 - I couldn’t agree with you more. Being unemployed for 17 of the 23 months post dot-com bust will make you tighten your belt for certain and the fact Obama wants to spend, spend, spend does concern me.

However, on what does he intend to spend? Infrastructure, “green collar” jobs, education/teachers, 21st-century power-grid…all of these things that generally yield a better return years from now. These are things which we have not adjusted our future outlook on for over the past 8-12 years. Continuing to turn a blind eye to our dilapidated core will only make the cost higher in the future.

Thanks,
TinMan
- political alignment subjectively dependent
- ask me about gun control sometime

* My $.02 on “trickle-down” my leg economics: it doesn’t work. And attempting to contort the data to fit the approval therof won’t win you any favors in my book. Sorry, this is one area where the republicans don’t have the data to back up the goodness of the theory.

“Not to go all kum bay yah and all but that which benefits the masses generally benefits greater. Calling it socialism is a straw man at the least.”

Speaking of straw men, no one in this thread called it socialism.

“His proposal will increase your tax if you make more than $250k/year.”

Or maybe $200K per year or $150K per year. He keeps changing the number. That’s why I don’t trust Obama - he said whatever he needed to say to get elected.

“However, on what does he intend to spend? Infrastructure, “green collar” jobs, education/teachers, 21st-century power-grid…all of these things that generally yield a better return years from now”

And the military, which Obama promises to expand: “Obama and Biden will complete the effort to increase our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines. They will also invest in 21st century missions like counterinsurgency by building up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, foreign language training and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply.”

Do I think he can really do all of that and cut taxes, without increasing the deficit even more than Bush did, while we’re entering a deep recession? Nope.

Les, my apologies. I was presuming to take your statement to the next step of calling his tax plan redistributive to the point of socialism.

Straw man appropriately burned.

I too have wondered what the actual number is for the same reasons. Being the wife & I are in between a few of the numbers he’s throwing around and we don’t necessarily have the other deductions (home - we rent, kids (dog & cat don’t count), investments…) to offset possible schedule reversions (sorry, I’ll not call it an increase if you don’t mind).

Being somewhat of a defense program enthusiast I feel comfortable to safely presume he’ll assert influence where appropriate to ensure we’re not flushing “precious” tax dollars.

SDI anyone?

The biggest issue I have over the past 8 years is even the fiscal stalwarts appear to have deemed it appropriate to step up to the trough of “gimmie” politics; especially when they’ve devised a way around normal appropriations processes. These ’supplemental’ funding bills our past few congressional sessions have been so fond of are not beholden to normal budgetary constraints (namely a balancing one) and have allowed overall defense spending to mushroom, no “algeal bloom”, across our finances.

I don’t remember the exact number but I recall it being somewhere, even outside our supplemental war funding efforts, of upwards of $500 billion extra-budgetary, extra-war spending.

Sorry - tanget’ed there a bit. Back to deficit spending…

Understanding the origination of this blog (guns, guns, & more guns ), to what endeavor do you wish him to spend any borrowed money on?

Giving bigger buckets to the financial industry so they can stay afloat? What about a lifeline to our auto industry?

I’d like to think we, as an international economic force, not only must have a proficient but prolific manufacturing industry. Whether it’s the auto industry, solar, or nuclear reactors it shouldn’t matter as long as it’s sustaining the appropriate percentage of our GDP.

Damn! Tanget’ed again!

I’m off to bed now - sorry.

Thanks for reading,
TinMan
- from Tokyo