OptimisticOwl Wrote:

Middle Ages Wrote:I think you may have missed the sarcasm in OO's (I continue to wonder at your handle ) post.

And i really enjoy your posts. Wish you would post more.

Hmmm- my sarcasm-meter doesn't know what to make of that comment. Maybe you should be CageyOwl

EDIT- on re-read I am taking your comment at face value, so thank you. Am I getting cynical?

Middle Ages Wrote:

OptimisticOwl Wrote:

Middle Ages Wrote:I think you may have missed the sarcasm in OO's (I continue to wonder at your handle ) post.

And i really enjoy your posts. Wish you would post more.

Hmmm- my sarcasm-meter doesn't know what to make of that comment. Maybe you should be CageyOwl

EDIT- on re-read I am taking your comment at face value, so thank you. Am I getting cynical?

Face Value. And a dose of cynicism is healthy, if kept in small amounts.

ArmyChick07 Wrote:

OptimisticOwl Wrote:Here is the the new individual tax policy, modeled after the Windfall Profits Tax.

1. List your income
2. subtract your reasonable expenses
3. Subtraxt 5% of the difference to allow for a reasonable profit.
4. Send the rest to the government.

Thats fair, because everybody is subject to the same laws. It is balanced as nobody gets to keep more - or less - than 5%. It provides for high revenues to the government, which they will prompty pump back into the economy in the form of bureaucratic salaries and pork. Poor people don't get taxed as much as rich people, at first - later there will be no rich people. Nobody gets exempted except members of Congress, but they are exempted for life. This will make serving in Congress so attractive that only the best and brightest will achieve election.

What a wonderful world this would be...



How can anyone find fault with this?

I'll tell you how- my "reasonable expenses" are not your "reasonable expenses"... Just ask my dad. I buy $120 blue jeans because they make a 36" inseam and I can get them to last 5-8 years. I just plain can't do that with Levi's.

I may find it *absolutely necessary* to have a new car every year, or an extensive collection of hobby accessories- let's say I'm into fishing... You can spend a lot of money on that hobby very quickly. Where do you draw the line on stuff like that? It's completely open to interpretation.

I think the rest of it sounds pretty interesting, though.

As MA said, I was being sarcastic. I think if we had truth in political advertising, the Windfall Profits Tax should more properly be named the You-are-making-too-much-money-and-I-don't-like-it tax. Of course, that nomenclature, as well as being unwieldy, just doesn't strike the right political chords. Windfall implies unearned and/or lucky, and why should someone else get unearned or lucky money when I don't? Let's cut him down to size. Let's tax away all that unearned/lucky money and see how he likes THAT.

It is much easier to do this with corporations - artificial entities. Who cares about corporations? Nobody. But what if this jealousy were extended in the same way toward individuals? This was the premise behind my sarcasm. It is not much of a leap to apply the same reasoning to human individuals as corporations, and in fact we have already taken steps in this direction with the graduated income tax, and it appears we are poised to take further steps in this direction. If the principle is sound for artificial entities, then it is probably sound for breathing entities - right? My point is, IMO, it is not sound.

Your "reasonable" expenses, in the improbable case of this example, would not be determined by you, but rather, as they are now, determined by the government. Maybe one pair of jeans per year, one new car every four years, $250 of fishing equipment, would be defined as "reasonable" by the taxing authority. Any overage would come from your 5%. So I guess my step 2 could be better stated as "Take your standard decuction".

Well, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Go Owls!!

THRILL Wrote:Im bored and I usually enjoy the political dialogue on the site.

So, what are the 3 issues you will your vote be based on this year.
Dont limit yourself to the presdiential race.

I refound this thread while looking for another one...

One answer to Thrill's question: lipstick!

The Austrians were even more conservative than the Chicago school.

In the 19th Century, the Democrats stood for important things
1. Rum
2. Romanism, and
3. Rebellion

It is a pity they abandoned those important principles.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:

Boston Owl Wrote:Or buy a copy of Greg Mankiw's "Principles of Economics." He was one of W's chairs of the Council of Economic Advisors. Even a conservative instructor such as Mankiw will concede my points. Hell, I learned them from him!

Hmmmm.

Mankiw is a new-Keynesian. I wouldn't call that "conservative." When I think of conservative economics, I think Chicago school.

W has run up the largest federal budget deficit in history, while also allowing the economy to run up the largest trade deficit in history. Mankiw chaired his Council of Economic Advisers.

