Rep Grayson Introduces "War is Making You Poor Act"

I guess we'll disagree on whether tax cuts for families making $48K to $70K a year are a priority....but, as you noted I do like that this bill highlights (albeit briefly) the extent of DoD spending.

It's too bad only 'fringe' or 'lesser' political players seem comfortable challenging the defense budget. Defense spending is truly the sacred cow of American politics.

 

Those people don't need the benefit. I don't need the over $1,500 I receive in EITC. I don't need the $2,000 in additional child tax credit. I don't need the $800 in the Making Work Pay credit. But the government gives it to me, and its hard for me not to accept it. Over $4,000 the federal government gives me in cash.

Way to use the tail end of a tax credit to value its worth to the poor.

I do taxes for a living. I know the tax code very well. The biggest problem is that there are people who don't know how to get their money and/or benefits, not that they don't qualify for enough of them.

 

I have no idea what you mean by that.

I am underpaid, but love where I work. My wife doesn't work, and I have 2 children, thus why I qualify. I work for a small firm where I have the opportunity to inherit the business.

 

You were already stomped with common sense by other posters but let me just add one thing.

Why is that Cons/Teabaggers want lower taxes but then complain that people do not pay their fair share? You want lower taxes, okay for who? Just you? People who make very little $, spend what they make spurring on the economy. If you give them more they will spend that as well, helping to create jobs.

I'd like to see the tax rate be zero for all wages up to the median national wage. That's most folks and probably 99.99% of the Teabaggers. It could probably be done if we gutted the defense budget as we should. Would teabaggers then complain they don't pay their fair share?

 

i dont think paul is that popular among the 'mainstream' teabaggers - the palin-worshipers seem to be the biggest chunk of them and they are not ron paul fans at all. the tea party was started by ron paul supporters when bush was president and there is still an element of that, but fox news and the republicans co-opted the movement in the wake of obamas election. i think at this point the movement has even gotten away from them though - the gop was expecting the teabaggers to fall inline and vote for the establishment candidates, but the primary showed that there is a true anti-incumbent spirit, even against the cheney-endorsed ones. thats about the only encouraging thing i see going on w/ the teabaggers - they are going to clean house on that side of the aisle.

 

I dunno, maybe taxes should be cut for the people who actually pay them, who also generally happen to be the people who create jobs. I've never seen a poor person give anyone a job. Your something-for-nothing philosophy has been tried all over the world and it goes down in flames every time. People have rioted in France and Greece, are fleeing New York and California in droves, and are even rebelling against it in places like New Jersey.

I have always understood that stealing is wrong. Poor people who vote themselves an ever expanding list of government benefits while contributing nothing to the cost of government are no better than thieves. In fact, certain subsets of the American poor are among the worst scum of the earth. Subsidized housing, earned income tax credit and various other refundable redistribution, food stamps, free health care, etc. They take and they take and they take, and instead of saying "thanks," they actually have the audacity to cry "MOAR" and even berate those who are funding their largess as can be seen on this socialist echo chamber of a forum.

 

You have no idea what you are talking about. The poor do pay taxes, they pay sales tax, they pay gas taxes, they pay social security, unemployment if they have a jobs.

Also you need to realize that the largest amount of welfare goes to pay medical expenses, and the largest recipients are the elderly. It's not like they can be out there working to pay more of a share.

People have rioted in the US as well. What does that have to do with anything? And for your information people should be leaving CA, and some are (mostly the poor) but they aren't fleeing in droves.

You fail to understand socialism, taxes, the impoverished and just about every other topic you even mentioned.

 

The poor pay a pretty significant percentage of their income in taxes. Payroll taxes eat up 6%, they pay sales taxes on everything but food and medicine, they pay rent, a portion of which becomes property tax, and then there are the various fees they pay.

If all you are talking about is the income tax, then you still have not addressed my point from earlier, so I will restate in case you somehow missed it. We have a progressive income tax in the United States, which means that people who make more money pay more in taxes. Your beef seems to be with the progressive nature of our income tax (which is that way in part because of the regressive nature of sales taxes which are used by cities and counties almost exclusively). If this is the case, I would suggest you begin fighting to change the tax system rather than complaining about how the poor pay no income tax. I would support you in this effort, I believe we should scrap the income tax and implement a consumption tax on new goods and services in its place.

