LeftyToker
Registered on
Jan-21-2003
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Message #114396 posted by LeftyToker (Info) May 06, 2008 07:23:03 ET
..
...Is it just my lack of understanding?
..Am I just whining about something that is obvious to others?
.Would I be smart to refrain from posting such akwardly worded unorthodox syntaxed esoteric jibber-jabber commentary?
¨∆¥ç¨¥√√•ˆ¥ç√ˆ¨˜øˆçª¥¨˜øˆ˜ªø…¨µø¨ç•π†∫π˜…øˆµæπˆ≤πˆ√∫
...So..I guess no one has any questions about the Bush economic
stimulus package.?Everything's normal... no questions asked.
.Think about it..Suddenly, Bush is giving us taxpayers a "rebate",
to help us pay $4.00 buck a gallon gas, and numerous other economic burdens.
..Was I wrong in assuming that the rate of our taxes is supposedly only what is necessary
to pay for essential services of government?
..Does anyone want to help me understand, or explain how Bush can suddenly
give back a tax rebate?..What the fuck is going on?
..If there's a bunch of extra money available to give us taxpayers a "rebate",
then I guess that means that we pay alot more taxes than the government needs to run the gov.??
..I dont know about anyone else, but it seems to me that this is an insult!
.Did I miss something?,,Am I stupid?..Think about it: where does this "rebate" money come from?..Consider this:
.Let's say there was no "economic stimulus" needed, gas was still around $3 bucks a gallon,(like a year ago), and the economy was good.
I guess that would mean that all us taxpayers overpaid the amount of these; "rebates", that Bush rushed into the mail.
..Do you hear me, and/or understand what I'm trying to say?
.. seems like an outrage to me!?
..How the fuck is it normal to have all that spare money laying around to give back to us taxpayers?.
...If you are short $300. bucks on your taxes, then the IRS will immediatly garnish your wages, or sieze your assets..but I guess there's no big problem with giving you back the money you overpaid????.
.
..Is it just me?
...Do I not understand?ºˆæ√©ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ≈
.
..probably not/?/
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Tax Day Gifts for the Rich
by Holly Sklar
When it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy, President Bush can truly
say,"Mission accomplished."
The richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks
between 2001 and 2008. That's nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by
China; $493 billion, in the form of Treasury securities.
Do you want our government to mortgage more of our nation's future to
finance tax breaks for the rich?
Tax cuts have already helped the richest 1 percent, whose annual incomes
average about $1.5 million, increase their share of the nation's income
to a higher level than any year since 1928 on the eve of the Great
Depression.
Wall Street's five biggest firms paid, record $39 billion in bonuses
for 2007, a year whe n three of the companies suffered the worst quarterly
losses in their history‚ and are eliminating thousands of jobs as losses
mount from the subprime mortgage market collapse, reports Bloomberg.
The International Monetary Fund says the United States is in the worst
financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, we are borrowing money
with interest to finance tax cuts for Wall Street executives.
For Americans below the top 1 percent, the tax cuts have been a giant
swindle. The bottom 99 percent of taxpayers were left with a bill of $3.74
in debt for every $1 in federal tax cuts from 2001 to 2006, reports Citizens
for Tax Justice. Only the top 1 percent came out ahead.
Meanwhile, the federal budgets for environmenta l protection and housing for
the elderly have been slashed more than 20 percent since 2001, adjusted for
inflation, the Community Development Block Grant budget is down 32 percent,
and the lack of health insurance is an epidemic.
Most hou seholds aren't even earning as much as they did in 1999, adjusting
for inflation. But the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes doubled their
incomes between 2002 and 2005.
According to the latest IRS data, which excludes tax-ex empt interest income
from state and local government bonds, the richest 400 taxpayers reported an
average $214 million each on their federal income tax returns in 2005, up
from $104 million in 2002.
As the Wall Street Journal o bserved,"It's also important to remember
that these figures don't represent wealth or even lifetime earnings,
merely income for a single year."
Thanks to tax cuts, it's now common for the nation's richest bosses to
pay taxes at a lower rate than workers. The 400 richest taxpayers paid only
18 percent of their income in federal individual income taxes in 2005,
down from 30 percent in 1995.
"The drop in effective tax rates for the top 400 filers," the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities reports,"worked out to a tax reduction of
$25 million per filer in 2005."It would take 673 average workers earning
$37,149 a year to reach $25 million today.
While tax cuts help the superrich compete over who has the biggest
submarine-carrying superyacht, Katrina survivors are being hit with
foreclosures, and neglected levees and bridges around the country are a
disaster waiting to happen.
Most of the provisio ns of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are scheduled to expire
at the end of 2010. President Bush wants to make them permanent.
The richest 1 percent of households would receive nearly $1.2 trillion in
tax cuts from 2009 through 2018, reports the Cen ter on Budget and Policy
Priorities.
How much is $1.2 trillion? More than all the debt accumulated in the nearly
200 years from George Washington through Ronald Reagan's first two years
in office. That's before adding interest payments on the borrowed $1.2
trillion.
Tax cuts for the wealthy fuel rising inequality along with rising debt and
neglect. Taxpayers with annual incomes above $1 million in fiscal year 2012,
for example, wou ld increase their after-tax income by 7.5 percent thanks to
an average tax cut of $162,000. The poorest 20 percent of taxpayers would
get an average tax cut of $45, and decaying public services.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinto n and Barack Obama promise
to end the tax breaks for the wealthy. Republican candidate John McCain
wants to extend them. What do you want?
Holly Sklar is co-author of “Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work
for All of Us‚Ä ù and ‚ÄúA Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and
Our Future.” She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.
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