Mankiw was economic adviser to Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign.

Don't mean this to sound like an attack on Mankiw. I don't know the man personally. I just don't think of him as a leading conservative economist, and the Bush credentials wouldn't sway me that way. I don't think of W as an economic conservative either.

1) Health Care

2) Real, honest, open, talking, listening, communicating, agreeing and disagreeing, productive bi-partisanship. I don't know if this can truly exist, but I'm still naive enough to hope so.

3) Re-establishing the United States' position as a trusted member of the world community of democracies and as a leader in promoting economic development and human rights.

OptimisticOwl Wrote:John Kerry, in his released tax returns in 2004, showed a tax of $590,000 on income of $5,000,000. Do the math. He used thoose "tax breaks for the rich". Quite legally, and I have no quarrel with his use of them.

Here is one possible quarrel: while people who favor tax increases are always free to pay MORE than their legally required share, it seems that they never do. And in fact, many are quite sophisticated at reducing their own tax payments to the bare legal minimum.

In many policy areas, people who believe in a policy tend to live their lives in accordance with the same ends. For example, people who favor conservation laws tend to be personally conservationist; people who want to ban fur don't wear fur themselves. But people who believe that individuals should give more money to the government almost NEVER give more of their own money to the government. Why is that?

Sadly, I suspect that anti-voucher politicians are more likely to send their children to failing public schools -- just to prove their ideological purity -- than pro-tax politicians are to voluntarily increase their own tax payments. Think about that: more politicians are willing to take risks with their children's futures than their own money in order to prove a point.

The process would be ridiculously easy. When you get to the line on 1040 that says "Total Income", just skip the next 30+ lines about exemptions, deductions and credits (all those bad selfish things). Just go straight to the tax table and calculate based on your unadjusted income. Then for good measure, just round up. The IRS won't mind a bit, and you'll feel really good about yourself knowing that you've given that much more to Congress and the Executive branch for their noble purposes. After all, the government needs it more than you do, right?

georgewebb Wrote:

OptimisticOwl Wrote:John Kerry, in his released tax returns in 2004, showed a tax of $590,000 on income of $5,000,000. Do the math. He used thoose "tax breaks for the rich". Quite legally, and I have no quarrel with his use of them.

Here is one possible quarrel: while people who favor tax increases are always free to pay MORE than their legally required share, it seems that they never do. And in fact, many are quite sophisticated at reducing their own tax payments to the bare legal minimum.

In many policy areas, people who believe in a policy tend to live their lives in accordance with the same ends. For example, people who favor conservation laws tend to be personally conservationist; people who want to ban fur don't wear fur themselves. But people who believe that individuals should give more money to the government almost NEVER give more of their own money to the government. Why is that?

Sadly, I suspect that anti-voucher politicians are more likely to send their children to failing public schools -- just to prove their ideological purity -- than pro-tax politicians are to voluntarily increase their own tax payments. Think about that: more politicians are willing to take risks with their children's futures than their own money in order to prove a point.

The process would be ridiculously easy. When you get to the line on 1040 that says "Total Income", just skip the next 30+ lines about exemptions, deductions and credits (all those bad selfish things). Just go straight to the tax table and calculate based on your unadjusted income. Then for good measure, just round up. The IRS won't mind a bit, and you'll feel really good about yourself knowing that you've given that much more to Congress and the Executive branch for their noble purposes. After all, the government needs it more than you do, right?

Amen,, this has always been an issue with me. Example all those libs on the Cape should want a wind farm, its clean ,its free, and its green
but then their view would be spoiled.

stupid hippies

(07-30-2008 09:59 AM)jh Wrote:  

WMD Owl Wrote:2b. Sell beer/wine after 1 pm on Sunday in grocery stores in Georgia. (Now no beer/wine sales on Sunday)

Why stop at 1 pm? I can't stand having to wait until after noon to do my grocery shopping (running out of beer is usually the first sign that I need to go shopping). After all, with the good people all in church on Sunday mornings, the lines are much shorter for degenerates like myself.

Reducing the size & scope of the government (at all levels, but particularly the federal).

Restoring private property rights & protections after the Kelo decision.

And in the life's little ironies section (as noted in this editorial), Pfizer is closing the R&D center at the center of the whole Kelo property seizure in New London, CT. So, where are the taxes going to come from now for New London?