Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues The Obama Administration 6,825.42 Nice job Mr. President

Just a couple of corrections here, for no other reason than I don't like people lying about what I say.
1) I never mentioned "poor people" anywhere in this thread.
2) If you take money out of the economy, like higher taxes do, people have less buying ability. Without that money they cannot go out to dinner, but new cars, washing machines and dryers, take vacations etc. When product starts accumulating in warehouses manufacturing slows down and people get laid off.
3) I never said, anywhere, that I thought "rich people" played by the rules. They are rich because they worked hard, or married into it, or their parents gave it to them, or they got elected to Congress, but nowhere did I say they played by the rules. What I said was that I played by the rules and I resent that I have to pay for other peoples mortgages because they were too stupid to understand their mortgage contract, or they expected their house to be worth twice what they paid for it.

Please do not make up stories about me.

By your numbers:
1) okay
2) but, rich people can still go out to dinner even when their taxes rise. Take your typical millionaire bringing home $500,000 per year after taxes. A hypothetical person. Increase her tax rate by 20% (a higher rate of increase than any I have seen proposed) and that take home pay may drop to $400,000 per year. I suppose she might have to switch from The Capital Grille to Applebees, but she certainly won't have to give up dining out. The new BMW might have to be a 5 series instead of a 7 series, but she can still afford a new car, and it would take one hell of a washer and dryer to exceed her ability to buy a matched set. Etc. Now replace that mythical character with one making $40,000 per year. Place the same increased tax burden on her. Her take home pay has gone from maybe $28,000 per year to $25,400. That loss of $200 per month in take home pay may indeed require some or all of the pain you suggest. So while you did not mention poor people, the impact of higher taxes falls much harder on those who have minimal income than on those who have significant income. Most of us think of the those with minimal income as “poor” and those who bring home more than $30k per month as “rich”, whether we apply those labels or not.

However, the Obama tax plan recognizes this and in fact wants to increase the marginal tax rate of rich while actually reducing the marginal tax rate of the poor. In short, he's suggesting that the first tax payer in my example may indeed be called upon to eat at Applebees so the “poor” person can both buy groceries and clothes for her children to wear to school. Amazing how far one can stretch $200 when motivated to do so by those you love instead of those you tip!

Shifting the tax burden back to where it was when George W. Bush became President is putting the tax burdent back to where it was when Newt Gingrich/Dennis Hastert was Speaker of the House and Trent Lott was Senate Majority Leader. Back when the economy was robust and personal wealth was growing at significant rates. In short, a period when goods were NOT piling up in warehouses.

So what's the beef with the realities of what is being proposed, in the context of returning tax policy to what it was at a very successful point in our history? I'm not trying to be cute; really want to understand why you see this reversion to a period of proven success as a bad thing.

As for 3), I bought a house in 2007. I put 10% down and have no trouble at all making my payments. I, too, have played by the rules. However, corporate greed has created a situation in southeastern Michigan that has led to massive layoffs of executive and manager level folks all over the region. As a result, many of them have houses that are going into foreclosure because they have made decisions to keep their kids at Harvard instead of hold onto the 5,300 square foot house. The market has fallen out from under me. My tax ASSESSMENT has gone down 20% since I bought my home. If I could sell it at all, I'm not convinced I could sell it for the mortgage owed. If I lose my job, which is a distinct possibility, my home will go to foreclosure not because I have lived beyond my means but because the market has folded and what I bought has become a rock pulling me to the bottom of the lake. I understand that you don't want to bail me out. Nor do I want to bail out Wells Fargo, the company that loaned me the money and changed my terms at the closing table because they played to heavily in the derivatives market!! So we'll let both me and Wells Fargo go under. And the guy who just opened a shoe repair store downtown will have to close, even though his business is booming (because neither I nor anyone else here can afford new shoes), because Wells Fargo no longer is around to provide the line of credit he needs to pay his suppliers for the cheap rubber soles he is prepared to put on my shoes.

That is a truly enlightened fiscal policy!

