The middle class doesn't have the money to pay for accountants to find loopholes, nor to pay for politicians to make them.

Not to mention payroll taxes.

geojanes wrote:Responsible grown-ups, in life, or in gov't don't do that, and most people in congress are reasonably responsible grown-ups, thank goodness.

Preservation of the status quo and doing the usual things have little to do with maturity and everything to do with stagnation and inflexibility in a social structure.

theodorelogan wrote:The middle class doesn't have the money to pay for accountants to find loopholes, nor to pay for politicians to make them.

Nope, but that is not the same as death. But that they resent this, clearly, it makes it even more odd that they would die in a ditch rather than see the rich pay at least as much as they do.

Not to mention payroll taxes.

I think we already have mentioned them. They aren't fatal either.

Maybe it's just in America, but "killing the middle class" is a figure of speech we often use that doesn't literally mean that people are dying.

theo

Maybe it's just in America, but "killing the middle class" is a figure of speech we often use that doesn't literally mean that people are dying.

Is this like the phrase "job killing taxes" that don't literally cost jobs?
Just rhetoric?
Why is it that when marginal rates of taxes were higher there were higher employment levels?
Why is it that when Bush cut taxes for the welathiest, NOTHING happened to levels of employment and unemployment?
Perhaps its because the marginal rates of tax aren't really affecting decisions on employment? That decisions on hiring are based on things like supply and demand and comeptitive forces? and that when the middle and lower class have greater portions of their income to spend on other than necessities of life that the local economy expands.
And that it is true that lower and middle classes have "less mobility" of income. That is they tend to spend and invest close to home. That the wealthy have the luxury of easily porting wealth away from the local economy, both in spending and onvesting?

theodorelogan wrote:Maybe it's just in America, but "killing the middle class" is a figure of speech we often use that doesn't literally mean that people are dying.

Yeah, I know, but it is still hyperbole. You know what that means?

It sounds similar to the hyperbole of tax cuts killing the poor in America. Or perhaps the statement that Republican cuts are flying through retirement homes like a tornado.

Demagogic on both sides.

Doctor Fate wrote:And, the answer is to simply raise rates? First, that is a political impossibility. Second, the higher rates go, the more money will be sitting on the sideline. The way to get the money off the sideline is to provide certainty--a certainty other than that the government will take whatever profits are made.

Not continuing the Bush tax cuts would have been a political impossibility ? And of course the more you take the more people will question wether additional investments / working additional hours is actually worth their time, but that's not a fixed point but rather a slope.

Doctor Fate wrote:Didn't say that. However, there are socialists all around Obama and that's not an accident.

We really have very different definitions of socialism i believe.

Doctor Fate wrote:There is precious little the Left wants to cut. If it's not the military, they're really not interested.

Really how hard is it. Republicans don't want to cut military expenditure, Democrats don't like to cut social programs. Now if adults were at work i believe both sides would compromise and cut on both ends. However US politicans seem to be even more inept or ideologically blind than ours.

Hmm perhaps we have a different idea of what "killing the middle class" means. Income and payroll taxes shrink the middle class.

In the future, I'll try to be more precise with my language with you Dan rather than using "turns of phrase"

Income taxes shrink the middle class (their taxes get distributed to the rich) and prevent people from saving money in order to invest in their own businesses, keeping them working for, rather than competing with, the big corporations.

Awesome! Democrats in the Senate voted unanimously (actually, all 97 Senators voting, voted 'no') against President Obama's budget. Why?

Well, because it's been superseded by his speech. Um, okay, but is a speech a budget? The speech set out some broad parameters, but didn't offer the specificity of even a "roadmap."

Okay, but what about the negotiations with VP Biden? Going nowhere.

In more than two years, the Democratically-controlled Senate has failed to pass a budget.

Their plan appears to be . . . demagoguery. In fact, even former President Clinton pointed that out.

The day after the stunning upset in the special congressional election in upstate New York, Rep. Paul Ryan is a man under fire.

But ABC News was behind the scenes with the Wisconsin Congressman and GOP Budget Committee Chairman when he got some words of encouragement none other than former President Bill Clinton.

"So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York," Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don't use this as an excuse to do nothing.”

Ryan told Clinton he fears that now nothing will get done in Washington.

“My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving,” Ryan said.

Clinton told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.” Ryan said he would.

Grown-ups understand something needs to be done about entitlements. Congressional Democrats and the President plan to do nothing but attack Republicans for wanting to "end Medicare." It doesn't matter that this is not true and that following the Democrats' non-plan will lead to massive Medicare cuts--all the Democrats want is a winning political formula.

So good to have a great leader like President Obama! Without his bold leadership, the nation might not have the political will to solve its problems.



When Bill Clinton is more principled than the current Democratic party, it's small wonder we've got a fiscal mess.

Ryan explains his plan to save Medicare.

Looks like Rand Paul is living up to his father...he voted against Paul Ryan's out-of-control deficit spending plan.

theodorelogan wrote:Looks like Rand Paul is living up to his father...he voted against Paul Ryan's out-of-control deficit spending plan.

His right to do. I don't think it was the right move, but he can do as he pleases.

It really didn't matter, though. Did it? 72-23 in the Senate.

Is voting for budgets with trillion dollar deficits what passes for fiscally conservative these days?