Subject: backbush tax b.s.

Obviously your expertise is cactus juice, not economics.   Haven't you ever heard that
figures don't lie - but liars figure.   The right-wingnuts long ago perfected the art of cooking
statistics to say whatever you want them to.

It is accurate to say that Federal taxes are the highest they've ever been in peacetime if:
 Like you, they use a funky definition of peace[time] - their's is usually the absence of a
Congressionally declared war - in which case they take it all the way back to 1944.

Income tax rates have gone down in the interim, but FICA is at least 300% of what it was
then and there was no Medicare (tax or program).   Even if they recognize Korea and
Vietnam as something other than peace - they start including all sorts of Federal Excise
taxes and fees which can be cooked sufficiently to prove their specious point.

For your information, if anybody wanted to really cut taxes to do some good, they'd cut
FICA and Medicare - and make the rich pay those taxes on every dollar they earn instead
of just the first 72k.    Many workers who pay no income tax pay about 9% of their gross
in these "payroll" taxes with no hope of a refund.

For years the fascist tax-cut goons have been totaling up every possible dollar average folk could
possibly be paying in taxes (local, state, federal, excise, etc.) and fees to show how horrible it is to
live in this civilized country.  They include the taxes that are included in your phone, garbage and
water bills and others that you don't even know you're paying (and may not be).

This is how they come up with the 5 month/May/Tax Freedom Day and more than on food
and clothing horseshit.   It bears mentioning that U.S. citizens pay far less in all taxes than citizens
of any other industrialized country - and the rich pay geometrically less.
The Mark Rich pardon had more to do with him getting tired of paying Swiss tax rates than anything else.
It's harder to avoid taxes in Europe than it is here too!

The other points are simply idiotic and don't rate response.  Tax rates have absolutely
nothing to do with upward mobility - anyone who'd make such a goofy claim should just
be asked to prove it.  The current slowdown and layoffs result from a variety of things;
folk not wanting to invest in stuff that makes no profit and pays no dividends, greater
fool theory eventually gets to the greatest fool,  The Great Greenspan overplayed his
anti-inflation routine,  things are being manipulated to drive wages down even further
and get the rich a tax cut in the process (the ultimate win-win), Clinton's "prosperity"
was a smoke and mirrors balanced on a house of cards and folk started sobering up
after the Millenium celebration, basic physics/gravity (that which goes up comes down),
and last - but not _ - the old familiar business cycle.

The very best thing we could do with the surplus is invest it in rebuilding our deteriorating
infrastructure (roads, bridges, railbeds, etc),  schools and in education and training so
people at the bottom of this pyramid scheme don't have to compete with 50 cent a week
labor or face the future at a deep-fat fryer.

BC, you really should get to the people a www.dollarsandsense.org and see if they'd
trade a subscription for a link on your site.

I'm still waiting for acknowledgement of my response to your Best POTUS rebuttal.

I flat don't give a shit if you publish it (or the above) - you seem to lack knowledge of history and economics.
You also need an occasional dose of true leftist thought.

G. Wallace
 
 

G, are you from New Jersey?

I never claimed to be an "A" student.
The reason my tax plan works is because it's so simple even I can understand it.
If I could talk intelligently about taxes I'd be too wealthy to have this web page.
What little wisdom I have comes from being old.

However, I'd enjoy beating you up on the Nader thing.
I printed your long-winded rant, in case somebody wants to read it,
but could you re-write that using about 1/3 of the words?
That whole War and Peace thing has never been easy for me.

If you'd condense that down by 2/3, I'd enjoy the rebuttal,
because you said some things you may want to take back, such as "I'd do it all again."
If that's your thinking, and you're serious, let's all thank Koresh that Smirk can only
steal the White House twice because you seem eager to put him there again,
to somehow justify your fuck up last November.

So, re-send that.
It'll be fun.
 

PS. Agave is not a cactus.