I find it so ironic to hear republicans lamenting all of the waste in the stimulus package.... the spending we do not have resources to support. Then I remember back to the glory days of Iraq.... and all the wasteful spending there not even a single Republican peep. The no bid contracts, the huge payments to blackwater, money appropriated to rebuild Iraq with nothing accomplished.

And the entire Iraq war... handled as and off budget item... as if it cost nothing. No republican questions about where the money would come from.

Let's take # 3 as the problem to the answer, shall we?

Why is today any different than 5 years ago? What makes today's circumstances different than when you were making 5 years worth of anual reviews less? The difference is that today you may have an out where 5 years ago you wouldn't have had one. I do not begrudge you that out, you are not the problem.

I am still amazed at what is being accepted today would have been unthout of 10 years ago and I just don't understand why it should be. We all take the same chances everyday. We wake up, go to work, come home eat maybe watch some tbe or read a book and start the cycle all over again. I bought my house knowing that I might lose my job. I bought my car knowing that I could afford it. I also knew that if I lost my job, I would have to scrape by, but that I would scape by. Today we seem to have an idea that it is OK to just give up and let daddy Obama take care of us. It is OK to break that contract you signed because somebody told you it was OK, to hell with your word, to hell with your commitment!

You are not the problem, you pay your bills and bought your house with some kind of plan. Enlightened economic planning depends on people following through with their commitments. All the good business practices in the world will not help if people lied about paying them back.

There isn't a whole lot of gray here. People who lost their homes because of job loss, that is included in the business equation. People who never should have gotten the loan to begin with coud not have been accounted for in the business equation. Thay are the ones who caused this crisis and all the feel good policies in the world will not change that fact.

It takes 2 to tango...Democrat and Republican elected officials over the past 30 years.

All of those listed above (Democrat or Republican)...please stand up and be counted if you played a significant role in the crash of our financial system and economy.

Come on now, at least raise your hand. You know who you are!

We have an instant availability of a profound chronology of political history that very clearly shows that both Democrats and Republicans have sold out to the powers to be. And the powers to be are all of the people begging for bailout money today. Every damn one of them.

We've all been swindled. And the grand theft isn't over yet...and not by a long-shot.

We can argue partisan views about any social issue that we want to for the balance of our lives, but we, the citizens, have been for eons, and continued to be defrauded by our elected officials and those who they serve.

Keep your eyes focused on the bouncing ball of bullsh!t...and you'll continue be sucked in by the partisan game that both the Dems and the Repubs use to keep our attention anyplace but where it needs to be.

Our financial and market crash started in 1993 and came to a boil and errupted in 2008 and both Dems and Repubs are equally guilty.

But what's really bad is...our government officials are guilty and the electorates are stupid.

Do I understand you correctly to say it is an unsupportable "feel good" policy to encourage people to buy homes if they will be unable to afford that homes in the face of job loss during a once in a generation level recession? And that it is such people who have caused this crisis?

Not sure what you are referencing?

thank you for this post, Logan. well said!

the concept of how much more of a "burden" taxes can be on a person of lesser means seems to be lost on so many people.
Poor people need to spend 100% of what they make on survival. Rich people don't.

Obama is raising taxes on everybody, the high earner tax increase is political cover.

He is allowing tax cuts to expire, he is talking about new fees on power plants and oil. He is taking about huge expansions in health care.

Don't be buffaloed by the slick talking politician from Chicago, he will pick everybody's pocket. There is nothing that says you can't donate more to the Fed of you would like to. I would actually praise your selflessness while questioning your sanity. That $13.00 you got will be gone a lot sooner than you think.

I don't think my pocket's being picked; yours either. This country is in debt up to its ears -- up to its grandchildrens' ears. If it takes higher taxes to pay down the debt, and/or provide the services citizens want (like, oh, roads, safe airports, proper care for veterans, disaster relief, that kind of thing) - then fiscal responsibility requires they be paid for.

Fiscal conservatism might say don't incur these debts, but that horse left the barn years ago. Now that the debts have been incurred, I can't see any way out except to pay them, and I would expect that all have a share to pay.