Unfortunately, when you give a rich person money, they are just as likely to sock it away in investments rather than creating jobs with it. The money multiplier effect has its greatest impact when the people who receive the benefits of tax cuts take that money and spend it in the economy. When the rich put the money in a bank (especially these days), the money multiplier effect is much smaller and doesn't positively impact the economy as much.

Poor people give others jobs by spending their money on necessities like food, rent, and clothing. This money goes back into the economy rather than into some rich person's bank or investment account.

Your trickle down economic theory has been tried time and time again in this country and has gone down in flames. The theory just doesn't hold water in the real world. The rich have had their taxes slashed dramatically over the course of the last 40 years and the results have been stark and clear. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our educational system is decaying, and the middle class is shrinking while the number of people living in poverty has expanded dramatically. These things are happening because the rich have had their taxes cut over and over again as a result of their lobbying efforts.

I want to see America's infrastructure and educational system continue to be at the top of the heap, cutting taxes for the rich won't get us there.

The way I understand it, the problems in Greece were not caused by social programs, they were caused by them hiding too much debt so that they could be accepted into the EU and so that they could adopt the Euro. The last time I remember reading about riots in France was in 2005 and that was over immigrants and changes in employment guarantees, not social programs.

Are you actually trying to claim that people are moving out of CA and NY because of social programs?

As is lying. You are lying when you equate social programs to stealing.

Of course, even the poor contribute to the cost of government. The vast majority of poor people don't just work one job, but could work two or three, so they contribute 6% of their income in payroll taxes as well as their sales tax, property tax, and various fees for services.

People who claim that the poor contribute nothing to the cost of government are no better than liars.

This is the only statement in your lunatic rant that I agree with. However, despite your crowing to the contrary, the "scum" subset represents a minuscule percentage of the poor people in America.

So, do you believe people who don't make enough to house themselves should be homeless?

I kind of agree with you on EIC, but I don't know what "other refundable redistribution" is. Can you explain?

So, you believe that people who can't afford to feed their families should just starve?

Of course, there won't be any "free" health care for several years yet, but do you honestly believe that people who can't afford health insurance should just die?

This sounds like you are talking about the rich. They take everything they can take, they lobby to get their tax rates reduced, they lobby to get the government to give them corporate welfare, and still they aren't satisfied.

The rich got DRAMATICALLY richer while Bush was in office and now that the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, they have convinced a bunch of rubes to bleat "Socialism" even though the dictionary disagrees. Do you believe the dictionary has a liberal bias?

Which are you, rich or rube?

 

The Additional Child Tax Credit. I can understand having a credit to help cover your portion of FICA like the Making Work Pay Credit(Though I hate how they implemented it).

Just throwing out some examples.

 

Thanks for the example. BTW, I Halo regularly. BSG Battle AXX

 

Added. I play almost every night.

 

I would be Grifballing tonight, but my son broke the disk drive on my Xbox. Grrrr

 

Make a graph or something. Or just provide some statistical backing to help us out.

 

My son slobbered over my original controller and it quit working right. Chewed on the joysticks of the controller I use, so I had to pull off the grips. Kids.

 

He can't. He doesn't have anything but sound bites that aren't based in reality.

 

His statistics were lost with all the photos of poor people watching their 52" hdtv's while driving luxury cars, playing the latest video games, and all the other stuff that space ghost knows about.

 

Well I see you got stomped again but you're ignoring the half a dozen other posters who took your fantasy based talking points and exposed them for what they are.

Get over this the poor don't pay taxes crap. Let's see how dumb you really are. Did you know that you only pay SS on the first $106,800 in income? Damn those richers are getting hosed!

No one here that I am aware of is a Socialist. Not that you have a clue what that term means. Of course you probably think we live under a Capitalist system which is also incorrect.

As for that crap about poor people never giving anyone a job. Business owners since the Great Recession have complained that they can't and won't hire despite all of the tax breaks offered by the government? The reason they gave? THEY HAVE NO CUSTOMERS.

Cut the taxes for the poor and it is guaranteed they will BECOME CUSTOMERS and spend that money at the business to help increase hiring. Cut taxes for the rich and they just sock it away to earn interest. Cut taxes for a business owner and he won't do crap unless he has an increase in demand.

Trickle down/supply side/Voodoo/Reaganomics has been proven again and again to be a complete failure. It did not increase tax revenues, not in the 80's and not in the 2000s. Bush had the worst job creation numbers EVER and Reagan is right behind him.

Why don't you go do some research so you will have a clue what the hell you're running your mouth about.